In the Line of Fire
"Shoot him, Wormtail," Voldemort's voice hissed. "Shoot him now!"
Lupin's wand lay on the ground near his feet. His old school chum Peter Pettigrew stood before him, pistol in hand. It was a shaky hand at that. He closed his eyes and fired once.
Lupin staggered backward as the hot metal pierced his chest. He coughed up blood as he collapsed into the dirt. He looked in awe at his bloody hand before crumpling into a heap at Pettigrew's feet. He lay motionless moments later.
"Only 'cure' for a werewolf," smirked Voldemort, "is a silver bullet."
That said, Voldemort and Pettigrew turned to leave. As soon as their cloaks had passed into the inky darkness, Lupin rolled onto his knees. Blood continued to spill out of the wound. Groping around, he retrieved his wand and found the bit of "trash" and held it up to the moonlight. It was a port key. A shimmer later and Lupin had disappeared. Unfortunately it did not take him where he wanted to go. He found himself in a muggle street in the middle of the night. Clutching his chest, he struggled to his feet.
"Where am I," he wondered as he looked for something familiar.
He was near home, but he was not near enough. A man saw him struggling and ran up to help him. Seeing the blood, the muggle pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and called for an ambulance. Lupin was in no shape to protest; his breathing became even more labored. The man was muttering something about on his way home when he saw Lupin. Lupin was having an increasingly difficult time making sense of his situation. His head spun and spun. He felt himself beginning to pass out from the loss of blood. He had heard Voldemort say something about a silver bullet and could only hope that it had missed vital organs.
He faded in and out of consciousness as the muggles took him to one of their hospitals. His mind was less and less engaged in this whole affair as the muggles cut clothing off his body. He felt the slight sting of a needle in his left arm. Then he sensed another sting of a needle in his right arm. He could not understand anything the muggles were saying until one mentioned that he, Lupin, could be prepped for surgery in a matter of minutes. Lupin felt detached from the proceedings, even at the mention of surgery. He guessed that the muggles would cut out the bullet. He amused himself with the thought that they surely had never seen a silver bullet before. If he could just hold on to life and get to the other side of surgery, he knew that he would most likely survive this attempted murder. He could hardly explain to the muggles about his unique physiology, so he simply hoped that nothing would give it away before he could regain sufficient strength to disapparate away.
The fog of pain and blood loss gave way to blackness as anesthesia took hold of Lupin's conscious self. The wolf in him listened intently to what the muggles were doing. The human in him was powerless to do anything about what the muggles were up to. The bullet they told each other had shattered on his scapula and spread outward from there. Three fragments lay dangerously close to his heart. He heard them discussing with one another how many fragments the bullet was in. They mentioned at least half-a-dozen large chunks they would remove now. Lupin took note of which blood vessels were compromised. He wanted to smile when the first fragment came out and the muggles were abuzz about it not looking typical. It was the first time he had ever heard muggles express genuine concern for him. Formerly only family had cared. Part of him mused about if they only knew what he was perhaps their concern would have turned to revulsion. If they knew, they would surely let him die there in their surgery. The surgery was complete in a few hours.
It was mid-morning before Lupin was able to open his eyes even though his ears had been wide open since he was brought to the muggle hospital. He found himself in a large ward with five other men. He looked around for a window so that he could get a message to Harry or anyone. He needed to recover among his own people not among the muggles where he might be nothing more than a sitting duck. Then again, Voldemort would never think to look for him among muggles, or would he. If his mind would not decide, then his heart would. He needed to be among the Order of the Phoenix friends. All he needed was his wand, an owl, and an open window. He needed Madam Pomfrey's potions to get back on his feet and back into the fight. However, none of the above appeared at hand. Perhaps in a few hours he'd be able to disapparate from here.
Sitting up made him frightfully dizzy. He held his eyes tightly shut and clung to the bed's railing. When the spinning ceased, he opened his eyes and looked around again. He drew in a breath before finding his way to the floor without falling or making too much noise. The man in the bed next to him directed his attention to the bed's buttons.
Lupin responded, "I don't want to move the bed; I want out of it."
The man buzzed for the nurse. It was the opposite of Lupin's desires. The nurse was going to ask him all kinds of questions for which he had no good muggle answers. The nurse and the other man had a discussion over the intercom and a nurse's aide appeared with a bedpan for Lupin.
"What on earth is that?" Lupin queried.
The aide looked at him blankly, "A bedpan…" She shut the privacy curtains around them.
She began to rearrange the covers so that it could be slipped under Lupin. To do so, she pressed the handle that lowered the railing.
Uncovered for a moment, Lupin pointed, "What's that?" with some trepidation in his voice.
"A catheter, sir," was the terse reply. "When you're finished with this, press this bell and I'll come back and clean you up."
The curtains sailed shut around him. He was alone. Though his chest felt as if it were still on fire, he undid the railing and slipped off the bedpan and onto the floor. In doing so, he found the catheter tube tangled. Jerking around to look in the table by the bed made his head spin again. He did his best to contain the horrible feeling. He found his wand in the table drawer. He gave it a kiss and disapperated from the hospital. He reappeared in the drawing room at 12 Grimmauld Place. Harry turned quickly to see Lupin smile with recognition and relief and fall to the floor unconscious.
"Hermione!" shouted Harry. "Lupin is back and he's hurt!"
Hermione hurried to Harry's side. She saw the bandages that the muggles had applied. Some blood seeped through the cotton wraps. Only a hospital gown covered his body. He had left the catheter behind in the ward. Lupin clutched his wand tightly, so tightly that Harry had a hard time prying it loose. Hagrid came charging into the drawing room and swept up Lupin.
"Where shall we put him?" Hagrid needed to know.
"My bed," offered Harry. "Somebody needs to get Madam Pomfrey!"
Hagrid laid Lupin gently on Harry's bed that Hermione had turned down. Lupin wheezed and coughed.
"What happened?" they all wanted to know.
Lupin managed to get out, "Wormtail…shot…silver bullet…" before he lost consciousness again.
His head lolled from side to side as Lupin fought to awaken. Madam Pomfrey instructed Hermione on how to prepare several potions that were likely to be needed for the next week or so until Lupin was back on his feet. She marveled at the skill of the surgeon's who had removed the offending fragments from his chest. She noted that had the silver bullet remained, it could have doomed Lupin over time. Lupin wanted to tell them that a few bits remained. He had overheard the muggles saying that they wanted to get the big pieces out to save his life. The smaller ones could stay or come out at another time, if need be. His voice was but a whisper and his tongue remained illusively under its own command. He tried to speak but all that came out was a gurgle or two.
"Sh! Now, Professor," cautioned Madam Pomfrey. "You must conserve your strength. I've got to get back to the castle before I am missed. I'm leaving you in the expert care of Hermione. She will prepare the potions necessary." With that Madam Pomfrey was gone.
"The next 24 hours are critical," still rang in Harry's and Hermione's ears as they looked down upon their friend.
"Harry," began Hermione, "I will need you to put this poultice on his injury and keep it moist with it," she handed Harry a pan and sponge as she unwrapped the muggle bandages to expose the hole in his chest just up and to the left of his heart.
They both held in a gasp when the saw how close the bullet had come to ending another friend's life. Lupin winced with the first application of the poultice. He grunted the sharp pain. It stung like a million bees when applied to the wound. Hermione stroked his hair back with her hand.
"Just hang in there Professor Lupin. I'll make you a pain killer potion momentarily," with that she was off to the kitchen and cauldron.
"I'm sorry," Harry kept repeating as he applied the liquidy substance to the injury.
Each time it touched his skin, Lupin felt it burn and sting. He was not able to control his response to the agony at all well.
"It's okay Harry," he grunted out in between ragged breaths. "I know this will make me strong again. It's okay, really."
Hermione brought up a tankard of steaming potion, "Drink this. It will numb the pain, at least a little. I'll bring your Wolf bane potion later for tomorrow is the full moon."
Lupin looked pitifully up into her eyes as he sipped the first bit of the painkilling potion. He drank so slowly, stopping to draw a breath every few sips. At last the potion was consumed and he lay back down. It was hard to tell if Lupin's pallor was due to the moon phase or the gunshot wound. He found his wand in his hand and fingered it slowly as Harry continued to administer the wound-healing poultice. Hermione returned with cool water to help keep Lupin's fever in check. Through the rest of the day and halfway through the night, Lupin tossed and thrashed in the bed. His fever spiked and his misery was nearly complete. The only redeeming part of this was the love he absorbed from Harry and Hermione. Even Crookshanks decided to lend a hand. He made his bed at the foot of the bed and occasionally would inch up to Lupin's hand. Lupin placed a hand over the cat and felt him purr. The purring comforted Lupin as Harry applied more medicine.
Around midnight, his thrashing ceased. His breathing returned to normal. He finally slept although he did occasionally shiver from the fever. Harry continued to apply the medicinal herbs that Hermione had made afresh every few hours. As the wound closed around the muggle stitches, Harry worked hard to stay awake for Lupin, one of his father's friends and now his mentor. Long ago, Lupin had become Harry's father figure in all but name only. With the loss of Sirius and then Dumbledore, Harry relied more and more on Remus Lupin for his adult guide. He did not want to lose him, too. Lupin had believed in him at a critical time in his training. He showed Harry magic that was powerful and beyond the norm for a student at Hogwarts. Harry was not about to let Lupin down, not now.
A few hours before the dawn, the fever broke. Lupin no longer shivered but broke out in a heavy sweat. Hermione kept wiping him down with cool water. The herbal potion for the injury had changed its composition yet again. Harry and Hermione watched as the wound closed at a rapid pace. Lupin's unique physiology made it possible for his body to sustain tremendous injuries without ending his life. Even so, that night would be an interesting one, to say the least. They were tending a wounded werewolf who was going to transform that night. None of them knew how that would affect his recovery.
Madam Pomfrey ordered a healthy breakfast for the Professor along with ongoing bed rest. Hermione made the Wolfsbane potion to help him keep his mind. Before the sun set, Lupin moved himself to the basement in case something went wrong. With the moonrise, the transformation began. One good thing Lupin considered was the transformation actually helped the healing along at an even more rapid rate. He curled himself into a comfortable ball to wait out the night. Every month, he thanked God for the discovery of the potion that made it possible for him to be himself instead of a monster.
By now, Voldemort knew that Lupin was still alive, somewhere. Wormtail would pay for yet another failure in a long string of them.