Chapter 9: Bad Moon Rising
Disclaimer: I do not claim any rights to Harry Potter or any of the characters from it. They belong to J.K. Rowling. The only character that belongs to me, is my OC, Tabitha Tate.
AU: I meant to get this up sooner. Sorry for taking so long. :P Enjoy.
"Hold on, Moony. We're almost there." Tabitha softly said, hurrying across the grounds with her friends. James and Sirius had their arms around Remus's sides and were partly dragging him between them. Peter had run ahead and was transforming into his rat form.
"We definitely waited too long to come out here tonight." James said, worrying that Remus would start changing before they could get him into the Shrieking Shack. Remus currently looked as though he might throw-up.
"I'll go ahead and find a place to keep watch from." Tabitha said before jogging off to a line of trees that would give her a good view of the grounds. She climbed up to the highest safe branch on the tallest tree. Once she was safely settled on the branch, she transformed into her animagus form, an ocelot. She looked around, her vision much better in the dark now that she was a feline.
Tabitha kept a silent vigil over the grounds for a few hours without incident before a chilling howl pierced the silence. She pricked her ears up straight and scanned the grounds quickly. She hurried down from the tree, seeing Remus chasing James. She wondered how he had escaped from the Shrieking Shack. She yowled at the werewolf, trying to distract him long enough for James to change into a stag. She saw that he was ignoring her, so she changed back into her human form.
"Hey, Moony, I want to play too!" She yelled to the beast. Remus immediately turned to her and snarled, not recognizing her at all.
"Oh hell!" Tabitha hissed to herself as she started to run away. She narrowly avoided being caught be Remus, who had pounced at her. She darted to the trees that marked the beginning of the Forbidden Forest. She zigzagged crazily around the trees, thinking that it would be a lot easier to put distance between Remus and herself in the forest. She tried to find any narrow places she could, hoping he wouldn't be able to follow eventually, due to his large size. She didn't chance a single glance back to see how close he was, not wanting to slow down at all or run into anything.
She could tell that Remus was catching up to her, since she could hear his loud, panting breaths. Tabitha let out a pained scream after a few more minutes of this, feeling his claws rake over her left shoulder. She heard Remus angrily snarl as another canine jumped on him. Tabitha climbed up a tree so that she was high up, out of reach for the werewolf. She transformed into her ocelot form, hoping it would dissuade Remus from continuing to hunt her. She watched as Sirius led him off. She hoped that he'd be fast enough to lose the beast, since he was in his dog form. None of them returned to the castle until late the next afternoon. James and Sirius treated her scratches as well as they knew how to, but they'd still take a while to heal up and would definitely scar.
"It's not your fault, Moony. You couldn't help it." Tabitha comforted, wrapping her arm around her distraught, ill friend.
"I could've killed you. Maybe it is too dangerous for me to continue going to school." Remus quietly said, staring down at his hands.
"Shut-it! I don't want to hear rubbish like that come from your mouth again, Remus Lupin. You can't help that you have that disease. You're one of my best mates and you are an extremely sweet person! There is absolutely no reason for you to give up on attending Hogwarts." Tabitha scolded, hating how he thought so lowly of himself. He only shrugged in response, not agreeing with most of what she said.
"She's right, Moony. It was an accident. You had no control over yourself." James told him.
"Exactly! I had no control at all! I could kill someone!" Remus exclaimed, disgusted with himself.
"You won't kill anyone, Remus. We won't let that happen." Sirius said, yawning. Tabitha sighed, envying Peter, who had gone to bed earlier that morning. They were all exhausted, making them pretty short-tempered. She led the three boys into the castle and walked with them to the hospital wing, where Remus would be spending the next couple of days. She kept her shoulder hidden by wearing the jacket James had worn the night before, knowing better than to let anyone see the deep scratches.
After Remus had gotten settled into the hospital wing, Tabitha, James, and Sirius walked up to Gryffindor Tower. They were going to skip the rest of the classes for the day in favor of getting some sleep. Tabitha mumbled a sleepy "Goodnight" to her friends before heading up to the girls' dormitories, not caring that it wasn't night at all.
Tabitha slept throughout the rest of the day and through most of the night. She woke up at around four AM and got ready for the day. She snuck out of the tower, being careful not to move her painful, bandaged shoulder. She wasn't worried about being seen, having taken James's invisibility cloak. She quietly entered the hospital wing, wanting to see how Remus was doing. She was surprised to find him sitting up, reading.
"Couldn't sleep?" She softly asked, taking off the cloak.
"Afraid not." Remus answered, giving her a weak smile. She sat down on the foot of his bed, deciding to keep him company.
"How's your shoulder?" He asked, looking at her with concern.
"It's fine. It doesn't even hurt that much anymore." She lied, giving a reassuring smile. Remus smiled back a little, but it was quite obvious that he didn't believe her.
"You'll bring my homework for me later, won't you?" Remus asked.
"Of course. I'll even make sure that Peter remembers to get your divinations homework for you." Tabitha assured, glad that he was concerned about missing classes, since it meant that he was starting to feel like he belonged at the school again. The two of them started discussing mundane things after that. Tabitha stayed with him until it was time for breakfast.
Tabitha tried to avoid crowds in the corridors as she walked to the Great Hall, not wanting anyone to accidentally jostle her shoulder and open up the fragile, stiff scabs that had form over the gashes there. The last thing she needed right now was to bleed through her bandages. She reached the Great Hall after breakfast had started. She sat down between James and Sirius, knowing that they'd help her reach for things, since they knew about her shoulder.
Severus quickly noticed that something wasn't right about his blonde Gryffindor friend. She was favoring her right side far too much and looked uncomfortable whenever she had to move her left side much at all. He glared at her friends, deeming them as guilty for whatever had happened, since they were assisting her way too much to not know anything about the reason for her discomfort. He followed her out of the Great Hall after breakfast, intent on finding out what those dunderheads had done to her. He easily caught up to her.
"What's wrong with your side?" He asked bluntly, not seeing any reason to dance around the question.
"What are you talking about? Nothing's wrong with my side." Tabitha asked.
"Don't lie to me, Tate." He sneered, bothered that she had lied to him.
"I hurt my shoulder last night. I'm sure that it will be fine." She sighed, frowning a little.
"Let me see. It's obviously much worse than you say it is, since you felt it was necessary to be dishonest about it in the first place." Snape replied coolly. He was quite concerned, but would die sooner than saying so. Tabitha blushed, looking up at him.
"What? No. We're in a place someone could see. Plus, that'd require taking my shirt off." She told him. He rolled his eyes and grabbed her right arm, brisquely pulling her to the third floor girls' lavatory.
"Don't be such a child. You are injured and I have some knowledge in healing spells, thanks to your friends." He said, his patience wearing rather thin.
Tabitha let out a defeated sigh and turned around, wanting to make this as unawkward as possible. She took off her robe, vest, and blouse and folded them up neatly. She carefully unwound the bandages that covered the gashes, hissing softly in pain as her scabs stuck to the material.
Severus's eyes widened for only a fraction of a second as he laid them on his friend's wounds. They were long and rather deep, bleeding again now. The wounds looked like they must have been caused by a rather large beast's claws.
"How did you get those?" He asked, wondering why she hadn't gone to the hospital wing.
"The guys and I snuck out to the Forbidden Forest last night. I got separated from the others and something attacked me." Tabitha lied.
"You should go to the hospital wing. I'm not going to be able to heal those very well." Snape told her, anger shining in his eyes. How dare Potter and his foolish friends drag Tabitha out to the forest and allow her to get hurt like this?
"No way. The others and I would get into so much trouble! My parents would probably have to find out too! Please, Severus, just do what you can for me and keep this a secret." She begged.
"You're being an idiot." He told her, pulling his wand out of a pocket in his robe. He started working on closing her wounds up as well as he knew how to. Tabitha shuddered at the strange sensation of her flesh trying to crawl back together. By the time Severus was finished, Tabitha's gashes were partially closed and the scarring already forming was slightly puckered and lighter than the rest of her skin.
Tabitha pulled a spare sheet of parchment out of her book bag and transfigured it into a sponge, wanting to wash off the crusted blood from around the gashes. She was able to clean most of it off, but needed help with the back of her shoulder.
"Umm.. Would you help me?" She asked, holding out the wet sponge to him. He flushed a little, but took the sponge and gave a small nod. He tried to focus on what he was doing, but couldn't help but glance at Tabitha's uncovered back and sides. He knew it was shameful to look, but he was only a teenage boy after all, with as many raging hormones as any other healthy boy his age. He was very relieved once had finished washing the blood from her shoulder blade.
"You should probably rebandage your shoulder." He told her. Tabitha nodded and used a cleaning spell on her bandages. He waited while she redressed her wounds and put her blouse, vest, and robes back on.
"Thanks, Sev." Tabitha softly said, offering a small smile. He gave a single nod in reply.
"...You won't tell anyone about my shoulder or anything, right?" She quietly asked.
"I won't. It isn't anyone else's business." Severus answered. Tabitha smiled and ensnared him in a quick hug. He stiffly returned the hug, still not quite comfortable with this, but getting there.