The wolf had been restless that night. Angry.
From sundown to sunrise, the stag's ears had picked up on disgruntled sounds in the distance. Other wolves howling. Predators. His heart had beaten franticly inside his chest. Everything in his body had told him to run and to hide. The only thing that kept him on track had been the wolf, his wolf, and the overwhelming certainty he needed to protect.
The big black dog at his side had appeared just as frightened, but had been twice as brave. On several occasions the wolf had escaped their control and tried to run towards the sounds. Each of those times, the dog had derailed it, his powerful jaw firmly clasped around the wolf's neck. They had fought all night. The smell of blood had filled the forest.
In the deer's head, there was a distant memory of feeling free. If such a time had ever existed, it was long gone. This deer only knew blood and fear.
James too, at sunrise, when he rose from the ground, panting after coming back to his own body. As if nothing else existed, he rushed to the other side of the Shrieking Shack, where a dark motionless form was laying.
"Sirius," he whispered and it sounded like a sob.
The black dog was just finishing his transformation and soon enough a wizard laid in his place. His face was so white and his blood so red.
"Sirius," James repeated because he didn't know how to say anything else, because he didn't know what else to do, his feeble hands unable to contain the red liquid pouring from his brother's wounds.
Had it been a second or a hundred he couldn't tell, everything was red, from his hands and his robes to the ground he knelt on.
"Peter, my wand!" he yelled finally, as words started coming back to him and his animal instinct died down. "PETER!"
The lack of response made him turn, a quick look above his shoulder. Peter was kneeling in front of something James couldn't quite make out. The only thing visible from where he stood was golden brown curls and blood. More blood.
Without a word, Peter tossed his own wand to James, who let it slip in between his fingers. The blood made everything slippery. His hands were shaking so much he struggled picking the wand up from the ground.
"Vulnera Sanentur," he said finally, and his trembling voice resonated in the silence of the room.
The gash in his friend's thigh slowly started to disappear as the spell operated, and the long cut on the back of his neck stopped bleeding. Sirius's hair was dripping with blood. James carefully pushed it away from the wound before it closed.
"Tergeo."
The wand siphoned off most of the blood on Sirius's face. His cheeks were slowly starting to regain some colour but he still looked incredibly pale.
As mindfully as he possibly could with his shaky hands, James patted down Sirius's chest, unsure of what to look for. Quickly enough, he felt a bump under the skin, right above the stomach. Broken rib.
"Sirius, wake up," he half-begged, half-sobbed, but his brother's eyes remained closed.
Sirius was paler than he had ever been, and if it was not for his slow, irregular breathing, James would have thought him lifeless. Angrily wiping the tears from his cheeks with his bloody palms, James cursed himself for having picked Advanced Transfiguration. He didn't know how to mend bones. Healing spells were taught in 7th year, in Advanced Charms.
He exhaled shakily. Remus took Advanced Charms. He had had a manual opened on his bedside table for weeks now, and he often read it out loud to calm Sirius after one of his nightmares. James tried to remember how his soothing voice echoed in the dorm late at night, when it was dark and they thought everyone to be asleep.
The Bandaging Charm is used for easing the pain as well as to bandage broken bones. Ferula is Latin for "rod" and refers to a genus of plants belonging to the carrot family.
I didn't know carrots had families.
Shut up and go back to sleep Sirius, I'm not gonna read this all night.
In spite of everything, James smiled and reaffirmed his grip on the wand. His hand wasn't so shaky any more.
"Ferula," he said, and bandages spun up Sirius's chest, tightly wrapping around his torso.
Almost immediately, his breathing returned to normal, and with a few fluttering of the eyelids, his grey eyes opened. Looking profusely confused, Sirius sat up in the puddle of his own blood while James abandoned all principles and collapsed in his arms.
"You scared the fuck out of me," he said, burying his face in his friend's neck to hide his tears.
"That's what friends are for," replied Sirius weakly. "How's Moony?"
"He's fine," Peter's voice rose from behind them. "But we need to go, Madam Pomfrey will be here any minute now."
In one swift movement, he threw the cloak over James and Sirius, transformed back into a rat to take as little space as possible and slid into James' pocket. They left the Shack slowly. Sirius was barely able to walk by himself and James supported him, one arm under his shoulder, the entire way.
"What was it?" said Sirius, panting from the effort. "That noise in the forest. It drove Moony mad."
"Other wolves," replied James shortly.
"Greyback? What would he be doing so close to Hogwarts?"
A particularly steep step drew a wince out of Sirius and they had to pause for a few seconds for him to catch his breath.
"I don't want to think about it," whispered James.
Never had he so desperately wanted to be wrong, but he knew those hunger-filled cries too well. They tugged at his heartstrings and filled his mind with fears he couldn't possibly ignore.
Werewolves had started to join You-know-who in masses, it was everywhere in the papers. What if they were here for Remus? What if they knew about the werewolf at Hogwarts and wanted, needed a new recruit? One that had access to the beds of hundreds of student? Most importantly, what would happen when Remus would refuse to join them?
James couldn't bring himself to think about it. He put that thought away, locked it up in a remote corner of his brain and promised himself to deal with it another day.
He had more pressing matter to attend.
"You need to go to the infirmary. Your rib is still broken."
Sirius groaned. The dark circles under his eyes were underlined by the absence of blood in his face. He looked incredibly tired and sick and James looked away. He couldn't bear to see his friend in pain.
"We can't," Sirius articulated with difficultly. "Unless you find a way to explain how I managed to break a rib and drain myself of my blood in my sleep, in which case by all means."
"Sirius," said James for what felt like the hundredth time since the sun had rose. "You can't go to class like this."
"I also can't tell anyone I was a dog in the Forbidden Forest last night, can I?"
James sighed. There was no reasoning with him.
"Fine. Come with us to the first class. Then I'll take you to the infirmary and we can just say you fell down the stairs on your way to Charms."
For a moment, Sirius looked like he was going to refuse, but another difficult step drew a wince out of him and he nodded.
It took them a while to reach their dorm and change into new robes. It was so hard for Sirius to move that James had to help him get dressed while Peter threw quills and manuals haphazardly in their school bags. They were already so late they couldn't afford to go down to the Hall and grab a quick breakfast.
James was so ravenous after an entire night of running around the forest, he worried for a second he might not make it through the morning. Then he took a look at Sirius and his hair drenched in sweat and the way he was holding his side, and suddenly he didn't feel so hungry any more.
They arrived in Potions twenty minutes late. Letting go of Sirius at the last possible second, James made the most dramatic entrance possible, so all eyes would be on him and so no one would see Sirius hobble to his table.
Mary laughed as James strutted confidently towards the desk he shared with Peter, and he clearly saw Lily repressing a smile next to her. Slughorn barely flinched at the arrival of the three boys, accepting James' grandiloquent apology with a wave of the hand. Only Snape, sat in the back corner of the room, looked livid.
James rocked on his chair and smiled in his direction. Exaggerated arrogance was the only way he knew to fight back the anxiety eating away at his lungs. From the corner of his eye, he could see Sirius's hand clutched on his chest, his knuckles turning white at every breath he took in.
"Fun night with your queer friends, Potter?" whispered Snape, and his cold voice carried all the way to James.
"Don't you wish you could have joined?" he answered with a wink, pretending the insinuation had not sent chills down his spine. Snape was perfectly aware that it had been a full moon and James' nails dug into his palms when he wondered about what else Snape knew.
They could be expelled. They could be sent to Azkaban if anyone learned they were unregistered Animagus. And how would they be able to protect Remus then? Who would take his hand at sundown, seconds before the wolf consumed him? Who would hold him at sunrise, when the night had been long and the wolf too strong?
They couldn't leave him. They would not. Whatever Snape thought he might know, they would have to deal with.
During the entire class, James did everything to draw the attention to him. Whether it was loud snarky comments or unnecessary questions he already knew the answers to, everything to keep his classmates and teacher from noticing the blood slowly dripping down Sirius's neck, forming a puddle under his chair. The wound had reopened and James could do nothing but watch from afar. Every second that went by was a punch to his stomach.
Why didn't he insist on taking Sirius to the infirmary right away? Why was he so selfish he couldn't get himself to get up and take him now? Did he really have to be so cowardly, so afraid of the consequences?
When the bell finally rang, James sprung out of his seat. Sirius was already getting up, and Peter offered him a helpful hand while James gathered all their stuff into their school bags. Pretending to tie his shoelace, he knelt to the ground to rapidly clean up the blood that had accumulated at the bottom of the chair.
"Go quickly, I'll catch up with you," he said to his friends.
Peter valiantly supported Sirius's weight as they stepped out of the classroom. By the time it took James to siphon the blood from under the desk and get up, the room had emptied completely. Only one student was left and it was not one James wanted to see.
"Not so fast, Potter," said Snape.
He had extended his arm across the doorway, blocking it completely. Too far to be of any help, James was forced to watch Sirius disappear up the stairs, limping miserably all the way.
"Move your arm," he said calmly. He didn't want to provoke an unnecessary argument which would take up too much of his time. He needed to know Remus was okay, and he had to help Sirius get to the infirmary. There was no way small Peter would be able to carry tall, lanky Sirius for so long.
"As soon as you explain this."
Snape hold up a crumpled piece of parchment on which James recognized his own handwriting. The letter of apology he written during his first detention had found its way to its recipient.
"This is an apology," James said simply, before trying to force his way through Snape's blockage.
Snape shoved him off violently, visibly annoyed at the answer.
"Let me go!" said James loudly. "I need to go!"
"An apology? Or some kind of elaborate way to mock me? Or see, that's what I would think if you were not too dense to come up with anything relatively intelligent. Who put you up to this, huh? Was it Lupin? He's the only one of your little group who's not lacking brains. Too bad he's an animal."
Incapable of controlling himself any longer, James jumped at Snape's throat. For a second, he forgot all about magic. He simply wanted to hurt him as much as possible, to make him bleed just as much as Sirius and Remus had bled. He got a few punches in before Snape shook off the surprise and replicated. Under a white skinny fist, blood filled James' mouth.
There was a loud bang and they were suddenly projected away from each other. James' back hit a nearby table and the pain shot up his spine, reverberating in each of his bones. Lily had her wand drawn and was standing in between the two of them. James noticed with satisfaction that Snape was on the floor and that his nose was bleeding.
"James, what the fuck?" Lily was looking at James as if he was a completely different person than the messy haired boy she had come to know.
James wiped the blood dripping from his split lip with his sleeve.
"Stay out of this, Evans."
"Don't tell me what to do."
Her tone was cold and her eyes ice. Despite the circumstances, despite the anger and fear spiralling into James' head, he couldn't help but notice she had come back for him. She hadn't seen him leave the classroom and she had been worried enough to come look for him.
"And you," she continued, turning to Snape. "Are you really so desperate for a fight that you'll find the absolute most innocent thing James has ever done and make it all about you and your compulsive need to be disliked? Are you really this insecure? James is working on being a better person, you should take a page out of his book sometimes!"
Snape's expression was undecipherable, but one thing in his attitude was clear. He had never had to face Lily's wrath before. He lifted his chin defiantly.
"That's what he wants you to think!" he spat. "He's just trying to get in your pants like he always has!"
"No, he's not." Lily's voice was so different in that moment, so vulnerable and so quiet. Almost sad.
James barely took the time to register that change, before pulling out his wand and aiming it at Snape, who deviated his Stinging Hex at the last second. He replicated immediately and James dived down, seconds before the curse hit the shelf behind him and exploded a glass jar.
"JAMES!" called Lily, and her wand slashed through the air.
There was another loud bang and suddenly both James and Snape's wands escaped their fingers and flew directly to Lily's outstretched hand. James jumped to his feet, ignoring the pain. Snape was no longer blocking the way.
"Just let him waste his breath!" said Lily. She sounded distressed and no longer calm and composed like she had been, as she watched James run to the door of the classroom. "Why do you care so much?"
James came to a stop at the doorway and turned to her. Blood was running down his chin from his split lip but he couldn't be bothered to wipe it.
"Oh for fuck's sake, Lily, you know why!" he said, too loud and too angrily, but his blood was boiling and there was nothing else he could do.
"No, I don't!"
Silence settled in the deserted room. Even Snape, still on the ground, seemed to understand just how important the moment was, and made no movement, no sound.
James looked straight at Lily. She knew, she had to know. She had to know just how far he would go to defend her. She had to know he would do anything for her. She had to know just how much he loved her. In this moment, he didn't have to say anything, his eyes spoke for him.
James looked straight at Lily and her lips parted with surprise as she understood what he didn't say.
"Still?" Her voice was a whisper.
"Always," he said softly, before running out the door.