Lord of the Guys: The Eleventh Installment

"I thought the full moon wasn't for about two weeks," Peter mumbled, looking nervous.

"We've been on this island for two weeks," Lily muttered, biting agitatedly at a hangnail on her left hand. "Nearly. I've been keeping count."

"Well, at least we still have two days left," Peter said hopefully.

"This letter is dated two days ago," Snape scowled. "Either the owl got lost, or it inexplicably took it a little bit longer to fly out here, due to us being Not in Scotland but rather Somewhere Where the Sun Shines for More Than Forty-Five Minutes Each Day."

"What are we going to do?" Peter asked shrilly. He looked at James, who averted his eyes. "What are we going to do?"

"Calm down," Sirius growled from behind gritted teeth. "James, tell him." He, too, glanced at James, who was concentrating deeply on pouring the handful of white sand he was holding from one hand to the other. A waterfall of pale beads spilled through his fingers and onto his open palm.

James's main job in life, as far as the others were considered, was to be was the unofficial leader of the Marauders. It was an unquestionable, inalienable fact that Prongs ruled the roost. James held the four boys together like glue, like messy-haired, jovial, energetic glue with intolerably scrawled handwriting. In difficult situations Sirius could bluster ahead on his own easily enough, admittedly thinking up the most radical and implausible suggestions along the way. Remus was much better at being diplomatic; he soothed situations and helped the others see clearly. Peter might sway the final outcome of a tough decision, he was certainly persistent enough when pressing his points to make them take notice, but still. James made the final choices - he was the one they trusted to pull things off, to somehow fix things, to stick the broken pieces together and make things work again. None of them begrudged him this power, because the small print at the end of the 'Leader' contract often turned out to be much longer than the contract itself.

Unfortunately, neither Snape nor Lily had been informed of James's indisputable authority upon joining the group, and were suitably indignant at Dumbledore's decision.

"Why choose Potter, for Christ's sake?" Snape scowled. "Why is he in charge?"

"Who else?" blurted Peter, genuinely nonplussed.

"It's blatant favouritism, idiot," Snape retorted, through gritted teeth. "It has nothing to do with Potter's actual capability in the role."

"He saved your life once before," Peter said indignantly, eyeing Snape like a kicked poodle. He picked up some debris from the storm earlier and toyed with it. Snape paused momentarily, then shrugged, licking his dry lips before answering.

"I still think it's insanity to put all our lives in his hands. He's an incompetent git." Snape shot James a look that wasn't so much ugly as grotesquely deformed. Peter yanked a clump of earth out of the ground by some straggly shoots of grass, just as everyone began to talk again, beginning their sentences in loud, clamorous voices.

"But it's only–"

"He's just going to-"

"You must think–"

"I'm just confused as to why Dumbledore didn't choose me," Lily interrupted quietly. All the boys save James and Remus stopped mid-babble and turned to gawk unattractively at her. "I mean, for a start, his decision completely undermines the Prefect hierarchy… and as obviously Remus can't… well, it wouldn't be fair to let him… but I don't see why…"

James stopped palming the sand, and let it trickle gently into a miniature dune between his feet before speaking.

"You what?"

"I just think Dumbledore might've chosen someone with experience in these things, that's all."

"You don't think I'm capable enough to be put in charge?"

"I never said that," Lily replied quickly. James laughed mirthlessly, a short, croaky hiccup of a laugh, the kind of laugh an asthmatic frog might give if someone told it a 'Knock, knock' joke.

"That's what you implied, Lily."

There was a break for a few uncertain seconds, and then Sirius grabbed the damp parchment, smudging an already streaky word into oblivion with his thumb.

"Look," he said firmly, pointing to the relevant sentence, "Dumbledore says we should put Prongs in charge, so that's what we'll do, alright?" Snape made a face at the familiar nickname, one he loathed not least because he couldn't fathom its origin.

"With all due respect, i.e. none," Snape responded, "If the man who wants to put a lunatic like 'Prongs' in charge is the same man who's sent us nothing more sustaining than Muggle sweets the whole time we've been here, then I have serious qualms about his judgement."

"You should try the sherbet lemons, you know," Peter interjected kindly. "You don't feel as hungry once you've had a few."

"They're fucking balls of sugar!" Snape exploded.

"Look if you want, we can vote on who gets to take charge," Lily suggested, scratching a freckle on her cheek.

"Voting? Fat chance," Snape sneered. "None of these idiots are going to vote for me, thank you very much. They're bloody biased, anyway."

"So you really don't think I can take charge?" James said suddenly, dusting his hands off on his boxers in indignation and turning to look at Lily. "Why on earth d'you think that?"

"I don't think that!" Lily protested, flustered.

"I think you should pull your head out of your arse, Potter," Snape grimaced, snatching at the letter. It ripped squelchily, making a large tear a third of the way down its middle. The company stared at it dumbly.

"I think-" Peter began tentatively.

"Nobody cares what you think!" Sirius yelled, standing up and kicking a flurry of dust and gravelly sand into the air. "No-one really gives a fuck, especially not me. You know whatI think? I think we should hear what Remus thinks, since the whole bloody letter concerns him. Yeah? That is, if you lot can stop arguing for five seconds about who gets to boss everyone else around!"

There was an abashed silence.

"And I also think," Sirius continued at a slightly saner volume, one that would perhaps not prompt half-deaf Eskimos at the North Pole to wish he would keep his voice down, "that we should remember no matter how worse it is, bad it is I mean, for us, it's going to be so muchbloody worse for him."

"It's all right, Sirius," Remus said from below him.

"If you're quite done defending your boyfriend," Snape muttered.

"I fucking am," Sirius agreed, and sat down, cheeks flushed.

"It's all right," Remus said again slowly. "I just think – You know I wouldn't want to hurt any of you – especially not Lily. So if I have to be bound to a – a tree or something, then I'll do it, don't worry. Just as long as things aren't unnecessarily unpleasant for you lot."

"Oh, and being tied to a tree with ropes for a whole night isn't unnecessarily unpleasant at all," Sirius burst out sarcastically.

"It's the only option we have," Remus continued, with measured calm. "Tie me up, and then get far away from me as possible."

"Black, don't pout," Snape sneered, noticing at Sirius's maudlin expression. "Surely you're not thinking about endangering all our lives to keep a werewolf's comfort levels on the up."

"No, merely thinking how to murder you and make it look like an accident," Sirius said curtly. He looked at Remus gently. "Couldn't you really hurt yourself doing that rope thing? If the wolf is going to be flailing about, couldn't you… wrench something important out of its socket?"

"Don't go scaring him off doing it!" Peter squealed, nudging Sirius.

"You sure you want to do this, mate?" James enquired earnestly. "Because I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to do."

Remus looked at James, who gazed back from behind three millimetres of glass, brown eyes wide.

"I'm sure," he nodded, and saw the eyes crinkle up at the corners with relief. He almost felt the warm whoosh of air brush past his back as the group collectively exhaled.

"Now what?" Snape asked after a pregnant pause.

"Hold on," James said, taking off his glasses and polishing them on his chest. "Just give me a moment to think." He screwed his face up in concentration and swivelled to face the ocean, leaving the Remus and the four others to wait uncomfortably.

None of them said anything. The silence was almost tangible; Remus could have reached out and touched it – or perhaps throttled it – if he'd wanted to. He could feel them all glancing at him, either in pity or self-righteous disgust, but if he moved his head a fraction in their directions, their eyes would slide off him guiltily and land on the sand. James was doing his 'thinking' hum; a low, rhythmic 'nuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuh' sound made with his tongue. Sirius had often reflected that it sounded extraordinarily like an action hero's theme tune– and if only James had had better hair or superpowers, he could've been TurboTosser or perhaps SuperPrat. Snape was impatiently finger-drumming out what sounded like a frenetic rock ballad, his fingers thudding madly against the ground. Peter was mouth-breathing gusts of hot air everywhere as he uprooted the nearby vegetation, clumps of yellowed ferns in his hands. Every tiny sound Remus could hear reverberated like a huge gong, saying exactly what their lack of words didn't. WE'RE SCREWED.

"Right," James announced decisively, after what seemed like an hour. "This is the plan. We're going to split into groups of three: me, Remus, Snape and then Sirius, Peter and Lily. Right. Remus, Snape and I will look for a spot to tie Remus up while you three will find a place a good bit away which is as… werewolf-proof as possible. It's where we'll be going to spend the night once Remus is – well - tied up. Er. Don't forget to take a break and have something to eat –"

"Eat what?" Snape scoffed. "We going to go fishing again? More unripe fruit? Sherbet bloody lemons?"

"As I was saying, eat something after an hour or so. Then we'll move any stuff we saved from the old camp before it blew down–"

"A wet blazer and someone's filthy socks," sniffed Snape.

"AS I WAS SAYING, we'll get the stuff we saved, move it to the safe place, come back to bind Remus, and then we'll go to the sanctuary and wait for sunrise and Dumbledore, for when he arrives –"

"To pick up the bodies," Snape finished. James glared daggers at him.

"Just do it, Snivellus, or –" Lily winced at the nickname, and James drew himself short. He took a deep breath, and with the self-restraint usually only exercised by Jain monks, said, "Snape, please. We have to co-operate." He was rewarded for this maturity by a quick smile from Lily, making him tug at his hair in embarrassment.

"Hey, you know what this means?" Peter piped up, as the six of them rose resignedly to their feet. "It's going to be our very last night on the Island."

"I doubt we'd have this much bother if it was Evans's time of the month," Snape joked dryly, as they surveyed the beach for suitable trees or rocks . Remus and James exchanged glances, because they both felt that their present ones just weren't incredulous enough.

"Perhaps you shouldn't talk," James suggested finally, as he shoved a tree trunk to see whether it would possibly hold a fully-grown wolf. "It might make people hate you less. You should look into it."

Remus felt slightly strange, picking out the spot where he was to be imprisoned for the night. It was like helping an executioner select the axe with which to chop off your head – 'No, not that one, nice handle but it's far too blunt and I don't like the colour' or 'Ooh, yes, I particularly like the paper-thin sides and the swishy sound when you swing it through the air'. Rather a lot of the trees they found seemed to have been damaged by the storm, and were too precariously near to falling themselves to be of any use.

"Lupin, are you even listening to me?" Snape asked irritably, as he kicked away some loose earth. "I was saying that if we can't find four separate points for each of your limbs, we could always just strap you to a tree and put an extra coil round your neck to stop you biting yourself free."

"OK," Remus said faintly. He looked around for an escape, lest he was expected to make constructive contributions to the conversation. He felt slightly nauseous already. "Er. James, what are you doing?" James looked up distractedly from behind the length of rope, the tail of which was trailing behind him.

"Practising my knots, of course," James said, smiling weakly. "We want you to be secure, don't we?"

For some reason, Snape was the one orchestrating Remus's bondage. Once they'd found a suitable tying spot, Snape had sort-of casually suggested that they 'just get it over with', and James had reluctantly agreed to tying Remus up before going back to join the others. It was quite obvious Snape had intended to do this from the beginning. What he'd actually meant by his 'better to be safe than sorry' spiel was, he didn't want any of the others - Lily or Sirius in particular, Remus suspected, Lily for her melodramatic girl-ness and Sirius for his temper – seeing Remus trussed up like a turkey and getting all emotional and/or violent. Remus also had the feeling that Snape thought he might chicken out and refuse to be bound if he had enough time to think about it. Remus wasn't about to chicken out, though – he already felt enough like a farmyard bird as it was.

"Take that shirt off first," Snape ordered with all the impassioned calm of a school matron. He pointed to Remus's shirt, which he'd donned again the instant it was passably dry. Remus reluctantly fumbled with the buttons and shrugged it off, then stood there, clutching each elbow tightly with the opposite hand. He looked down at himself self-consciously, and realised he had faint but distinct tan lines from the sun. Ones that ended where his forearms did.

"And that too," Snape added, pointing at Remus's trousers, the owner of which looked flabbergasted. "It'll rip otherwise, you moron."

"I know," Remus snapped in annoyance tinged with fear, lowering his hands. It looked as if he'd dipped his arms up to the elbow in runny honey, whereas the rest of him was as pale as parchment. "I have done this before." Remus paused again, his fingers frozen on the metal zip. "Are you going to watch?"

"I'm going to have to tie you up once James gets back with the ropes," Snape sighed in a long-suffering manner. "You're wasting time, Lupin. You can keep your boxers on."

"I should hope so," James said in an admirable attempt at cheerfulness, returning absolutely laden with thin, yellowed ropes. "These cords seem to be in good condition, so it should be fairly easy to – you know, Remus, that's the nakedest I've seen you in ages. Bloody amazing."

"I'm just wondering what position we should put him in," Snape stated coldly. He shook his head, and his greasy locks bounced off his shoulders. "Flat on his back, or on his knees... could always do it standing, I suppose."

"Well, surely we'll do whatever's most comfortable for Remus," James said slowly, as if Snape were thicker than the mud on the Quidditch pitches in November, which was infamously squelchy. He glanced at Remus, who was watching the two from a distance as they discussed him. "Nice knees you've got there, mate. Knobbly."

"Only if that's the position the werewolf will find it hardest to escape from," Snape said officiously, drawing James's attention back to the conversation. "He's not going to be himself for half the night – I hardly think the human's comfort is important."

"Well, I do," James smiled unpleasantly. "And I'm in charge, Snivellus."

"Careful Lily doesn't hear you calling me that," Snape taunted. James bit his lip, and made a face that suggested he was swallowing armadillo bile.

"Let's just get this over with, shall we?"

"What?" Sirius hissed at James, as Lily, Peter and Snape strode ahead of them through the undergrowth. "We're not going to go to Moony tonight?"

"We can't," James said, doggedly beating his way past a particularly clingy fern. He swatted at a mosquito hovering tantalisingly above his head and missed, whacking himself on the skull. "Owch."

"He's tied up – he'll need us to be there to distract him, Prongs."

"I have to take care of Lily," James said resolutely. "And in any case, those two can't know we're Animagi. Not even Dumbledore knows that."

"They wouldn't have to know… We can take turns to go to him and check –"

"No," James protested. "It wouldn't work. It's not safe. We're staying together, and that's final."

"I haven't even seen him since you sent us off to find the sanctuary. You and Snape just dragged us away, we didn't even say goodbyeto Moony."

"Don't be so melodramatic," James snapped, forgetting to keep his voice low. "It's not goodbye-forever. It's goodbye-for-a-short-while-old-chum. He'll probably sleep right through it, he's taken the potion."

"Why are you being such a tosser?" Sirius questioned angrily. "He's supposed to be your friend."

"Well, he's your boyfriend." James said irritably. "So obviously I can't really care that Moony's alone out there, strapped to a tree." Sirius looked nonplussed.

"Erm, what? How did we get onto this?"

"I clearly don't love Moony as much as you do, because as the two of you are shagging now, it means you've got this special bond."

"Is that what you're being such an arse about? You don't want to help Remus because we kissed? That's shit, Potter." James stopped in his tracks, and shoved Sirius fiercely, whispering in fury. The sounds of the others receded somewhat into the distance.

"Of course I care that Remus is alone out there, and of course I know what a shitty time he's probably having of it, and of course I'm worried about him being wrapped up like a bloody parcel tonight. But I am not going to leave Lily in danger, and I am not going to disobey Dumbledore, and I am not going to risk cocking this up, do you understand?"

Sirius stared at him.

"I'm sorry," he said humbly. James nodded, breathing heavily through his nose. "So. Are you really messed up by me and Remus?"

"The short answer's yes," James responded, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "It's just… I thought I knew everything about you. And now there's this whole new fucking side to you and it's all weird, mate. I know you're not different, but it feels like you are. And I want to be happy for you, I really do, but… but. You know you're my best friend, Sirius, you always will be."

"I understand," Sirius said. "I think." James grinned in grateful relief and adjusted his glasses awkwardly.

"I think we should hug or something now, mate, only I'm scared of turning you on."

Sirius grinned, and offered his hand. James took it awkwardly, then pulled him into a huge bear-hug, ending with a decidedly heterosexual punch on the arm. "Come on; let's catch up with the others."

"I'm not coming," Sirius replied. James's face fell.

"C'mon mate, don't do this… Dumbledore left me in charge."

"I want to come with you, I really do," Sirius said, backing away through the ferns, "but you've got to take care of the others, and I've got to go to Remus."

"James!" Lily's voice called through the trees. James's head whipped sideways in the direction it came from. "Are you and Black coming? We're nearly there." James looked at Sirius. Sirius looked back at James.

"You're my best friend, James. You always will be," Sirius choked, and disappeared into the trees. James stared after him blankly.

"Oh fucking Merlin, Remus!" Sirius exclaimed, aghast, pushing the shadowy hair out of his eyes as he neared the four trees. He repeated the name over and over again, as if drumming an incantation into his head for an exam. "Remus, Remus, Remus, Remus."

"Oh, hello," Remus smiled brightly from his seat on the ground, twisting his chafed wrist to make it less visible. He'd been wriggling his arm in his bonds, trying to gauge how much it would hurt when he transformed. The answer turned out to be: quite a lot. "Can't chat now, I'm afraid. I'm a bit tied up at the moment." Remus laughed briefly, then coughed. "It's rather breezy in the evenings without a shirt, don't you find? But shirts are so stuffy, and they don't do much for a tan. What I need is a tank top of some sort. Or a sweater-vest." Sirius stopped about a foot away from Remus, as if scared to come closer, and his lips were still moving in horror, silently mouthing his name. Remus faltered. "Christ, don't stare at me like that. What is it?"

"Sorry." Sirius recovered his composure, blinking. "Can you stand up – or anything?" Remus grinned conspiratorially.

"I tried a while ago – with quite intriguing effects. Can't really do much unless I'm crouched over, not with these things attached to my arms and legs." Remus demonstrated, and Sirius could see that he could only stand bent double with his knees crooked, as if he were carrying a staggeringly heavy sack on his shoulders. The slight ridges of spine jutted out in his back, and the knots were sickeningly tight, cutting savagely into his ankles and wrists. "I can now do a mean Hunchback of Notre Dame impression, though. I would show you, only the bloody potion's making me too sleepy to handle a French accent." Sirius was still staring at him, wearing that despondent, pitying expression, and Remus beamed wider to reassure him, pressing on with the one-sided conversation. "Would kill for a fag, though. You managed to rustle up booze on this island, think you could find us a smoke? Though I expect it'd be more of the marijuana variety, wouldn't it?"

"You look terrible," Sirius managed. Remus's smile slipped, as did his feet, and he fell awkwardly to the ground.

" I was hoping the spot wasn't all that noticeable," Remus puffed, once he'd righted himself back into his original 'arched back' pose. "Now, seriously. Sirius. Go back to the others, okay? You shouldn't be here. It's dangerous."

"You shouldn't smoke," Sirius said obstinately, kneeling beside him. "That's dangerous."

"I'll quit smoking if you leave right now," Remus said earnestly, staring hard into Sirius's grey eyes. "I'll throw away my packs and become one of those odd social smokers who bum cigarettes from everyone else."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Or I'll only smoke when I'm drunk, like you and Peter."

"No."

"I'll give up completely," Remus promised, elaborating. "If a crazed mugger put his wand to my head and told me that the only way to save my own life would be to finish his cigarette for him, I'd die a martyr. A martyr with clean, healthy lungs. But only as long as you leave straight away."

"Look, I won't."

Remus tucked his head into himself so that his chin touched his chest. His narrow shoulders shook, and he made a snuffling sound that sounded strangely like laughter. After a few seconds he straightened his neck again, dry-eyed but desperate.

"This is so bloody humiliating, Sirius. Bugger. I'm drugged to the gills and tied up like a particularly vicious cat on its way to be spayed, or something. D'you know how awful it is, not only that Evans knows, but that she's going to see me in the morning, afterwards? D'you know how awful it is for you to have seen me like this?"

"Like what, without a shirt?" Sirius asked. Remus stared at him in disbelief. "That was a joke," Sirius clarified lamely. "Ha. Funny."

"Oh," Remus said blankly. He smiled, and for the first time since Sirius had turned up, the smile reached his eyes. "Now I come to think of it, that is pretty mortifying in itself. I mean, everyone can see my chest. Not to mention my knees – and I'd rather we didn't mention them. James already did, he reminded me how knobbly they are."

"They're not kn… well. Um. You've… got a nice chest," Sirius offered generously. Remus eyed him beadily, giving a look that told Sirius full well he would have poked him in the ribs had he only the control of his hands.

"It's just a chest," Remus shook his head evenly, feeling warm mugginess settle on him. It was not unlike the palm-wine induced haze, but this seemed less dozy and more insistent. Like a barrage of intoxicatingly soft sleep-walls boxing him into a corner. "Nothing more… nothing less. Just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill abdominal-pectoral set."

Sirius put out a trembling hand and touched Remus's cheek gently. It was cool and soft, his fingers feeling impossibly hot and heavy in comparison. Sirius traced the angular line of Remus's clenched jaw with his little finger. Sirius's thumb came to rest on the boy's cheekbone, which was wet. There was a damp streak there, still glistening in the rays of the dying sun.

"Hey, Pads," Remus whispered hoarsely, certain he was about to say the single most horrendously embarrassing thing any teenage boy ever dared voice aloud, "I'm scared shitless. I'm scared the others will hate me for this… I'm scared the bloody ropes won't hold and I'll hurt someone. I remember when I was ten and my uncle told my mum the best way to deal with me was to tie me up. I broke my shoulder. I'm scared I'll hurt myself again. I'm scared."

"I am too," Sirius replied, in equally hushed tones. "But you'll be okay. It'll be okay, Moony."

"You're really not leaving, are you?" Remus asked in dazed amazement. Sirius shook his head. "You can stay with me 'til I fall… asleep then. Shouldn't be long – then you can go back to the others. I'll be fine." Remus tilted his neck to the side awkwardly, and it took a few seconds for his friend to work out exactly what it was he was doing.

"If you sleep like that, you'll get a crick in the neck when you wake up," Sirius eventually observed, nudging Remus's head upright.

"When I wake up, a crick… in the neck will be the very least of my worries," Remus said, trying to yawn but finding it took too much energy. "I can't exactly lie comfortably like this, though."

"I'll support you," Sirius said, scrambling sideways into a position where Remus could lean on his shoulder. "If you just lean your head… and kind of snuggle in… there. Better?"

"Better," Remus murmured, his light brown hair tickling Sirius's collarbone. "But the rope's drawn tight against your – aren't you uncomfortable?" Sirius shook his head slightly, so as not to be decapitated by the taut rope.

"It's fine."

"It's the waiting that's the worst," Remus mused, after a short while. "Waiting for the damn light to fade and the full moon to rise… I feel like a man on death row, killing time before his execution."

"Any last requests?" Sirius murmured, his lips pressed against Remus's scalp.

"A cigarette would be nice, if you're offering."

"Where's Sirius?" Peter asked, his face oddly sallow in the gloom of the cave. James closed his eyes briefly, seeking some respite from the situation, then opened them again. It wasn't a bad dream; he was still there, and worse, he couldn't throw a tantrum or make negative remarks or sulk. He was In Charge, and that meant Being Responsible.

"That doesn't matter now. We can't leave here until morning."

"I want to know where Sirius is too," Lily said, leaning against the wall. Her face looked frightened. James put out a hand and stroked her hair instinctively. She didn't flinch, merely shuddered into the touch and stared out at the black shadow-water spilling in from the gaping mouth of the cave.

"He's obviously with the werewolf," Snape said calmly. "At least his is the only life he's gambling, that way."

"Why did you let him go? Will he come back before the moon rises?" Peter asked shrilly. Icy water trickled down from a stalactite on the ceiling. The place stank of dead fish, the tiny bones of which crunched ominously underfoot. James sighed heavily.

"I don't know, Peter."

"So he's going to spend all night with Moony?"

"I said I didn't know, Peter."

"Were circumstances different," Snape's lazy voice drifted to them from the corner, "one could assume they would be quite pleased to get the beach to themselves. Romantic, you know."

"Is all you can do sneer and make snide comments?" Lily asked Snape pointedly, wiping slime from the cave's slick walls off her skirt. "Aren't you scared?"

"I'm not scared of any of them," Snape replied, his voice oddly hollow. It echoed softly. Scared. Scared. Them. Lily snorted, and then looked at James, who was staring fixedly at the cave entrance.

"You can go and get him, if you want," Lily said kindly. Peter made a small, involuntary noise, and Snape looked up from where he was stationed in the shadows. James continued to stare at the stone doorway, willing Sirius's head to poke through it. James would be obliged to throw a punch at said head when it did make an appearance, of course, but he still wished it would. More than anything.

"He knows where we are, if he wants to come back," James answered finally. "I'm not leaving you."

There was a brief silence again, before Snape made the sound of someone being very noisily sick.

Sirius smiled sadly at Remus, who was fast asleep. He actually looked… almost peaceful. The trail of the single tear had dried on his cheek, but his eyes were closed and there was something that might have been the smudge of a smile on his face. Edging himself out from underneath Remus's head, Sirius picked up one of his hands to examine the boy's bitten nails. It was becoming increasingly hard to see in the darkness, but something caught his eye.

Remus's wrist underneath the bindings was a raw, angry pink colour, due to Remus's earlier wriggling of his arm in the bonds. The delicate skin there had been broken, and tiny flecks of blood adorned the skin above the vein. Sirius squeezed Remus's hand painfully hard, feeling the gentle ridges of the chewed nails with his finger.

The moon was just beginning to rise over the water. Gently at first, then more and more urgently, Sirius began to tug at the ropes.

Poll#11

Just curious, where do most of your sympathies lie?

With James.
With Lily.
With Sirius.
With Peter.
With Remus.
With Snape.
With Dumbledore.
With the crabs.
None of the above.

Pick a word. It will influence the finale installment, but I won't tell you how. I'll be really surprised if anyone guesses WHAT the words could influence, because they are very tenuous links!

Hula.
Squidgy.
Poke.
Cracker.

Author's note: Thanks to everyone who's commenting - your reviews are all so amusing and nice. If you're reading this, drop me a line and tell me what you think? It's great to have such cool readers on as well as livejournal - you help me along with the polls hugely. --tacklehugs you all-- Also, rather touched that some of you read it even when it was underlined (have fixed, now). It was just my computer being a bit of a tosser.