Disclaimer: I don't...*sob*...own them!
A/N: Part three, final chapter, a bit fluff ridden, but then, I like fluff...;) Enjoy and PLEASE Review, you know you want to!
Rating: PG-13 for mild, mild stuff including SLASH.
Summary: A week after, an owl's message, and the comfort of a bedside.
Follow Me: Chapter Three; What I Know Now
Remus had a pain in his side and thorns in his arms and legs as he finally reached the stretch of lawn outside Hagrid's hut and only a little off from the school's main entrance.
He held his side, squeezing the cramp until it left, and then running again, reaching the drive as the pain returned stronger than before. He ignored it, taking the steps up to Hogwarts in rapid succession and opened the doors as quickly as the heavy oak would yield themselves to him.
He found the hall empty and paused a moment before deciding to go straight to the Hospital Wing; likely he would find someone there, almost certainly Dumbledore and without question he would find...
Dashing up the marble staircase and the halls beyond it, up and up he went with the sound of his own footsteps and concerned thoughts his company, until reaching the hall wherein he and the others had so often went down to see James in the hospital wing after a nasty row with a Bludger, or Sirius after that old detention incident with Severus.
Inside the Hospital Wing four people stood conversing, quickly halting all speech as the doors flew open and Lupin stood in them, tousled and wild looking, eyes still wide and breath shallow.
"My dear Remus, I was not expecting you so promptly." Dumbledore spoke quietly; his voice and face mimicked each other in the grim decorum that they bore.
Beside him and to Remus' right stood Professor McGonagall, who said nothing but held a hanky to her face. Beside her was Severus Snape, whose face was dull and dark, and who almost-almost at the idea of Sirius being injured? Remus wondered briefly-was smiling.
Madame Pomfrey rounded off the gathering, she yelped as Lupin came through the doors in a rush and quickly went to shut them looking both concerned and disapproving, as he came all the way into the room.
"Professor...where is-how is-?" Remus managed.
"He is resting quietly at the time. He is over there." Dumbledore answered calmly, comfortingly, pointing past the bed curtains that were around one portion of the infirmary.
Remus looked over, paling slightly. "May I...go and see him?" Madame Pomfrey began to speak but Dumbledore carefully cut her off: "Of course you may, though I must tell you he is not currently conscious."
Remus nodded and gave them all a fleeting look as he went over toward the curtains, moving very slowly. It was to anyone who had seen all his actions that evening, almost amusing that how one moment before he was in such a hurry and now so reluctant and frightened to reach his goal. Afraid of what he might find behind those white curtains.
He reached out anyway, it could be no worse than after Azkaban, surely. He pulled aside the curtain. The metal rings at the top, which ran along the frame that held the curtain, made strange noises, of steel against steel.
Remus stepped inside the circle of the drapes and there, lying still and pale in bed, was Sirius.
He was thinner than even a week prior, and his hair was matted, mud coded the boots that sat beside the bed, and his face looked, though not gaunt, at least a mockery of the beauty Remus' so often found in Sirius. He was still beautiful, but so pale...and his breathing was short and sounded painful.
"Sirius...?" Remus questioned the unconscious man, reaching out to run gentle fingers along the line of a cut on Sirius' head.
Remus turned after some moments, unable to look upon him anymore, so hurt as he was. He went back outside, replaced the curtains carefully, almost delicately and returned to the others.
"What happened to him?"
"Severus found him, at a meeting of the remaining Death Eaters, he was in a back room-something they seemed to have made into a cell. As to how exactly they captured him in the first place, I fear Sirius himself may be the only one able to answer, though we may guess." Dumbledore spoke slowly and clearly, eyes sparking from beneath his glasses, "We have been discussing and come at length to the conclusion that he was taken shortly before the battle ended. He has none too small a lump on the back of his head, and perhaps that is indication as to the 'how' concerned in their capture of him. He was taken to an out camping by Bath, which is where Severus found him just before evening today, when he was summoned to a meeting."
McGonagall blew her nose and muttered something that sounded like, 'terrible, terrible'.
"Will he be alright?" Remus said, turning to Pomfrey.
"If he makes it until morning he will be alright. If he...well, he'll need someone watching him round the clock. We can't leave him alone. We'll have to go in shifts."
Remus nodded and found himself to be amongst several affirmative gestures. Even Severus gave one short, curt movement of his head.
"May I take the first watch?" Remus questioned Dumbledore quietly. His breathing was back in form but his slender frame ached from the outpouring of energy he'd given into. Not that it wasn't worth it.... To see his Sirius again, even so hurt, was worth anything.
"You may, I will have food sent up for you. You are off duty in...two hours time? And then, Severus, may you take the watch after?" Dumbledore said all this with great conviction, though kindly, as though none of it were questions and all statements.
Severus nodded again, "Of course, Headmaster." He spoke with some bitterness to his tone, and as if he was spitting something vile from his mouth and Remus thought he saw his lip curl just slightly.
"Very good. If you are in need of anything, Remus, call out. And do not fear, we will do everything in our power to make Sirius well again, Hogwarts holds him now, and he shall not be stolen from us." Dumbledore said, putting his hand on Remus' shoulder and looking him straight in his eyes, which were sparkling slightly, sincerely speaking the words of his.
"Thank you, Professor." Remus said in an exhale.
As the others left the room and Madame Pomfrey gave Remus strict instructions on what to do in case of this or that, on how he should get her immediately, she too left, and Remus was finally alone with his mate. Though, he could think of many times when he'd been quite alone with Sirius and had found it much more pleasurable than this one. At least he was with him again, at least that hollow throbbing in his chest felt a bit full again, at least his hands need no longer be empty to the world.
He walked slowly over to the bed, picking his steps, with determination in his stride. He smiled as he looked through the partly parted curtains.
Sirius lay with his mouth open, and face peaceful, his breathing seemed more deep, less troubled.
Remus took the chair beside the bed sat down, never moving his eyes from Sirius' face.
He couldn't believe it, and yet somehow knew it all along. There was something between the two of them, he'd always known. They both had. From the beginning it was as though, in the back of their minds when they had been 11 and first come to Hogwarts, they had always known they loved each other. And when they grew older, they spoke it, felt it, acted on it.
Remus was quiet for a while, watching his lover breath and finding nothing more peaceful or moving than that. He knew what he would say when he did speak, but for now he let the minutes go by just being next to Sirius, as if this were more than he could ever have hoped his life would bring.
"I knew. The same way I knew you hadn't been guilty. I knew you weren't dead." He said very softly, leaning forward to Sirius as he spoke.
Sirius' brow seemed minutely to change, furrow very briefly as if he were listening to something in the far distance. Straining to hear it.
Encouraged by even such a tiny action Remus continued. "But, I have to say you frightened me for a while there. Six days, Sirius. Six days never seemed to last so long." Remus spoke with the quiet sort of pain he sometimes did-that slight, almost-there tone in his voice was as much as Remus complained. Never with a harsh word, only sometimes with a sigh.
Sirius stirred slightly, his head moving from one side to the other as though struggling, before it settled again, and his brows eased out from the knot they had worked themselves into.
Remus, not bearing to see him in such a way without knowing how to help, reached out and took Sirius' hand in his. He held it gently, tenderly; it was cooler than his own but with it came all the familiar touches and feelings that were Sirius.
His hand grew warmer as Remus held it, his face flushed with a slight pink glow and the time went passed slowly, quickly, everything all at once.
Remus had noted prior that that sort of thing seemed to happen when he was with Sirius. Everything, all the feelings, all the emotions would happen right on top of the other. No one had been able to agitate Remus as much as Sirius, or move him as much, or love him quite like that and vice versa.
Sirius, even back in the days when they'd all still been at school, had always said that he found Remus' calm, non-effected attitude frustrating. "He's like a damn statue!" He stormed once, practically shouting at James, "Like he's stone, but...but...he's not! He's so warm he can't be stone! Grr! *How* does he do it, James?!" Sirius had said, flopping into a chair. James had smiled, knowingly and offered up an 'I've no idea.' Adding, 'Why not ask him?'
It was their fifth year that had yielded it.
The realization for them of four years of friendship, of a sort of funny knowing that had hovered, like a string, between the two of them. Tying them.
Everyone else, James, Peter, had known before. And when finally the two had admitted it to one another, Sirius had wanted to shout it from the highest tower in Hogwarts that he and Remus were...what they were.
But for Remus' sake he remained quiet about it. And now, Remus held more tightly onto his lover's hand, now he didn't know why he had wanted to keep it all quiet. It didn't seem to matter anymore if a handful of strangers from other houses had known. Now...he wanted them to know.
Remus didn't know for how long he had been lost in his thoughts and old memories. But as the clock began striking 1am, he knew it had been about an hour and a half. He had barely noticed when a tray of food from the kitchens floated up and settled itself, after some trouble openning the door, on the side table. But now his time was up, he realized as he heard familiar footsteps coming up the infirmary hall.
Severus Snape opened the door and entered, his sallow face shadowed and unpleasantly alert for so late an hour.
He came over and stood just beyond the parted curtains that surrounded Sirius and Remus. His eyes flicked from one to the other, from their clasped hands to the cold food tray and then back to the fair haired werewolf. "Your watch is up, you may go." Snape said without the least bit of kindness in his deep and bitter voice.
The air in the room was suddenly stagnant; and Remus struggled inwardly to breath it, it smelled of dungeons and of classrooms and of grudges.
He looked down at Sirius, staring long and deeply, his hand still holding the dark haired man's. "Severus...how did you find him?"
Snape crossed his arms about his chest, sneered slightly and said: "Perhaps you hadn't heard, but I believe Dumbledore explained that before."
"Yes. He explained a lot of it, but I was curious to know your own version. If you wouldn't mind too much?" Remus prodded kindly.
Snape looked as if he indeed would mind, but, with a long pause that stretched the minutes in the darkened room out until they might brake from it, he relented. "I was summoned to a meeting, as the Headmaster has already informed you." He spat, "I won't bother with details; I've been through this six times."
"There was a meeting, with the Death Eaters, alright, but where was Sirius in this?" Remus asked after Snape had taken to looking disgruntled and as though continuing was something he'd decided against.
"In the back room. He," Severus narrowed his eyes at the dark haired man lying in bed, "was unconscious, and tied. Otherwise he was...fine." He spoke with a pause that made Remus think Snape had never, and never had hoped to, refer to Sirius as fine, or anything other than a 'wretched dog'.
"How did you...get him out, Severus?"
Snape looked impatient. "The meeting ended and I came back to Hogwarts, I informed Dumbledore and he sent some people to take care of it. *I* was not sent, my position could not be risked. *I* did not get *him* out. I would have just assume let him stay there." Snape spoke coldly, calmly, but with a fire in his black gaze.
"But you didn't." Remus was speaking now, voice calm though in a different way than Snape's. "And I am grateful to you for it, Severus. You returned him to me, and I owe you my own life for that." Another pause came as Remus thought for a moment, Snape seemed to find it awkward and he looked the madder for it.
"I suppose...you and he are even finally? You and James?" Remus questioned, hopeful though with little warrant for it.
"*No*!" Snape snapped, almost growled.
One word, but Remus backed off. He knew it wasn't anything realistic to hope for-but then Remus had always been the dreamer, second only to Peter-but he had hoped anyway.
Truth was, he didn't know whether Severus had it in him to ever truly be even with James. To ever be able to forgive Sirius' foolish, idiotic even, childish prank.
Remus stiffened at the remembrance. He hated to know that, one way or another, *he* was the cause of the hate between these two men, he had been the prank.
"If you intend on sitting there all night, I'll leave you to it and not bother with the watch I was so pleasantly assigned." Snape said, eyes cold shards in his sallow face.
Remus nodded, "Perhaps...perhaps I should retire for a while." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The full moon was still a good two weeks away, but somehow it dragged on him tonight. Everything dragged on him, but it didn't affect him. Not in a way anyone else would notice: not in a way even sweet, observant Sirius had ever seen. But perhaps that was because things affected Remus differently, it seemed, than they affected others.
Snape's lip curled as Remus stood, he looked down at Sirius. "You will take good care of him...won't you, Severus." It wasn't really a question.
Lupin left the Hospital Wing and headed for his room, feet shuffling against the stone floor of his familiar old haunt.
Never a foolish man or wolf, Remus had known from the moment he stepped into the hall outside the infirmary that he would not be able to sleep that night.
So now he sat by the window in the tiny room Dumbledore had had prepared for him, sat and watched the night wear itself by.
It must have been 5 in the morning when a drowsy Remus was woken to full alert by hurrying footsteps outside his door. And then came the knock.
Faster than just any man could move, Remus was at the door, opening it onto Professor McGonagall's stern, tired, face. "He's awake and he's asking for you." She said, sounding as if Remus hadn't been the only one not to sleep last night.
Remus found himself in a swarm of activity when he reached the Hospital Wing once again, Dumbledore stood beside Snape, and Remus heard the 'tsk'ing' of Madame Pomfrey from behind the curtain wherein Sirius lay.
Remus nodded a pleasant good morning to everyone there but said nothing, not sure that he trusted his voice to work properly under such circumstances as these.
Madame Pomfrey emerged a moment later, and Remus rushed forward. "May I see him?" She looked wary, "Oh alright. He's been asking for you for the past half hour! I don't know how you stand him, Mr. Lupin; he can be a terribly bothersome man! He's supposed to be resting but I don't see how anyone could get any rest with him calling for you so much!" She said the last bit loudly enough for Sirius to hear.
Remus hurried through the curtains and smiled at the sudden relief; there he lay-*his* Sirius-with a black eye, a split lip, the remains of cuts Pomfrey had begun to heal, and the largest, lopsided grin Remus remembered him ever having.
"Where the...blazes have you been, Moony?!" He said, voice cracking from weariness, pain, or emotion, Remus didn't know.
"I could ask you the same thing..."
"Do you have any...idea...what it was like to...wake up and have the first thing you see be *Snape*?" Sirius sounded disgusted.
Remus, with a tiny laugh, couldn't help himself, and launched at Sirius, sliding down beside him, holding him, burying his face against Sirius' warm, tough, chest.
"Oh come on..." Sirius cooed, stroking his lover's hair, "You didn't really think I'd leave you, did you, Remus?"
Quietly, from the other side of the room Madame Pomfrey shut the curtains with a slight wave of her wand.
Remus sniffed, and pulled away enough to look up at Sirius. "No.... No, never. But you frightened m-"
"Shh..." Sirius put a finger against Remus' lips, playing with them briefly, parting them, getting the look in his eyes that told Remus' how much Sirius cared, "You already said that, I heard you...last night."
Sirius eyes were moist and deep as though they went on for miles, though now all of Remus' face was wet with what, that whole week, he had not been able to show.
He felt like a little boy, whose dog had run away only to come back when he got hungry. When he missed the little boy and the love that he gave so freely.
"Remus...my Remus. I won't go again, never go from you." Sirius said, burrying his face in Remus' light hair.
So much in those eyes. Those words. More than anyone could see but Remus, who so often had looked in those passionate eyes of his lover, his mate.
"I know. And...Sirius, *my Sirius*, if you do, I'll follow you."
A/N2: Ta da! It's not my favorite, I rather like it though. Anyway, please review; I'd greatly appreciate any feedback. Also, I was re-reading 'Hopeful? What me?', another chaptered story of mine, to get re-acquainted with it as I'm going to try and finish off chapter 6 soon. It's been a VERY long time between postings on that story, I know, but writer's block hit and then I get the itch to write about a thousand tons of S/R stuff. Sorry for the inconvenience.;( Right...so, I'm hoping that chapter will be up soon enough! Wish me luck;)
And for this story, remember to review! I didn't get reviews for the last chapter of this, which is a bit bumming because I want to know what ya'll think of it.;) So...please? Don't you miss the box they used to have for reviews? Oh well...;)
A/N: Part three, final chapter, a bit fluff ridden, but then, I like fluff...;) Enjoy and PLEASE Review, you know you want to!
Rating: PG-13 for mild, mild stuff including SLASH.
Summary: A week after, an owl's message, and the comfort of a bedside.
Follow Me: Chapter Three; What I Know Now
Remus had a pain in his side and thorns in his arms and legs as he finally reached the stretch of lawn outside Hagrid's hut and only a little off from the school's main entrance.
He held his side, squeezing the cramp until it left, and then running again, reaching the drive as the pain returned stronger than before. He ignored it, taking the steps up to Hogwarts in rapid succession and opened the doors as quickly as the heavy oak would yield themselves to him.
He found the hall empty and paused a moment before deciding to go straight to the Hospital Wing; likely he would find someone there, almost certainly Dumbledore and without question he would find...
Dashing up the marble staircase and the halls beyond it, up and up he went with the sound of his own footsteps and concerned thoughts his company, until reaching the hall wherein he and the others had so often went down to see James in the hospital wing after a nasty row with a Bludger, or Sirius after that old detention incident with Severus.
Inside the Hospital Wing four people stood conversing, quickly halting all speech as the doors flew open and Lupin stood in them, tousled and wild looking, eyes still wide and breath shallow.
"My dear Remus, I was not expecting you so promptly." Dumbledore spoke quietly; his voice and face mimicked each other in the grim decorum that they bore.
Beside him and to Remus' right stood Professor McGonagall, who said nothing but held a hanky to her face. Beside her was Severus Snape, whose face was dull and dark, and who almost-almost at the idea of Sirius being injured? Remus wondered briefly-was smiling.
Madame Pomfrey rounded off the gathering, she yelped as Lupin came through the doors in a rush and quickly went to shut them looking both concerned and disapproving, as he came all the way into the room.
"Professor...where is-how is-?" Remus managed.
"He is resting quietly at the time. He is over there." Dumbledore answered calmly, comfortingly, pointing past the bed curtains that were around one portion of the infirmary.
Remus looked over, paling slightly. "May I...go and see him?" Madame Pomfrey began to speak but Dumbledore carefully cut her off: "Of course you may, though I must tell you he is not currently conscious."
Remus nodded and gave them all a fleeting look as he went over toward the curtains, moving very slowly. It was to anyone who had seen all his actions that evening, almost amusing that how one moment before he was in such a hurry and now so reluctant and frightened to reach his goal. Afraid of what he might find behind those white curtains.
He reached out anyway, it could be no worse than after Azkaban, surely. He pulled aside the curtain. The metal rings at the top, which ran along the frame that held the curtain, made strange noises, of steel against steel.
Remus stepped inside the circle of the drapes and there, lying still and pale in bed, was Sirius.
He was thinner than even a week prior, and his hair was matted, mud coded the boots that sat beside the bed, and his face looked, though not gaunt, at least a mockery of the beauty Remus' so often found in Sirius. He was still beautiful, but so pale...and his breathing was short and sounded painful.
"Sirius...?" Remus questioned the unconscious man, reaching out to run gentle fingers along the line of a cut on Sirius' head.
Remus turned after some moments, unable to look upon him anymore, so hurt as he was. He went back outside, replaced the curtains carefully, almost delicately and returned to the others.
"What happened to him?"
"Severus found him, at a meeting of the remaining Death Eaters, he was in a back room-something they seemed to have made into a cell. As to how exactly they captured him in the first place, I fear Sirius himself may be the only one able to answer, though we may guess." Dumbledore spoke slowly and clearly, eyes sparking from beneath his glasses, "We have been discussing and come at length to the conclusion that he was taken shortly before the battle ended. He has none too small a lump on the back of his head, and perhaps that is indication as to the 'how' concerned in their capture of him. He was taken to an out camping by Bath, which is where Severus found him just before evening today, when he was summoned to a meeting."
McGonagall blew her nose and muttered something that sounded like, 'terrible, terrible'.
"Will he be alright?" Remus said, turning to Pomfrey.
"If he makes it until morning he will be alright. If he...well, he'll need someone watching him round the clock. We can't leave him alone. We'll have to go in shifts."
Remus nodded and found himself to be amongst several affirmative gestures. Even Severus gave one short, curt movement of his head.
"May I take the first watch?" Remus questioned Dumbledore quietly. His breathing was back in form but his slender frame ached from the outpouring of energy he'd given into. Not that it wasn't worth it.... To see his Sirius again, even so hurt, was worth anything.
"You may, I will have food sent up for you. You are off duty in...two hours time? And then, Severus, may you take the watch after?" Dumbledore said all this with great conviction, though kindly, as though none of it were questions and all statements.
Severus nodded again, "Of course, Headmaster." He spoke with some bitterness to his tone, and as if he was spitting something vile from his mouth and Remus thought he saw his lip curl just slightly.
"Very good. If you are in need of anything, Remus, call out. And do not fear, we will do everything in our power to make Sirius well again, Hogwarts holds him now, and he shall not be stolen from us." Dumbledore said, putting his hand on Remus' shoulder and looking him straight in his eyes, which were sparkling slightly, sincerely speaking the words of his.
"Thank you, Professor." Remus said in an exhale.
As the others left the room and Madame Pomfrey gave Remus strict instructions on what to do in case of this or that, on how he should get her immediately, she too left, and Remus was finally alone with his mate. Though, he could think of many times when he'd been quite alone with Sirius and had found it much more pleasurable than this one. At least he was with him again, at least that hollow throbbing in his chest felt a bit full again, at least his hands need no longer be empty to the world.
He walked slowly over to the bed, picking his steps, with determination in his stride. He smiled as he looked through the partly parted curtains.
Sirius lay with his mouth open, and face peaceful, his breathing seemed more deep, less troubled.
Remus took the chair beside the bed sat down, never moving his eyes from Sirius' face.
He couldn't believe it, and yet somehow knew it all along. There was something between the two of them, he'd always known. They both had. From the beginning it was as though, in the back of their minds when they had been 11 and first come to Hogwarts, they had always known they loved each other. And when they grew older, they spoke it, felt it, acted on it.
Remus was quiet for a while, watching his lover breath and finding nothing more peaceful or moving than that. He knew what he would say when he did speak, but for now he let the minutes go by just being next to Sirius, as if this were more than he could ever have hoped his life would bring.
"I knew. The same way I knew you hadn't been guilty. I knew you weren't dead." He said very softly, leaning forward to Sirius as he spoke.
Sirius' brow seemed minutely to change, furrow very briefly as if he were listening to something in the far distance. Straining to hear it.
Encouraged by even such a tiny action Remus continued. "But, I have to say you frightened me for a while there. Six days, Sirius. Six days never seemed to last so long." Remus spoke with the quiet sort of pain he sometimes did-that slight, almost-there tone in his voice was as much as Remus complained. Never with a harsh word, only sometimes with a sigh.
Sirius stirred slightly, his head moving from one side to the other as though struggling, before it settled again, and his brows eased out from the knot they had worked themselves into.
Remus, not bearing to see him in such a way without knowing how to help, reached out and took Sirius' hand in his. He held it gently, tenderly; it was cooler than his own but with it came all the familiar touches and feelings that were Sirius.
His hand grew warmer as Remus held it, his face flushed with a slight pink glow and the time went passed slowly, quickly, everything all at once.
Remus had noted prior that that sort of thing seemed to happen when he was with Sirius. Everything, all the feelings, all the emotions would happen right on top of the other. No one had been able to agitate Remus as much as Sirius, or move him as much, or love him quite like that and vice versa.
Sirius, even back in the days when they'd all still been at school, had always said that he found Remus' calm, non-effected attitude frustrating. "He's like a damn statue!" He stormed once, practically shouting at James, "Like he's stone, but...but...he's not! He's so warm he can't be stone! Grr! *How* does he do it, James?!" Sirius had said, flopping into a chair. James had smiled, knowingly and offered up an 'I've no idea.' Adding, 'Why not ask him?'
It was their fifth year that had yielded it.
The realization for them of four years of friendship, of a sort of funny knowing that had hovered, like a string, between the two of them. Tying them.
Everyone else, James, Peter, had known before. And when finally the two had admitted it to one another, Sirius had wanted to shout it from the highest tower in Hogwarts that he and Remus were...what they were.
But for Remus' sake he remained quiet about it. And now, Remus held more tightly onto his lover's hand, now he didn't know why he had wanted to keep it all quiet. It didn't seem to matter anymore if a handful of strangers from other houses had known. Now...he wanted them to know.
Remus didn't know for how long he had been lost in his thoughts and old memories. But as the clock began striking 1am, he knew it had been about an hour and a half. He had barely noticed when a tray of food from the kitchens floated up and settled itself, after some trouble openning the door, on the side table. But now his time was up, he realized as he heard familiar footsteps coming up the infirmary hall.
Severus Snape opened the door and entered, his sallow face shadowed and unpleasantly alert for so late an hour.
He came over and stood just beyond the parted curtains that surrounded Sirius and Remus. His eyes flicked from one to the other, from their clasped hands to the cold food tray and then back to the fair haired werewolf. "Your watch is up, you may go." Snape said without the least bit of kindness in his deep and bitter voice.
The air in the room was suddenly stagnant; and Remus struggled inwardly to breath it, it smelled of dungeons and of classrooms and of grudges.
He looked down at Sirius, staring long and deeply, his hand still holding the dark haired man's. "Severus...how did you find him?"
Snape crossed his arms about his chest, sneered slightly and said: "Perhaps you hadn't heard, but I believe Dumbledore explained that before."
"Yes. He explained a lot of it, but I was curious to know your own version. If you wouldn't mind too much?" Remus prodded kindly.
Snape looked as if he indeed would mind, but, with a long pause that stretched the minutes in the darkened room out until they might brake from it, he relented. "I was summoned to a meeting, as the Headmaster has already informed you." He spat, "I won't bother with details; I've been through this six times."
"There was a meeting, with the Death Eaters, alright, but where was Sirius in this?" Remus asked after Snape had taken to looking disgruntled and as though continuing was something he'd decided against.
"In the back room. He," Severus narrowed his eyes at the dark haired man lying in bed, "was unconscious, and tied. Otherwise he was...fine." He spoke with a pause that made Remus think Snape had never, and never had hoped to, refer to Sirius as fine, or anything other than a 'wretched dog'.
"How did you...get him out, Severus?"
Snape looked impatient. "The meeting ended and I came back to Hogwarts, I informed Dumbledore and he sent some people to take care of it. *I* was not sent, my position could not be risked. *I* did not get *him* out. I would have just assume let him stay there." Snape spoke coldly, calmly, but with a fire in his black gaze.
"But you didn't." Remus was speaking now, voice calm though in a different way than Snape's. "And I am grateful to you for it, Severus. You returned him to me, and I owe you my own life for that." Another pause came as Remus thought for a moment, Snape seemed to find it awkward and he looked the madder for it.
"I suppose...you and he are even finally? You and James?" Remus questioned, hopeful though with little warrant for it.
"*No*!" Snape snapped, almost growled.
One word, but Remus backed off. He knew it wasn't anything realistic to hope for-but then Remus had always been the dreamer, second only to Peter-but he had hoped anyway.
Truth was, he didn't know whether Severus had it in him to ever truly be even with James. To ever be able to forgive Sirius' foolish, idiotic even, childish prank.
Remus stiffened at the remembrance. He hated to know that, one way or another, *he* was the cause of the hate between these two men, he had been the prank.
"If you intend on sitting there all night, I'll leave you to it and not bother with the watch I was so pleasantly assigned." Snape said, eyes cold shards in his sallow face.
Remus nodded, "Perhaps...perhaps I should retire for a while." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The full moon was still a good two weeks away, but somehow it dragged on him tonight. Everything dragged on him, but it didn't affect him. Not in a way anyone else would notice: not in a way even sweet, observant Sirius had ever seen. But perhaps that was because things affected Remus differently, it seemed, than they affected others.
Snape's lip curled as Remus stood, he looked down at Sirius. "You will take good care of him...won't you, Severus." It wasn't really a question.
Lupin left the Hospital Wing and headed for his room, feet shuffling against the stone floor of his familiar old haunt.
Never a foolish man or wolf, Remus had known from the moment he stepped into the hall outside the infirmary that he would not be able to sleep that night.
So now he sat by the window in the tiny room Dumbledore had had prepared for him, sat and watched the night wear itself by.
It must have been 5 in the morning when a drowsy Remus was woken to full alert by hurrying footsteps outside his door. And then came the knock.
Faster than just any man could move, Remus was at the door, opening it onto Professor McGonagall's stern, tired, face. "He's awake and he's asking for you." She said, sounding as if Remus hadn't been the only one not to sleep last night.
Remus found himself in a swarm of activity when he reached the Hospital Wing once again, Dumbledore stood beside Snape, and Remus heard the 'tsk'ing' of Madame Pomfrey from behind the curtain wherein Sirius lay.
Remus nodded a pleasant good morning to everyone there but said nothing, not sure that he trusted his voice to work properly under such circumstances as these.
Madame Pomfrey emerged a moment later, and Remus rushed forward. "May I see him?" She looked wary, "Oh alright. He's been asking for you for the past half hour! I don't know how you stand him, Mr. Lupin; he can be a terribly bothersome man! He's supposed to be resting but I don't see how anyone could get any rest with him calling for you so much!" She said the last bit loudly enough for Sirius to hear.
Remus hurried through the curtains and smiled at the sudden relief; there he lay-*his* Sirius-with a black eye, a split lip, the remains of cuts Pomfrey had begun to heal, and the largest, lopsided grin Remus remembered him ever having.
"Where the...blazes have you been, Moony?!" He said, voice cracking from weariness, pain, or emotion, Remus didn't know.
"I could ask you the same thing..."
"Do you have any...idea...what it was like to...wake up and have the first thing you see be *Snape*?" Sirius sounded disgusted.
Remus, with a tiny laugh, couldn't help himself, and launched at Sirius, sliding down beside him, holding him, burying his face against Sirius' warm, tough, chest.
"Oh come on..." Sirius cooed, stroking his lover's hair, "You didn't really think I'd leave you, did you, Remus?"
Quietly, from the other side of the room Madame Pomfrey shut the curtains with a slight wave of her wand.
Remus sniffed, and pulled away enough to look up at Sirius. "No.... No, never. But you frightened m-"
"Shh..." Sirius put a finger against Remus' lips, playing with them briefly, parting them, getting the look in his eyes that told Remus' how much Sirius cared, "You already said that, I heard you...last night."
Sirius eyes were moist and deep as though they went on for miles, though now all of Remus' face was wet with what, that whole week, he had not been able to show.
He felt like a little boy, whose dog had run away only to come back when he got hungry. When he missed the little boy and the love that he gave so freely.
"Remus...my Remus. I won't go again, never go from you." Sirius said, burrying his face in Remus' light hair.
So much in those eyes. Those words. More than anyone could see but Remus, who so often had looked in those passionate eyes of his lover, his mate.
"I know. And...Sirius, *my Sirius*, if you do, I'll follow you."
A/N2: Ta da! It's not my favorite, I rather like it though. Anyway, please review; I'd greatly appreciate any feedback. Also, I was re-reading 'Hopeful? What me?', another chaptered story of mine, to get re-acquainted with it as I'm going to try and finish off chapter 6 soon. It's been a VERY long time between postings on that story, I know, but writer's block hit and then I get the itch to write about a thousand tons of S/R stuff. Sorry for the inconvenience.;( Right...so, I'm hoping that chapter will be up soon enough! Wish me luck;)
And for this story, remember to review! I didn't get reviews for the last chapter of this, which is a bit bumming because I want to know what ya'll think of it.;) So...please? Don't you miss the box they used to have for reviews? Oh well...;)
