What is this? An update? Sorry for the long long wait! I will try to update more regularly in the future!

Tentative friendship

Sirius grabbed Moony's hand before he could make the 13 feet fall and crash on the rocks below, but the boy's weight and momentum made him almost lose his balance and tumble over the edge himself. Greyback tried to grab Remus' legs but only managed to leave some bloody lacerations before he had to let go and went crashing down. When the werewolf landed on the rocks, Sirius heard a loud cracking noise followed by a howl of pain. From what he could see, the man had landed at an angle and had broken his leg, probably both.

It happened to be a bit of a struggle to lift Moony to safety, his dead weight was dragging them both into the deep and from the lying position he was in, Sirius could not find enough grip to hoist him up.

"Don't let go!" Moony panted, he looked up with scared eyes. His face was all red and purple bruises from the fight, but his eyes stood wide and scared. At that moment, he looked very young and vulnerable.

"I won't!" Sirius answered and gripped his hands harder. "Try to put your feet against the rock."

His words seemed to calm Moony, his struggles went from random to precise and Sirius felt the difference the moment he managed to find grip with his feet against the rocks. Pulling him up and to safety was an easy feat after that.

The both laid down on the grass and hard frozen ground at the rand of the precipice. They panted hard and their breath formed small clouds of condensation in the cold air. Eventually, they made to get up, Sirius climbing on his feet easily while Moony struggled into a sitting position. Groaning in pain.

"Where are you hurt?" asked Sirius crouching next to him. He took out his wand ready to cast some healing spells.

"Everywhere!" Moony snapped, he was grumpier than he had been during their journey and he looked terrible. There was a big gash on his cheek and his nose was bleeding. And from the look of it, he had bruises everywhere. His clothes were torn in places and some blood was dripping from his legs into the grass. Sirius quickly evaluated all that he saw and concluded that although Mooney was pretty beaten up, none of the injuries was life-threatening. He needn't be afraid of the boy catching lycanthropy either, seeing as he was already a werewolf. Sirius didn't know how to feel about that and pushed the thoughts away for later consideration.

"Okay, hold still and I will heal your legs." He started to wave his wand but Moony pushed his arm away.

"There are some first aid supplies in my bags," he said instead when Sirius was about to protest.

Right, the magic! Sirius could hit himself for his stupidity! He just always forgot! He had relied on magic since he was old enough to understand it and had never lived without since. He hoped Moony knew some muggle first aid because he didn't.

Sirius put his wand away and offered Moony a hand. He scrutinized him for a long moment before taking it.

Sirius pulled the young werewolf to his feet, slung his arm around his shoulders and helped him hop back to camp and back to James.

xxXxx

Remus was a bit confused. He had not expected to come out of his fight with Greyback alive. He had just experienced two near-death experiences in the span of a few minutes and both times he had been saved by an Auror, first from choking and then from a fall that could've killed him as well as not. Talking about that… "What happened to Greyback?" he asked Sirius.

"He's at the bottom of that cliff, still alive, and not going anywhere soon…" Sirius said in a grim tone.

A glance over the edge confirmed that Greyback had two broken legs, even from up here he could see his chest rising and falling peacefully. No fatal injuries but no getting away without help either.

"We'll need to fish him up later," Sirius said, seeing where Remus was looking. He readjusted his grip on his arm and together they started walking again.

"Or we could leave him there" Remus mumbled. Sirius grinned at him until he saw that he was not in fact joking.

"We were sent here to arrest him, and that is what we will do." He said with his most serious tone. Remus didn't comment.

They stumbled forth at an excoriating slow pace, Remus, to his embarrassment, leaning heavily on Sirius. Without his support, he would not have gotten far. Again, he wondered why Sirius was helping him. He had been an ass during the whole journey and now that Sirius knew he was a werewolf he could have just left him there.

They met James halfway. He had a bump the size and the colour of an apple on his forehead and was not entirely coherent in his words or his demeanour. He kept swinging this way or that and stumbling over his own feet. Sirius caught him by his elbow before he crashed into them.

"You okay, Jamie?" he asked. Remus scowled, of course, he wasn't! The man clearly had a commotion, but he kept his mouth shut.

James mumbled something incoherent and swayed again, before focusing on Remus, "Hey! Mooneeeey! You're here!"

"We should lie him down," Remus said.

In the end, they decided to set up their camp where they stood. Everyone was tired, and dark was settling in. Remus stayed behind to keep an eye on James while Sirius went to retrieve their bags.

Remus started a fire and convinced James to lie down. When Sirius returned he bandaged James' head and gave him some potion against the pain and some muggle pills against the swelling. He fed James some cold meat and water while Sirius put up the tent. Then he rolled him into his sleeping bag and his snores accompanied them for the rest of the evening and late into the night.

Once James was taken care of, Remus looked after his own injuries. Unfortunately, it wasn't the first time he had to patch himself up like this, in fact, this was more or less a monthly occurrence.

He saw Sirius cooking, he had managed to turn on the gas stove with the matches and he was warming a can of soup in a small pan. He kept glancing worried looks toward the entrance of his tent where James was still snoring.

"Don't worry," Remus said, "He has a concussion, but he should be alright. A few days of rest and he will be as good as new."

"Thanks for taking care of him, I wouldn't have known what to do"

"Don't you Aurors have any first aid training?" Remus asked.

"Yeah, we do, except it's, you know, magical first aid" Sirius sighed, "Useless around here."

Remus continued taking care of his legs, the scratches weren't deep, but he hissed in pain when he poured the alcohol to disinfect them.

"You need a hand?" Sirius offered.

He gave him a flat look: "From an Auror who doesn't know anything about muggle medicine? No thank you!"

Sirius grinned and continued to stir the soup. "I know some things about muggles", he answered, "I had muggle studies when I was at Hogwarts. Got an O.W.L. in it too."

"If you got an O.W.L in muggle studies, the class must not have been really difficult" Remus teased.

"Very funny!" But Remus could see Sirius was not angry, he could take a joke. When he started pouring the soup into two bowls, he asked: "Why did you take Muggle Studies?"

He had asked the question to keep the light conversation going, but he saw Sirius was uncomfortable now.

"Nevermind."

"Nah, it's okay. To be honest, I just took it to spite my family. They're of the old stock, you see, they're a bit old-fashioned in their beliefs." He coughed and looked away.

"What, they against werewolves?" Remus joked, because everyone was against werewolves.

"No, Muggles actually."

So, his family were blood purists. Funny, he'd thought that the Muggle-hating tendencies had blown over after the war. The new fashion being the hunt for the so-called dark creatures instead.

He told Sirius so.

"I never thought about it that way," Sirius confessed, "but I guess there exist some similarities between how Voldemort treated muggles and how werewolves are seen nowadays."

There's hope for him still, Remus thought. His appreciation of the Auror growing a bit.

"Although werewolves are considerably more dangerous than muggles," he continued.

And he ruined it…

Remus wasn't in the mood to start a discussion about ethics, not when he was hurt and tired and likely to lose his temper. Not when he was unable to defend himself, should the Auror decide he'd rather arrest than sharing a fire. Instead, he blurted out the question he had been asking himself the whole evening.

"Then why did you save me?"

Sirius looked up, "What?"

"You saved my life today, twice, even though you knew I was a werewolf, 'a dark creature…'" he quoted. "Why did you do that if you think we are so dangerous?" he asked. He stared right back into Sirius grey eyes. He was not going to show any signs of fear even though he was anxious to hear the answer.

"Well, I didn't think… It was instinct I guess" Sirius answered, and he was the first to lower his gaze.

"Oh…" Remus didn't know what to answer to that. They finished dinner in silence and he took the opportunity to think things over. He didn't know what to make of Sirius, on the one hand, he was rather nice and fun to be around once you got used to his bad jokes and his sometimes child-like behaviour, and he had saved Remus' live. On the other hand, he was still an Auror, an enforcer of the laws that marked Remus as an outcast and that had hurt him more than any Cruciatus curse ever could. And he was still prejudiced against his kin, even though he had saved his life and even though he had seemed friendly enough when talking to the Berserkers.

If Remus still didn't know what to make of Sirius (friend or foe?) he still owed him his thanks. He cleared his throat.

"Well, thank you, you know, for saving me." And he dived into his tent, not wanting to discuss the matter any further. No, he was not hiding.

xxXxx

James woke up the next day with the worst of headaches. He felt like he had been trampled by an Erumpent and was bruised all over. He had the biggest of bruises on his side but luckily his ribs were not broken. The potions and the Muggle medicine Sirius told him he had taken had helped. He himself didn't recall anything from the previous day; it was a black hole from the moment they had stepped into the clearing up to waking up late that morning.

Moony had helped him up and around the fire, asked him how he felt, asked him several questions to see if there was any long-term memory loss and looked at the bump on his head. Sirius fussed but was on the whole rather unhelpful. Merlin, he wished he could use his wand to patch himself up!

A few effective pain-killers later – muggles used pills and not potions! - he felt as good as he ever would in those circumstances. Breakfast was quiet and there was a different kind of tension, that even James, who felt rather out, noticed. It was not so much animosity as discomfort, different from the days they were travelling up the mountains; it seemed Moony didn't know what to say rather than giving them the cold shoulder treatment. Something must have happened last night…

When he asked, Sirius filled him in on the events, as well as Greyback's current position at the bottom of a small cliff, unable to move.

The plan was to go down with some ropes, because e using a levitating charm was out of the question, fish him up and bring him in.

"And how are we supposed we take him back if he can't walk?" James asked. He had always thought they would arrest Greyback, rope him up and drag him back down the mountain with them, but now it seemed impossible.

"I have a portkey we can use" Moony admitted.

"What? Do you mean we walked all the way when we could have used a portkey to get here?" Sirius exclaimed.

"No, I already told you, the wards keep anyone from apparating in or out or using a portkey to come here, but I got this one set up before we left," Moony explained patiently.

And wasn't that a weird sight, Moony and Sirius talking civilly with each other, without snapping or insults.

"I guess this portkey has not been Ministry issued…" James asked.

"If you'd rather walk," he said.

"No," Sirius intervened, "We've got no problem with an illegal portkey, we don't mind a little rule-breaking."

And to James' surprise, Moony actually smiled, it was discreet and fleeting, but James saw it nonetheless.

Eventually, things were decided; Moony showed Sirius how to abseil down safely, seeing as he was the only one uninjured, once down, Sirius tied Greyback and Moony and James pulled the heavy werewolf up before sending the rope down again for Sirius.

Sirius was also the one who bound the werewolf legs, which was odd since Moony was the more experienced healer.

James tried his best to break up camp, but he was prone to bouts of dizziness, even throwing up once or two. He would definitely need to see a healer once they were out of there. A real one, with a magic wand!

In the end, it didn't take long to tidy up, in ten minutes everything was put away in their backpacks and all traces that they had ever been there being erased. Sirius handcuffed Greyback to his left hand and James did the same to his right. Once the werewolf secured between them, Moony activated the portkey, murmuring the password. There was a hue of blue light, James felt the familiar pull at his navel and they were gone.

Only the forest remained.

R&R