39

LUPIN had thought this was hell. His transformations were always painful, even with the Wolfsbane Potion, but then again, three nights had been especially brutal as he'd forgotten to take his Wolfsbane Potion.

He supposed he should count himself lucky he'd not bitten a student or teacher. He had, alongside Sirius, not to mention Harry, Hermione, Ron, and even Severus, confronted Peter Pettigrew over what the rat had done.

The details of the confrontation that ensued were still fresh in his mind as he lay…somewhere in the Forbidden Forest, covered only by Severus Snape's thick black woolen cloak, but how it had gotten here, and no sign of Hogwarts' Potions Master remained a mystery to him. All at once, the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor was brutally aware of the searing pain that tormented his body.

It was almost more than Remus could possibly bear. His muscles writhed in pain and agony, but his still-healing bones that always took a beating whenever he transformed as they literally broke and then re-shifted back into place when he reverted to his human form always ached and hurt like hell for upwards of a week after.

But then just as quickly as it had come, he succumbed to nothingness. A void in which Remus wished for nothing more than to cease living. Maybe this was what the seven layers of Hell felt like.

He didn't know, but Lupin knew he deserved an eternity of such hellish torture for what he'd done to Dora. He could abide whatever this was that was happening to him better than he could the remorse that Remus had felt when he'd told Tonks she couldn't come back to Hogwarts without him.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a horrible blinding white light, surely the result of someone thrusting the lighted tip of their wand into his face, burned itself into his retinas behind his closed lids.

Whoever was doing it was surely cruel. The light was dim, little more than a flickering of a candle flame, and yet at the same time, agonizing.

It very nearly succeeded in blinding Remus.

He tested his body, though every feeble twitch sent white-hot explosions of pain through his broken and battered body. Lupin shuddered to think what hellish torment awaited him when he got back up to the castle, but Lupin swore he heard Sirius's voice.

"That's it, Moony, mate, come back to us," cried Sirius's voice from somewhere that he couldn't see.

Lupin swallowed as he heard Sirius speak again. That meant that…he'd not been arrested. The Aurors hadn't taken him, but…what the bloody hell had happened to him? That meant he was alive, the Dementors hadn't gotten to him.

And then…the memories suddenly flooded back into his stream of awareness, clear behind his closed eyes as though he were witnessing them from the Pensieve in Dumbledore's office. He'd been standing with Dora underneath the tree in her parents' backyard just yesterday late afternoon after talking with Ted.

The pain and terror at the thought of Peter hurting Lupin had taken over his mind until he was turning away from the witch who he desperately loved more than his own miserable, wretched life. He'd fought every step of the way as he'd walked towards the edge of the Tonks' property line in their backyard not to turn around on his heels and whisk Dora in his arms and not back to Hogwarts.

He could still see her face, her tears falling down her cheeks uncontrollably, her eyebrows creased together in worry and concern over what Pettigrew would do to her. She'd wanted him to stay. She'd begged him not to go.

And Remus had left Tonks. What had he done? Exhausted, Lupin couldn't manage to summon the strength to fight anymore. If he was alive, he didn't want to be, not like this. He'd not believed in the greatest thing ever to have happened to him, he'd given up the one witch and woman who he'd ever dared to fall in love with and had reciprocated his feelings in return. Oh, Merlin!

Lupin let himself go, relaxing into the void as he closed his eyes. He prayed he would just die here. He wanted no more of this, and all he wanted now was to spend eternity with the memory left of the young witch who he had so cruelly abandoned in the same manner her ex-boyfriend had broken up with her when learning she was pregnant with his babe at the time.

And now, he'd almost gone and done the same thing. Lupin knew he'd be lucky if Tonks forgave him, which he highly doubted she would. She'd never look at him with the same sparkling tenderness and kindness and love she had. This thought was more than he could bear. Unbeknownst to him as he fluttered in and out of a state of semi-consciousness, a stretcher was conjured out of midair and hovered in the air while Lupin was escorted back up to the castle on it with the aid of Sirius Black and Professor Dumbledore.

As the group walked, Lupin, unaware that Sirius was right by his side every step, whispered the only word that bloody meant anything to him anymore.

"Tonks…" he whispered and then fell into sleep. The emotional torment of how he'd hurt his partner worse than anything he could have ever imagined was far worse than any one of his transformations.

Lupin hated himself. He'd been a blind and bloody fool to let Tonks go. He had to get her back.

Somehow…some way, he'd win her back…

"Moony, you arse! I don't understand," were quite literally Sirius Black's first words to Lupin the moment Remus regained consciousness three days later and woke up in the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts. Sirius was seated to Lupin's left by his bedside in a corner of the Hospital Wing with the curtains drawn to give the pair of friends needed privacy.

Sirius was looking more than a little agitated, leaning back against his wooden chair in a casual, relaxed manner, his arms folded across his slender, tattooed chest, his lips pursed into a thin line. His skin was pulled taut and waxy across his browbone, and his best mate was looking haggard.

"You wanna explain to me if you love my baby cousin enough to shag her," Here, he let out a low growl as a light pink blush speckled along Lupin's cheeks that the escaped convict of Azkaban pointedly ignored, wanting to get his point across, "then why did you leave her?" he snarled angrily.

Lupin, whether or not Sirius knew it, had been asking himself that question the moment his ability to think coherently had come back to him. The choice a few nights ago had seemed obvious to him at the time, but now the feeling of dread that he'd made the wrong choice permeated his mind like the black plague and it haunted him.

There had been such an urgency to his decision at the time: to save Tonks from Pettigrew. Now, as he lay motionless and aching like hell in the Hospital Wing, shooting a furtive, guilty look towards Padfoot, he wished there'd been another way.

"Sirius," Lupin began wearily, his hoarse voice barely able to speak past a dry wheeze, even after he sat upright against the mountain of pillows Pomfrey piled behind him and gave him a glass of ice water. "You know why," he managed to gasp out, wiping at his mouth with the back of his sleeve when he'd finished his drink. "I—I had to protect Tonks from…from…" he trailed off.

Sirius made an odd little strangled noise at the back of his throat and rolled his eyes as he scoffed. "From me?" he challenged hotly, his tone somewhat defensive and sounding rather offended. Lupin cringed at the clipped and curt tone in Padfoot's hoarse voice that sounded grating, like sandpaper, though he'd sounded the same a few nights ago.

Though before he could part open his cracked and slightly bleeding lips to emphasize that no, he had meant to bring up Peter, Sirius spoke.

"I don't blame you, Moony. I haven't…I know I haven't made it easy for you to trust me," he began, his voice gruff yet tangible at the same time. "I couldn't exactly tell you the truth." He paused and held up something in front of Lupin's eyes with his thumb and forefinger. IT took Lupin a moment of squinting to see what it was. He froze and drew in a sharp breath that sent an explosion of pain through his mended ribcage. He'd cracked and broken two of them during his transformation.

"Is that…?" Remus breathed, his face going pale as he carefully studied the single strand of familiar-looking red hair that belonged to Arym.

"The goblin's hair, you nailed it, Moony," Sirius sighed before letting the single strand of hair drop to the Hospital Wing floor, though not before shooting it a look of disgust as he crinkled his nose. "I'm sorry I had to trick you and Nymphadora, Moony, but I knew you wouldn't listen to me like…this." He paused and gestured to himself in his worn and dirtied, tattered set of prison robes. "But you never answered my question. Why did you come back without Tonks, Moony?" Sirius barked.

"Peter would have killed her or hurt her," Lupin said, lowering his eyes and giving a slight nod. "He would have tortured her, used her as a shield to escape, I'm sure of it." His voice cracked at the thought. Peter, thank Merlin, had been subjected to the Dementor's Kiss at the insistence of Cornelius Fudge once the evidence was proven to be verified with Sirius's extracted memories of both his confrontation in London on that day and of Peter confessing that he'd sold the Potters to Voldemort.

"And…" Sirius hesitated, seeming to search for the right words. "Did you tell any of this to Tonks? My baby cousin is an Auror, Moony. She's strong, Remus. She can bloody well take care of herself. Surely, she would have understood you."

"No," Lupin said at last, utterly humiliated, not wanting to look into Sirius's eyes and see the disappointment and anger within but couldn't bring himself to look away either. "I—I couldn't. I was ashamed," he murmured, looking at his hands.

Sirius shot him an incredulous look of disbelief. "So, Tonks thinks you just left her alone?" he growled, staring at Remus accusingly. Even he would have been more tactful at making his exit.

"That—that wasn't the plan, I—I didn't mean to," Lupin shot back, his temper swelling in his chest. "I—I have every intention of getting her back. I—I want to fix everything, but I…I don't…know…"

"Don't know how?" Sirius snorted, finding it difficult not to roll his eyes a bit as Remus blushed and nodded, confirming his best mate's suspicions.

"You could say that," Lupin grumbled. "I just wish…that we would have gotten to kill him," he growled, feeling a sudden shift within himself as he felt something dark and ugly within his chest surface. While grateful that Pettigrew had received the Dementor's Kiss for what he had done, there was a small part of him still felt chafed that he and Sirius hadn't gotten to take care of it, but… "I couldn't do it," he blurted out, unsure where this was coming from. "I couldn't kill Peter, Sirius."

Sirius was quiet for a moment, letting the depths of Lupin's words sink in. He knew Remus was right, and deep down, as much as he was loathed to admit it, there was a part of him agreed. "But you didn't kill him when given the chance. Why didn't you?" he asked, speaking softly.

Lupin paused for a moment to consider his words, wondering the same thing as he evidently found his words, and began to speak slowly, recalling every lucid detail that came back to him. "When I saw him there in the Shrieking Shack, he looked so terrified and desperate of what we would do to him, that I couldn't do it. Harry was right, Sirius. I don't think James would have wanted the two of us to kill him, and Peter's dead anyway now, so it wasn't by our hands, Sirius, but when I saw him, he was that boy that we all hung out with when we were twelve years old like we were kids again back at Hogwarts. I don't know why I couldn't kill him. I wanted to, but all I could think about was Tonks," Remus confessed, his tone soft and ashamed.

Sirius was quiet for a moment, thinking over his best mate's words. "Maybe my baby cousin's had a softening influence on you, Moony, which was why you couldn't bring yourself to do it," he murmured in a thoughtful voice as he stroked the stubble along his jawline.

"Maybe." Lupin allowed a faint smile to ghost along with his cracked and peaky features, thinking of how Tonks's love had changed so much about him and the way he viewed himself for the better. "I—I didn't mean to make her so mad at me, but I'd do it all over again…for Dora, if it means keeping her safe, Sirius. I didn't want her to get hurt."

Sirius nodded in understanding. "Well. I'll do what I can to ensure my cousin doesn't stay mad at you, get you back in the arms of the witch you love the most," Sirius solemnly swore, happy that his best mate had found love with a good woman, his own cousin or not be damned. "She'll probably be right bloody angry, if I know my little cousin, Remus, but I think that my cousin will come round."

Lupin's face grew pained, not wanting to dwell on the unpleasant visual image of Tonks's tear-stricken face as he had left her much in the same manner as her ex had and gave his head a curt shake to try to make the memory leave.

"I hope you're right, Sirius," Remus lamented, a sullen look overcoming his features as he looked at Sirius. "I—I need to get to Ted and Andromeda's," he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to lift himself off the cot, though was met with a surprising force from Sirius who gently shoved him back against the hospital bed, an unusually stern, admonishing expression on his waxy face.

"Sit," Sirius barked gruffly. "You'll do no good to my cousin if you're lying dead in a ditch somewhere, your body taxed to the point of exhaustion," he chastised, leaning back in his chair, and folding his arms across his chest. "You need to let yourself heal, Moony. And don't even think about trying to sneak off without me. You've had plenty of chances with my baby cousin. I want to meet her," he growled, though Lupin swore his gaze softened slightly as he saw how much his friend was suffering. "Now go the hell to sleep."

Lupin shot him a withering look, though fatigue and exhaustion were quickly overcoming him against his almost desperate will to head to Tonks and beg her forgiveness as he collapsed his head back against his pillow the moment his eyes grew heavy.

He quickly came to the realization that Sirius was right. Lupin had to be able to walk again, through the depths of Hell itself and back if that's what Dora Tonks needed of him in order to make amends to her.

He knew that was exactly what he'd do to win her back.