Special thanks to xXMizz Alec VolturiXx and lilrilakkuma for their reviews on the last chapter, thank you so much for taking the time to comment!
Once the two figures had disappeared into the castle, the hum of voices picked up once again, slowly and quietly at first, then loud and chaotic enough to make Remus' head hurt. Jenny Marquette was the first of Messalina's friends to recover, looking first back at the Marauders, who all looked like they'd just been hit in the head with a bludger, before she took off running towards the castle.
A few of her Hufflepuff friends went after her as the group around the Marauders disintegrated into little clusters, everyone talking loudly amongst themselves. Remus had sat back down in the snow, his legs nearly numb from the long exposure to the freezing temperatures, and Peter stood a little ways away staring up at the castle. James was still a few feet in front of Sirius, both of them looking dumbstruck. James came out of his trance first, shaking his head rapidly.
"That was Lina, right?" Peter asked quietly. James nodded slowly, reaching out to wave a hand in front of Sirius' eyes. Peter took a few steps forward, shaking Remus' shoulder gently. "Let's go see her then."
Remus got up slowly, his bottom lip quivering slightly. The others noticed but none of them commented, instead Peter walked beside him, keeping an eye out to be sure that Remus didn't stumble. The werewolf looked extremely pale which only made the light pink scars on his face more noticeable.
"This is good," James began when no one else spoke. "I mean, she's well enough to travel and be back at school, so she's gotta be perfectly healthy again."
"Or the Prewetts wouldn't take her in once St. Mungo's discharged her," Sirius added darkly and the other Marauders turned to stare at him, confused. "The twins haven't visited her once since school started and she said they promised to visit her when they didn't have auror training. And none of them write, not even Mr. and Mrs. Prewett and they used to write her all the time."
An uncomfortable silence fell upon the group, the only sound being the crunching of their shoes in the snow.
"Don't be an idiot, Padfoot," James snapped a few moments later. "The Prewetts care about Lina, it's not like they're gonna dump her just because she's sick. Not all families are like yours."
"Her first family disowned her because she's infertile, it's not that much of a reach. Having her in their family put all the Prewetts at a greater risk, they probably kicked her to the curb for the greater good," Sirius drawled, shaking his head in disgust. He had turned his head away from Remus and so he didn't see his friend draw his hand back until he had been punched in the face. Sirius stumbled a few feet forward, hands clasped on his nose, blood dripping thickly through his hands.
"Moony!" Peter and James cried in surprise, and they stepped forward but before they could stop Remus, he had grabbed the front of Sirius' coat and pulled him close.
"Don't talk about the Prewetts like that, Sirius," Remus warned, his voice low. "Family doesn't turn on family just because there's something dangerous about one of them."
He released Sirius roughly, shoving him back a few steps. With one last look at his friends, Remus took off jogging towards the castle.
It only took ten minutes before Remus was cursing himself for not demanding the Marauder's Map from James. Messalina wasn't in any of the likely spots; the Gryffindor common room was filled with excited kids but not Messalina, the Hospital Wing housed only Jenny Marquette who was getting her nose fixed with her ever present shadow, John Higgs, at her side, and the hallway outside of Dumbledore's office was deserted, as were the kitchens and Professor Veran's classroom and office.
Remus had given up searching and was on his way to find the other Marauders (and, reluctantly, apologize to Sirius) when he ran face first into Graham Pucey. The Slytherin had his natural smug aura about him and Remus immediately felt a pang of jealousy when he looked at the handsome boy. Pucey wasn't covered in scars, his family wasn't going to be lynched because he was a werewolf, it wasn't complicated for him to (possibly) be in love with his friend, and, most importantly, he looked like he didn't have a single care in the entire world.
"Hey, Lupin," He greeted happily, clapping Remus on the shoulder as he passed, not even phased that Remus had just stared at him the entire time. Graham was holding a piece of paper in his hand tightly and Remus could see, even from a distance, that it was letter written, not with ink and a quill but rather a muggle pen and lined paper. More confused than anything else, Remus turned around, watching as the Slytherin disappeared around a corner.
Shaking his head in bewilderment, Remus continued on to the common room, heart heavy. He passed numerous groups of students, each of them whispering frantically before they noticed him and falling into an awkward silence after. When Remus was only a few hundred feet from the Gryffindor Common Room, he came across John Higgs and three younger Slytherin boys. John looked murderous, his face bright red, an ugly contrast with his almost black hair. The other Slytherin boys looked apprehensively between Remus and John as the latter took a large step forward so that he within a few inches of Remus.
"I've got a message for you lot," Higgs' voice was low and there was an obvious bite to it. "Grow up and realize that your actions affect other people. You're not funny, you're just bullies who prey on people that you perceive as weak and the school's sick of it."
"It was accident-" Remus began to explain but John cut him off immediately with a glare.
"Grow up," He spat angrily, walking past Remus but not before ramming his shoulder into Remus'. The motion made Remus falter for a second before he was able to catch himself.
"Maybe you need to grow up!" He yelled after the group but they kept walking as though he hadn't even said anything.
In a worse mood than before, Remus walked on, a strong headache making his head pound.
The Marauders were in their dormitory, the map spread out on Sirius' bed in front of them. They had been studying the thing for twenty minutes since Remus had returned and there was no sight of Messalina's name or footprints which made no sense whatsoever. The hospital wing was empty aside from Madam Pomfrey, Jenny Marquette and John Higgs and Pucey was in the library by himself. None of the other Gryffindors reported seeing Messalina and the boys were beginning to wonder if they had even seen her at all.
It was just when the boys were about to put the map away when they saw her name appear for the first time out of thin air outside of the Room of Requirement. She was moving slowly in the direction of the Gryffindor Common Room and the Marauders looked up at each other, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. There was no logical reason for Messalina to go to the Room of Requirement after returning to Hogwarts after a long train ride and a freezing cold walk to the castle from the Hogsmeade station. None of them offered an explanation to the unsaid question and instead James silently folded the map and put it on his nightstand.
It seemed clear that Messalina wasn't in as much of a rush to see them as they had been to see her, which stung badly. She was obviously well enough to not have to check up with Madame Pomfrey after the journey or to go to Dumbledore's office, which would have been useless anyway because the headmaster had been gone for the past two days.
The Marauders could tell the second that Messalina entered the common room because the cacophony of voices beneath them abruptly stopped for a few seconds followed by two loud yells and a roar of voices all clapping and shouting over one another. Someone came racing up the stairs to the boys' dormitory and Benjy Fenwick burst into their room. His face was pink and he was out of breath but he managed to excitedly tell the four somber looking young men that Lina was back before running back downstairs, not even waiting a split second to see their reactions and clearly not paying enough attention seeing as the boys didn't even blink at the news.
The yelling in the common room went on for another few moments before it stopped abruptly once again, but this time for a few minutes. Then the voices picked up once again, much quieter now but even from stories below them, the Marauders could sense the confusion in their voices.
The four of them still hadn't moved from their spots when Lily Evans and Marlene McKinnon threw open the door to their dorm loudly and marched in as though they owned the place.
"Lina's back," Lily spat at them, crossing the room angrily. "But I'm guessing you already knew that."
None of them answered, instead shifting their eyes away from the two girls guiltily. Lily scoffed before continuing and James noticed that her face was nearly as red as her hair. "And there's something wrong with her."
"She's ill, Evans," Sirius snapped, "In case you hadn't noticed."
"Oh really, Black? I had absolutely no idea!" Marlene mocked, tears pricking at her eyes. "She didn't even say anything to us, she just went straight up to our dorm and slammed the door in our faces!"
"What do you know about this?" Lily asked, her voice cracking with emotion, and her eyes moving from one Marauder to another. It was then that the boys sensed that something was seriously wrong with Messalina and it was James who spoke up first.
"How did she look?"
"Her face was all red and puffy," Marlene stated, sounding guilty. "Like she'd been crying or something and tried to hide it."
"She was in the Room of Requirement before she came here," Peter added, standing up slowly. "You know, after she came from Hogsmeade Station with Professor Veran."
"She's not going home for the break," Remus said and all eyes turned to him. He had stood up suddenly when the girls entered and was now leaning heavily against the window, staring outside as snow began to fall in flurries.
"Why do you say that?" Marlene asked, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with her jumper's sleeve.
"The trains leave on Monday, there would be absolutely no reason for her to come back here for two days when she's getting over nearly dying and we don't even have any classes," Remus' eyes didn't leave the falling snow as he said this, and the others looked at one another uneasily. "Something's going on."
As Remus stared out the window of his dormitory, Messalina drew the curtains around her four post bed and threw herself under the covers. Her face was completely devoid of emotion, the only exception being her almost comically widened eyes. Her dark eyes had a glassy look about them and she just stared blankly at the curtains in the almost pitch black atmosphere she had created in her bed.
Wind whipped around the tower loudly and despite the castle being warm and her being under her covers and two blankets, Messalina couldn't stop shaking. Her body was covered almost completely with goosebumps even though she was fully dressed. She had discarded her expensive, fur-lined cloak the moment she had entered her dormitory along with her sheepskin boots, throwing them down as though they were nothing. Just two weeks ago, she would have treated such items with the respect and care that items of such caliber deserved but after what had happened when she had left St. Mungo's, she found that she couldn't care less about such trivial things.
Despite shivering on the outside, a fire burned inside of her. She only half-registered where she was, the majority of her thoughts were dedicated to what she had seen in her uncle's mansion is Salisbury two nights ago. She couldn't get the graphic images or screams out of her head, and she wasn't sure if she could ever forgive the Prewetts, her uncle Lennox and Dumbledore for sending her back to the castle so soon after. They had all known how she was feeling but they had loaded her onto the train back to Hogwarts unceremoniously and had forbidden her to leave the castle for the Christmas break, something that she had been looking forward to since she had gotten on the train on September 1st.
Without realizing it, a few tears fell down Messalina's face and she barely suppressed a sob as she thought about what had happened to Caradoc Dearborn.
She had gone to her uncle's manor in Salisbury for the first time in her life two days ago and had been instantly overwhelmed by the state of the extremely lavish and extravagant manor. Snow covered the grounds perfectly as though drawn in a picture and the manor looked as though it couldn't even have been real, it looked so perfect.
As beautiful as it was on the outside, it was horrible on the inside. The furniture and furnishings were all ornate and beautiful but they were so insignificant compared to the atmosphere of the building. It seemed peaceful on the outside but the moment that Messalina stepped into the manor, she felt her anxiety levels skyrocket and she wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run back into the snow. Her uncle, Lennox had his hand on her lower back though and so she was forced to walk further into the foyer. Scraps of parchment covered the painstakingly wallpapered walls of the first room she looked into, piles of paper, letters and books were lying in disorganized heaps on the long table as well as an unfamiliar man passed out amongst the documents, snoring loudly.
People she had never seen before were racing back and forth, yelling for one another and over each other. Lennox seemed to sense her anxiety and smiled at her reassuringly.
"Things seem a bit hectic, I know," He told her, a knowing look in his eyes. "But rest assured, you'll get used to it soon enough."
"What's going on?" Messalina asked, looking around at all the confusion.
"Remember how the manor is the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix? Well a few of our members are on a very important mission right now and we're waiting for them to return," Lennox explained, nodding at Mr. and Mrs. Prewett who were so absorbed in reading what appeared to be the blueprints for a building that they didn't even notice Messalina was with Lennox. "Here, Messalina, you can rest in the library until the mission is over and calm is restored. I would take you up to the bedrooms but you look completely exhausted and your bedroom is three floors up. Plus there's a daybed in the library, get some sleep."
Lennox gently pushed Messalina forward into a huge library and promptly closed the doors behind her, the sound echoing the vast room. Books were everywhere from the floor to the ceiling, Messalina could only see the walls in a few places and most of that space was filled with various portraits. She was overcome with exhaustion and nausea from the apparition from St. Mungo's and so she sank onto the surprisingly comfortable daybed and fell asleep seconds later.
She was unsure of how long she slept, as people often are when pulled from a deep sleep rapidly. She sat straight up in the bed, unable to remember at first why she had woken up so suddenly. She knew that she had heard a loud noise but now she could only hear the seemingly normal sound of hustle and bustle that came from being in Lennox's manor, or rather the Order's headquarters.
She was about to lay back down, for she was still as tired as she had been before she fell asleep, when she heard the noise again. It wasn't quite a scream but it was definitely more than a yell. Whoever was making the noise was clearly in a great deal of pain, they kept grunting loudly and moaning. Messalina was halfway out of the bed when she heard the all-too-familiar voices of the Prewett twins and she raced from the room as fast as her bare feet could take her. She skidded down the hallway, heart pounding and head aching as it never had before. She flung open the door to what turned out to be the grand dining room, the door bouncing off the wall loudly and surely leaving a dent but no one in the room looked up. Mrs. Prewett was leaning over someone laying prone on the ground and who appeared to be the source of all the strange noises. Fabian and Gideon Prewett were also bent over the man, both of their shirts covered almost completely in someone's blood.
Lennox Lucien was talking in a low voice with a woman that Messalina didn't recognize but she noted that the woman looked like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She too had blood on her as well as soot and half of her left pant leg was singed off, the skin beneath looking red and blistered. Half of her hair was missing, apparently burned off as the room was filled with the overwhelming scent of burned flesh and hair as well as the metallic smell that accompanies blood loss of epic proportions.
Messalina stood in the entryway to the room for a few moments, taking the scene in with a look of complete distress on her face before she gathered up the courage to stride forward and help her adopted mother with the now pitifully moaning man. She faltered only a few steps in though when she finally saw his face and her knees buckled, sending her crashing to the floor. It was then that the Prewetts noticed her and Fabian walked forward immediately, wrenching her to her feet roughly, a look of pure fury on his face. He lowered his face down to hers, eyes blazing. "What do you think you're doing, Messalina? Get out!"
He was beginning to drag her from the room when they heard the man cough something up and then quietly, in a raspy voice ask someone if the girl was Lucien. There was a pregnant pause in which no one said anything but also Fabian stopped his attempt to drag a completely limp Messalina from the room. The silence was broken by the man once again who murmured, "Can I see her?"
Fabian let go of her then and she nearly fell to the ground once again. On shaking legs, Messalina turned around slowly and approached the man. Tears had welled up instantly in her eyes when she had first seen him and now that she could fully see the extent of the damage it was all she could do not to scream.
Caradoc Dearborn was laying on the carpet, his left leg beneath the knee completely missing. Someone had placed a thick white towel over the stump but it was completely drenched with blood, a pool growing steadily around the limb. The right side of his face was caved in and his eye was practically swimming in his own blood. Blood and soot stained his clothes and most of his hair was missing, seemingly burned off.
Messalina fell down beside him unceremoniously, and he coughed a few times, something clearly filling his lungs but he smiled pitifully up at her. "Please, Lina-" He had to stop for another coughing fit, this time seemingly without enough energy to avert his head and so he coughed blood droplets right onto her white sweatshirt before continuing. "Stay with me."
"O-of course, Caradoc," She whispered, tears gathering quickly and they ran down her face and dripped onto his chest. "Of course."
He coughed a few times again, his eyes never leaving hers. She reached out and held his limp hand tightly in her own and looked up at her mother who was sitting across from her, a look of hopelessness on her face. The room had gone completely silent and everyone was looking at the pair emotionally.
"Why aren't any of you doing anything?" Messalina cried, looking from averted face to face. She was panicking clearly as she began to hyperventilate. "Help him!"
"There's nothing they can do, Lina," Caradoc whispered, his voice growing faint but he continued to look up at her. "I'm dying."
"No, no you're gonna be fine, you just graduated, you're so young, you can't die!"
"Just look at me, Lina, please. Give a dying man his last wish and let him have something pretty to look at," Caradoc's hand had gone cold and his leg had stopped spasming, all movement ceasing in his body except from his face. Speechless, Messalina looked down at him with as warm of an expression as she could manage in her state but she couldn't stop the tears from falling.
She didn't know how long they sat like that, her kneeling beside his head, looking down at him and holding his hand as tightly as she could but seemingly before she knew it, Caradoc Dearborn had closed his eyes. He coughed a few more raspy times, blood now almost oozing out of his mouth before whispering, "Thank you."