Chapter 32: Bad Moon on the Rise

Hermione jolted awake early the next morning, heaving for breath and with what felt like a thousand winged keys in her chest: whirring, glinting, flapping, and colliding within her. They took up the space her lungs needed to inflate, every gasping breath shooting mad zings down into Hermione's fingers.

She swung her legs off the bed and dropped her head in her hands. There'd been no destroyed bodies, no screeching of Bellatirx Lestrange, nothing usual, except for the wan, skeletal face of Sirius, him dressed in Azkaban robes. She'd seen that one in her dreams before. But that was only how this dream had started.

Hermione shuddered. She hadn't had a dream like that for years. The muddled remnants of it were still there in her head. Lips clinging, a hand sliding up her leg… warmth up against her in a very intimate place.

'Oh… my god…' Hermione opened her eyes and stared at the carpet. She worked to breathe slowly and deeply.

There was the phantom presence behind her again. Hermione let the warm caress embrace her and felt her shoulders relax a little… as though she did have that solid chest to lean against. Her focus blurred, and Hermione let herself just sit there for a bit. She could imagine the phantom rubbing her arms in long strokes… an arm wrap around her middle… a chin rest on her shoulder, a cheek up against the side of her head.

Hermione shook herself and got out of bed, ignoring the tingles in her fingers. Previous occasions seemed to prove it true that if she just didn't think about them they went away. Eventually.

After a fun couple days, Hermione had an unusual lack of interest in her studies. She turned her focus to her birthday gifts instead. But for Luna's bouquet, Hermione had piled the gifts on her trunk. Luna's bouquet had been relegated to Sirius's potion room after Crookshanks had taken a hissing dislike to it. All the pears had been eaten, so Hermione provided the Amazonian Toucan-Eaters with a selection of leftovers from the pantry, shut the door, and took the book on house elf enslavement to the library.

Except for the usual presences of Sirius and Kreacher, the house was empty that day. Sirius didn't prove a stranger, though. Hermione sat with him at mealtimes and he even came to join her for a bit after lunch – listening as Hermione explained what she'd so far managed to translate from the ancient book and its likewise ancient runes, and even sitting beside her to help work out the bit she was currently fighting with.

Such close proximity – and even just seeing him at the breakfast table – had returned the fluttering keys to Hermione's chest, memories of her dream forefront in her head. It had taken her until lunch to be able to meet his eye. Hermione didn't know whether it was because he'd noticed her unease around him, because he'd been sleepy, or something else, but Sirius seemed much more animated at lunch than at breakfast – much more expansive, more interested… warmer…

The thought, sitting in the library beside him that afternoon, hit Hermione like a lorry: Sirius was very good looking. And it wasn't just that. He'd developed even more easy energy lately; his body not one that looked to enjoy just sitting for long. He moved with an energetic and powerful adroit grace that drew Hermione's eye. Even walking slowly, Sirius… well, looked incapable of plodding. He was too upright – springing from foot to foot like a trained ballerino, just one who'd grown restless with the discipline and would much rather be doing parkour.

More than once Hermione found herself pulling her eyes away from high cheekbones over reasonably recently shaven cheeks, the thoughtful focus in kind grey eyes, and the unconscious hand that combed hair out of his face with a single shove of clawed fingers over the top of his head… His hand, the quill held in it, and the odd way he wrote –

'Your handwriting is terrible…'

Sirius frowned at the runes, seeming not to have heard Hermione. He wrote something else down, then glanced up at her. He was less than a foot away. Hermione's side tingled with the proximity. She had flushed again, but Sirius didn't seem to notice. He looked back at his handwriting and nodded.

'Yeah, it is,' he agreed, not at all offended. He placed the quill on the top of the parchment and slid it to Hermione. 'So this bit… I think the order is more like German than English. The second verb is here.' He pointed at the end of the line. 'I think, at least, it's a verb not a noun – or… an adjective? This isn't my area of specialty. But, if it is a verb, then the sentence makes sense.'

'Think German…' Hermione repeated. She didn't speak German. 'You speak German?' Frankly, at this point, Hermione wouldn't be surprised to find out he did.

'Nope,' said Sirius. 'Only enough to ask where the loo is. But I know the sentence order is different to English. And I know Old English and Scots were – and are – somewhat similar to German. So I'm guessing this is saying "One must select the house elf with strength but meekness for best success".'

It did make rather more sense than what Hermione had so far. Her direct and literal translation had been "Person have elf with strength through meekness go best achievement selection", and she'd been working on making it sound less like a perplexing manual for foreign-made electronics. Runes tended to have different meanings based on context. Hermione had a renewed appreciation for the Rune Standardisation movement in the 6th century.

'Wasn't your family French?'

Sirius wiggled his nose.

'I donno, Hermione,' he said amusedly. 'Maybe this was written by a German or Old English bloke, and my early ancestors bought it. Or maybe it's so confusing because it was translated too many times before being written down here.'

'I think it was written by more than one person,' Hermione said. 'The first section was in a slightly different hand and easier to read… But this is going back so many years. It's not like they spoke modern French or German then at all, and I'm not sure Old English even existed then either. But there were Germanic languages, Celtic ones, and Latin ones… This could well be the mix of different cultures writing together.'

And that just made it more fascinating. Hermione was sure the book had already had various preservation charms cast on it, but she'd look to add more. Someone who knew much more would need to analyse it.

Sirius shrugged.

'Like I said, it's not my area. But I do think this writer, at least, is putting auxiliary verbs at the ends of sentences.'

Hermione took that suggestion on board and her progress with the book sped up even after Sirius left her to her own devices. It was full moon tonight, Sirius said at dinner, and he left after it to meet with Remus and head off to somewhere secluded for Remus to transform.

Hermione woke even earlier the next morning. It wasn't even dawn yet. She lay in bed for a bit with an undeniable sense of foreboding. It may, incongruous as it seemed, have to do with Sirius not being in the house all night. The last full moon had had her in quite a state, and this one seemed determined to put her in one in homage to the previous.

Back when Remus and Sirius had been at school… there'd been two large animals around to keep Remus in check during full moons. And now there was Umbridge and her Ministry out there too. And they liked neither Sirius nor Remus.

Getting up and pulling on a jumper, Hermione headed, not for a shower as was her routine, but downstairs. She'd wait in the sitting room, she decided, until Sirius came back. Lying in bed was producing too many ideas about what could have happened to him in the dark of night.

She didn't have long to wait. Hermione hopped to her feet the moment she heard the front door open, and trotted to the entry.

It wasn't the sight of a tired, shaggy-haired man she'd been expecting. Hermione stood stock still for a moment, staring as Sirius staggered into the house, a limp body hanging over his shoulders.

'Blood Replenishing Potion!' Sirius said hoarsely the moment he spotted her. He had four deep gashes across the side of his face, blood draining in a slick red waterfall from them, some of his hair stuck to it. When he spoke, his teeth were stained with the same red. 'Now – Hermione! And Silvered Dittany!'

Hermione spun on her heel and sprinted for the cabinet in the sitting room. The scene she returned to was horribly reminiscent of the one, a month before, with Percy.

Sirius had dropped Remus on the floor. The werewolf lay there, eyes mostly shut, pale as death, in no more than a shroud of a cloak. The cloak didn't cover him fully. Hermione could see, starkly visible, the part of his thigh that had been torn by ferocious teeth, flesh hanging on strips of muscle – the scratches that were everywhere – the skin badly shredded on Remus's shoulder and the odd way his arm lay on the ground – Remus's collarbone, already more prominent than it should be on the thin man, poking sharply into the skin in a way it shouldn't – the bite mark down his arm and the one on his other arm that had torn it more deeply – and the blood – so much of it, soaking through the cloak. And a strong smell of bile.

Hermione dropped to her knees beside them, the two bottles in her hands.

'He can't drink it!' Hermione cried, looking wildly up at Sirius. 'He's unconscious!'

Sirius's face was held in a fierce mask. He shoved Remus's head up with one hand and pulled the werewolf's mouth open.

'Just go!' he said gruffly, yanking his wand out of its harness.

He stuck his wand to Remus's throat and Hermione poured the Blood Replenishing Potion into his mouth. Remus didn't choke or gag. He was still as a lifeless corpse. But Sirius was muttering something and Hermione could believe he knew what he was doing. The bottle ran out and Sirius pulled away. Almost thoughtlessly he slapped the hanging flesh back into Remus's thigh, but didn't focus on it. He yanked the sodden cloak away from Remus's middle and Hermione's world warped.

She blinked rapidly, trying to focus, but could see little more than Sirius's black hair, bent over a huge, gaping wound that was bubbling blood and something else.

She scuttled away from the scene of utter butchery and drew her wand.

'Expecto –' she uttered, then faltered. The room was swishing around her. Hermione gulped back burning bile and, with a stupendous effort, managed to call forth the sense of everything being all right, her parents beaming – a garden dotted with jarred fairy lights, laughter, and Sirius grinning in the air with a beater's bat.

'Expecto Patronum Nuntium!' she shouted, and came face-to-face with the silvery, reassuring form of an otter. 'To Poppy Pomphrey!' she told it. 'Remus needs you – at Number 12 – now!'

Hermione scrabbled back to Remus as the otter dashed away. Her hands pattered about the floor until she found the dropped bottle of silvered dittany and yanked up a bit of the cloak to use for dabbing.

'Leave that!' Sirius directed curtly. 'It's mine!'

Hermione stared at him, then at the shredded bite marks on Remus's shoulder.

'You can heal it with spells!'

Sirius hadn't looked up as he spoke. He moved on to Remus's thigh. The abdomen he'd left behind was only gesturally put back together. It wasn't bubbling blood anymore. Sirius glanced at Hermione's hand, grabbed the bottle from it, and just poured trickles onto the bitten-off piece, holding it in place with a hand slick with blood.

Hermione's knees were wet. She tried not to think on it as she took the bottle back from Sirius and started dabbing silvered dittany, instead, on Remus's too-thin Frankenstein middle with the edge of his cloak. Sirius wasn't bothering with dabbing. He was wiping the steaming liquid over and inside the wound on Remus's thigh with his fingers.

'Okay…' Sirius huffed, rising from Remus's thigh and taking the bottle from Hermione's fingers. 'The rest aren't so bad…'

Aren't so bad – the words washed through Hermione's mind, unintelligible. She was dabbing at Remus's belly with vision screened by frantic tears. In the corner of her eye, she could see Sirius pushing skin and muscle back together on Remus's arm under the sizzling and steaming influence of the silvered dittany. He gave her the botte and jumped to his feet.

'You take this side,' he said, stepping over Remus. 'I'll Heal those. Take care of the slashes.'

Hermione wobbled to her feet and wobbled further as she stepped over Remus. She got to work, dabbing at slash mark after slash mark, jumping and swallowing hard as Sirius sent Remus's collarbone snapping back into alignment; breathing though pinched lips as Remus's arm rotated and thunked back into his shoulder socket. She launched nearly out of her skin when the door shoved open.

'Remus?' Poppy Pomphrey said sharply. 'What's happened?'

Hermione registered the matron drop her medibag to Remus's side, then just sat on her knees, unable to attend to Remus's smaller slash marks, as Sirius rolled Remus onto his side and both he and Poppy had a look at his back. Hermione didn't know what was there, but she poured more of the silvered dittany onto the bit of cloak, passed the bottle over to Sirius, and just focused on dabbing at anything that didn't look like a large, shaggy black dog had caused it. From the other side of Remus Poppy muttered, 'Well, you caused your fair share of damage, Sirius…'

The door slammed open again and there was a new face in the door. One that fell to a horrified stare the moment her eyes landed on the naked body starting to cough weakly on the blood-soaked floor.

'Is he alive?' Tonks breathed, her hands shooting to either side of her neck. 'Will he be okay?'

'He's alive!' Hermione answered reflexively. She couldn't provide assurance for Tonks's other question, but Poppy could.

'He will be fine,' she answered shortly. 'Miss Granger, if you would – '

Hermione didn't need the full question. She shoved to her feet and took Tonks by the arm, swinging the door shut behind her.

'Don't!' Tonks cried, pulling against Hermione as Hermione tried to lead her away. 'No!' she shrieked. 'Don't pull me!'

Hermione got an arm around Tonks's back.

'He'll be fine!' Hermione told her. 'He'll be okay! Let's just have a seat – okay?'

Tonks had started sobbing. She stumbled as Hermione towed her toward the sitting room. She cried loudly when Hermione directed her into the room.

'You don't need to see that…' Hermione babbled, not sure of what she was saying. 'But he'll be just fine! Just… leave them to patch him up!'

She got Tonks onto the sofa and dropped down next to her, rubbing Tonks's back compulsively. The sitting room looked different, somehow. Hermione was far too aware of the hushed exchanges being passed between Sirius and Poppy outside it.

Being a werewolf, she thought, staring at the clustering of coffee table and armchairs, was nothing like the natural shift between human and animal being an Animagus was. Sirius kept his clothes when he transformed. He chose when and where. He had dignity in his transformation. Remus had none of that. Even sat in the sitting room, Hermione could still see the lifeless body sprawled out where Sirius had dropped him in the entry. She shook, sickened.

Tonks was whining frantically into her hands. Her hair was brown and lank about her head, her eyes squeezed so tightly shut wrinkles had appeared around them. Hermione clutched at her.

'He'll be okay!' she whispered desperately. 'He'll be fine!'

Tonks wasn't at all reassured by that. Hermione could feel her shuddering and heaving with sobs under her arms.

'It's… my fault!' Tonks hissed. 'It's my fault!' she wailed.

Hermione couldn't see why at all it would be, and did her best to reassure Tonks, but it fell on deaf ears. She looked up warily as Remus's body, better draped in Conjured blankets, was Levitated into the room. Sirius set him down gently on the second sofa and Poppy set up her medibag on the coffee table.

Then Sirius rounded on Tonks.

'What happened?' he asked, and his voice was so low, and so dangerous – his cheek dripping blood unimpeded – Hermione felt herself shrink back.

Tonks shook and hid her face in her hands.

'We – we had a fight!'

Sirius was very pale. He had no sympathy at all in his eyes.

'What about?' he demanded coldly.

'T-Teddy!' Tonks cried hopelessly. 'He's been so difficult lately! S-sometimes we can't calm him – he'll scream for h-hours! A-and– ' Tonks cut off on a loud hiccough.

'And?' Sirius snarled.

'He left us!' Tonks wailed. 'Remus – B-before! It j-just came out! I d-didn't mean to say it!'

'Are you,' Sirius said, deathly cold, 'an idiot Dora? You never,' his voice ratcheted up several decibels – his hands had clenched by his sides, 'ever, argue with Remus on the day of a full moon! IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT'S GOING ON!' Sirius roared. 'It doesn't matter if he's been a complete arse! Never argue with him! The wolf doesn't have his self-control! It's pure instinct – fuelled by emotion!'

Tonks was quailing in Hermione's arms, but Sirius wasn't done.

'He was wild tonight!' he yelled, more of the wound on his cheek reopening. The sight was horrific. 'I couldn't even keep him in the forest – I barely managed to stop him tearing the throats out of three little boys –'

'Sirius!' Hermione shouted, clutching Tonks to her. 'Sirius – stop it! She's had enough!'

'A-are they o-okay?' Tonks whined. 'The b-boys?'

Sirius's teeth had grit hard. The clenching of his jaw squeezed more blood out of his cheek. There were drying drops of it in the corners of his mouth.

'They're fine,' he said coldly, but more quietly. 'Traumatised, but Remus didn't reach them.'

Tonks crumpled, her fingers pressed into her mouth. Sirius tossed her a last furious look, then pulled himself away. He stopped before the mirror over the mantelpiece, but the slashes on his face didn't hold his attention long. He looked down, pulled up his blood-soaked top, and Hermione gasped.

'Mr Black!' Poppy exclaimed, dropping the end of the bandage she was winding around Remus's poultice-covered arm.

Remus had just about returned Sirius's favour. Sirius's right side was a mess.

Sirius didn't acknowledge them. He transferred his wand to his left hand and focused on a hanging flap of skin.

'What ails you, boy?' Poppy cried furiously. She snatched up an armchair and stuck it beside Sirius. 'Sit!' she instructed. 'Now!'

Sirius's teeth had clenched harder. He finished his spell and Poppy grabbed the wand straight out of his hand.

'What nonsense!' Poppy said exasperatedly. 'Sit! Mr Black, or I will make you! And take off that top!'

The awful sight had Tonks crying harder. It got worse as Sirius mutely tugged off his top and sat on the chair. He had gory slashes extending up over his shoulders, some of them mostly scabbed over – where moving hadn't split them open again. It was hard to tell whether that was the extent of it. Sirius's clothes were intact and he was so covered in Remus's blood his own couldn't be differentiated.

'Planning on doing it yourself, were you?' Poppy groused angrily as she set about fixing Sirius up. 'Not a word! I've never understood you, Sirius! Pride saves no lives!'

Sirius just glared off into the corner of the room. He showed no sign of pain but for the deepened crinkles around slightly squinted eyes.

Poppy tisked. She whipped her wand at her bag and essence of dittany, pure, not silvered, flew out and tipped itself onto a bit of gauze. The gauze started padding around by itself at the healed pink lines Poppy was leaving behind, the matron muttering about Sirius not needing any more scars. Whatever scars Sirius had were completely overshadowed by the ink black tattoos across his chest and over the top of his left arm. Hermione could see them more and more as Poppy wiped the blood from his skin, homing in on wound after wound and setting them to glow green as they healed. While Poppy could stop today's scars from forming, no one could get rid of the prisoner tattoos.

Hermione rubbed at Tonks's back as the witch slowly cried herself out. Things did start to look a little brighter the more Sirius was returned to looking like a whole human – to Hermione, not, it seemed, to Sirius. He looked like he was in his own personal hell.

'You break my heart, Sirius,' Poppy murmured quietly. 'You always have.'

Sirius shut his eyes. His jaw was very tight.

'Where else?' Poppy demanded, stepping back once she'd finished. Sirius made no sign of response. Poppy's back straightened and her voice dropped to warning tones. 'I will make you take your trousers – '

Sirius bent and yanked up a cuff of his jeans. The wound he revealed there pacified Poppy for a time.

Remus groaned and Tonks yelped. She stared across the room at him with puffy red eyes.

'Swill this,' Poppy ordered Sirius, stuffing a tumbler into his hand. She handed him a measured quantity of Blood Replenishing Potion. 'Then drink this.'

Another groan from Remus drew Hermione's eyes back to the poor man. Tonks hesitated, then pushed off her seat and hurried over to him. She crouched down by the sofa and caught up the forgotten bandage, winding then securing it around Remus's arm. Her fingers dithered about his arm, checking the bandage wasn't too tight, before she lifted his hand and chafed it between both of hers.

'Remus?' she whispered. She pulled the blankets higher up his chest, lifted his hand again, and held it close against her. 'Remus…' she whispered again.

It was a few minutes yet before Remus's eyes squinted open. Tonks met them with a tentative look, her teeth pinched hard on her bottom limp.

Remus swallowed.

'Where's Teddy?' he croaked.

'With… with mum…'

Remus looked away and Tonks's eyes filled again with tears.

'I-I'm s-so sorry!' she huffed in an agonised whisper. 'I sh-shouldn't have – You've done everything – everything! – to m-make up for it! And I d-do forgive you – I do!'

Remus looked pinched – every part of his face determinedly closed but for his eyes which stared, red-rimmed, over the back of the sofa.

'It's me!' Tonks cried, clutching at his arm. 'I-I feel guilty! I c-can't st-stop feeling that it's my fault! Teething – just being fussy – however normal people say that is – even mum says he's a difficulty baby! I-if I wasn't so careless – I f-fell! Apparated! N-nearly lost him! Th-that's on me! Y-you've been the better parent – you have! You're always th-there for us – n-now!'

Remus flinched at the last word. His throat bobbed and his eyes shut. Tonks shook her head hastily, but she didn't have more words. She buried her head in the covers over Remus's chest and just cried, clinging to his hand.

A pained grimace clenched Remus's face as he worked to free his other arm from the blankets. Tonks jumped to help him, then sobbed harder as Remus wrapped the arm, bare without bandages, too thin, and striped with raw skin, around her, holding her to him.

'No,' he croaked. 'No. You were right.'

'I wasn't!' Tonks wailed into the blankets. 'I was being a bitch!'

Remus's throat bobbed, then bobbed again. Hermione's eyes felt sandy, staring unblinking across the room at them. She pinched her own lips as a single tear ran down Remus's cheek. It seemed to her his complete lack of dignity, weak and crying silently on a sofa, was complete. The ropes stood visible in his neck as he raised his head to press a kiss to the top of Tonks's head.

'Edward,' said Poppy assuredly, 'is a perfectly healthy baby. Some babies are easy, some are not. You were lucky Nymphadora, but you did not harm him.'

Rather than reassure Tonks, she'd become hysterical. She was gagging and coughing as she cried. Remus worked his bandaged arm free and stroked her hair. But for Tonks's howling, the room sat still and silent.

Sirius pulled his top back on. He'd gotten his wand back from Poppy and stuck it securely through his belt. Sat on his armchair, he bent forwards and combed his hair out of his face with both hands, his elbows on his knees. His face clear, hair dampened with enough sweat and blood it stayed where he'd combed it, he leant on his elbows and watched his old friend.

'If what I haven't developed is a very complex poison,' he said gruffly after a long moment. 'Then next month will be easier.'

Tonks couldn't, but Remus did open his eyes and look over at Sirius.

'Wolfsbane Potion,' Sirius said. 'I hope. I've got an antidote figured out now just in case the potion tries to kill you… And no, Remus, shut up,' he went on seriously as Remus opened his mouth. 'I'm not doing this again. If the potion's no good then I'll find somewhere to buy it. Enough's enough. You won't keep surviving this, and I'm not sticking you back together every second month.'

Remus's mouth had shut. Tonks's cries had slowed. She raised her head and looked at Sirius, hiccoughing and huffing. Remus tipped his head in a single nod. His throat worked a few times before he cleared it and said quietly, 'Thank you, Sirius.'

Hermione unwound her hands from gripping painfully at each other and rubbed at the tears on her cheeks. Poppy went back to bandaging Remus up with the soothing poultice; checking with him that there wasn't anything they'd missed. Tonks tried to help, but Hermione and Sirius, who was just sitting leant forward on his knees, stayed where they were. Hermione had blood all down her front. She rubbed at a dried patch on her wrist that had started to itch.

She heard the footsteps on the stairs, speeding up near the bottom, and saw Harry, hair mussed from sleep but his eyes huge and staring, hurry into the sitting room. He looked around, then back at the bloodstain in the entry.

'What happened?' he asked wildly.

Hermione got up and took Harry's arm, leading him away.

'I'll tell you as we get breakfast,' she said softly. Enough people had seen Remus and Tonks in the states they were for one morning.

She took breakfast, complete with bars of chocolate, up to the group in the sitting room. Kreacher had heard the news the entryway was a mess. He, helped by Harry, worked to clean it up. Hermione left to get showered and changed, and returned to the ground floor in time to watch Sirius help Remus hobble out the door, the latter leaning heavily on the former. It was a pitiful sight. Hermione wasn't surprised to see Tonks's eyes filled, once more, with tears, as she helped get Remus through the doorway. The poor man had never looked older.

Sirius returned a couple hours later. Hermione thought she'd seen far too many wrecked bodies and far too much suffering. Seeing Sirius's listless grey eyes as they passed in the corridor, she was sure he'd seen far more than her. She stopped abruptly and caught his hand.

'You're okay?' she asked quietly. 'You can take care of anything else?'

Sirius turned slowly on the spot, his hand pulled out by Hermione's grip. He just stood there for a long moment, watching her.

'I can,' he answered.

Hermione gave his hand a squeeze and let go.

'I… can help you with the antidote?' she offered. 'If you want a hand…'

Sirius took a moment before nodding.

'That'd be good.' He glanced up the stairs. 'Just let me have a shower first.'

Hermione let him go. She'd seen the instructions for the Wolfsbane Potion, and she'd seen the potion he had corked and stored in enough flasks for several full moons to come. To her, it looked and smelled exactly how the book described it should. Hermione didn't envy Remus the beverages he'd have to drink in three weeks' time, but she was sure Sirius had made the potion correctly. He wasn't as sure, however, and so Hermione stood beside him for the rest of that day, mixing, brewing, chopping, and stirring.

Author's Note

A shortish one for today, but hopefully some satisfaction! I'll be posting up to chapter 37 by Boxing Day - this is my plan.