Worth the Wait
Chapter Nine: Werewolf
Summary: It's the night of the first full moon after Remus returns home from St. Mungo's. Sirius knows something is wrong, but he doesn't know what.
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Remus lost track of the days. He knew he spent a few days at the hospital they had to take the fireplace to get to, and then he came home in bandages and two hard casts (one on his left wrist and the other on his right leg), and then it was a few more days until he was completely able to see all of his limbs. He still couldn't move very well on his own though. Everything felt very weak from lack of use, and he was still tired all the time. But his mind was starting to clear, and he was starting to remember bits and pieces of that night before the hospital. Bright, angry yellow eyes that was in-between human and animal. He thought he could also remember a snout and long, sharp, dirty teeth, and an awful, awful smell—worse than that moment he was four and clumsy and knocked over one of the garbage bins and everything spilled out and the smell was so bad he cried. He tried very hard not to think of that night, but it always came back to him in his nightmares. He was glad his parents didn't leave him to sleep alone anymore.
He could tell something was different with his parents though. They seemed sad all the time, even when they were smiling or laughing with him, and he didn't quite understand it. He had tried asking if something was wrong, but they never admitted to anything. They also never left him completely alone. His dad was also spending more time at home. He always seemed to be in the house whenever Remus was awake. As a boy that adored his dad, Remus was glad for the extra time. He only wished he was more awake and had enough energy to run around with his dad instead of spending time reading stories. He usually fell asleep before they ever got to the end, and Remus had trouble remembering what the stories were even about.
His parents had told him that he was sick as an explanation for why he was feeling so weird after the hospitals. They still made sure he was taking each and every one of his potions too. Remus felt like the potions were making him worse, because he certainly wasn't getting better, but his parents kept insisting that the potions would help him.
Another distressing thing in Remus's life was the fact that Star wasn't writing to him anymore. Or if he was, he was writing whenever Remus was asleep, and erasing the ink before he woke. Remus didn't blame the other boy though, because he knew he was having a hard time even drawing nonsensical things on his arm with paint. He didn't like poking at his arm much. It pained him a little bit, and he figured it was because he was sick. He had tried to ask his mother for help once, but he couldn't stand even the softest markers against his skin. His mother had suggested that he wait until he felt better, and he reluctantly agreed. He only hoped Star would still be there.
It was almost a month after that night at the hospital that his dad had told him that he needed to spend the night outside the house. Remus didn't completely understand why, but he didn't argue.
"I'll be with you the whole time, okay?" his dad said as they were walking in the back garden. Remus had his head tucked into his dad's neck. He had felt extra tired and itchy all day, especially on his left side where the last bandage was still attached to his skin. It felt weird and was throbbing all day. The potions that he had to take had somehow made everything worse. He vaguely remembered crying, but he wasn't completely sure if it had happened. He really hoped spending the night outside of the house would help him get better. He was tired of being sick. And tired of the potions.
"Mum?" he asked weakly when he realized that his mother was absent.
"She'll be there in the morning, I promise. It's just…she can't be here tonight. But she loves you, okay?"
Remus didn't understand, but he nodded against his father's neck. At least his father was staying with him through the night. He could take comfort in that. Remus figured he must have fallen asleep during the walk in the backyard with his dad because the next thing he was cognizant of, he was being placed on the floor of the new mini house in the backyard. "Dad?" he asked, voice heavy with fatigue.
"I'm here, Remus. I'll be here, okay?" His dad rearranged the soft blanket on the ground and pillows around Remus. "You can sleep if you're tired, okay? I'll be right here when you wake up."
"Kay," Remus nodded and curled up against one of the large fluffy pillows. He felt his dad put the blanket over him to help keep him warm in the cold. Within seconds, he was back asleep.
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Sirius woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back sleep. He didn't know if it was because of the extra body next to him in bed or the fact that he had forgotten to close his curtains and the light of the full moon had completely invaded his room. Regulus next to him shifted, and Sirius could feel his tiny toes kick him softly in the shin. Sirius huffed in annoyance. R was lucky he didn't have a little brother, he thought.
His lower lip quivered as he thought of his Welsh soulmate. It had been around a month since Sirius had last seen anything on his arm, and he wondered if he ever would again. and in the meantime, Regulus had gotten an extra feather on his arm. Sirius didn't understand what made Regulus so special. Everyone seemed to like him better than Sirius, and he didn't get it. He wasn't the one that seemed to be constantly crying and had snot running out of his nose. Sirius turned in bed to get a better look at his brother. He supposed Regulus looked a lot like himself, except with chubbier cheeks. He wondered if that made Regulus seem cuter to the adults. Sirius reached out and poked one of the cheeks. No response. He supposed the fact that Regulus was better behaved than him was another factor in favor of the toddler. After all, he didn't think Regulus would go around poking people in their sleep. Sirius poked him again, for good measure. Regulus continued to sleep.
Sirius sighed and glanced around his room. He thought about getting up and closing the curtains, but he didn't want to leave the warmth of his bed. Regulus moved again, and for a moment Sirius thought his brother had woken up. Still sleeping soundly, Regulus had moved his left hand closer to his face and above the covers. His right arm was still slung loosely across Sirius's stomach. Sirius could clearly see both the feathers on his brother's wrist.
Sirius let out a tiny gasp as he realized that Regulus had gotten an addition to his soul mark. His heart started beating faster as his mind worked out a possible explanation for R's lack of communication. If an addition was possible, then subtractions weren't out of the realm of possibility. Sirius grew cold at the thought that something horrible had happened to R and that had somehow damaged their soulmate mark connection. Endless possibilities of horrible things raced through Sirius's mind, and he felt sick.
If something bad had happened to R, then…then that meant he couldn't write back to Sirius. Or he was writing, but Sirius wasn't getting anything on his arm. He wondered if that meant they weren't soulmates anymore, but quickly shook that thought from his head. He thought of his mother and her unmatched soul mark. It didn't disappear when she didn't meet him, and Sirius didn't think she was ever going to. She had married his father after all.
The only logical explanation, he decided, was that something bad had happened to R. He really didn't think it was like either R or Hope to ignore him if he had done something wrong, and now he felt silly for ever believing that. Regulus let out a whimper next to him, and Sirius tugged him closer. "It's okay, Reg. I'm here," he whispered. Tonight, he'd comfort Regulus in his sleep. And tomorrow, he would start figuring out what sort of bad things could happen that would interfere with soul mate marks. And then he would fix it. And then he would be able to talk to R and Hope again. And then everything would be okay.
Sirius let out a yawn as Regulus kicked him softly again. He was glad that he poked Regulus's cheek a second time.
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Hope wanted to hate magic, but doing so felt like the antithesis of everything she was. She had always been enamored with fairy tales, but finding herself in one, specifically one with no happy ending in sight, was not something she had hoped for. She paced the length of her living room, unable to sit still. She glanced out the living room window, able to see the newly built garden shed in the backyard where Lyall and Remus were. She wondered if the grass was always this bright underneath a full moon, or if she had simply never had a reason to notice it before. She knew each full moon from now on would haunt her for the rest of her life. She would never be able to ignore its presence.
She couldn't hear anything from the shed, but she suspected that Lyall had cast a silencing spell in order to make it so. She hoped the fact that she couldn't hear anything meant that both her boys were still alive. She didn't know if the spell would dissipate if something had happened to Lyall, but she hoped it would, if only to give her an indication that something had gone wrong. But as she strained her ears, all she could hear was the wind and some distant rustling. No screaming. Nothing to indicate that there was a fight going on or that anything was amiss in her backyard.
Hope looked at the moon again, wanting to hate it. But it was full and bright and so beautiful looking she couldn't reconcile the fact that it could potentially be causing her only child unimaginable pain. She wanted to go out to the shed and see if she could tell what was going on inside. But she had promised Lyall that she wouldn't. She knew that she couldn't do anything to help Remus at this point. All she could do was wait and make sure anything he needed in the morning was ready for him. All the pain potions were laid out alongside the wound care products. Something called dittany if she remembered correctly. And silver, which had thrown everything she knew about werewolves out the window. But then again, she supposed the fairytales she had grown up with were mostly false. She remembered feeing relief at the fact that if Remus was a werewolf, he couldn't be killed by something as easy to craft and buy as a silver bullet. Small miracles, Hope had thought at the time, though the image of her son being hunted like some kind of wild animal made her sick.
Hope looked at the clock and saw that it was only four in the morning. There were still at least a couple of hours before the full moon set. Lyall had told her to get some rest, but she found it impossible to sleep while there was a chance that Remus was going to be in pain. She thought back to this afternoon when he had finally broken down and cried about the potions he was taking, and Hope could feel her heart ache. Her eyes watered and her nose felt warm. Lyall and her had had a very hard discussion while Remus was asleep, and she had said what they were both thinking.
"These potions are only making things worse. They aren't helping him, and there's no proof that they've ever helped to prevent a werewolf transformation! They're hurting him, Lyall!" She remembered begging him to stop forcing the potions on Remus, and it didn't take much for Lyall to agree. She knew he had already resigned himself to the fact that Remus was a werewolf, and no amount of prophylactic potions would help prevent the lycanthropy that was already in his veins.
Hope refocused her attention on the shed, wishing that she could be there to hold Remus and reassure him that everything would be alright. But she trusted Lyall. She trusted that he would come back into the house in the morning, and then they would deal with whatever state Remus was in together.
She just wished morning would come sooner.
Thanks to everyone for reading and leaving comments! I hope I haven't lost you guys in the month(?) I've been gone. I've been busy studying almost nonstop, and originally I wasn't planning on writing anything until after my final test in October, but I just couldn't resist. (I also didn't want to study anymore.) The next update won't be until after the test though, so maybe another around month wait, but then back to roughly once a week updates!
Story notes: I figure Lyall would be able to handle being in the same room as Remus in his wolf form because Remus is a child, and Lyall is a fully trained wizard in defense against magical creatures and beings. So that's why he's inside the shed with Remus instead of just locking his son inside and waiting outside.