Chapter 5

Sirius awoke to a growling stomach and a dormitory shrouded in the odd half-light of dusk. Sirius saw Remus' shirt on the floor near his four poster bed and slowly rose to wake him in time for dinner.

Pushing his hair away from his face, Sirius pulled back the curtains to Remus' bed and gasped.

Remus was lying on his stomach, profile stark against his pillow, and scars livid against the pale skin of his back.

Sirius hardly dared to breathe. He could only gape at the long, angular gash of raised skin that stretched from Remus' left shoulder blade to the small of his back.

Shocked, Sirius looked more closely and made out other scars, smaller and paler than the angry stripe of red that dominated Remus' back.

The words from James's last note came flooding to the forefront of Sirius' mind:

Pomfrey and McGonagall said that Remus has been in the infirmary, badly injured, and that he might not live to graduate from Hogwarts.

He and James had talked about it, in their own way, and both made the tacit agreement that they wouldn't assume anything—instead, they'd pursue the matter of Remus' disappearances with increased vigor.

Sirius couldn't believe he'd stumbled across such startling evidence of Remus' deteriorating health. He was sucking in unsteady breaths, willing himself to stay calm, don't panic, close the curtains, walk away, slowly, don't wake him, find James…

Sirius soundlessly slid the curtains shut, walked out of the dormitory, closed the door with a quiet snick, and in a burst of adrenaline sprinted off to find James.

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"Aaaah!" James yelled as Sirius hurtled towards him, a manic glint in his eyes.

"Aaaah!" Peter agreed, and took cover behind James as Sirius plowed into them, all three toppling like loud, awkwardly-shaped dominos.

"Groughnk!" Peter howled from underneath a pile flailing limbs.

"Get off, Sirius!" James yelled, rolling over in an effort to save Peter, whose muffled cries were growing increasingly desperate.

"James—James, you were right, oh god, I just—Remus, he's—and, oh god, I don't know what to do, James—James help!"

James pulled himself to his feet and stared down at the two incoherent bodies on the floor, one panic-stricken and the other very pink.

"Peter, you breathing all right?" asked James, worried that Peter's eyes were slightly crossed.

"I'm fine," Peter mumbled, shaking his head a little. He then looked up to goggle at Sirius, who had gone very still very suddenly. "What is wrong with him, James?"

"Hmm," James said, glancing around the common room to make sure no one was paying attention to the rowdy group of second years. Luckily it was crowded enough that no one took any notice, too busy packing their things away and finishing card games in anticipation of dinner.

"Sirius," James began gently, leaning down to determine if he had suffered some kind of severe head trauma. "Sirius, mate, can you hear me?"

Sirius snapped out of his frenzy, grey eyes focusing on James's spectacles.

"James, it's Remus."

James, still very troubled over the conversation he'd overheard last night, held out his hand and pulled Sirius to his feet. Peter quickly sorted himself out and rose as well, looking from one to the other with frank curiosity. "What about Remus?" he asked.

"C'mon," James said, and signaled for them to follow him to an unused table in the common room, which had been quickly emptying as students departed to the Great Hall.

Once seated, James and Peter looked at Sirius expectantly. Sirius conveyed in hushed tones what he'd just seen, and James and Peter went silent with shock.

"Well, we know what kind of injuries he has, then," said James after a moment's pause following Sirius' description. "Not what caused them, mind, but it's a start."

"Wait, do you mean you knew he was hurt?" asked Peter.

James related the conversation he'd overheard the night before and Peter grew solemn, his gaze drifting to the hearth.

They were all silent for a few minutes until Sirius slammed his fist on the table, hard, dragging James back to the present.

"We're all missing something, and it's obvious, I can feel that the answer's right in front of me," Sirius said. "I've got to figure this out, I have to find a way to help him!"

"If Madam Pomfrey can't heal him…" Peter began timidly, but stopped when he saw Sirius and James glaring at him.

"We just need to put the clues together," said James, logically. "It's just like in Arithmancy, all the numbers form an equation and the answer follows the pattern. We have to find the pattern."

"I—I suppose we could ask Pomfrey, or McGonagall," Peter suggested in a tiny voice.

"We can't," Sirius snapped, his nerves on edge. "James would get in trouble for eavesdropping, and they wouldn't tell us anything anyway."

"Oh. Right, then," said Peter, and leveled his gaze once more at the hearth.

"Well," said James, hesitating slightly, "I know this isn't right, strictly speaking, but as our friend's life seems to be at risk—" he looked away for a minute, then back at Sirius and Peter with the secretive air of one suggesting a morally ambiguous adventure, "We could nick his journal, and see if he's written anything down about it there."

"We can't," said Peter, not tearing his eyes away from the hearth.

"Since when have you been an authority on ethics?" asked Sirius angrily. "Look, normally I'd agree with you, but this is Remus, and if he won't tell us then how else can we save his—"

"No! I mean we can't, because he burned it." Sirius and James stared. Peter sighed. "The other morning I came down to the common room and Remus was here, and he burned his journal in that hearth," he said, pointing to the fireplace he'd been staring at.

"Damn!" snarled Sirius after a moment's pause. "If it wasn't for those stinking Slytherins Remus wouldn't have destroyed it, and we could have found more clues!"

To be continued…