Moira's legs carried her to the Hospital Wing where several students were having small wounds tended, and McGonagall and Dumbledore were cheering and comforting the younger ones who weren't really injured, but just felt they wanted to be near someone they could trust. A few called out her name as she passed by them, including Harry, who was laid up in a white sheeted bed, but she continued walking as if she didn't hear.
"Professor O'Shaughnessy," Madame Pomfrey exclaimed. "It's about time you came. Come, let me take a look at those injuries. Professor?"
Moira walked continued walking, her eyes locked on the large screens at a quiet corner of the room which hid the bed where she knew Remus was lying.
"Professor?" Pomfrey reached out to take O'Shaughnessy's wrist, but was stopped by Dumbledore's light touch.
"Give her a few minutes, Poppy."
"Albus, Lupin needs to rest, and O'Shaughnessy has some nasty cuts-"
"Which can be taken care of in a few minutes." He shot Harry a conspirative wink. "Though, I do believe I just heard young Mr. Potter complaining of pains in his shoulder."
Harry, catching onto the hint, gripped his shoulder and moaned.
"He shouldn't," Pomfrey muttered, but went directly to his side to examine the well-healed joint.
But Moira neither saw nor heard any of this. Her long, thin fingers gripped the side of the screen, and she pulled it toward her just enough that she could slip around it. Her feet froze to the ground.
Remus lay very still in the bed before her. His body was bare from the waist up, but for the bandages around a forearm and wrist, and the heavy wrappings about his torso. His skin was pale, clammy to the touch, she realized. But it was his face which allowed dread to enter her heart. His cheeks held no color, certainly not against the drastic contrast of his deep brown hair splayed across the pillow beneath his head. The pallor, the dried perspiration, the eyes that remained shut, neither fluttering in dream, nor blinking in wakefulness- the appearance of death was about him. Only the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest gave her hope.
Gently, she gripped his hand, raising his fingers to her lips.
"I'm sorry, Remus," she whispered, holding the back of his hand against her cheek. "I'm so sorry." She waited, her eyes never blinking as she watched his face carefully, looking for the slightest movement in his eyes. None came. It was as if he did not even know she was there.
What had she expected? A fairy tale? Did she expect him to awaken when she came to him? Remus had been right. There is no such thing as a fairy tale.
Moira was not aware how long she had sat beside Remus until she felt Dumbledore's hand on her shoulder.
"Come, Moira. Poppy should see to your wounds."
"I don't want to leave him, Albus. I need to be here when he wakes up. I need him to know- I need him to know-." The words could not come. They were choked by her own fears that Remus would never hear them.
"That you love him? He knows Moira. He knows."
"How can you know that? How can you be sure?"
"He's fighting to stay alive. He wishes to come back to you. Don' t you know that?"
"But how can your really know, Albus?"
The old Headmaster sighed.
"I have seen enough men and women fight for their lives and enough go quietly to death to recognize it. Those who know they have someone here who loves them fight the hardest. Remus is fighting harder than any I have ever seen. He will come back to you."
Moira did not move.
"Come, Moira. When he wakes, let not the first thing he sees be the blood he drew on your face. He has too much pain already for that." As he led her away from the hospital bed, Dumbledore threw a furtive glance back at Remus and hoped deeply that his words of comfort held truth. Snape had told him much of what had happened to Remus during his captivity, and the old man silently prayed that none of the damage would be permanent.