A short while later Lupin was sat at the kitchen table with Molly Weasley attending to his arm. Moody had listened to Lupin's side of the story and then disappeared somewhere but Sirius leant morosely against the wall, looking ready to tear Kreacher apart by the ears if he so much as poked his head in the kitchen, and watching Lupin anxiously.
Remus had flatly refused to be taken to see a medic, saying it wouldn't help anyway, and had been grudgingly obliged. He kept glancing at Tonks, who was still there too, insisting that she was not late for work.
"You'd better not be hanging around on my account, Tonks," said Lupin. She shrugged
"What if I am?" she said. "Which I'm not," she added. Lupin gave a chuckle which turned into a sharp gasp as Molly touched a particularly sore spot.
"I'll be fine," he assured her through gritted teeth. "It's not too big a cut, even if it is from silver."
"That's all very well for you to say," Mrs Weasley said. "If it would just stop bleeding for two seconds-"
"It is very well for me to say it, Molly," said Remus stiffly. "It's my arm. And it will stop, eventually." Mrs Weasley pursed her lips. Every time she managed to clean one area of blood, another was already scarlet again.
"Where is Kreacher?" Lupin asked, trying to steer the subject in another direction. He gave Sirius, who had suddenly stiffened, a sharp glance but his friend managed to keep his cool.
"Merlin knows," said Tonks. "He gave me such a fright last night when he screeched like that. I jumped a mile! Screaming blue murder, he was. I never knew he had it in him."
"Neither did I," said Lupin wryly. "He can be a vicious little creature can't he."
"Moody's not sure. Apparently Kreacher told him and Arthur that he had no idea it was you. He spoke to him again this morning and he said the same thing. But how could he not know! Everyone was told, weren't they?"
"It's no more than I expected," Remus said. "Remember, apart from Sirius, he doesn't owe any one of us his allegiance. Only Mrs Black's portrait and that doesn't count for much." He ate another piece of chocolate reflectively.
"It counts for nothing," Sirius clarified.
"Quite. Here Molly, let me help." Remus held down a pad of gauze while Mrs Weasley bound it firmly in place with a long white bandage. The blood soaked through to the surface but didn't appear to go any further.
"Thank you," Lupin said kindly and offered her some chocolate. Tonks giggled.
"That's your answer to everything, isn't it Remus. You must get through at least ten bars a day." Lupin smiled.
"It's a good remedy for many things," he said. "And it tastes wonderful! However I can't always eat it. The sugar nullifies the effect of the Wolfsbane so I have to be very careful as to when I have it." Mrs Weasley took a few squares and Remus offered the packet to Sirius and Tonks.
"You and your chocolate, Moony," sighed Sirius, allowing himself a slight smile. But he took some anyway. "You got that from Madam Pomfrey, didn't you?"
"Yes." Remus admitted. "I spent so much time in that ward I must know it inside out… You can have some if you go to work, Tonks. And stay there!" Lupin added, remembering Tonks' habit of Apparating to and from the Ministry whenever she felt like it. With a laugh she took the chocolate.
"Take it easy, Remus, alright?" she said, and BANG, she and the chocolate Apparated away.
"You do as she says," warned Mrs Weasley. "It's not so long since I had Charlie coming in every five minutes with some new scrape for me to handle and he wouldn't sit still for a minute!"
"Don't worry," said Remus, laughing with less than his usual energy. "I won't run away."
"Good." She smiled good-naturedly, then added a little more seriously, "It's really quite bad, isn't it?"
"For a cut of that size, yes," Remus replied. "I've survived far worse though. It's nearly pure silver, that knife, and I think Kreacher had just sharpened it too. I've been very lucky with silver so far. It's amazing how often you run across something when you're trying to avoid it and there've been some … umm…close calls. This one will leave a scar, I expect. It's deep enough." He gestured towards his bandaged hand.
"Why, do you have others?" Molly asked, hoping he would say no.
"About four or five larger ones." He rolled up his sleeve and showed her a faint silvery line that ran along his upper arm. "They never really heal properly. Just to use silver on a werewolf is a magic in itself. The worst one I have is from… from my days at Hogwarts." His face drew a little tighter, as did Sirius's. Mrs Weasley looked from one to the other, registering their pained expressions. Clearly there was a story here that wanted to come out. She waited to see which one would speak first. It was Remus.
"James, Peter, Sirius and I were supposed to be polishing up some old suits of armour and things for a detention. For petrifying Mrs Norris or something like that, wasn't it Sirius? Filch always had it in for us.
But us being the ridiculous young things that we were, we started playing around and tossing the knives and swords to each other to clean. I was beneath a balcony when Peter threw one of the knives at me. He swore afterwards that he called but I didn't hear him. It was unsheathed, or else the scabbard came off as it fell, and it cut straight down my shoulder blade. Pure silver; an ornamental dagger, and very old. It went deeper than any blade ever has and some of the silver must have stayed in my bloodstream somehow. I was sick for weeks, delirious and if it had been even slightly worse I could very easily have died. They tell me I nearly did. The others visited me every day but I hear Sirius nearly shook Peter's brains out." He glanced at Sirius, who nodded shortly.
"If any of us ever fell out, it was me and Peter," he explained to Mrs Weasley. "I didn't like the way he fawned over James all the time and played up to him; like a lapdog to it's master. I was right in the end though, wasn't I," he mused. "Always playing up to the powerful ones. Anyway, I was nearly frantic with worry, we all were, and I've never done well at hiding my emotions." He gave a grim smile. "I wanted to know how he could have been so stupid as to throw Remus unsheathed silver, of all things. Peter swore again and again that it was an accident and I believed him once I'd calmed down a bit. I wonder now whether he was already under Voldemort's thumb even then."
Lupin nodded dully. "I suppose we may find out very soon if things carry on as they are."
"It was awful, Moony." Sirius was still speaking, a far-away expression on his face, struck through with grief and half-forgotten fear. "You wouldn't move, you couldn't hear us. It was full moon a few days after. They had to lock off the whole Infirmary to keep the castle safe from you because they didn't dare move you but you didn't even struggle when you changed. You just transformed one way and then a few hours later you shifted back again. You never moved once. We thought you were… Well I did, anyway. James refused to believe you would. He kept saying it over and over, that you'd live, that you'd be okay. Lily couldn't talk any sense to him and I didn't even want to try. Peter didn't speak to us for days. He kept shaking his head and muttering over and over that it was all wrong, that he'd made a mistake, a dreadful mistake. We thought he meant hurting you. We all just sat round your bed all day and tried to talk to you but you never answered us. You couldn't hear us."
"No," Remus said in a hoarse whisper, staring at the table. "No, I heard you. I heard every word you said. I kept floating back and forth but all the time all I could hear was you and Peter and James. You said I'd be alright, didn't you. You kept telling me I would and I believed you. That's why I kept coming back." His fingers played absently with the chocolate, which began to slowly melt onto them, bruising his fingertips with brown. "I think you saved my life, the three of you."
