Author's Note: Just thought I'd get a bonus chapter out for the holidays! Tw: Gore, body horror and period accurate homophobia in this chapter
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Pain.
Immense pain.
Remus whimpered, trying to shift his broken body, trying to get himself into a position that didn't hurt so much but no matter how he moved his body he only succeeded in hurting himself More.
He finally gave up, and waited for Pomfrey. He couldn't even move to cover his nudity. When he opened his eyes, everything was a sort of red haze, so he closed his eyes again. Besides, the light hurt. At least he could see, though. He hadn't torn his eyes out again. He thought he had concentrated on his midriff, as his stomach was especially burning, making it hurt every time his chest moved to breathe.
Soon he heard Pomfrey's gasp. He didn't know how bad it was, only that it was bad. Very bad. He screamed in pain when Pomfrey pressed her hands to his middle. It felt beyond anything he ever felt before, and he blacked out until more pain brought him back when she moved him onto a stretcher, her apologies a fuzzy whisper somewhere past his consciousness.
The trip back to the school went by quickly, as he kept fading in and out of consciousness. When he came to properly he was in the little room off the hospital wing. Pushing himself into a sitting position (which was agony), he took in the injuries along his body. There were bandages around both calves, one on his left thigh, bulky ones around his middle, smaller bandages up and down his arms, and one plastered against his chest. His middle hurt the most. He had hoped the game would put him in a good mood, but obviously that hadn't happened…
Nervously he tugged at the bandages around his stomach, wanting to see.
Then regretting it when he saw the carnage underneath. He had obviously gutted himself.
Why? he wondered as he tried to fix the bandages. Why would I do that to my own body? He understood the wolf being angry about not having any victims, he even understood scratching and biting at himself. But—but like with his eyes, this amount of violence didn't make sense.
Pomfrey came in not long after, giving him a chocolate shake to slurp down. While she was concerned about his injuries, at least he hadn't lost much weight. His blood loss was pretty rough though. She informed him she had mixed a potion into his shake to encourage blood replenishment. He asked if she had sent a letter to his parents—worried his mother would be showing up. She replied that yes she had, however as his injuries were one he'd heal on his own it wasn't a very urgent letter.
"Your weight loss was worrisome since that isn't something you could heal in a day," she explained, taking the empty glass once he finished drinking it all. "These are extensive however I imagine you will heal… if not tonight, then not long after the final full moon…"
"My stomach h—hurts," he said. "How bad—how bad was it?" He didn't want to admit he had looked, but he wanted to know what Pomfrey had seen that morning. If it still looked that bad, he couldn't imagine what had really happened.
"You had a very deep gash there," she explained hesitantly, as if it were more than that and she was trying to hide something.
"Madame Pomfrey—"
"That's all," she said, firmly.
"I have a right to know what happened to my own body," he said, just as firmly.
Madame Pomfrey eyed him then closed her eyes, turning her head. "Does it matter that much?"
"Yes."
She gave a sigh. "I—I had to push some of your—your intestines back in." Remus's breath caught in his throat, and he felt sick. "Not much, only a little. You had a horrible… horrible gash. Very… open. Now, please. Try to get some rest."
Remus lay back down, drifting in and out of sleep as the day progressed. Whenever he drifted into sleep he dreamt of yanking his own guts out, and kept waking up with gasps and, occasionally, screams. He gave up trying to sleep and just lay there, staring at the clouds through the window. At least now that it was heading towards summer the days were a bit longer, and he didn't need to rush directly back to the house. Perhaps his stomach would heal up well enough...
He must have fallen back asleep since suddenly he was waking up again to James arguing very loudly with Pomfrey. Pomfrey informed him that Remus was in no shape for visitors, and James argued that they could come see him, it'd be fine, and wasn't Remus in there? Pomfrey answered yes, Remus was in the hospital wing however he really needed his rest.
"I'm afraid you two will have to wait to see him," she said.
Two. Remus gave a slight whimper. James and Peter. Not Sirius. He isn't even…
"But POMFREY!" James whined.
"Mr. Potter, don't make me take points off your house!" James muttered something. "What was that?"
"Nothing, Madame Pomfrey. Can we see him tomorrow?"
"If he is better, yes. Now go."
"BYE REMUS!" James yelled.
"BYE REMUS!" Peter also yelled, confirming that the other Marauder out there was, in fact, Peter.
Remus settled back, feeling ill that Sirius hadn't even—well, not that it mattered. It was fine. Remus didn't—Sirius had every right not to visit. Or talk to him. Or forgive him.
Ever.
It was his right.
He was perfectly right to do that.
Remus tried not to think about it.
/\/\/\/\/\
That afternoon Pomfrey took him all the way to the house since his midriff was still giving him issues, and he properly saw the destruction everywhere. A lot of new bloodstains, and he saw bits of flesh and torn fur. Pomfrey didn't say anything about it. She made sure he was all right before heading out. The moment her footsteps faded, Remus leapt into action. He gathered cleaning supplies and began trying to scrub the place clean, ignoring the extreme pain in his stomach.
He cleaned, and cleaned, then cleaned some more until he felt the moon pulling too much. He had to run upstairs in order to get stripped in time, yelping in pain every time his foot hit the stairs. There was barely any time to throw the pajamas into the wardrobe and shut the doors—locking them—before the wolf began coming to the surface. There was something surreal about transforming in the bedroom, seeing the large bed as he writhed on the floor in pain, the normal looking bedroom furniture while his skin split, his bones grew, and his body changed.
/\/\/\/\/\
It wasn't so bad on Monday morning. Not great. However he could at least sit up, fumbling around for a blanket, or what was left of it. This was the last of his vaguely intact blankets (minus Peter's) and now it was ripped up into the smallest of shreds. There wasn't enough left to even call it a blanket. He yanked the remains over his groin before glancing around. He had left the cleaning supplies out and they were all ruined. If he wanted to clean again, he'd have to ask for more cleaning stuff… which wasn't exactly a pleasant though. He hated asking for things for the house, it always felt uncomfortable.
Groaning, he got up onto one of the couches, looking at the blood all over his body. There seemed little point in getting himself to the bathroom, as he couldn't get a shower. Unless I did, he thought, rather stubbornly. It wasn't like blood loss could kill him. He was still considering it when Pomfrey showed up, and he flushed with guilt, as if she could know what he had intended to do.
The 'spot cleaning' she helped him with did not make him feel any cleaner, and when he was back at the school he tried to clean himself off in the bathroom. It didn't go so well. Instead of feeling clean all he managed to do was make a mess and feel grouchier.
Ugh. He mopped the mess up, throwing the towels in the laundry bin, and then stomped back to his bed, jolts of pain shooting up his leg. Just as he settled back into bed, there was a knock at the door.
"Mr. Lupin?" Pomfrey opened the door. "You have visi—"
James didn't even let her finish, he just ducked under her arm and wriggled his way into the room. Pomfrey rolled her eyes, pulling her arm back to let Peter in. Again, no Sirius. Remus's heart sank a little, though he wasn't surprised.
"Try not to be too rowdy," she sighed, shutting the door behind her as she left them alone.
James bounded over to the bed. "You look somewhat good today," he said cheerfully as he sat on the edge before swinging his legs up, being very cautious not to bump into him.
"It wasn't that bad last night," he said, moving a bit to make room for James. "Not like the night before."
"Yeah, we tried to visit. We snuck into Hogsmeade yesterday, when Pomfrey said we couldn't." Peter happily pulled sweets out of his bag. "What happened?"
"I w-was really banged up," Remus said, sitting up again as Peter dumped the sweets on his lap. "There wasn't any way to hide my bandages. Thank you!"
"How bad was it?" James asked, grabbing a cauldron cake and ripping the cellophane off.
"Very bad."
"Is it 'cause of Sirius?" Peter asked as he shoved a liquorice wand in his mouth.
Remus stiffened at the question, knowing Peter didn't mean anything by it. "I—I'm not sure. It's difficult to tell. I was in a fairly good mood from the game—again, congratulations James!—so I didn't expect it to go that bad." He tugged at the wrapper of a bag of gummy cauldrons and the entire thing split in half, little cauldrons bouncing all over the bed. He stared at the sweets laying everywhere, feeling suddenly extremely exhausted. "I'd r-rather not talk about that."
They actually listened to him and instead talked about other things. Mostly the party in the tower, some of what happened the day before including sneaking into Hogsmeade. They talked rapidly about a new shop opening up, one dedicated to games of both wizarding and Muggle kinds! Apparently it was run by the person who invented the new, insanely popular game Wild Adventures which was being talked about everywhere. It would be open that weekend, and James was excited to go visit when they snuck in for his birthday. Then, after a short bit, Peter said something about trying to figure out what he and James should do that night without Remus or Sirius around.
James shot Peter a dark look, and Peter gulped. "Er, I mean…"
"Is… he not around tonight?" Remus asked, not really wanting to say Sirius's name. He ached to know what was going on with him but didn't want to be so obvious by asking.
"He has detention," James said, in a very strange voice.
Remus looked between him and Pete. They were definitely not saying something. "For what? A prank?"
"Um—" Peter began, and James coughed. Peter looked distressed as he squeaked out an obvious lie of, "I think so?"
"Did something happen? You can tell me."
"He got into a fight," James said, carefully peeling open another cauldron cake.
Remus frowned. "Did he get hurt? Is he okay? I can tell you're hiding something."
"No, he's not—not hurt," Peter promised. "Not bad. A black eye but that was about it for him. You shoulda seen what he did to—"
"Peter!" James warned.
"He's gonna find out about it anyway—"
"No, it's fine," Remus said, trying not to sound hurt. They were hiding something big from him. "It's none of my business. As long as Sirius isn't hurt, that's all that matters." He shoved the remainder of the cauldron in his mouth, too upset to really enjoy the burst of fruity yumminess on his tongue.
James gave a long sigh, setting down his sweet. "He's an arsehole, all right?" he asked.
"Wh—what? Sirius?" Remus asked.
"No!" James pushed his glasses up, obviously nervous. "It doesn't matter."
"He's going to find out," Peter whispered. "There's no way he won't, considering."
"I'd like to know!" Remus insisted. "If something's happened to Sirius—"
"S'not Sirius," James said. "It's about you."
"Me?!"
James twisted to look into Remus's eyes. "You really want to know what happened? Because it doesn't matter." Remus nodded, needing to know like he did with his stomach the day before. "Right. All right. Spinnet was… making fun of you last night. Loopy Lupin and all that. He also said some things about what you wore to the game Saturday, and the fact you got sick right after. Sirius punched him without any thought and they got into a big fight. Some Prefects heard since the door was open and got them apart. They both have two nights of detention, and fifteen points each removed. Again, it's Spinnet. He's a twat. Nothing he says really matters."
"What was he saying?" Remus asked, feeling rather lightheaded. What little information James gave didn't sound awful, didn't sound like anything that needed hidden. There was obviously more.
"It's all poop," Peter said. "All that comes outta his mouth is poop."
Remus locked eyes on James's until James caved in. "Is it really that important?" he whined. "It's dumb, it's all dumb."
"I'd like t-to know what my dormmate was saying about me, especially if I should prepare myself for him saying it when I come back!" Remus pointed out. He didn't want to be blindsided! "It wasn't anything close to the truth, was it?"
"What? Oh you mean… the moon thing?" James asked, and Remus nodded. "Merlin no. It was mostly about—about your clothes Saturday."
"My… clothes." That really wasn't what Remus expected. Even though James included it in what he had said, Remus assumed the worst part would be the sickness thing, or the loopy thing. "What about them?"
James angrily messed his hair up, averting his gaze from Remus. "He—he said things like how you dressed made it a bit obvious that you kissing Evans was only a rumor."
"I—I don't understand."
He didn't. That was the thing, none of it made any sense whatsoever! What did his clothes have to do with kissing—or rather, not kissing—Lily?! Why would Sirius punch him for that? Over clothes?
Peter chewed violently at his lip. "He c-called you a—"
"A what?" Remus asked when Peter fell silent.
"A poof," James said flatly. "And that's when Sirius decked him."
"He went flying!" Peter laughed nervously. "Head over heels. It was great."
"That's why we did this, if he's going to make fun of clothes." James stuck his foot out and Remus saw James's shoelaces were super glittery. "This too." He pushed aside his robes to show off his glittery belt. Peter had them too. "Sirius too," he said brightly.
"I… I don't…" Remus felt like he was floundering. "Poof?" The term sounded familiar, but he wasn't entirely sure what it meant. For once he felt stupid regarding a word's meaning.
James and Peter both went very noticeably awkward. Peter cleared his throat, toeing the ground, while James sniffled loudly as he picked apart the cauldron cake.
"I will look in a dictionary," Remus said sternly.
"I doubt that meaning's in a dictionary," Peter mumbled.
"You really don't know?" James inquired. "It—it means—"
The door opened and Pomfrey stuck her head in. "It's getting late, boys, you should probably head out."
It was only one, and a long time till they had another class, but James and Peter leapt to their feet. "Yes Madame Pomfrey!" they chorused.
"W—wait!" Remus said, sitting forward as they quickly gathered their stuff. "Just tell me what it means!"
"See you tomorrow!" James said, yanking Peter out of the room.
"COWARDS!" Remus shouted as the door swung shut. "I THOUGHT YOU WERE GRYFFINDORS!"
He threw one of the pillows at the door even though they were long gone, then settled back to angrily eat the sweets they left behind.
/\/\/\/\/\
He was sound asleep when he got his next visitor. Not that Pomfrey announced this one. Remus woke up as the door quietly opened and shut, and footsteps tiptoeing across the floor. He rolled over, opening his eyes, then bolting upright.
"Sirius?"
Sirius froze. "Er—didn't mean to wake you," he mumbled, raking his fingers through his hair. "Was going to leave this." He put a card and a small box of fudge chocoballs on the bedside table. Then stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking adamantly at his shoes.
Remus stared at him.
Sirius rocked back and forth, whistling a bit.
Neither of them said anything for ages then suddenly they both said, at the exact same time, "I'm sorry."
Sirius's eyebrows arched while Remus shrank back a little.
"What?" Sirius asked.
"I—I'm s-sorry…?" Remus began twisting the blanket in his hands, sweat prickling under his arms. "I am. I—I am. I really am—"
"Remus—"
"—I shouldn't have done that, I completely regret doing that—"
"Remus!"
"—and I only—"
"Can you please let me bloody well apologize?" Sirius snapped, and Remus went silent.
Is he still angry then? he wondered, although he had apologized which was a rare thing for Sirius to do so it was hard to tell.
Sirius sank down onto the chair. Remus noticed his belt and shoelaces were both very glittery. "I'm sorry too," he muttered. "I overreacted. I said things I—that weren't… well. It took me by surprise, and I wasn't thinking." He began rubbing the back of his neck, twisting his head this way and that. "I shouldn't—shouldn't have called you—called you weird."
"It is weird though," Remus whispered, not sure if Sirius could hear him. "I'm weird."
Sirius finally looked at him, his silvery eyes penetrating into Remus's soul. "It's not," he said. "You're not. Okay? You're not weird. Well, you are, but in that Marauder way we all are. You're not any weirder than me. In fact, you're less weird than me."
"I—" What the hell was he supposed to say?! That was absolutely untrue! Sirius was completely off his broom! "I'm not—"
"I don't want to argue about it," he said in what sounded like it was supposed to be a teasing, light tone, but came off more as strained. "I know you don't like being wrong but face it, Lupin, you're wrong about that."
Remus took in a deep breath, starting to grow dizzy. "Please—"
"Even if you think you are," Sirius continued, ignoring him, "even if others say you are, you're not to me. You're not. You're not weird, and you're not… wrong. Blast, I really put my foot in my mouth with that, didn't I? Merlin. You—I know you—I know you have trouble with feeling that way and I went and threw that at you. Shit. I am so sorry."
Remus wanted to take his hand or hug him. Both would probably be inappropriate so all he could manage to do was give Sirius what he hoped came across as an infinitely grateful look. "Sirius—"
"I screwed up royally. Big time royally. Like, ten centuries of royal family royally."
"You don't need to apologize. Really. I did something completely out of line—"
"No. You tried to help me." Sirius gave him a faint smile. "Even though your assumptions were utterly wrong," he added quickly, "you were trying to help. I overreacted. Badly. I am very sorry for saying those things. I really am. They're not true. I swear they're not. And I don't want to—to be fighting with you."
"I don't either," he answered in a small voice.
"And—and I—I shouldn't have gotten angrier, Thursday night, after you—I mean, I understand why you ignored me. I ignored you earlier."
Remus frowned. "Ignored you? When did I ignore you?"
"When I tried to apologize," Sirius said in a voice that meant he expected Remus to know what he was talking about. "You ignored me. I got stupidly upset about that, even though it's completely hypocritical of me because I ignored your initial apology and—"
"I'm sorry, when did you try to apologize?" Remus asked. "I don't remember that! I wouldn't have ignored you! I—I would have forgiven you immediately!"
Sirius's forehead wrinkled. "You did ignore me though."
"When!?" he demanded desperately.
"Thursday night!" Sirius said, exasperated. "Or, Friday morning I guess. It was about two-thirty, maybe three in the morning. I went over and apologized. Or tried to. You ignored me."
Remus stared at Sirius in shock. "I—I w-wasn't there."
"What?"
"I wasn't there," he said again, plucking anxiously at his blanket. If he hadn't've run off like a coward then this would have been long resolved! "I left, at around two in the morning. I—I didn't want—I—I knew I'd have nightmares so I left the dorm because I didn't want to wake you up. I wasn't there, Sirius."
Sirius was staring at him now. "You—I—I was—you weren't?"
"No! Didn't you check?"
He blinked a few times then looked away, obviously embarrassed. "No. I assumed you were there. I—oh. Oh Merlin."
"That's why you seemed angrier on Friday," Remus whispered.
"Yes. Merlin's beard, Remy, I—shit. I should have checked. I didn't even think you might not be there!" Sirius slowly shook his head. "You really left because of having nightmares?"
Remus nodded. "Yes, I was worried about waking you up and upsetting you more, so I—I slept in a secret passageway."
"Oh."
"I—I did that too."
"Did what?"
Remus shifted a little, tugging at the blanket again. "Friday night I t-tried to apologize to you again, But then I realized you were in James's bed, and—and I had been apologizing to nothing."
Sirius raised his eyebrows. "So we did the same thing."
"It seems so," Remus answered softly, and they both got a little smile at that. "I am sorry—"
"No, no, no more apologizing over it," Sirius interrupted. "You're not—you—I was the one who really messed things up. I was stubborn about it, and stupid. I really… I did bad."
"No—"
"I did, I know I did, I said things that really hurt you—I mean, really, specifically hit you where it hurt—and then—then I should have made sure my first apology was to your face and not your curtains."
"It—if—" Remus struggled to figure out how to express what he wanted to say. "I forgive you. I do. And—and you forgive me, so—so, it's okay now, right?"
"Yes," Sirius said, looking relieved. "I hope so."
"Me too. I want it—"
"Yeah, I do too."
"Yeah."
There was a stretch of very awkward silence, then Sirius mumbled something that might have been another apology before he got up and suddenly gave him the hug he had wanted a moment before.
"I have to get to class. You can ignore my card. It's dumb. I'll—I'll see you tomorrow. I hope tonight goes well."
With that he hurried out of the room, leaving Remus in a state of complete bafflement.
After a moment or two he reached over to grab the card. It was full of a long, rambling apology, saying similar things to what Sirius told him. Several times he had underlined words or phrases such as how bad he felt, and he was stupid to say those things about Remus. He said he accepted Remus's apology even though he didn't think Remus needed to, and he was sorry he had ignored Remus Thursday night and Friday. He had been acting like an idiot. There was also a doodle of a sad face.
Remus lay back down, glad that Sirius wasn't still mad but confused over why Sirius felt like he needed to apologize.
/\/\/\/\/\
It was very cloudy Monday night until around three in the morning when Remus finally transformed, so when he transformed back shortly before six-thirty he was in decent enough shape. He slept most of the morning and was pretty happy when his friends visited him during lunch. It was nice they were all together. Sirius was a bit awkward at first but then began relaxing as time went on. Neither of them spoke about their fight, nor their conversation from the afternoon before.
Remus considered getting them to talk about Sirius's altercation with Spinnet, however whenever he tried to bring it up they changed the conversation. It was clear none of them were going to tell him what poof meant; he'd have to figure it out himself.
Since Remus wasn't too injured and they were all excited at everyone being friends again, they wound up getting a little rowdy to the point of Pomfrey flinging the door open, right when Remus and Peter balanced precariously on the headboard of the bed, while James was standing on the edge of the bed about to fall backwards into Sirius's arms. James hesitated then flailed, falling. Sirius, too distracted by Pomfrey, did not catch him, and James smashed into the floor.
"I think it's time for your visitors to leave," she told Remus, going over to check James. Nothing seriously injured, only a few scraped and perhaps a bruise. She told him she'd give him some bruise balm then shooed the three of them out, giving James and Sirius dirty looks. "Back into bed, Remus," she ordered.
Remus climbed off the headboard, obediently sliding back between the covers, glad that it seemed things were somewhat back to normal.
