A/N: Yeah, I know you all want to kill me, but hey, at least it wasn't four months again this time, only two…
Yeah, ok, really weak defense, and I AM SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSO SORRY!
This chapter is dedicated to freshly caught Cornish pixies because your reviews are just so freaking EPIC and Meow3594. Meow3594 is the only reviewer to have reviewed EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER from the very first one, so I give you a huge thank you and will bury you in a mound of virtual cookies if you review this one as well! (And your reviews are also incredibly motivational, in answer to your question, so I cannot say thank you enough!)
Once again, your reviews are appreciated more than you could possibly imagine, and thanks to all those who followed and favorite! To my wonderful Guests, thanks so much for reviewing, and as for now…enjoy the chapter!
Ow.
Ow.
Owwwwwwww….
Remus's one working eye flickered open as he became fully cognizant of the waves of pain racking his body.
Owwwwwwww….
This time, something worked his way from between chapped lips.
"Ugh…"
Well, he never claimed that it would be eloquent.
Trying his best to minimize the pain, Remus lay absolutely still while trying to organize the many and varied memories floating around his head.
Feeling extraordinarily wolf-like even though it was nowhere near the full moon...
Peter's pudgy face, flushed red with excitement, pointing to the moon outside the window…
A blue moon…
Sirius's panicked face…
James's widening hazel eyes, magnified behind his glasses…
The thudthudthudthud of protective charms hitting the doorway…
Somewhere inside his befuddled mind, the connection was made, and he jerked upwards, and then fell back again as spasms of pain wracked his bony frame.
His friends, his friends, his friends, oh god, oh god- OhgodohgodhisfriendshisfriendsJamesSiriusPeter-
Remus inhaled, a huge, shaking breath as he wrapped his bloody arms around his shaking shoulders.
They were ok. He was sure they were ok, he'd heard them, he knew he'd heard them…
No. No, Remus was just deluding himself now. Why would they come back here, back to the side of a bleeding, dirty freak, a monster whose own father couldn't even stand the sight of him?
(But he'd been so sure he'd heard them…)
They were ok.
He knew that much, they must be ok- he would be waking up to the sound of a silver ax being sharpened if they weren't.
Remus suddenly realized his breathing had stuttered to a halt entirely during his little panic attack.
He took immediate steps to remedy this.
Remus watched his bandaged chest move- shakily at first, but then increasingly steadily as he regained control over himself. He shut his emotions away into a deep corner of his mind, back with the beatings and the silver pokers and the faces barely concealing their disgust as cold, uncaring hands stitched up his wounds and sent him out again, back into a world of prejudice and nightmares and abuse-
STOP!
Right.
Right.
(He'd heard them, he knew he'd heard them…)
He had to get out of here.
Had to leave, had to run, back to his father's house where he would be hidden, if only to protect his father's position in the Ministry.
Remus swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stolidly ignoring the full-body ache that suddenly and violently intensified, and also ignored the fact that the imaginary barrier he'd hastily constructed was dangerously close to crumbling.
(But he'd heard them, they'd been here…)
Get his things from the dormitory. Right. Hopefully they wouldn't be in there.
Hopefully.
(But what if they didn't hate him, because they were here...)
Remus stumbled in the direction of the door, leaning heavily on the wall.
Leaving, yes, leaving, now, leaving behind Gryffindor Tower and the kitchen raids and study sessions and snowball fights and oh, god-
The dam broke.
Remus fell to his knees as cracks spread in his mind, thinking of everything that he'd be leaving behind, his formidable mind trying to calculate a way out, trying to calculate any direction to head in that did not involve agony and premature death at the end of the road, because oh, he was no idiot, he knew exactly what awaited him at his father's house-
His mind was breaking the spirit of his soul.
Remus's stomach heaved and bile splattered the floor in front of him, and it heaved again and again and again as the iron taste of blood made itself apparent, both in his mouth and in the mess in front of him.
Faintly, he heard voices, and looked up only to see the horrified faces of James and Sirius in the doorway. The wolf was howling in the back of his mind, but all Remus could see was the horror etched firmly onto their faces.
And the disgust.
Remus felt something deep inside him shatter.
He saw Sirius move towards him, hand outstretched, and flinched back automatically, because it wasn't Sirius he saw anymore, but the tall, bearded figure of his father, with a silver poker in hand.
A hand fell onto his shoulder, and Remus began babbling. He wanted so desperately to explain, to tell them all about Romulus and his father and how his mother left and how he didn't want to die and how sorry he was because he was sorrysorrysorrysorry and then there were arms around him and the wolf was howling and tears were staining his hollow cheeks and he was dying inside and there was a great big black darkness rushing up to meet him-
A/N: …You can all put those sharp things away now, ok? I mean, if you kill me, you'll never get the next chapter!
Oh, and whoever can catch a line from Green Day's 21 Guns in here gets a chapter dedicated to them! Just leave both the line from the song and the slightly edited version of the line in here in a review, and you can get a dedication!
Please review, love ya all!