"Where-"

Slam.

"Is-"

Slam.

"The filthy-"

Slam.

"Wolf?"

Slam.

His head snapped to the side with every blow. Blood gathered in his mouth and flowed into his nasal. It made him cough.

"I-I didn't do anything-"

He had everything to do with it.

The young girl imprisoned in the cell with him…she was dying…

"LIAR."

Carla? Was that her name?

"Crucio!"

He burned. He burned inside-out. They had made him drink something that made his intestines go on fire.

The potion was eating him.

"Where is she? How did you help her escape?"

She was only five. Five years old.

Crack.

He howled like a filthy wolf. Blood flowed freely on his skin that was now ripped open by the wip.

Crack. Crack. Crack. CRACK. CRACK.

Thin, red lines appeared all over his bare body. He heard himself screaming, he saw himself desperately twitching and squirming, trying to get away from the pain and misery like a bug put on fire.

She had died, when he tried to lift her out of the barbed wire. She got impaled on the thin string of steel. How she had screamed from the pain, how she had suffered…

And now he lay in his own pool of blood that was soaking in and absorbing him, the silver chains wrapped around his chest and waist burning red.

He was drowning…

"Remus-"

Remus felt someone shaking him. The shaking grew harder when he wrinkled his eyebrows in pain. Everything seemed to hurt.

"Remus, open your eyes."

He groaned. He didn't wanted to wake up. Reality was pain and suffering-

"Wake up or else I'm gonna-um, kiss you or something."

"..."

"Don't make me do this."

He opened his eyes.

Sirius was staring down, quickly changing his worried expression into a smug smile.

"You were crying out, mate."

"Shut up."

Remus's voice was dry and hoarse. He couldn't remember when he last drank, or ate. It was probably days ago.

"Wait here, I'll fetch you water."

"No I'll-shit!"

His body tumbled down when he tried to stand, getting out of the sofa. Sirius quickly came to his aid and supported him.

"I'll do that, thank you very much," he said, "Siriusly, mate, you have a broken foot, crushed hands, and you're even skinnier than my dead aunt."

With that, Sirius went and gave Remus a glass of water. Remus didn't realize how thirsty he was until he felt the moisture in his throat.

He was also hungry.

#####

Sirius wasn't prepared for this.

Two years he spent mourning for his doomed friend-or maybe someone who grew to mean more than a friend- and now he came back again, looking like a skull.

A literal skull.

He still had the same brown hair, the same brown eyes, but his body and soul did not seem to be intact. His eyes were strangely hollow and solemn, soulful and haunting. He'd seen those eyes before, way back when he met a certain man who had just gotten out of Azkaban.

And now he knelt beside him by the toilet seat, trying to help him throw up.

"Easy, Remus…"

Remus had a serious fever and was weak from malnourishment and infections from wounds scattered all over his body. Sirius didn't want to think about how he got them.

Remus coughed up more of the fowl substance and continued to gag and sputter.

Sirius felt afraid.

Sure, he had seen Remus disoriented and wounded millions of times, way before at Hogwarts after the full moon, but he had never seen him being this ill and…unstable. Even when he was at his worst state, Sirius always had this notion that his friend would be able to pull through, as he always had before. Now…he felt afraid.

Afraid that he wasn't going to make it.

Afraid that he was going to die.

Remus put his shaky hands on his shoulders.

"Padfoot…" He gasped, his voice raspy and hoarse.

"Yeah, Moony?"

"I'm cold."

Sirius wrapped his arms around the frail body and held on tight.

"It's all going to be okay…just hold on."

He tried to smile and remain confident for the sake of his friends.

But in truth, he wanted to cry.

#####

"Sirius?" Remus whispered, lying on the bed. His limbs were stiff and unmoving.

"Yeah?"

"How's James and Peter?"

Sirius froze.

Memories of them joining the Order of the Phoenix, James and Lily marrying, the birth of Harry Potter, the two couples going into hiding, him becoming Harry's godfather all seemed to pass through his head like fragrant, distant snapshots. It suddenly dawned on him that Remus was never in these snapshots, of how much of life he had missed over those years.

"James and Lily…err, they kind of-"

"Married each other?"

"How did you know?"

"Just this feeling."

They were silent for a while.

"Sirius? Did they have a child?"

"You bet. He's a boy. Harry Potter."

"You met him?"

"Yep. Looks just like James, but has Lily's eyes. I would have had him get more of his mother's side, but he got his father's temper. And his personality."

Remus chuckled. "Sounds very problematic."

"Yeah…but I think he's going to make a fine chaser. I gave him a toy broom on his birthday, and James says he's been flying around in it ever since. It drives Lily crazy."

"..."

As the light of the moon, nearly full, fell upon Remus's face, something glinted white.

"Remus? Why are you crying?"

"Just happy, I guess…happy for them. It's always good to see new life blooming, especially if you have seen deaths…too many deaths."

"Please, don't-he isn't even a month old!"

Cruel laughter.

"Filthy beasts like you-they deserve to be snapped in the bud-"

The baby's crying grew louder.

"-like this."

Snap.

The child let out a final, weak cry of pain, and there was no more.

"NO-!"

The only sound that could be heard was the pitiful sobs coming from his mother.

"Avada Kedavra."

And the woman was dead.

There was more to the story than what Sirius had told Remus. But he didn't want to tell it, not now.

"You know what? Let's go visit him-when you get better."

It's about to get more interesting ;)