It seemed like the two boys had not time together after the first full moon. It took Remus a full week to make up his homework, as they had a huge assignment for History of Magic due, and so Sirius left him to his work, content to watch from across the room.
James seemed to keep a much closer eye on them too, after being left out of both the full moon and the day after, and the new Peter boy followed him everywhere. Remus wanted him dead, but Sirius could put up with him, and so Remus made an effort as well. Potions was getting more complex too. They had begun talking about remedies for illnesses, and Sirius wished they could talk about werewolves a little more, but of course they didn't. The assignment was to make an actual cure for any of the diseases they had discussed, completely on their own and turn it in. That was a killer.
The next full moon was worse.
James still hadn't quite proven that Remus was a werewolf yet, but he tried to stay up with Sirius again and forced Peter too as well, which really, really annoyed both boys. Once again James fell asleep early completely incapable of any type of sleep control, making Sirius promise to wake him up before Remus got back to the dorm. He didn't keep the promise and Peter went to bed after he was sure James was fast asleep.
Sirius stayed up the entire night, only this time he entertained himself with several books about werewolves (healing, mating, transformations, etc.) and he was surprised at how captivating they were, as he had never been one to read excessively like Remus.
The only problem was that Remus never came back. He was pretty sure that the werewolf wouldn't be able to sneak away from the evil nurse to see him, as he had hoped, so he was going to borrow James' cloak, which caused him to become invisible. He threw the bundle over his shoulder and began making his way to the infirmary, where he assumed Remus was being held; only he didn't get quite that far.
Breakfast would be served in an hour, and many of the early-bird students were already up when Sirius opened the portrait hole, so it wasn't hard to start sneaking down the hall. He stopped, though, when he heard familiar voices.
"Just a little farther... We're almost there..."
He rushed to the railing of the nearest stairs, and looked down the many flights to find the nurse, whose voice he had heard a moment ago, helping a very hurt Remus up the stairs, and apparently towards the Gryffindor tower.
Sirius rushed down the stairs as fast as he could, and the nurse looked up with relief on her face.
"It's you! Please, come help me, I'm having a hard time supporting him," she requested. Acting quickly, he slipped his arms under Remus, actually picking him up off the ground, and began to carry him up the stairs, his worry and need of protection for the his friend taking over. The werewolf let out a little moan as he was moved, but made no other noises after that. Kindly, the nurse opened the portrait hole for them, and all the rest of the doors to the dorm room.
When they were there, Sirius laid Remus down on his bed that was a bit wrinkled from lack of sleep, and brushed the light hair off of his sweaty face. He turned to the nurse.
"What happened?" he demanded. Peter's head peaked out from under his curtains when he heard Sirius' raised voice. After he realized that there was a woman in the dorm room he squeaked and quickly shut them again.
"We tried some new pills on him, to see if they would help with the transformation. Its look he did a lot worse that usual, I suppose. I really did think they were working at the beginning, but when it came time for him to transform back, he began ripping things apart, and when I came back for him, he was like this," she motioned to the silent boy on the bed, forgetting that she was supposed to be keeping this a secret. She looked like a teenager again, although she must have been almost thirty, with the look of worry etched on her face similar to the one of Sirius'. Tears were welling up in her eyes. "When I tried to rush him to the infirmary, he refused and dodged my magic. He demanded to be brought here, to you specifically, and said he would spend the rest of the day in the Shrieking Shack if he wasn't." The tears were running down her cheeks now. Sirius turned to stare at the other boy.
"How do we help him?"
"I'll go get some supplies from the infirmary and come back here. Why don't you try to start cleaning his cuts?"
"Is there a potion to heal them back in the hospital wing?"
"I'm afraid there hasn't been any kind of werewolf healing medicine out on the market. That's why I was so desperate to try this new remedy tonight. Anything that I've tried to use either doesn't work or makes it worse." The nurse wiped her eyes.
"Alright then," he turned back to Remus, who remained motionless, and began stroking his head. The nurse turned and scurried out of the room to the hospital wing like nothing else mattered right now, which it didn't.
Sirius set to removing the tattered robes that Remus wore, and he ended up cutting most of them off with his wand because he didn't want to move his friend around too much. When he had removed most of the clothes, he ran to the bathroom and wetted a clean towel, dodging a third year on his way out. By the time he returned to the room, James was up, and Peter, from the commotion of what had happened earlier, and they were herding the rest of the boys who were not ready for class as far away from Remus as possible. For that Sirius was thankful.
He leaned over the boy again, the image of the last full moon coming to mind as he began cleaning the infinite scratches all over his partner's body. He tried not to rub too hard, but it was hard to clean the dirt and grime out without anything to help him. There was one cut bigger than the others across his chest, above where the claw marks were last time, and when Sirius ran his cloths across it Remus hissed and gasped a little for breath. Besides that he still didn't make any other movements or noises.
Sirius' bedspread was now stained from the blood, but he wasn't worried about that because surely the house elves would have it clean in no time. Plus, he was still more worried about Remus, and wondered why that nurse was taking so long. Sirius sat down on the bed next to his friend, and tried to clean off his face a little with a white part of the towel, waiting.
Finally she rushed in with an armful of bottles and rolls, almost tripping over the edge of the carpet. She dropped it all at the bottom of the bed, and picked up one green bottle, undoing the cap and dipping her fingers in.
"You should be in class by now, I think," she commented after she began applying the ointment to Remus' wounds. Sirius glared at her, still caressing the other boy's face.
"I'm not going today. I'm going to stay here and help Remus," he pouted back.
"That's a big risk you know. You could maybe even be expelled," warned the nurse, but she didn't have the feeling to back the threat up. She changed the subject.
"So, you know he's a werewolf then?" the lady handed the bottle to Sirius to hold while she massaged it in. He looked up at her in surprise. "He told me you had found out," she smiled, motioning towards Remus.
"Yeah..." Sirius blushed, staring down at the wolf.
"You have no idea how much it means to him to have a friend like you. He feels like his own parents don't even care for him like that. He won't stop talking about you. And James, whoever that is."
Sirius grunted in response. They were silent for a few minutes, while the nurse finished lathering up Remus' skin, until the before mentioned James poked his head in the room. He looked at Sirius, questioning what he was doing, and Sirius just gave him a blank look, not moving.
"He'll be okay," the nurse commented, following Sirius gaze, and noticing the boy at the door. "Thank you for getting those other boys out of here."
"No problem," he smiled, still confused. Sirius nodded to him, and so he just shut the door, leaving the two doctors to tend to their patient.
The nurse stood up and looked at her handy work, appearing a little pleased.
"You can handle this from here, I suppose?" Sirius nodded at her question. "Good."
"What should I do?" Sirius placed the soiled rag on his bedside dresser and held the bottle of medicine in both hands.
"Well, I will be back in an hour, but just let him rest mostly. We will need to put that stuff-"she indicated the bottle in Sirius' hands "-back on later. I just need you to make sure he doesn't start having fits, or even start lashing out at something," she shuddered.
"I can do that." Sirius yawned, fatigue taking him after the adrenaline stopped pumping through his veins. The nurse smiled.
"You just wanted to stay here so you would have an excuse to go back to sleep," she teased, before picking up the rest of the equipment she had brought with her. Sirius looked appalled, but she left before he could make a comment to defend himself. Once again, he turned back to his injured friend lying on his bed.
Remus' eyes slowly drew open, quickly focusing on Sirius hovering above him.
"Thank you," he said simply.
"It wasn't me!" Sirius tried to pass on the credit right away, but Remus was looking at him and he couldn't talk any more.
"You look tired."
"I stayed up all night waiting for you, dimwit!"
"You should get some rest."
"But you're in my bed."
"So?" Sirius was pretty sure that he knew what Remus was implying, but the nurse said she would be back in an hour, and he didn't really want her to walk in on something suspicious looking.
Remus began to wiggle over so that Sirius could lie down on the side of the bed, but the other boy could see how much pained that caused and stopped him.
"Alright, alright," Sirius grinned shyly, and climbed over the other boy. He stretched out on the small bed, and Remus promptly wrapped one arm around his waist. Sirius felt a bit awkward for a second, as Remus was only wearing his shorts, and now Sirius' own pajamas were covered in blood and slimy medicine, but he was asleep too fast to care for long.
Unlike the last infirmary experience, Remus fell asleep with him this time.
The nurse came back a few minutes later, to grab something out of the pile of pills, and it took her a minute to realize that the boy the werewolf always spoke of meant something more to him than just a friend. Smiling to herself, she resolved to talk to this boy, in a few days after he regained his energy, about two boys together and especially about werewolf mating habits. When she returned to the hospital wing, though, a replacement was waiting for her already.
