"Mr Lupin, wake up! Wake up, dammit!" Someone was harshly shaking Remus by the shoulders and when he forced his eyelids open, he was surprised to see the face of professor McGonagall hardly discernible in the dusk. She was pale, he noticed, and wisps of her hair had fallen out of the bun.
Darkness, soft air brushing through over his head and back and the taste of fading life on his tongue.
Remus jerked and lifted his head, his eyes now wide open. He sat up and professor McGonagall fell back so hard, she had to support herself with her hands not to fall to her back.
"I'm sorry, professor", Remus said as he reached out to help her. His voice was faint and gruff, and when he spoke, he felt the taste of blood in his mouth.
A dog whimpered as bone cracked and splintered between the werewolves fangs. It tried to run, but the maimed leg didn't obey, and it rolled over on its back. The ribcage creaked in protest when the heavy paws landed on it. He felt muscles tight in panic as he bit the dog over its face and throat, trying to rip it open, but then spiky horns were hooked under him and literally threw him away. The stag stood between the dog and the werewolf, antler lowered and directed towards him. But he didn't care. Ducking under the stag's horns, the werewolf buried his claws in its shoulder, ripping the leg open and then aiming for the heart. He was furious now, tried to scratch his way beneath the stag's ribs, until there was a flicker of light on the horizon, and the sun rose. The first sunbeams touched Remus's furred face, just to continue its way up on the heavens, leaving him unconscious.
All this rushed through Remus's head so quickly; it left him feeling dull and somewhat empty, as if he'd been out the entire day in an autumn storm. His hands slackened and professor McGonagall got to her feet by herself.
He was staring into the air without really seeing it, trying to bring order to these images and feelings that raged through his mind when professor McGonagall called for him again.
"Mr Lupin! Go get madam Pomfrey immediately!"
Now, he finally looked up. On the ground by professor McGonagall lay James. His chest all the way to his ribs was ripped into shreds, and flushed with blood. The right arm lay in an unnatural angle, and he trembled as he drew short breaths.
When Remus turned to the other side, his heart stopped for a second. If it was not for the dark hair and the clothes, he wouldn't have recognised Sirius for all the blood and mud. He had dirt all over, the remainders of his left leg were a mass of mashed flesh and shattered bone, and he lay still. So still.
If it was not for professor McGonagall calling again, her voice now shrill from fear, Remus would've kept on staring and staring on Sirius's scratched and bleeding face, that did not seem to move even the slightest, his lips firmly shut.
"Lupin! Hurry!"
These words seemed to harden something inside Remus. He blinked and then got to his feet, swaying a little but keeping steady enough.
They were in the Dark Forest, and he had to look around for a couple of seconds to orientate himself before he set of in the direction of the school.
As he ran over the uneven ground, feeling branches and leaved whip his face, Remus remembered more and more of the night, as he normally did. The feeling of bone cracking and shattering between his jaws returned, as did the taste of blood and the memory of how exposed ribs felt under his claws.
Then, Remus realised how tired he was. His knees seemed to bend in the middle of every step, and sometimes he lost balance and stumbled several meters. When he finally reached the school, his every muscle was twitching and trembling and he couldn't even bring himself to walk up the stairs to the Hospital Wing.
He crawled and tottered variously his way through the Entrance Hall, and then got almost half the way up the great marble stair before he sunk to the floor, unable to move.
After turning into a werewolf three nights in a row, and then running all the way through the Dark Forest, Remus felt as if his entire body was turning into water, and he couldn't make his limbs obey.
"Mr Lupin?" Remus hardly managed to lift his head at the sound of professor Vector's voice, and when he forced his mouth open, nothing but a desperate panting slipped him.
The professor came down the stairs, and put a motherly hand on his shoulder, then gasped as she saw his dirtied and bloodstained face.
"James", Remus finally panted, "Sirius… in the Forest…" he closed his eyes, trying to get control over his voice. "Madam Pomfrey…" he managed to say and then he felt like he as going to throw up.
"Madam… Do you mean they need help?"
Remus nodded faintly. "Hurry…" Then, the effort to speak made him nauseate, and he leaned back towards the banister, eyes closed.
"They're in the Forest, you say?" It was a good thing professor Vector was so smart.
Remus nodded again and after a second of hesitation that made Remus want to scream at her, professor Vector hurried up the stairs towards the Hospital Wing.
Remus sat in a chair outside the Hospital Wing. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and an untouched cup of tea in his hands. He'd been sitting there, in the same position, for almost eighteen hours, the events of last night running through his mind over and over again.
The look on madam Pomfrey's face as she hurried him out of the Hospital Wing was etched on the inside of his eyelids, so he saw it every time he closed his eyes.
That pale, closed face that just spoke of how shocked and insecure she was about the task that laid in front of her made Remus shrug his shoulders not to shiver or start crying.
He loathed himself for the situation he'd created, and what he'd done to his friends. When a tired and bloodstained professor Vector came out of the Hospital Wing, he'd asked her how James and Sirius were doing. The answer had only been a headshake.
Now, finally, the door opened, and a weary professor McGonagall came out. She was limping a little, but smiled palely at him when he looked up at her, mouth a little open and the question shining in his eyes.
"Mr Potter is going to be fine", she said, "he'll have to stay for a while - how long is undetermined - but he'll make it."
Remus felt how he started to smile, and then he realised what the professor just told him.
"What about Sirius?" He asked, not really knowing if he wanted the answer.
Professor McGonagall went quiet, and she hesitated on the answer for a second.
"He's still struggling. As it is now, he'll survive, but the situation is very unstable, he was merely alive when we brought him here. Pomona has done everything in her power, and for the moment, there are nothing more to do, so you can go in there. Just don't stay too long."
Remus nodded. He felt just like professor McGonagall had slapped him, and then his entire head had gone dull and heavy. A hand squeezed his shoulder, but he merely felt it, and then he turned and walked into the hospital wing.
It was clean, as always, and quiet. Just as Remus walked in, a little watch on the wall turned ten, and he looked through the windows, surprised to see that it was dark.
James stirred in his bed, whimpering softly in his sleep as he unintentionally moved his hurt arm. From the shoulder to his fingertips, there was a huge bandage, and James was awfully pale, but seemed all right except for that.
Remus stretched in order to see Sirius, and he herd himself draw a sharp breath, as if on great distance, when he spotted his friend.
Sirius's leg was, just like James arm, bandaged, but that was not what scared Remus. There was a thin, yet blood stained bandage around his throat as well, reaching up one turn around his head. He had several deep gashes in his face, and just like before, Sirius lay horribly still.
Remus sank to his knees. There was an awful disgust twisting and turning inside of him, as if he'd eaten something alive. He loathed himself; over and over the questions came rushing.
What kind of monster are you?
How can you do something like that?
They are supposed to be your friends.
And they were his friends. Remus flicked his eyes to his hands that lay trembling in his lap. They were still red brownish from dried blood, and something sticking under his nails. Around his mouth was the same feeling, and when Remus realised this were the blood and flesh of his friends, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a huge need to throw up.
Somehow managing to suppress that need, he crawled - unable to stand - to the wall and curled up beside it, clutching his arms around his knees.
There was also a need to cry; but it just seemed right to keep that painful bulge in his throat a little longer, in some bizarre way punishing himself for what he'd done.
Without any other sound than James restless stirring and whimpering, the night passed, and Remus didn't even notice himself fall asleep, until madam Pomfrey carefully shook his shoulder the next morning.