Harry opened his eyes with the laughter of the leech still ringing hauntingly in his ears. The unintelligible muddy splashes of colour gradually sorted out before his eyes and formed a very familiar ceiling.

"Harry?"

His eyes picked out something swimming into view before he could lament his limited motor skills any further. It was something close and familiar, with a face and lots of red. Recognition came barely a split-second later.

"Are... you okay?"

He struggled for a second to put together the words. His mind was felt like it was lagging two steps behind his body.

"What do… you think?"

He felt hands touch him softly on his forehead and then on the side of his head. There should have been a wound somewhere there but strangely, nothing seemed to be hurting at the moment.

"You're okay?!"

"Stop... just… help me up first." He gritted, straining to sit up. With a bit of struggle and some help from the girl, he pulled himself up onto his feet. It was only then that he noticed the room,

The room should have been familiar to him. It was supposed to be normal and boring, his room. It wasn't supposed to be this. It was supposed to be bland, tiresome and dull. Nothing like this. The sight of his room shouldn't have chilled his mind to a standstill.

In the small room, all over the floor and walls and even parts of the ceiling, blood and literal chunks of body parts were spread all about. On his tiny bed now lay an ugly figure, a barely human stump with a dying scream etched into what remained of his face. Its blood and brain matter seemed to be seeping into the stained mattress. The wall right opposite him now had a human being smeared across it, ground almost into mincemeat, the poor bastard. The previously transparent glass of his window now reflected the rest of the room in grisly red with the unwilling donor of the blood left in neat little pieces just beneath it. There were far more bodies going by the number of limbs on the floor.

'Murder' wasn't nearly enough to describe what had happened here. The bodies here had been completely and utterly obliterated in every sense of the word.

"Umm… I think... we should…"

He forced his eyes away from the carnage and towards the other person in the room. She was staring at him with a teary-eyed, concerned expression on her face and not a drop of blood anywhere on her. The image looked the same but he could somehow feel that she had changed almost fundamentally. How could someone this frail feel so dangerous and ominous?

He forced himself to stand still as he felt her grab his hand. Unable to bring himself to do anything else, he let her steer him out the door and away from this room.

Remus Lupin was having a quiet morning alone in his quiet little house. His Daily Prophet subscription had ran out just two days ago so there weren't any moody owls tapping at his window to wake him up today. Remus Lupin was a quiet man. He was also humble, well read, intelligent and polite to everyone he met. Naturally, he didn't have any friends. Or a job, family, or any other obligation really. After spending a significant portion of his life fighting for what he felt was a just cause, and in the process sacrificing the only people who could stand him enough to call him a friend, his life had become very uneventful and depressing. He thought about his old days as he poured himself a steaming cup of tea. With the usual depressing thoughts in his head and a chipped mug in his hand, Remus prepared to settle down for another agonizingly slow day.

His slow day was brought to an abrupt halt as a flaming bird exploded into his kitchen seemingly out of nowhere and left just as suddenly, leaving behind a singed envelope on his dining table.

Remus was so surprised by what had occured that he would only notice that he had dropped the scalding tea on his lap in a few minutes. Strangely enough, it was the letter that excited him much more than the teleporting flaming bird.

Remus Lupin was a quiet man but a quiet life was not for him. With his heart thudding in his ears, he went to pick up the letter.

The pitter-patter of the rain was fucking obnoxious. Not a big think to be annoyed about, especially in this situation, but it was the little things that were rubbing against his nerves right now. The wetness from the rain, the shrill honking sound of car in a far away street, the aching in his legs, the ugly looking coat that a nearby man was wearing, the numbness in his head…

He covered his face in his hands and sat down on the sidewalk.

Above all, he was just tired.

"Are you alright?"

He sighed and dropped his hands from his face. How many times has she even asked him that?

"Yeah, tired." His own voice now sounded foreign to him. What the fuck happened did the creature do to his brain? "Just tired is all."

Without a word, she sat herself on the ground just beside him. He felt a shiver run down his spine at her action.

"So…. " He felt around, trying to decide how to begin. "Did.. that just not happen or what?"

Seconds ticked by achingly slow before she replied. "I… I.. don't know."

For some reason, that simple answer, her denial, just pricked at him so much that he couldn't take it anymore.

"Oh for fucks sake! This isn't some small bloody detail that I'm asking! This is not 'where you left your book this morning' or 'what colour sock you wore last week'! What, for the love of fuck, was it that just happened!"

"I... saw you in danger so I just sorta tried.. to um.. help."

He somber reply just took all energy out of him so he sat back down without a word. None of them said a word for a few minutes. The rain had now settled to a bare drizzle. A particularly tall couple with an obnoxiously coloured umbrella on the other side of the road stopped for a second to eye them suspiciously.

"You've been holding out on me then." He muttered, glaring back at the couple. "Bet I looked like a fucking idiot trying to get you to lift a rock."

What was he supposed to feel right now? On top of hearing creepy voices in his head and having his mind filled with memories he had no clue about, his friend apparently liquidized half a dozen people through willpower to save his useless self.

Should he be proud of his student then? Certainly taught those scoundrels a lesson, didn't she? An unforgettable one, even. Or should he chide her for something she did to protect him from his own fuck up? Or should he just turn tail right now and get away from her before she plucks his limbs off for forgetting her name again?

"I'm sorry." His thoughts were interrupted by her sudden apology. "I didn't know what to do, they were attacking you and.. I don't know what happened it just did and suddenly…"

"Alright, alright." He interrupted, standing up. As standoffish as he could be, there was just something about her that made it impossible for him to let her be miserable. "We can talk about this after we find someplace safe to stay."

"Where can we go?" She asked in the same doleful tone. Harry grabbed her by the collar and dragged her to her feet.

What's done is done. They've already screwed up and sitting there and whining was only going to get them into even deeper shit. Trying to find someplace to stay was the best thing for them to do. Plus, it would take some time for his poor little brain to process all this bullshit that happened today.

"I think I have an idea. C'mon."

AN: Hey everyone. Really sorry about this ridiculously long wait. Long story short, real life fucked me. There's also a hole in my ceiling now. Oh well.