Stolen: Greyback's Revenge
Chapter 2 - Torn

Early the next morning, Sirius descended the stairs into the kitchen of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. He paused on the last riser, running a hand through his hair and then shoving his hands into the pockets of his bathrobe. Remus was sitting at the table, his back to Sirius.

Ever since Remus had returned from the werewolves, he hadn't been sleeping well. He'd often fall asleep just fine, but then he'd awake at ungodly times after only a few short hours of rest. However, over the last couple of weeks, his sleeping patterns had slowly been returning to normal, and he'd been getting up later and later in the morning. In fact, he'd even been sleeping until after lunch the last few days. Sirius was glad, because Remus certainly needed the rest, and it upset him to think that his friend's insomnia might be creeping back again.

"What are you doing up so early?" Sirius asked quietly, afraid of the answer.

Remus turned his head slightly, looking at Sirius out of the corner of his eye. "Couldn't sleep." He returned his gaze to the direction of the fire and then bowed his head. "Again."

Sirius hesitated before stepping down off the last stair. He padded across the floor, his bare feet protesting at their contact with the freezing stone. Sirius sat down next to his best friend, fully facing him and leaning into his field of vision. Remus had a half-empty mug of tea in front of him that looked like it had long gone cold. He was staring down into it, like it might hold some kind of answers for him.

"I thought you were doing better," Sirius said gently.

"I was. I am. Thanks to you. And Harry." Remus smiled, a gesture that didn't quite reach his eyes, and then he sighed before beginning again. "I just…" He threw his head back, his eyes searching the ceiling. "I have a bad feeling."

Sirius reached out a hand, placing it on Remus's shoulder and squeezing it slightly. "About what?"

Remus glanced at Sirius sideways and replied, "Greyback." He ran a hand through his own hair before continuing. "I had a dream about him last night. I don't even really remember what it was about other than the fact that he was in it. And it was scary. Of course. I woke up feeling very uneasy, and that's why I couldn't get back to sleep." A moment later, he asked, "Does it make you nervous at all that we haven't heard one word about him since this entire thing went down? I mean, I wasn't exactly expecting him to go out and exact his revenge the next day, but there haven't even been any reports of him attacking anyone. Not even at the last full moon, and not even anything with the next full moon only a few days away. He always gets antsy around this time, but…there's just been nothing. I find that very unsettling."

Sirius tilted his head back and forth in thought. "Maybe he was recovering. You didn't exactly leave him in the best of shape."

Remus shook his head. "I couldn't have incapacitated him that much. That was over a month ago. Surely he'd be back to his old child-eating self by now. Besides, with the next transformation coming up soon, he needs all the strength he can get."

After nearly a minute, Sirius suggested, "Maybe you gave him something to think about."

Remus snorted. "You don't really believe that."

"Honestly, I don't know what I believe. He is a lunatic, after all. Merlin only knows what goes on in that head of his."

"No," Remus agreed, "but I know Greyback. You don't live with someone like him for a while and not learn what kind of…animal he is. He's not going to just wake up someday and decide that he's going to stop eating people. It's a principle to him. Something he deserves. Which is why I find it so strange that as far as we know, he hasn't eaten anyone since I left him." He shook his head, more solemnly this time. "You'd think he'd be more inclined to attack people now just to prove a point - that my way of doing things is rubbish. You'd think he want to irritate the hell out of me with it, just because he can. To show me that I only made things worse for the world by trying to pull anything over on him."

Sirius's hand was still on Remus's shoulder, and he started running it up and down Remus's shoulder blade now, trying his best to offer some semblance of comfort. "You know that's not true - that anything Greyback does now is even remotely your fault."

It had taken Remus a long time to be able to admit to certain things, but both Sirius's and Harry's constant reassurances over the last month had changed something in him - had broken down some wall he had built up inside himself a long time ago. One that he thought was impenetrable, but Sirius and Harry had gotten through it somehow. Some things didn't seem so far-fetched to Remus now.

Remus smiled. "I do know that. But that's hardly the way his mind works. It's exactly the sort of thing he'd do."

Sirius frowned and propped up an elbow on the table, resting his chin in his hand. "Yeah, it is, but for his own good, he better not try to seek any sort of vengeance on you. I think I may have to do something not-very-nice to him if he does."

The smile that had briefly faded from Remus's face quickly returned, this time growing into a full grin. "Just don't kill him, okay?"

Sirius raised his eyebrows and stared at Remus. "Hypocrite. You were the one who was saying, just last month, that you should have killed him when you had the chance, rather than risk let him hurting any more people."

"And you made me realize I was wrong," Remus pointed out. "He's not worth becoming a murderer over. The things he does are his fault, not mine, whether I had a chance to kill him or not. So don't you go running after him and get thrown into Azkaban for it, because I need you here. We both know I'd be a downright mess right now if it hadn't been for you and Harry helping me this last month. I don't want to know what I'd do the next time I have to go through something like this if you weren't here to help me put the pieces back together."

Sirius returned his smile. "I'll always be here for you, Moony. Azkaban couldn't keep me away, and neither can anything else. Not even any curtains and certainly no Death Eaters."

Remus laughed softly, and for the first time since he had woken up in the wee hours that morning, he was beginning to relax. He took a deep breath, finally feeling like everything was going to be okay again, that he was just being paranoid, but unfortunately, that feeling didn't last.

Just then, a bright flash of green light and a roar erupted from the fireplace. Albus Dumbledore, clad in his customary purple robes stepped into the kitchen.

"Albus," Sirius said in surprise. His eyes darted furtively to the clock on the mantelpiece, then back to the headmaster. "We didn't have an appointment, did we?" he asked, voicing the question that was on Remus's mind. Remus was, after all, usually the one to keep track of various appointments since Sirius was a scatterbrain half the time. Since his ordeal with the werewolves, however, Remus had been a little forgetful himself from time to time. He had a hard time keeping track of his own emotions and day to day life lately, let alone any meetings they had scheduled.

"No," Albus said, approaching the table slowly. He reached out then, tentatively placing the fingertips of one hand on the polished wooden surface. He tapped it with his fingernails several times, like he was nervous. "I'm glad you're both up." His blue eyes went back and forth between Sirius and Remus before he added, "There's a bit of a problem."

Remus's heart started beating abnormally hard in his chest. All he could think about were some random memories from his dream, the one about Greyback that had woken him up. It was still unclear and hazy, but he could remember flashes of Greyback feasting on someone or something. Flashes of teeth and claws. Blood. His hungry growling and atrocious smell that emanated from him at all times overcoming Remus's senses, even in his sleep.

Next to him, Sirius sat up straighter, his back arching in fear. Remus sought out his hand under the table, squeezing it in his own for support.

"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about," Dumbledore said calmly. "We've just been unable to locate Harry this morning."

Sirius partially stood up, but then he suddenly sat back down again, as if he couldn't decide what he wanted to do. Or perhaps his legs didn't want to support his weight in light of his recent news. Silence overtook the room, but then Sirius demanded, "What do you mean you haven't been able to locate him? Where is he?"

Remus wanted to say that if they knew where he was, then they wouldn't be unable to locate him. As it was, Remus felt shocked into silence, and he knew his words wouldn't be helpful to the situation at hand, so he said nothing.

"We're not sure," Dumbledore replied unnecessarily. "When Ron woke up this morning, he said Harry wasn't in his bed. He and the other boys looked around the dormitory and Gryffindor tower, but he was nowhere to be found. They felt for sure that he'd turn up to breakfast, but when he didn't, they alerted Minerva. We tried looking around him, calling out his name, but he has yet to turn up."

Sirius buried his head in his hand. "He knows not to go wandering off like this. Especially now."

"That's never stopped him before," Remus said grimly. That sensation he'd woken up with, the feeling that something was horribly wrong, crept back into his stomach again and started working its way up into his chest. He felt slightly ill, and he was glad he hadn't yet eaten breakfast. But then he decided he was being silly. Harry liked to wander off, but it didn't mean anything had happened to him. Moreover, it didn't mean that it had anything at all to do with Greyback. Or any other Death Eaters for that matter. Remus was just jumping to conclusions.

Sirius abruptly stood up from his chair. "I'm coming to look for him. I don't care if he's just being Harry and looking for some privacy. He needs to know that going off like this is not okay right now, and if it turns out he is okay, I'm going to kill that kid for making us worry like this." Without another word, he headed for the fireplace.

It was Remus's turn to stand up, and he called, "Padfoot?" When Sirius stopped and turned to face him again, Remus said, "Perhaps we should get dressed first." He gestured between them, both still in their bathrobes. "We don't even have shoes on."

"Who the hell needs shoes?"

Remus rolled his eyes. Nothing had even really happened yet, and Sirius was starting to panic already. Once he did, he became utterly useless half the time. Remus would need to be on his toes from this point on. "Wands would be helpful, too, you know, just in case," Remus reminded. "They're upstairs."

Sirius huffed before turning on his heel. As he ascended the stairs, he began muttering about how when Harry was in danger, he didn't need silly things such shoes and wands.

Remus took a deep and calming breath again, trying to keep his fear in check. It wouldn't do if both he and Sirius started panicking. "We'll be there in a few minutes, Albus," he told the headmaster before following his best friend up the stairs.

The first thing Remus and Sirius did upon arriving at Hogwarts was to investigate Harry's dorm room. At least then, they'd have a better idea if Harry might have simply wandered off by himself, or if foul play had been involved. Given, if Harry did go off on his own, it didn't mean that he hadn't run into trouble after that, but at least it was a start.

"His wand is gone along with his Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map," Remus said, snapping Harry's trunk shut after searching it. "That means he definitely wandered off on his own. Unfortunately, that means we also can't check the map to see if he's in the castle or on the grounds."

"At least he's armed," Sirius muttered, "but I'm still going to kill that kid. He knows not to do this! Especially after what happened last month. You put yourself through hell so you would be there to save him when the time came. Then he just carelessly goes off like this, to hell with everything that's happened."

Remus didn't necessarily find Harry's actions offensive, and he supposed he should have. After the point Sirius had just made, Remus had every right in the world to be angry, but he wasn't. This was just Harry being Harry, and Remus found that all too endearing to be upset over it. "You know how he is, Padfoot," Remus said reasonably. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking at his best friend a bit smugly. "A little bit too much like you for his own good."

Sirius opened his mouth to reply, but he didn't say anything right away. He closed and opened his mouth several more times, looking oddly like a fish. Finally, he settled on, "That's different! Harry has parents that worry about him. Mine didn't care what the hell I did."

"Mine did," Remus reminded, "and so did James's, and so did Peter's. Never stopped us."

"Well…things were just a lot more fun then!"

Remus snorted. "Like that makes it all better."

"They were," Sirius argued. "We weren't involved in the war yet. Not like Harry is now. We still didn't know exactly what Voldemort was capable of, and he wasn't hunting us down, finding ways for his minions to sneak into the school to find us."

"And I think sometimes Harry just need to get away from all that," Remus whispered. "Sometimes he just needs to feel like a normal kid who doesn't have the weight of the world on his shoulders. If you were in Harry's position, I think you'd probably be more determined than ever to exhibit a little bit of freedom like this."

Sirius's expression softened at Remus's words, and he looked away, staring across the room at Harry's empty bed. "I just worry about him so much, Moony. He's so vulnerable sometimes. And as much as we all wish he could be, he's not a normal kid, and he needs to exercise a little more caution than the rest of us did." When Sirius glanced up at Remus again, he asked, "Do you think he's all right?"

Remus wanted more than anything to reassure Sirius, to tell him that yes, Harry was perfectly fine. But he couldn't. Because he didn't know. And he'd never tell Sirius, but those images from his nightmare had been cycling through his head all morning, a stark reminder that maybe Greyback was involved in this after all.

"I don't know," Remus sighed. He crossed the room to his best friend, placing a hand on Sirius's shoulder just like he had done for Remus earlier that morning. Remus squeezed it tightly and said as confidently as he could, "But we'll find him, Sirius. We always do."

Sirius and Remus spent the rest of the morning searching the castle for Harry. Dumbledore, meanwhile, seemed to think they were being a little bit ridiculous. The headmaster didn't yet think it was time to panic, and he kept reiterating that Harry would turn up. That Harry had just found a private place to curl up with a book for the day. Which was ridiculous. If Harry just wanted some quiet time to read, he would have said something. There was no reason for him to wander off like this without saying anything. Especially for this long.

It was nearly lunchtime, and as the day wore on, both Remus and Sirius began growing ever more doubtful that Harry had just gone off by himself. If it had just been a couple of hours, then maybe, but this wasn't like Harry at all. He wouldn't disappear all morning without any word to anyone. Certainly not after what had happened with the Death Eaters sneaking into the castle so recently. He just wouldn't. Harry needed time to himself, yes, but he could have that just as easily if he had taken the proper precautions first.

Remus and Sirius decided to wait in the Great Hall until the students arrived for lunch. Harry had missed breakfast that morning; he had to be hungry by now, and if he was okay, surely he would turn up to eat. They stood near the large double doors, and Remus's heart sunk every time he saw a student wearing blue, green, or yellow, but it positively started doing somersaults whenever a Gryffindor came in. But still Harry didn't appear. Remus saw just about every student he could remember teaching just a few years previously, but none of them where Harry. As the minutes wore on and the Great Hall started getting full, Remus's heart felt like it had turned into a brick and settled in his stomach.

Eventually, the trickle of students into the hall stopped, and Sirius leaned heavily into the wall. "Something's wrong, Moony," he said, pressing his forehead into the hard stones and closing his eyes. "He wouldn't just disappear for this long, no matter how stressed he was feeling."

Remus wouldn't admit it, but he was growing to believe his best friend was right. Remus suppressed his thoughts nonetheless, because it certainly wouldn't do Sirius any good to know that Remus agreed with him. It would only serve to make him even more scared, so Remus would remain the voice of optimism. "He'll be okay, Sirius. He will."

Sirius miserably shook his head. He opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off.

"We want to help look for him," Hermione said as she and Ron appeared in the Great Hall. "We just checked up in Gryffindor Tower again, thinking he'd go there if he didn't come to lunch. He's not there. His things haven't even been touched." She sounded alarmed.

Sirius snorted. "At least someone doesn't think we're being absolute lunatics."

Ron shook his head. "He's been gone too long. Even if he needed some time to himself, I'm sure he would have said something to me first. It wouldn't be the first time he's woken me up out of bed. But…" Ron added, but then he broke off.

"What?" Sirius asked sharply.

"Who goes for a walk in the middle of the night?" Ron asked. "If he wanted to be alone, he could do that just as well in his bed with the curtains closed when everyone else is asleep."

Sirius's eyes widened. "Well, apparently Harry did, because his wand, cloak, and map are gone right along with him! I somehow doubt that Death Eaters crept in in the middle of the night and carried him off someplace, making sure to bring all his Marauding items along for the ride!" His voice was rising, a sign of his ever-growing panic. "And his wand! Why the hell would they bring his wand?! Surely they'd want him unarmed!"

Remus rested a calming hand on Sirius's arm, giving Ron a warning look. "Exactly," Remus said. "All the signs point to him wandering off. There's no reason to think he didn't."

"If he did, he wouldn't still be missing for-" Ron began, but Hermione quickly talked over him.

"We're just wasting time by standing here arguing about it," she interjected. "Whatever the circumstances, we should be looking for him. He might need our help."

"I think Sirius and I are going to start searching the grounds," Remus said. "If he was still in the castle, I feel certain we would have found him by now, but I think you two should stay here. It's safer, and you two can keep checking Gryffindor Tower, because if he does come back, he'll probably return there. If something did happen to him, it'll be too dangerous for you two to be searching the grounds as well."

"Yeah," Sirius replied rather coldly, "and then we'll have three people to rescue instead of just two."

Remus still had his hand on Sirius's arm, and he tightened his fingers around it. "Dumbledore can only ignore the problem for so long. I reckon he'll be contacting Order members sooner or later to help look. You two don't need to put yourselves in anymore danger in the process."

Neither Ron nor Hermione seemed very happy with Remus's plan, but they begrudgingly stayed behind. Remus and Sirius skipped lunch in favor of spreading their search out over the grounds. They hadn't even had breakfast that morning, but neither one of them felt very hungry. Remus's stomach was tied up in a million knots, and it kept worsening every minute, every second that they didn't hear from Harry, and he imagined that Sirius's was the same. Besides, if Harry didn't get to eat, then neither did they.

They checked all the usual places in the grounds that Harry might have visited, including the Quidditch pitch, Hagrid's hut, and around the lake. There weren't any Quidditch practices going on, and it was much too cold for the students to be out and about, so they all proved to be completely deserted. Hagrid hadn't heard from Harry either, and once he heard about what had happened, he went off with Fang to begin searching the grounds on his own.

The sun was already beginning to dip precariously low to the horizon, and Remus was sure Dumbledore would be seeking reinforcements now. However, neither Remus nor Sirius wanted to stop to find out. After all, every second that passed could mean further danger for Harry, so they kept on looking. Neither one of them had any idea where to look now, so they resorted to randomly walking around the grounds, hoping for any sign of Harry.

On about their fourth trip around the grounds, they paused not far from the front gates. Neither one of them said anything at first, but they just stared at each other. The wind had picked up, and it was whipping around them, the only noise to their ears. Sirius pulled his robe more tightly around himself, looking fairly certain that they knew where they had to look next, but at the same time, he was too scared to admit it. Remus felt the same way.

After the silence had become unbearable, Sirius said miserably, "Oh, Moony. He wouldn't leave the grounds." He closed his eyes, as if in a silent prayer. "He just wouldn't."

"I think we need to look though, Padfoot," Remus said. "He's not here-" he gestured back towards the castle, "-and we've been searching all morning and afternoon. And if he's not, I don't know where else he can be."

Sirius stuck out his bottom lip, letting out a heavy breath. "I'm really going to kill that kid," he growled before withdrawing his wand from his pocket. He murmured the spells needed to unlock the gate, pulling it open wide enough for both he and Remus to pass through.

Remus began picking along the grass that ran around the exterior of the fence, hoping for some clue as to where Harry might have gone. Sirius, meanwhile, slowly made his way down the path. He stopped every so often, planting his hands on his hips and staring into space like he was asking some higher power for help.

After nearly a half an hour of his investigation didn't turn up anything, Remus's eyes eventually trailed down to the Forbidden Forest. He hadn't wanted to say anything to Sirius, but it was becoming more and more apparent to him that maybe, just maybe, Harry was in there for some obscure reason. Remus rather doubted Harry would venture into the woods on his own, but perhaps something had attacked him. Dragged him…

"MOONY!"

Remus was shaken out of his thoughts by Sirius's scream. He frantically looked around, not even sure where his best friend had gone. Then he saw him, crouched in the grass not far from where the line of trees started. Remus broke into a run, his heart about ready to beat right out of his chest with the effort it was exerting. His stomach seemed to have lodged itself into his throat, and Remus almost couldn't swallow. He was terrified of what he would find when he finally reached Sirius, but yet, he couldn't run fast enough.

When he got to Sirius, Remus's shoes slid slightly in the grass. He reached out, grabbing onto Sirius's shoulder and catching himself before he overbalanced. Remus gasped for breath and then he saw it. The thing that had made Sirius scream out for him. In Sirius's hands was a velvety fabric Remus would recognize anywhere.

"The cloak," Remus whispered, and he wasn't even sure where he had even found his voice.

"Moony," Sirius repeated, much more quietly this time, his voice quivering impossibly hard. His hands were shaking as he reached for one end of the cloak, pulling it up out of the grass. There were claw marks in it. Deep, long-running claw marks that had torn the fabric into long strips in a couple of places.

Remus's mouth dropped open at the sight, but then he saw something else. Something much worse. Something that made his blood run cold. In the grass where the cloak had been were several large puddles of deep crimson liquid. Remus didn't even have to take a closer look to know what it was. He could smell it - salty, coppery, heavy in the air, and overwhelming to his werewolf senses.

He was glad his hand was still on Sirius's shoulder, because Remus's legs suddenly felt full of jelly. He didn't think he'd be able to continue standing under his own power if he had to.

Sirius glanced up at him, his eyes large and wide. In the light from the setting sun, Remus could see the very first tears beginning to well up there. "I knew it," Sirius said so quietly, Remus barely heard him. His voice was still shaking, but even more now, and his shoulders began to heave slightly. His fingers clenched into fists in the fabric of the Invisibility Cloak, his knuckles turning white from the effort. He hung his head and muttered, "I've been angry at him. All day…I've wanted to kill him…" His voice died in his throat, and if Remus wasn't mistaken, he thought he saw a tear drip down onto the silvery cloth in his hands.

Remus wanted nothing more than to reassure him. To tell him that he knew Harry was fine and that they'd find him. As the day wore on, however, those thoughts kept drying up inside Remus, one by one. He wasn't sure if he had any left to give and finding the shredded and abandoned Invisibility Cloak covering up pools of blood in the grass like a dirty secret was like the final nail in the coffin. He couldn't offer Sirius anymore guarantees, not without feeling like he was outright lying, and that was something Remus wouldn't do to his best friend.

Remus's legs were shaking impossibly hard, and he couldn't continue to stand up, even while leaning on Sirius. It wasn't just that he was afraid for Harry, but Remus was afraid for his best friend. Terrified of what Sirius might do if they didn't find Harry, if it turned out that something horrible had happened to their godson like this evidence suggested. Sirius had already been through so much, and Remus didn't think he could handle this. Not now, not ever.

Dropping down into the grass next to Sirius, Remus wrapped his arms around Sirius's shoulders. Remus was aware that it was a small comfort, but he didn't know what else he could do. He was out of words, and he didn't think he had it in him to speak at all right now. He pulled Sirius close to him, letting Sirius bury his head in his shoulder. Sirius's own shoulders and back kept shrugging at random intervals, and all Remus could do was hold him.

Remus was scared to death, too, but his desire to help Sirius through this was even stronger. Over the last month, Sirius had been everything to him. Sirius had held him up when Remus couldn't stand on his own. He had been the shoulder that Remus so desperately needed to cry on. Sirius had been his rock, and Remus was determined to be that for him now.

To be continued…