Consequences

By Neurotica

Fourteen

At the far end of a cold, dark room was what looked to be a jail cell. Inside the cell was a pale-looking man in his late-thirties with long, black hair and a long, crooked nose. He wore dirty black robes that were torn in places. For the most part, the man seemed unharmed; he had a few bruises on his face, but was otherwise unmarked. He seemed to be waiting for something—or someone. No, something was a better description for what he was waiting for. For nearly two months, he'd been waiting for his fate to be decided. It wasn't like the Dark Lord to be merciful... If Severus Snape had never admitted to being afraid in his life, this was the moment he would admit it.

Chances were high that he would die soon. The Dark Lord did not forgive those who betrayed him, and Severus Snape had most definitely betrayed him. He'd saved the life of the Dark Lord's primary threat, Harry Potter. The boy had been poisoned and Snape had made the antidote to stop the poison from eating his insides. Snape had known he would regret helping Potter, and it seemed he was right. The only good thing to come out of this whole mess (if you could call it a good thing) was that the life debt owed to Potter's father was now repaid in full, and with some extra compensation.

The door to the room opened slowly, and Snape could make out the glow of bright scarlet eyes. "Hello, Severus," a sibilant voice said softly, a skeleton-like hand waving to light the candles around the room.

"My Lord," Snape muttered, going to his knees immediately. It would not help him to disrespect the Dark Lord now...

The Dark Lord approached the bars of Snape's cell, allowing his "faithful" Death Eater to kiss his robes. "Stand, Severus," he said lazily.

Snape stood, hoping his death wouldn't be long and drawn out—he just wanted to get this over with.

"You have disappointed me deeply," the Dark Lord said. "You have been among my most loyal of Death Eaters since your youth, and you've chosen now to betray my trust. Why is this?"

I've only one chance for survival. I must choose my words carefully, he thought, not as desperately as a man who knew he was preparing for certain death may. "I had no other options, my Lord. The Mudblood-lover Dumbledore would have known something was amiss if I refused to prepare the antidote."

"That is true," the Dark Lord said thoughtfully.

"I assure you, my Lord, that I did not save Potter for any other reasons than to keep my cover at Hogwarts," Snape continued. Perhaps he may get out of this after all...

"Then you deny any life debt between yourself and James Potter?"

"There was a life debt, my Lord, many years ago, but as I said, there was no other reason than my mission for you."

"I see." The Dark Lord remained silent for long moments, deciding Snape's fate. "I am not the type to give second chances, Severus, but you are much too useful to my cause to allow you to be disposed of."

"My Lord?" Snape inquired quietly.

"I will allow you to live this time. You will return to your post at Hogwarts and await further instruction." With a wave of his long, bony hand, the cell surrounding Snape disappeared. The prisoner did not move from his position—surely, it couldn't be that easy... "You are free to go," the Dark Lord said, gesturing to the door.

"Yes, my Lord," Snape murmured, falling to his knees once more. "Thank you, my Lord."

"Do not allow your loyalties to waver, Severus. Remember it was I who made you what you are."

"Of course, my Lord," Snape said, standing. The Dark Lord dismissed him silently, and he started out of the cold room when he was called back. He knew there was no way it could be this easy for him, and again, he was right.

"Crucio!"

Remus J. Lupin felt horrible.

Well, that wasn't entirely true; while he wasn't feeling his best at the moment, he'd felt much worse in the very recent past.

He was very stiff, and was sure his body would put up a fight if he attempted to move. Not that he wanted to move at the moment—wherever he'd found to rest was the best place he'd picked so far. He was comfortable, for a change. The surface was vaguely familiar, very soft... Maybe he'd finally died...

No, he was pretty sure that when a person died, they couldn't think—and he could.

He tried to open his eyes, but only succeeded in lifting one eyelid very slightly. From what he could see of his surroundings, it was quite dark. Painfully, he opened his eye further. He was in a dark room... Okay, that's one thing taken care of... But was this a friendly place? He supposed Death Eaters wouldn't be courteous enough to give him a soft bed, so it must be somewhere good.

He shifted his head a bit to the right and regretted it immediately. Apparently his head no longer moved in that direction. He ignored the sharp pain in his neck and studied the mass of black in his line of sight.

It looked like hair, very messy hair, at that. There were only two people he could think of with hair like that, but one had died many years ago, and the other couldn't possibly be where he was. He tried for long minutes to raise his right hand, to test the hair, to see if it was real. Maybe he was hallucinating again—he'd hallucinated a lot in the last few months.

His elbow wouldn't function correctly, but his wrist would. Very tentatively, he moved his arm forward on the soft mattress and laid his hand on the head of hair. It was real. Relief spread through him at the same time as a wave of panic. If this was who he thought it was, how the bloody hell had he gotten all the way out here?

"Harry," he tried to say. It instead came out as some strange, raspy sound he'd never heard come from his own mouth before. Whatever the sound was, it worked; Harry began to stir. Remus' hand was still on the boy's head when it rose. He winced in preparation for his hand to hit a hard surface before remembering he was in a soft bed.

He watched Harry sit up in the chair he was in and look around the room. The boy raised his arms above his heads to stretch and yawn before turning to Remus. Normally, Remus would have laughed at the look on Harry's face and the way the boy jumped, but his brain wouldn't cooperate.

"Remus?" Harry said disbelievingly.

"Hey," Remus breathed.

Harry emitted a short laugh. "SIRIUS!" he yelled. "Sirius, get out here! It's Remus!"

There was a loud crash somewhere on the other side of the room followed by a strangled curse. Remus tried to grin; he knew that voice...

Sirius burst through a curtain, his face a bit pale as he looked around wildly. A grin started to spread across his face as he approached the bed. "Moony," he said with obvious relief.

"'Lo, Padfoot," Remus said before coughing violently. Harry went to get him a goblet of water while Sirius helped him sit up.

"Don't try to talk, Remus," he muttered, sitting beside Remus on the bed. "Pomfrey says you've got some problems with your lungs, and you should save your breath."

Remus leaned his head on Sirius' shoulder, waiting for Harry to return. His breathing was quick and rasping once his coughing stopped, but it felt good to have someone familiar beside him, rubbing his back. Harry returned a short time later with a goblet of ice-cold water, and it was the best Remus had tasted in a long while. Sirius helped him take a few sips before making him lie down once again.

"You need to get your rest," Sirius said. "We can talk once you've gotten better, all right?"

Remus tried to nod before he passed out again.

Sirius stood from Remus' bed and conjured a chair to sit beside Harry. Madam Pomfrey had told him it might be a long while before Remus would wake, due to the injuries to his head and the rest of his body. The nurse had said that Remus was "completely exhausted in every sense of the word—physically, mentally, emotionally, and magically." He would need months to recover completely under the watchful (and protective) eye of a trained Healer. Sirius convinced her that Remus couldn't stay in the Hogwarts hospital wing for two or three months, and he didn't trust St. Mungo's to keep Remus safe. He told the nurse that he could take care of him. Two weeks, Pomfrey said, after Remus finally woke he would need to stay with her at the very least. This was to ensure there were no complications with the different potions he had to take.

The internal bleeding Remus had upon his arrival three days previous had taken a day to locate and stop. She'd told Sirius confidentially that Remus was lucky to have survived at all—the three full moons had done considerable damage to his body and the injuries he'd sustained between them did nothing to help.

"Sirius," Harry said quietly.

"Hmm?" Sirius grunted.

"Are you going to tell him about everything that's happened?"

"Eventually, yeah," Sirius muttered. "He'll want to know, and he can always tell when I'm hiding something from him, so I kinda have to. Won't do it until he's out of here, though; there's no telling what that kind of news could do to his state of mind."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "His state of mind? Do you think he's gone mental or something?"

Sirius chuckled. "Remus has always been a bit mental, Harry. But no, that's not what I meant. We don't know what he's been through these past months. A lot could have happened to him, you know, that could have affected his mind, and there's really no way to tell until he's right enough to tell us," he said quietly.

Harry nodded pensively. He opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to lose his nerve and snapped it shut again. After another hour of slightly tense silence, Harry quietly announced he needed to get back to his dorm—he still had some homework, and there was Quidditch practice tomorrow.

"Night, Harry," Sirius said, watching his godson leave. They still hadn't had a full conversation since Halloween—they'd been sticking to neutral subjects, like Remus. As much as Sirius hated the terms of silence he was on with Harry, he would not be the one to bring up their fight.

"Hey," said a voice.

Sirius looked up and smiled as Emmeline's face poked around the white curtain. "Hey, come on in. You just missed Harry," he said.

Emmeline moved around Remus bed and sat beside Sirius. "Have you two kissed and made up, yet?"

"No, not yet," Sirius said heavily. "He's talking to me, but only about Remus."

"That's something, right?" Emmeline asked. "How's the patient?"

"Alive," Sirius said warily. "That's about all we know right now. He woke up earlier, and he recognized Harry and me, so I guess that's a start, right?"

Harry walked into the fifth year boys' dorm feeling guilty. He'd been so close to apologizing to Sirius for what he'd said on Halloween, but hadn't been able to bring himself to ruin the mood his godfather was in after Remus' awakening.

He received a slight shock to find all four of the Weasleys sitting on or beside Ron's bed. Fred and George were on the floor, looking angrier than Harry had ever seen them, and Ginny looked ready to cry from her spot on Ron's bed; Ron, himself, didn't seem to know what to do.

"Er, hey, guys," Harry said, moving slowly to his bed. There were various noises to tell him his friends had acknowledged his presence, but nothing more. "What's going on?" he asked cautiously.

Ginny smiled bitterly. "Got a letter from Bill tonight," she said quietly. She picked up a piece of parchment and handed it across the bed to Harry. He took the letter and sat on his bed to read it.

Dear Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny,

I'd like you to read this all together if possible; you might take the news better...

Just after you left for Hogwarts, there was a break-in at Gringotts by a group of Death Eaters. A few goblins were killed, but no one else was harmed. The Prophet kept it quiet out of a favor for Minister Bones, which is why you're just now learning about this.

Percy was one of the Death Eaters on the scene. Sirius and Kingsley arrested him and questioned him, and he admitted to being a Death Eater, among other things. He was taken to Azkaban just before Halloween.

Mum and Dad have been quite miserable lately, as you can imagine, and haven't been able to bring themselves to tell you. Dad and I talked, and we decided you deserve to know what's happening to our family.

I'm sorry to break the news to you like this, but you need to know... And before Christmas.

There's one more thing you need to know about Percy, and this is something Dad didn't agree to my telling you. Again, you need to know this...

It's about what happened to Harry this summer. It was Percy who poisoned him—on You-Know-Who's orders, of course. Apparently, Sirius nearly killed Percy when he found out—Percy was lucky Charlie and I weren't there...

Speaking of Charlie...

Harry skipped the rest of the letter—all it did was try to make the Weasleys feel better. "It was Percy?" he whispered disbelievingly.

"Seems so," Fred muttered. "I kind of liked the idea of it being Kreacher who poisoned you. No offense meant, of course, Harry."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, none taken," he said distractedly. The five of them sat in silence for probably an hour before Seamus, Dean, and Neville entered the room for bed. Fred, George, and Ginny muttered half-hearted good nights—George took the letter, folded it, and placed it in his robes—and left the room.

Harry and Ron silently changed into their pajamas and climbed into their beds. "How's Remus?" Ron asked hoarsely.

"Woke up tonight for a bit," Harry said quietly, trying to hold back his excitement.

He saw Ron smile weakly before Neville blew out his candle. "That's great, mate," he said quietly.

Kingsley stumbled up the stairs of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place and into the library. He practically collapsed onto the sofa where Tonks just happened to be lounged out reading a magazine.

The witch raised an eyebrow. "Long day, darling?" she muttered, not looking away from her magazine.

Kingsley lifted his head from her stomach. "Since when do you call me 'darling'?"

Tonks chuckled and shrugged. "I dunno, just seemed like a good moment."

"Right," he said slowly. "Well, to answer your question: everyday is a long day when your at Azkaban, dear," he added with a smile.

Tonks winced in sympathy. "There's no one else you can get to go out there?"

"Not really. Sirius is practically living at Hogwarts these days, and even if he wasn't, I wouldn't want to be the one to suggest he go to Azkaban."

Tonks nodded. "Nor would I. But isn't it better since the dementors have gone?"

Kingsley sighed. "For someone who wasn't stuck in Azkaban for five years, yes. But for Sirius, just the very mention of the place puts that dark look in his eyes."

"Could you imagine what it'd be like to be a prisoner there?" Tonks asked with a shudder.

"Do you really want to find out what it's like?" Kingsley asked darkly.

"No," she said. "And I wouldn't dare ask Sirius."

"Smart girl," he muttered, his voice muffled in Tonks' shirt.

Tonks raised an eyebrow. "Who you calling a girl?"

Kingsley lifted his head again and grinned. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I thought that's what they called people with these soft feminine bits." He poked said bits to prove his point, winning a slap on his bald head.

They grinned at each other for a moment before Tonks asked, "Any update on Remus?"

"Dumbledore wrote about an hour ago and said he woke for about ten minutes, but passed out again," he replied. "I'm sure when we see Sirius again, we'll get a full report."

A lot of time had passed. There was really no way of telling how much, and he didn't really care to know. In fact, he didn't care about much. His brain worked, but he had no concept of memory. Hell, he had no concept of anything. He could physically feel things, of course, but pain was the most complicated thing he could comprehend.

His surroundings changed, he only recently realized. He wasn't sure what changed, though; everything was still dark and cold. They gave him food here, whoever they were, just like at the other place, but it tasted the same. Everything tasted the same to him. Sometimes he felt different, but he wasn't sure what the difference was. It was like a voice inside him switched on, telling him to do things. He did, of course; he couldn't do anything to fight it even if he had the desire to do so.

Every so often, flashes of things flew before his eyes. But before he could even grasp the fact he was seeing things, the flashes were gone, and he was back in the darkness. Something did come to him one night, and he was able to keep a hold of it. It was only a large silver ball surrounded by black, but whatever it was, he didn't mind it too much; that was much better than those two balls of light—red light—that he saw once in a while. He didn't like those lights, not one bit. They made his skin crawl, and he was forced to see them more often than he would like—he would prefer to see the silver ball again.

A door opened somewhere, and he vaguely heard a lazily muttered word before he was told to do things again. He would have to dwell on the white light another time.