A/N: Man this took a while, and I'm very sorry. Life is always chaotic around Thanksgiving. Darryn was homeschooled like I am! Darryn never went to Hogwarts, and this is why the Shrieking Shack had to be built for Lupin, and not for Darryn. Scarhead101, I think I might've put the wrong content in chapter 9 before and neglected to give the A/N an overhaul. You'll hate me for this, but since you think it'll be a good tragedy, maybe you won't. So….

Chapter IX: The Time of Woe

Lia begged me to come to her house for Easter break, and I politely declined. I thought that, given that the full moon was the third day of break, one werewolf would be enough to deal with. I often wonder why I didn't go—I might have been able to keep Darryn out of her room if I had.

I woke up the morning after the full moon feeling rather sick like I always did. The others had gone down to breakfast, and I dressed and went down. I dropped onto the bench and nearly fell asleep, like I always did.

"Y'all right, Moony?" Sirius asked, yawning.

"No worse than usual," I mumbled.

"Lia sent this," James said, handing me a badly folded letter. The bad folding was odd—Lia had always loved origami, so her letters were always perfectly folded. My name looked cramped and spiky, too, like she had been writing with her eyes shut.

Puzzling over this, I opened it. The letter was all badly written and very terse. This is what it said:

Remus, I'm dying. Darryn attacked me last night. Hope for me, but don't come to see me. I don't want to make you go insane, because I would hate myself for all eternity. I love you. Lia.

I reread it, hoping against hope that my eyes were playing tricks on me. They weren't. Feeling dreamily slow I spun around on the bench and ran for the door.

"OY!" Sirius called. "Where're you going?"

"St. Mungos!" I called instinctively, feeling like I was going to break down sobbing, or puke, or do something wild. I heard Sirius shout something, but didn't hear what. When I got out the door I ran into something very tall. "Professor Dumbledore!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, it is I," he said, smiling, then frowning when he saw my face. "Where were you going so hastily?" he asked suspiciously. I mutely handed him the letter. "You were going to St. Mungo's." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, he was, sir," James said behind me. "Why, we don't know." I groaned. All the Marauders were there, and they were the last people I wanted to talk to right now.

Dumbledore, however, ignored them. "You were going," he said calmly, "even though Miss Hathaway explicitly told you not to." It still wasn't a question. I felt like I was getting in trouble for doing this—like I could've done something different.

"Yessir," I whispered through the lump in my throat.

I felt him dissecting me. "Very well. You may go." He handed me the letter. It weighed a little more than it had, and a galleon fell out onto the floor with a plink as I put it in my pocket. "Take the Knight Bus from Hogsmeade. You have my permission to use the secret passage." I heard Peter whisper behind me. "Go, if you won't think better of it."

"Thank you, professor," I whispered, then ran.

I had my wand out before I had even crossed the threshold of Honeyduke's. The Knight bus zoomed in seconds later, and the usher jumped out.

"Hello, I'm Sean O'Leary—"

"Whatever!" I interrupted. "This is an emergency!" I dropped the galleon into his box and was on before he was. He mutely gave me the receipt and some change. "Keep the change. Use it to tell me how to get into St. Mungo's."

"Y' go up t' th' ugly dummy in green," he said, sounding a bit scared of the amount of money I had just given him, "tell 'er wot yer after an' stip theroo th' window."

"Thanks," I shouted over the creaking of the bus as it careened around the statue in Piccadilly Squareand seconds later it had stopped on a street of department stores in the vicinity of Harrods. I jumped off and ran to the dummy in green. She really was ugly.

"I need to see Lia Hathaway," I said very quickly. She beckoned me in and I "stipped theroo th' window."

I emerged in a large room lit by bubbles full of candles. The room was full of people. A pair of little girls had green spots all over, an Asian witch sat perfectly still and stared at the wall with glassy eyes, and a man near me had a rooster's head. A witch in blue sat at a desk and was apparently doing her best to contain the chaos of the waiting room. I got in the line behind an athletic-looking man with a large carrot stuck up his nose. (A/N: This last guy is an homage to my grampa. Whenever we play Balderdash, he always has something to say about carrots up people's noses, and he's a triathlete. Just an aside.)

"Spell damage, fourth floor," the Welcome Witch told him, giggling. He laughed and went up the stairs. "Sir?" she asked me.

"I-I'm here to see Lia Hathaway."

She looked down a long list in front of her. "Room seventeen through that door," she said, pointing to a door on the right. She looked sharply at me as if she had just remembered something, then sighed. I went through the door, trembling.

I found room seventeen. I knocked, and a tall, thin healer with a lot of very white hair opened the door. "Who're you?" he demanded impatiently.

"Remus Lupin," I told him.

"Moony?" Lia said from within. Her voice was soft and weak, but definitely hers.

"Lia!" I called.

"Let him in, Healer Smethwyck," she said. "Mother, could you…."

"Of course." A short woman with brown hair came out. She looked almost exactly like Lia. She looked me over, then hugged me. "Oh, I'm so sorry. You are the world to her."

I went in.

Lia lay on the bed. She was white all over, except for four scars down her face. The same ones I had on mine. Her left hand was missing; so was her right leg below the knee. I took her hand, and the hand that wasn't there. I shook all over.

"I did tell you not to come, Remus," she whispered cynically.

"If you didn't want me to come, why did you send me the letter?"

"Y'see, that's the thing…I did want you to come. I sent the letter because I knew you'd come, but you'd know I didn't want you to."

"I don't get it," I said, smiling sadly.

She did something between a whimper and a laugh. "I don't either, but I don't know if I have time to explain."

I was horrified. "You do! You do!"

"I don't think so. Look at me. My hand's missing, my leg's missing, my back's broken, and these scars don't stop at my shirt." Her voice was weakening, but I told myself very firmly that it wasn't. "Remus, I'm dying. I lost more blood than they can put back without damaging my brain. I'm dying, Remus, and Mother knows it, and Smethwyck, and my brother…and you, even if you won't admit it."

"But you're not…" I said it with far less conviction than before.

"I wish. Do this for me: tell Darryn that I forgive him, since it wasn't entirely his fault anyway. And, Remus—" she paused, bit her tongue, and closed her eyes. "Don't follow me. I don't deserve it." She was going, and I could tell. I cried harder.

"Please…please don't go," I whispered. "You're all I have left."

"I love you…" And that was all.

It took a second or two to register. "No," I said, disbelieving. "No!"

Smethwyck came running when I shouted. He saw Lia and sighed. "Come on now, Mr. Lupin." He took my arm and tried to pull me away and I hit myself on the head with a bottle. I don't know what I was trying to accomplish even now, but I did manage to knock myself out.

I woke up in the Hogwarts hospital wing. At first I thought that it was the full moon and something had happened to me, but then I remembered. I lay there for a moment just letting that soak in—Lia was dead. Dead. Killed. I opened my eyes. The Marauders were all waiting for me and they looked a bit scared. I think they knew that Lia was dead, even though I knew nobody had told them.

"Hi," I grumbled. They all jumped. They hadn't been looking at me.

"Hi," they chorused.

"Dumbledore told us what was going on," Peter said.

"Is she…?" Sirius left it dangling.

"Yeah," I said after a moment. We were all perfectly silent for a minute.

Then Madam Davison came in. "How are you, Remus?" she asked.

"Fine," I said tonelessly.

She smiled sadly. "Oh, you poor boy. I could give you a Cheering Charm, if you like."

I felt at the moment like that would be cheating. "No, thanks. I just want to go back."

She looked at the small bruise I imagine was on my head. "All right, then."

Immediately upon my return I shut the curtains on my bed and studied, not stopping for anything. I think I was trying not to think about it. After dinner, James said through the curtains that Dumbledore had a message for me and was going to require me to eat, but I didn't listen, even when James' shouting was joined by Sirius and Peter's. I studied all night and kept going all morning. I fell asleep at noon, then studied all night again. And on it went. For four days I didn't eat, drink, or sleep voluntarily. I knew it was taking its toll on me, but I didn't stop.

On the fifth morning James quite forcibly took my notes away and grabbed my chin to force me to look at him. I tore myself weakly away and he put the Impediment Jinx on me.

"I hoped I wouldn't have to do it this way, Remus James Lupin," He said in his soft, dangerous voce, "but you're not giving me any choice. You're killing yourself, Remus."

"So what? At least I'll see them again," I rasped. I hadn't spoken in four days—it's amazing how hard it is to talk after that long, particularly without drinking in between.

There were tears in James' eyes. "You didn't mean that."

"So what if I did?" But I couldn't look at him anymore. I knew he was right. They weren't worth it.

"They weren't the only people who cared about you, Moony."

The jinx wore off, and I got out of my half-lunge. James hugged me, and I hugged him back. I wanted to cry, but I didn't have the water required to do it.

James saw and conjured me a glass of water. "Drink it. You sound horrible." I drank it and fell right to sleep.

A/N: I'm very sorry. Remus hates me very badly, now—it's the third time I've made him go through this. This is the second to last chapter in this Fanfic. I might take out the "the" in the title of this one and make the sequel "Hear Me Cry." How would that be? If nobody tells, I'm doing that, so if you don't like that, TELL!!