Remus was jerked awake by a piercing scream coming from the top of the stairs leading to the girl's dormitory. He looked over the top of the couch and saw a figure hunched over the top of the stairs.
"Hermione?" Remus groggily asked, "Hermione!" he shouted as he saw the figure go limp and collapse on the stairs.
Her body dropped and tumbled down the stairs. Remus jumped up and over the couch, running and falling to sit at her head. By the time he reached her she was laying in a growing puddle of blood and her breathing was coming in short and pained gasp. He pressed his hand to her head in a futile attempt to slow the bleeding he sat there cradling her lifeless form to his chest.
"Come on Hermione, please wake up," he whispered into her ear. He felt tears gathering up in his eyes and he did not know where they were coming from. Sure he would be worried if any of his other friends were injured but he did not think he would cry. He did not cry about very much. He was never very sensitive. He cried when he told someone about what happened when he was six and that was about it.
He desperately tried to figure out a way to get her to the hospital wing without causing her any more pain or injury to her weak frame.
Her blood was still coming in a steady stream out of her head and he decided to try and carry her to the hospital wing. He gently gathered her small, frail, body up in his arms and began to make his way to the portrait door. He quietly but quickly made his way down the corridors and to the Hospital Wing. Hermione's head was gradually bleeding less, but Remus was not sure if that was because the wound was scabbing over or if there was no blood left in her body to bleed out though by now the boy was probably covered in a majority of the girl's blood.
Either way he quickened his pace and was soon met in the middle of the corridor by none other than Professor McGonagall.
"Mr. Lupin what on earth are you doing out of bed at this time?" the stern professor asked him.
"Please Professor, can you help me? I don't know what happened, she was standing at the top of the stairs and fell," He started to ramble.
"Oh my, come here," she gasped. McGonagall ran to him and cast a quick levitation charm on the girl and quickly completed the journey to the Hospital Wing with Remus in tow.
They were soon in the white room with Hermione in a bed and Remus sitting next to her in a chair, refusing to leave until he found out what was wrong with her.
Pomfrey was quickly working around her healing her head wound and setting her broken ankle. She got a blood replenishing potion in her system and began scanning her for evidence of the cause of her injury.
Remus soon saw a noticeable change in the color of her skin though she still looked lifeless and he was scared he was going to lose her.
"She seems to have been cursed. It would be easier to identify the spell if I had the object that placed it on her," Madam Pomfrey explained to Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Remus (of course).
"I think I saw a crumpled piece of parchmen next to her on the ground," Remus quietly said.
"Minerva, would you walk Mr. Lupin back to the Gryffindor tower to retrieve this paper?" Dumbledore asked.
"Right away Headmaster," McGonagall replied, immediately motioning the young boy out of the room.
"Do not touch the parchment," Pomfrey shouted at them as they left the room.
"Do you know what caused this?" the old headmaster asked the matron when the boy was out of earshot.
"Of course I do. It's a dark form of magic. I just do not know what brought it into the school and who caused it. It is a dark spell used to cause great pain to travel through the victim's body. I have not seen it used in a long time. It is often cast on an object and sent to the person anonymously and last for a short while. Mrs. Granger was lucky to have fallen because if she had not then she would likely still be in great pain and there is no way to stop it though she nearly died. If she had arrived any later then there would not have been much I could have done to save her," Madam Pomfrey explained.
Remus and McGonagall walked back in that moment with a piece of crumpled parchment stained with blood in a conjured vial.
"Let me see that," Pomfrey said taking the vial and carefully removed the paper.
She ran several tests on it and soon looked at Dumbledore and sadly nodded her head in confirmation. They could not make out what the parchment said as it was to coated in blood to make any sense of the sloppy writing scrawled on it.
"What? What's going on? What happened to her?" Remus franticly asked the three adults.
Pomfrey gave a sigh of resignation and slowly explained all of her conclusions to the frantic boy.
Hermione remained in the same state for the rest of the week and was taken to St Mungo's Remus hardly left her side. Soon the holidays came to a close and Remus was forced to return to the school and classes.
He met James and Sirius at the gates and walked with them idly listening to their holidays.
"What's the matter Remus? You seem awfully quiet today," James inquired of the boy that night at dinner.
Remus explained what had happened and how he had woken up to her screaming and saw her body as it tumbled down the stairs and land in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.
The two boys stared at Remus. Their mouths were gapping at him in disbelief but they both knew he was telling the truth. He would not joke about something as serious as that.
Hope you guys liked this chapter. Please tell me what you think and I'm still looking for a animangus form and nickname for Hermione.