Chapter Five: A Mother's Malady

Mina
After bidding her Hufflepuff friends farewell until tomorrow's festivities, Mina wearily climbed the ascending staircase to her own dormitory room, ignoring the playful banter from her fellow housemates as she did so. As she slowly put on her evening attire, her mind drifted to Remus and his puzzling behavior. What was the whole scene in the corridor about? She sighed, her mind too slow to think analytically. "Men!" she mumbled to her four poster bed, just before pulling the curtains closed. She was asleep soon after her head hit the pillow.

Remus
He sat there, irritable and despondent, not sure which emotion was to take precedence as each one rolled into him like a wave in equal increments. Why was this so hard? he asked himself, knowing the question was rhetorical. Every time he saw her he constantly found himself trying to catch the breath she took away. Her fair, almost elfin like, complexion; her soft, gleaming, strawberry blonde hair; her deep cerulean eyes with those alluring, exotic lashes that could pierce his heart with the most generic of looks; the mere curvature of her figure, everything about her was perfect. The way she laughed that was pleasantly synonymous to a bubbling brook filled with loquacious wood nymphs; the way she unpretentiously tossed her hair; the way her brow furrowed ever so slightly over a tough Arithmancy problem; the way she would say something so cleverly witty just to put you out of your foul mood. Remus sighed in a dreamy manner; there was no doubt about it, Remus had fallen...and hard.

And maybe that was what scared him in this particular predicament. He had never felt this way and was growing increasingly nervous. Was this normal? Remus was struck by hollow laughter at his own question. He had never been normal during the whole course of his memorable life, being a werewolf was a sure indication of that. He ran his fingers through his hair in utter defeat, moaning at the floor. Suddenly, two hands were placed on his shoulders.

"You've got it bad mate." James whispered with a smile.

Sirius wiped a nonexistent tear out of his eye. "Our little Remus is all grown up!" Sirius cooed.

"Shut up you stupid great prat!" Remus said with a smile on his face as he threw his pillow at Sirius.

Sirius ducked and pretended to rub a wound on the back of his head all the while winking at Remus. "Oh Remus!" Sirius wailed jokingly, "now I'm really hurt!"

James grinned mischievously while at the same time showing the boys the pillow he wielded. "Oh no you don't!" Sirius yelled, right before he was hit in the face, and awarded a mouthful of feathers for his efforts at keeping the peace. Remus looked for another fluffy white weapon of destruction as James tried desperately to clip the side of Remus's head with his pillow.

"Armed and dangerous!" Sirius shouted behind them. Not too long after, both felt excruciating blows to the head and neck region.

"SIRIUS YOU SODDING GIT!" Remus bellowed jovially while attempting to hit Sirius.

"Hit me with your best shot!" Sirius playfully dared, all the while trying to fend off James Potter's ever increasingly vicious attacks.

It was too difficult to declare a winner, so when the fight finally did end, each boy sunk down wearily onto his respective bed, while staring up at his respective canopy on top of his respective four poster bed, involved in his own train of thought. Remus had just closed his eyes, prepared to enjoy a nap before he went downstairs to tackle the massive amounts of homework all teachers love to bury their students in over any type of break, when he fell into a deeply disturbed slumber.


In his dream, Remus was attending an open casket funeral. He looked about himself, puzzled, for it was surely not his own funeral that the weeping mass of people attended. He was dressed in Muggle clothing and earning a few sympathetic glances; it was fairly obvious that the mourners attributed his bizarre fashion statement to a grief so deep that Remus was unable to think clearly enough to pick out sensible attire.

Remus brushed past them, looking for a familiar living face, eyes avoiding the coffin, and the corpse within, the whole time. He saw her there, standing next to the coffin listlessly listening to people that one could only assume were relations pay their respects. Her eyes were red and puffy, a sign that she was drinking constantly, crying constantly, or both. He managed to make his way to her, through the throng of disconsolate people, pushing them out of the way, frantic now to know what had happened and who was in the coffin. His voice was oddly strained and warped, the words that he had yelled at the top of his lungs came out to a barely audible, "Mina, what's going on?" Staring straight ahead with a zombie-like intensity, Mina remained unresponsive; so Remus took a deep breath, with the stale air poisoning his lungs, and leaned over to catch a glimpse of the person in the casket. Before the urge to vomit took utmost supremacy in Remus's mind and body, the woman he saw reminded him of Mina, and as seeing she was noticeably older than Mina, Remus came to the conclusion that he was staring into the face of Mina's beloved mother.


Remus woke up with Sirius and James on either side of his four poster bed, shaking him, both wearing the idential expressions of concern. It was almost like waking up from a bad hangover, and in some ways, he was. It took him several moment to realize that he had gotten himself and the bedsheets soaked in a cold sweat. "Like dementors they were, all dressed in black! Looming over me, watching, waiting, and...her mother! Oh, the poor girl's mother! Whatever am I to tell her?" Remus babbled on and on incoherently, all the while staring pleadingly into the eyes of his best friend's willing everything to be all right. So bizarre and completely out of character was Remus's behaviour, that there were several moments in which Sirius and James were frightened into seriously considering sending him to the hospital wing, reguardless of the hour of the night. After several more minutes of rambling nonsense later, Sirius and James were able to calm Remus enough to convince him to sleep; fortunately the sleep-deprived Remus, who was reduced to a shaking, fearful child by what was clearly a horrendous nightmare, was in a somewhat fitful slumber moments later.

Mina
She awoke before dawn from a very restless sleep, what with Remus and her mother constantly on her mind, Mina was lucky to get in the few hours she did every night. She decided she had best take another walk about the grounds to clear her mind, though the last walk had muddled her mind rather than clear it. She ruefully slipped on her cloak and made for the entrance hall, conscience of the singing suits of armour she left in her wake.

For once in her life, Mina didn't want to retrieve her mail, and took comfort in the saying, "No news is good news." She just wished for Aliante to fly around gallantly, protecting and defending her from other news-bearing owls. Mina smiled at this thought, and would've laughed had the situation not been so dire...She could decipher little from the hastily scrawled notes her father had sent, and what she could had not been pleasant in the least. Mina could only expect the news to get worse, and her father had told her as much. The doctors didn't know what her mum had, but they did know one thing she didn't have; time. What good are doctors, Mina had fumed, if they didn't know what was wrong with you and how to cure it?

She was feeling so many things at one time that she was suffering from an emotional breakdown. Madam Pomfrey had soothingly told her as much, after she had had to recieve a mandatory Calming Draught, for Madam Pomfrey had feared Mina was about to suffer from a full blown anxiety attack. Mina stared fixedly out at the lake, wishing, hoping, praying, and relying on a miracle she fervently hoped was coming.