The four young Gryffindors walked out of Potions with their bags slung over their backs.
'I really can't be bothered with Transfiguration today,' Sirius grumbled, rubbing a painful blistering burn on the back of this hand from his cauldron about ten minutes before.
'Can you ever be bothered?' James asked, earning a shrug in reply.
'How's your hand?' Remus enquired, pulling his friend's hand closer to inspect it. 'You have to stop rubbing at it, or it'll hurt more.'
'Do you want to go to the Hospital Wing?' Peter asked, to which Sirius shook his head.
'Come on, we're going to be late,' James said, and all four quickened the pace and made it through the door just in time.
'Have a seat, boys,' Professor McGonagall said, gesturing to their usual seats at the back of the classroom, and then began the lesson.
After taking their seats, James, Sirius, Peter all turned to each other and started up a conversation whilst Remus took notes, as always. Towards the end of the lesson, a jolt of pain shot through Sirius hand and he hissed in pain.
'What's wrong?' Remus whispered, resting his quill to turn and look at his friend.
Sirius turned over his hand to see the burn from Potions had gone a nasty shade of purple with flecks of black and dark green. James and Peter gasped at it whilst Remus felt his mouth open in shock.
'You must have got some of the Potion in it,' he whispered.
'I think you should go to the Hospital Wing, mate.' James said, with Peter nodding his agreement.
'Want one of us to come with you?' Peter asked.
'No, it's fine. I'll be back in a few minutes, and class is almost over, anyway. I'll see you at the Common Room, yeah?' he replied, raising his hand to ask to be excused.
Sirius walked along the corridor alone when he heard a familiar cackle.
'Are you lost, itty bitty firsty?' Bellatrix Black, cackled, earning a laugh from the four friends surrounding her. 'Should you not be in class?'
'I could ask you the same question,' Sirius retorted through gritted teeth. He loathed his cousin. He loathed the whole lot of them, but she reminded him the most of his mother and, in his books, that was about the worst possible thing that she could do.
'Oooh!' Bellatrix laughed, along with her cronies. 'I've been meaning to have a chat with you, Sirius. I've not seen you since I was talking to Uncle Orion on Platform 9¾. I've not seen you since you turned into a Mudblood-loving blood traitor.'
Sirius felt his blood begin to boil.
'Look at you, standing there in your Gryffindor tie. Scum! That's all you are! It's all you ever have been. You're weak, and worthless, just like your scummy little friends! When will you start acting like the person you are? You're a Black, Sirius. You always will be. You'll never escape the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, so stop trying, cousin. Just look at your friends! A Potter! How dare you! I bet Aunt Walburga doesn't know about that one. Be worth a lashing or two, don't you think? And what's the other one? Pettigrew, is it? Chubby waste of air, that's what he is. Completely useless! And then there's your other little friend. The half-blood filth! What's his name again? Ah yes, Lupin! Could you have picked worse?! Have you seen him? He's so small and weak. He doesn't deserve to come to this school; he doesn't deserve to learn magic. In fact, that's probably why you hang around with them, isn't it Sirius? So you can try and make yourself look big and strong next to them. HA! Wasn't he ill a few weeks ago, the Lupin one? What a shame…would have been better if it had killed him.'
Sirius turned and ran at his cousin, his wand remaining inside his robes. He forgot about magic, he just wanted to make her pay for what she had said. He had never been so angry in his whole life, and started landing punches into any part of her and her friends that he could reach. They all fought back, hitting him and scratching him. Rodolphus, Bellatrix's boyfriend charged forward and punched Sirius in the face before kicking him so hard in the stomach that he flew backwards a few feet. He lay there on the ground coughing from the blow, and feeling blood from his burst lip ooze into his mouth. Anger filled him and he stood and turned, wanting to attack her again, wanting to hurt her again, wanting to make her pay for what she said about his friends, especially Remus.
'PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!' Bellatrix screeched, pointing her wand at her cousin and cackling once again as she saw his limbs snap together. She saw the hatred in his eyes before he fell forward onto his face helplessly with a sickening and, for her, satisfying crack.
Rodolphus stepped forward and turned him over to see blood cascading out of his broken nose and going all over his clothes, face and the floor. He picked Sirius up and threw him in an empty cupboard nearby, making sure to hit his broken nose off the door accidentally on purpose.
The group of older Slytherins laughed, vanished the blood on the floor with a quick vanishing spell and left Sirius trapped, with his limbs still stuck together in the cupboard alone.
'You don't think anything has happened to him, do you?' Remus asked, looking around the room worriedly.
'Maybe we should go down to the Hospital Wing?' James suggested.
'It can't have been bad enough for him to still be there,' Peter said. 'We've been waiting here for almost half an hour. Madam Pomfrey can fix a burn like that in two seconds!'
'Yes, but if we go to the Hospital Wing and he's there, and then we'll know where he is. If he's not, then we'll ask Madam Pomfrey if he made it there or not. That way, if he did, we'll know he's ok and if he didn't…' James trailed off.
'If he didn't then we'll follow the route from Transfiguration to the Hospital Wing and will surely find him along there somewhere,' Remus finished off.
'Let's go then!'
Sirius's eyes darted around. It was so dark he couldn't see a thing. He could feel the blood from his painful nose running down his face and into his mouth. If someone didn't find him soon he would start to choke on it. He tried to stay calm and think about something to do but his mind was to busy panicking. His hand stung from the burn he got in Potions and he wondered if his friends would think to go down to the Hospital Wing to look for him. He could feel the blood on his forehead from when he was face down on the floor beginning to dry and turn crusty. He hated Bellatrix more than he thought was possible. He hated Slytherin house, and his stupid family name. No doubt Bellatrix would tell his mother about his friends, earning him a Howler in the morning and a lashing when he went home for the summer. He had decided long ago that he was not going to go back to his house on any of the holidays if he had the option of staying somewhere else. Home life for him was like hell. He was forced to pretend to believe something that he doesn't and act like someone who he is not. One toe out of line and it would be a lashing or some other form of torture style punishment. Once his mother locked him in his bedroom with no food for three days because he had been caught talking to a Muggle boy when he snuck down to a Muggle park. He didn't belong with his family, he was nothing like them, and they hated him in turn. Hogwarts was his home now. James, Peter and Remus were his family. Why couldn't his family just leave him alone and let him be happy with that?
'SIRIUS!' James, Peter and Remus called, having walked to their Transfiguration class and began to trace the route their friend would have taken.
'Times like these I wish we had that map I was on about,' James sighed, peering into an empty cupboard in disappointment.
'Guys, there's a split. Which way would he have gone?' Peter asked, pointing ahead to a point where the corridor split off into three different directions.
'Well, I guess we're going to have to take one each,' James said. 'I'll go left.'
'I'll go right,' Peter said.
'I'll just stay on this corridor then,' Remus finished. 'Ok, before we go, if we don't find him, head back up to the dormitory in fifteen minutes, ok?'
James and Peter nodded their agreement and set off in their own directions with Remus continuing forward.
Although he didn't want to admit it, Remus was starting to get very worried about Sirius. What if he had fainted on his way to the hospital wing or something? He found himself quickening his pace until he was flat out running, pulling open doors of cupboards and classrooms and scanning them frantically, with still no sign of Sirius.
James hadn't been in this corridor very often, and kept thinking that he had missed a door somewhere and would go backwards to recheck then sprint forwards in case he had wasted time by going backwards and then thinking he had missed something and going backwards, etc, etc. When Remus had first suggested only fifteen minutes he had agreed but thought that it wouldn't be long enough, only now the time seemed to drag by as James grew more concerned for his friend.
'If he's got himself hurt, I'll kill him,' he muttered to himself.
Peter timidly walked down the corridor he had chosen. He knew it well but walked slowly in case he missed something new. At times he would look over his shoulder in case somebody was following him, and he half expected it to be Sirius.
'I bet he's done this on purpose,' he whispered to himself. 'I bet he's gone and hid just to see if we'd go looking for him. But what if he really is hurt? What kind of friend am I to think that he is doing this as a prank? But it is the kind of thing he would do. But surely if he was doing this on purpose he would have gotten bored by now, I mean he's left class almost an hour ago now, and he's not the most patient of people. Unless he has no choice in the matter and is lying hurt somewhere…' Peter frowned in confusion at the internal argument and continued to look.
Remus was still running down the corridor, throwing open doors when he suddenly tripped and landed heavily on his back. Winded, he stood up, coughing and rubbing his back. Looking at the ground to see what had caused him to fall he saw a smeared trickle of blood coming out of the cupboard beside him. Praying that he was wrong, he pulled open the doors. Inside he saw a large figure, obviously unable to move, but difficult to decipher in the dark. Remus grabbed the figures arm and tried to pull it out of the cupboard, but couldn't. Its limbs were stuck together and, recognising the spell, Remus muttered the counter curse. The figure was immediately freed and fell to its knees inside the cupboard and crawled out, coughing. Remus gasped and knelt beside what he immediately recognised to be Sirius, his long hair matted with blood.
Sirius coughed the blood in his mouth out onto the floor, struggling to breathe. He was shaking and couldn't find the energy to stand up just yet. Sensing Remus kneeling beside him, Sirius turned and wrapped his arms around his neck in a hug of gratitude, but pulled away as another fit of coughing hit him.
'Sirius! Sirius, are you ok?' Remus asked, placing a hand on his friends back as he coughed up the last of the blood in his mouth.
'Fantastic, Remus,' he replied. 'Never better.'
He sat up against the wall with his friend. Remus looked across at him and saw that he had a black, swollen eye, burst lip and what looked like a broken nose along with various bruises and cuts across his face and neck. His hair was stuck to his face with sweat and his chest was rising and falling quickly as he tried to regain his breath.
'Sirius, what happened?' Remus asked, looking at each of his wounds individually.
'Bellatrix. She…big group of Slytherins…insulted you guys…said horrible things…I snapped,' he struggled, wheezing and clutching his stomach.
'Ok, it's ok, just calm down. Breathe,' Remus soothed, placing a comforting hand on his friends arm.
'Said such…horrible things. I tried to…fight them…Rodolphus…kicked…stomach…cursed me…there was a lot of blood…hid me in cupboard,' Sirius wheezed, light-headed and dizzy.
'It's ok, it's over now, you're going to be alright now,' Remus continued to soothe. 'Sirius, I think you should go to the Hospital Wing.'
'No! No. I just want…to go back to the dorm. Please, Remus…Take me home,' Sirius whispered, his voice muffled from his broken nose.
Remus raised his eyebrows at him calling their dormitory his home, but smiled sadly that that is how he feels about it.
'Ok, I will. But you have to promise me you'll go to the Hospital Wing tomorrow, yeah?' he said.
'Ok.'
Remus slung Sirius arm over his shoulder and helped him stand.
'You need to grow, Remus,' Sirius smiled, feeling his arm slide down as Remus' shoulder came up to his chest.
'Just walk, Sirius,' Remus sighed.
James and Peter were sitting on the couches in the Common Room. For once, it was almost empty because everyone else had gone down to dinner. The two of them were worrying too much to eat anything, and besides, they could just go down to the kitchens later. Now it was not only Sirius who was missing, but Remus too.
The Fat Lady swung open after Remus saying the password and he and Sirius staggered into the room. James and Peter jumped up but were frozen to the spot with shock and horror at the sight of Sirius. Remus nodded his head at the stairs and the four of them headed up to their dorm.
Remus, with the help of James, set Sirius down on his bed. Peter came out of the bathroom with a damp cloth, which he handed to Remus, who began dabbing the blood off his friend's face carefully avoiding his nose, which looked broken. Sirius took the cloth off Remus and began to do it himself.
'What the hell happened, Sirius?' James demanded.
'Slytherin house happened,' he replied, smiling slightly.
'What does that mean?' Peter asked.
'Bellatrix and a group of her friends were taunting him and he tried to fight them and they fought back, cursed him and hid him in a cupboard. I think his nose got broken somewhere along the line,' Remus explained.
'They broke his nose?' James hissed, eyes narrowing in rage.
'Leave it James, we'll get them back at some point, I'd rather it wasn't today though,' Sirius smirked.
'Sure, mate,' James replied, calming down with difficulty.
'Don't you think you should have gone to the Hospital Wing, Sirius?' Peter asked. 'We went there looking for you and Madam Pomfrey said that she hadn't seen you so you haven't even got your hand sorted out yet.'
'It'll hurt so much if you roll over in your sleep,' James said, as Sirius wiped off the blood around his nose.
'Right, get up, you have to change,' Remus ordered, as Sirius's nose started to bleed again.
Looking down at his bloodstained clothes Sirius nodded.
'Now, I don't know about anyone else but I'm starving,' James said. 'How about me and Peter go to the kitchen and get some food and you two can stay here.'
'Ok,' Remus agreed, and then turned to Sirius. 'And tomorrow, you are going to the Hospital Wing if I have to drag you there myself.'
Sirius smirked.
'I would love to see you try, Lupin. I really would.'