February 11, 1978
The average human body holds about five liters of blood, or so my mother told me once. As George rested in the sitting room, I'd hidden myself in the hall to hide the panic attack the sight of seeing all of that blood had brought on. "There was so much blood." I thought, but she'd reassured me. "The human body holds 5 liters of blood, he didn't lose nearly that much. Hardly enough to warrant a blood-replenishing potion." I thought that was a lot of blood. I knew nothing.
The blood that pooled across his chest, the blood that stained the white sheets he laid on, that dripped onto the stone floor steadily, was far more than I'd ever seen come out of one person. Far more than five liters.
Madam Pomfrey and a medi witch danced around him, swirling their wands in intricate patterns and muttering under their breath as they fed him potion after potion - and yet the blood continued to pool. Moody gripped me with an iron-like hold even though I'd sagged against him the moment they'd laid him down. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the scene to watch the struggle between James and Frank nearby but knew it would turn violent soon if James didn't calm down. Frank threatened to stun him. Remus had been stunned or bound, I couldn't be sure, but he lay on the ground in between me and the doorway after he'd tried to rush toward his best friend. It was just one big tragedy. A greek tragedy of epic fucking proportions. The poets would be having a field day. At least the room stopped spinning.
Slowly, I peeled my eyes away from the scene to look back toward the doorway. Unmoving blue eyes stared back at me. Depths that I'd once seen swimming with emotion - trepidation, fear, anger - were still and paled. Blood pooled across his chest too, but I knew without checking that it wasn't his own. He looked tired, pained in a way that I had never seen him look before and I wanted to reach toward him. I wanted to invite him into the room, to tell him that he was welcome here, that we would help him, but I couldn't move…neither could he.
Without prompting we both turned back toward the bleeding boy on the bed. Madam Pomfrey shouted something over her shoulder that I couldn't hear, I couldn't hear anything. The world seemed to move in slow-motion silence, the only break in it coming from the pounding of my heart in my ears. Sirius' torso was bathed in purple light emitting from the Matron's wand as she spun a series of complicated patterns across the skin. Another medi-witch moved toward the bed, a vial of something thick and yellow in her hands - blood replenishing potion. The light surrounding his torso died as Madam Pomfrey lowered her wand and reached for the vial. Gingerly she reached toward his chin to tilt the potion down his throat. As she coaxed it down he began to twitch, starting slowly and picking up speed until he was in danger of flopping off the bed as he convulsed. The medi-witches rolled him to his side and I caught a glimpse of his pale, blood-stained face foaming at the mouth and his eyes rolled upward showing only the whites.
Someone was screaming. I was screaming. Arms tightened around me and the vision of Sirius, blood-stained and seizing, was ripped away. I fought the tight arms around my chest, fighting with all of my might to escape Moody's tight grasp but to no avail.
"Breathe, Cricket, just breathe," He grunted as I fought him and suddenly I could hear the chaos surrounding me. A woman wailed to my right, a child whimpered to my left, and Frank cursed through clenched teeth.
"PADFOOT!" James bellowed.
"I'll stun you, Potter, don't make me stun you," Frank called but the struggle between them didn't stop. "Last warning!"
"GET OFF ME!" There was the sound of further struggle and then nothing but a body slumping to the floor.
"Calm down," Moody begged me as the sound of James hitting the ground renewed the fight in my limbs. "Just breathe, he's with Pomfrey, he's in the best hands."
"He can't die," I sobbed. "It doesn't go like this."
"And so he won't, Cricket."
"I changed something," I panicked.
"No you didn't," He reassured me.
"Sir, is she under control?"
"Back off, Longbottom," Moody spat toward the other auror. "Nothing's changed. Pomfrey has him." I jerked in his arms again and they tightened around me. "Last warning."
"Alastor!" Frank called again.
"Stun me," I begged him as the panic threaten to rise toward my chest.
"You don't need that, you can handle this."
"Stun me!" I repeated and fought him harder.
"Cole!"
"STUN ME!" I drove my elbow into his gut and he let go. Pushing off of him, I pivoted back to look toward Sirius to see him laying on his back again, eyes closed, and a medi witch wiping his mouth with a damp cloth. He looked peaceful, pale, but peaceful. His chest rose in a shaky breath and then everything went dark.
Blizzards were common in February - almost expected - planned for like one might anticipate guests arriving on the night of a party. Blizzards in February were beautiful so long as you were watching from the comfort of a window set beside a fireplace like I was. The heat of the flame licked my cheeks as flurries flooded the grounds, and rolling green hills and lush trees disappeared beneath an angry blanket of white. The usually quiet grounds howled with wind, howled with the promise of destruction under their attack. But if you sat in the comfort of warmth, behind the blockade of a windowpane, you could enjoy the vision of the storm without bearing its brunt. As I stared out at the storm I let jealousy wash over me, because how dare this storm get to feel its rage and howl its screams when I was made to sit quietly by the fire sipping tea.
"What else did he say, Cole?" Moody's gruff voice stole my attention away from the window and I turned to face him. He paced by the fireplace, limping and favoring his left leg as he moved.
"Nothing," I replied, turning back toward the view of the blizzard outside. I could feel its chill in my bones despite the blazing fire and hot tea in front of me, despite the blanket wrapped tightly around my shoulders, despite the hand clutched tightly in mine.
"There had to be something," He prompted again.
"Alastor, give her a break," Monty prompted him, giving my fingers an encouraging squeeze as he spoke.
"A break? Do you think they're having a break right now Monty? Think they're sitting around sipping tea?" Moody surged toward us on the couch and Monty stood to greet him defiantly, placing his body in front of mine. I turned back toward the blizzard that tormented the grounds beyond the window.
"That's enough, she's been through enough today."
"Alastor, Fleamont, a breath," Dumbledore prompted from his chair on the other side of the fire. He sounded exhausted, beaten, and weary from the long day. We all turned to regard him. He looked old sitting in his chair by the fire, the pink of his cheeks and sparkle in his eyes replaced by a dull grey mask of prostration. "Ginevra has been through enough today, she knows nothing more that is of use to us, am I right?" Three eyes turned toward me, but I made no move to answer only glaring back at the man before me whose fault all of this was. If he had never sent me back this never would have happened, 3 wizards wouldn't be dead, Lily wouldn't be barely hanging on, and Sirius-
"This is all your fault," I told him with a glare. He regarded me with sad knowing eyes as if he'd expected the accusation as if he knew it was coming. Slowly he nodded before taking a long breath in and bringing his frail fingers upward to rub at his eyes.
"Monty, Alastor, will you give us a moment?" The headmaster asked the other two men in the room.
Moody grudgingly moved toward the door - a soldier who knew when to take an order - as Monty stared between the two of us, regarding us with wide-eyed confusion. "Why?"
"I have things to discuss with Miss Cole, things that do not-"
"I'm not leaving," He replied with fierce protection in his voice. It made something hollow in me ache for my dad. Arthur Weasley would have done the same.
"Monty, please-"
"Just because she hasn't got parents here doesn't mean she's your soldier," Monty glared defiantly toward Dumbledore. The frailty from earlier seemed to fade as the headmaster regarded him, his cheeks pinkened and his eyes sparked. "You said Christmas was the only time you'd ask her to fight in this war. Our war."
"It's everyone's war," Dumbledore replied stonily.
"No. We were too blind to see what was happening around us twenty years ago, ten years ago, and now it's come to this. People dying in the streets because we didn't take out the threat when it was weak. This is our war. We end it. We fight it. We leave them out of it."
"Potter-" Moody began but Dumbledore cut him off by standing quickly, moving with the speed and agility of a much younger man as he closed the distance between him and Fleamont.
"You think I didn't try?"
"I know you didn't," Monty replied, refusing to back down in the face of the other man. The spark of magic crackled in the air as they glared at one another. "I know you saw it. How could you not? You see everything. The great and powerful Albus Dum-"
"You think I knew this would happen? That I'm some seer who-"
"I think you know far more than any of us, it's why we all trust you. It's why we let you lead us through these dark times. But do not stand in front of me, as one of my sons-" he choked on a sob before recovering. One of his sons. I turned the words over in my mind as he took a moment to recover. One of his sons. Because he had two. Two sons. One who waited for the other to wake up. One who was desperate for him to pull through. And one who struggled to breathe. One who was being held together with potions, magic, and sheer desperation of will. His sons. "They are not soldiers. They are children."
"I need to speak with Miss Cole in private," Albus glared down at Monty.
"Monty-" Alastor tried again, this time reaching toward Fleamont's shoulder the pull him back but the hand was shaken off.
"We have to be better than him," Monty began. "To beat him we have to be better, do better, we are better. But sending children onto the battlefield when we don't have to?" He shook his head in disbelief. "That makes us just like him."
"Miss Cole has agreed-"
"Ginny is a child," Monty cut Dumbledore off before he could get another word in edge-wise. "Do not mistake circumstance for choice. If you hand a man a weapon, does he not learn how to use it?"
"Do not talk to me like-"
"I'll talk to you any way I damn well please, Albus."
"Monty," I murmured, stealing the attention of everyone in the room and feeling the settling of magic in the air. "You can stay."
"Miss Cole," Dumbledore began, but I silenced him with a glare.
"He stays, or we both go." The old man narrowed his eyes at me as if to threaten me with his stare but I made no move to back down.
"Alastor, if you please," Dumbledore gestured toward the door but Moody looked down at me with wide eyes. They flickered up toward Dumbledore and back to me, questioning if he was to be a part of this. A part of me held him at fault for everything that had happened today - yesterday technically. If he had been more diligent, watched his back better, remembered the information I'd put my life on the line to get - that Sirius was paying the price for getting - then maybe none of it would have happened. Constant Vigilance, what a fucking joke. I looked up at him, anger bubbling under the surface and wondering if I should let him. There was another part of me that knew this couldn't have been his fault. It was Malfoy's fault. Voldemort's fault. The attack always would have happened, and Malfoy always would have failed, like father-like son. Sirius would - I stopped that thought before I could see it through to its end.
"He stays," I murmured, turning my attention back toward Dumbledore and meeting his blue eyes, sparkling with anger, with a raised eyebrow. "You wanted to discuss something. Discuss it."
"And if I refuse?" He asked calmly, his voice barely a whisper.
"Then we all probably live longer." Beneath his beard a muscle in his jaw tensed as he bit down on his fury, replacing it with a contemplative look that was clearly meant to make me feel small. I grew up with Percy Weasley as a brother, fat bloody chance. I thought to myself.
Slowly Monty eased back into his seat beside me, careful not to jostle me too much, and Moody limped toward the back of the couch I was settled on. I felt his rough hands land behind me, one on my shoulder the other bracing against the back of the couch for stability. We waited.
"Do you remember what we discussed at Christmas?" Dumbledore said after a long calculated moment.
"You'll be more specific, Professor," I replied coolly.
"The book."
"Right." Dumbledore glanced toward Monty and Moody before his eyes flicked back to mine. Calculated. Cool. Cunt. I thought to myself.
"I have an idea, a lead," He began. "I want you to come with me."
"Where?"
"It's where I first met him," He murmured. Intrigued, I sat up a fraction of an inch. The Tom I remembered from the diary had spun stories of loneliness to rival my own. He grew up on the outside of things, just like me, always desperate to be included but never allowed. I knew now it was all a fat load of horse shite, told only to slither his way into my mind, but I remembered the images of a room of children, the feeling as another left for their new home, of feeling once again all alone.
"The orphanage?" I murmured, and he nodded slowly.
"Who?" Moody asked, but neither I nor Dumbledore made a move to answer him.
"When?" I asked him.
"A few weeks."
"Why wait?" I prompted him, feeling eager to finally get up and do something - anything - that might actually help. He leaned back in his chair, and shook his head slowly.
"I cannot leave," He replied simply.
"I'll go with her," Moody suggested.
"No," Dumbledore replied sharply. "No one else can know."
"Are we not trustworthy?" Fleamont spat and lit a fire in Dumbledore's eyes. I rolled my own in irritation.
"He's worried that Voldemort will find out that we know his little secret. Right professor?" I looked across the small coffee table with exhausted surrender. Dumbledore didn't answer. I scoffed into the angry silence that settled over the three men. "Fine. Two weeks. Two weeks or I go on my own."
"No," Moody cut me off quickly. "You don't go anywhere alone, not until Rosier is behind bars or dead." If I hadn't felt so exhausted, so fucking numb, I might have felt angry at his words, but instead, I let them wash over me. I let his protection comfort me for a second. It was almost like being loved.
"This orphanage, what are you hoping to find?" Monty asked.
Oh just a piece of Voldemort's soul, Monty. Do pass the sugar. I thought to myself as I quirked an eyebrow toward Dumbledore.
"I think it will bring us closer to ending Lord Voldemort for good," Dumbledore calculated. I shook my head, breaking our eye contact and finding the window again. Outside looked like my head felt: a torrential storm that threatened to shake the castle's very foundation with its wind and pounding snow. I imagined for a moment that the wind might break the glass of the window, letting in the biting chill and gusting so strong it might carry me away. It might carry me somewhere else, somewhere safer, somewhere that Sirius-
"Cricket?" Moody asked me softly, stealing my attention away from the window. I met his tired eyes with confusion and he repeated himself. "Will it? Will it bring us closer to killing him?"
"I don't know," I shrugged. "Maybe…probably…I don't know."
"Albus she shouldn't be-"
"Well, she is," I cut Fleamont off with a biting hiss. For a second I regretted it saying it, I regretted snapping at the only person in this room who was fighting tooth and nail for me and my innocence, but then I remembered that I lost that innocence to a 16-year-old fragment of a psychopaths soul trapped in a diary when I was 11. "Someone has to, so it'd better be me. Right?" I looked up at Dumbledore to find him regarding me calmly.
"I wish it wasn't," Dumbledore replied and I almost believed him. The fact that I didn't turned my insides and I laughed humorlessly.
Monty mumbled something under his breath in irritation, chewing on the words I couldn't make out like they were poison on his tongue.
"Something to say, Fleamont?" The old man asked.
"For the greater good," Monty replied, spitting the words as if they were knives to be thrown at an opponent, as if, if he spits them hard enough, they might land and take his adversary down. He glared at Dumbledore with a renewed fury, his body vibrating with anger as he clutched my hand gently in his - a stark contrast to the waves of rage that rolled off him. "That's what you mean isn't it?"
"Monty-" Moody placed a hand on Fleamont's shoulders for the briefest second until a spark of magic had him yanking his palm away in pain.
"For the greater good," He repeated with just as much vitriol. "I remember those words, and they were awful then. How can we be better than them if we resort to their methods?"
"Are you suggesting-"
"That you're no better than the man you put away in the prison he built for his enemies?" Fleamont cut him off with a biting laugh. "I wasn't suggesting it. I was saying it. You're no better than him if you follow this course of action."
"It's war, we cannot remain innocent," Dumbledore countered, the spark of anger in his eyes as he leaned forward.
"You're right, we can't remain innocent - but they can. These children can. But only if we do this right."
"It's too late for that," I murmured, turning away from the scene and back toward the storm. "I'm not innocent. Not anymore. I haven't been innocent in a long time."
"Ginny-"
"I lost my innocence to a madman and a diary. I was 11." I shrugged. "I wish you would have stopped him too, but you didn't. None of you did." I looked toward Moody with tired sad eyes and they flashed with shame. "It doesn't matter whose fault it is…Professor Dumbledore's, the ministry's, whoever, it doesn't bloody matter. It matter's what we do now." I turned back toward Monty squeezing his hand in mine. "I'm going with him. I'm putting an end to it…to him..and then maybe your grandson-" I stopped, panic washing through me as familiar green eyes flashed before me. A messy head of dark unruly hair, large firm hands that only knew me for a few short months. The familiar ache of this loss settled in my bones. How quickly I'd forgotten my love for Harry Potter, a boy I'd spent my whole adolescence pining for. I'd traded in green eyes for blue, dark and wild hair for long and curled, Harry for Sirius. I met Monty's eyes - wide in wonder still - with apologetic ones of my own. "I'm sorry."
"Grandson?" He whispered, tears threatening to spill over his cheeks. "I have a grandson."
"Fleamont-" Dumbledore tried, but Monty didn't pull away.
"A grandson." A tear slipped past the barrier of his lashes.
"I didn't-" He pulled me into his arms, cutting off the apologies with a tight embrace. I fell into it, letting the warmth of a father encompass me despite my slip. I wasn't supposed to tell. I shouldn't have told. It was wrong, it could mean disaster…right? But as he clutched me tightly to his chest I couldn't help but feel like I'd done the right thing in telling him about Harry. In one word, one mistake, I'd given him something to hold onto. It was a renewed hope, a light in the darkness of these troubled times. And isn't that what we'd always held onto? Hope? Love?
"Miss Cole," Dumbledore stole the moment from us as we pulled apart. His blue eyes eyed me stonily.
"What's his name?" Monty whispered, paying no mind to anyone else in the room.
"Monty - I -I-"
"His name."
"Harry," I replied quietly.
"Harry," He whispered it like a prayer like it was a wish on a shooting star, something to be held sacred. "Harry."
"That's enough," Dumbledore cut us off, stealing our attention away and looking at us with panic in his eyes. "No more."
"Albus," Moody pleaded.
"Enough." We all turned to regard the enraged headmaster, ready to fight him, ready to take this moment for Monty, to allow him this moment of celebration for the grandson he'd one day have. I glared back at him and started to say what I was thinking as the sound of fists against the wooden door stole all of our attention.
Dumbledore glanced toward it, eyes flitting over in irritation at the interruption before he stood and walked over to open it. Monty's hand shook in mine, still reeling with the revelation of Harry Potter but slowly coming down from the euphoria as we all waited to hear what the newcomer had to say. Moody trailed behind Dumbledore at a distance, his wand clutched tightly at his side in case the intruder might attack. As Dumbledore opened the door, a sixth-year Ravenclaw with wide blue eyes and long flowing blonde hair panted while clutching her side.
"Ms. Abbott?" Dumbledore greeted her with confusion. She right herself as she stared up at the headmaster.
"I was sent to find Ginny Cole, and Mr. Potter, sir," she replied in a dreamy voice that juxtaposed her earlier exhaustion. Clearly, she'd run here.
Fleamont stood quickly, walking over to the door to look at the girl on the landing.
"Yes?" He said.
"Your wife asked me to come get you. It's Sirius…he's awake."
I stood on shaky legs just to the corner of the doorway to the hospital wing, watching as Fleamont rushed over to the bed closest to the door where Sirius sat, propped up by half a dozen pillows, surrounded by Marauders and Potters. Lily was in the bed next to him, her leg wrapped from knee to hip in white gauze as James perched on the edge of it, holding her hand tightly in his and laughing at something Sirius must have said. Moody stood next to me, my arm nestled into the crook of his elbow for support as I stood on shaky legs. The scene looked happy, everyone smiling with tired-eyed relief, and Sirius looked - he looked pale. His eyes kept dancing around the room in search of something, coming back to the scene before him every time with thinly veiled disappointment when he couldn't find what he was looking for. Moody squeezed my hand gently from our spot, just out of view.
"This is the part where you rush over to the boy and declare your undying love," He murmured. I looked up at the scarred man next to me. He looked like he'd aged ten years over the course of a day.
"You look like shit." The corner of his mouth twitched like he might actually laugh, but he didn't.
"Not talking about it then?"
"Nope."
"Keep it all bottled up and you'll end up like me. Alone. Sad." He eyed me with a ghost of a grin at the corner of his mouth. "Contemplating retirement with half a dozen cats for company."
"I like cats."
"No one likes cats," he scoffed and waited. After a full minute of silence in which neither of us moved nor spoke I sighed in defeat
"It's my fault he's there," I replied. "He deserves better."
"The only person responsible for him being in that hospital bed is the Dark Lord, and the person who cast the curse." His blue eyes swam with a gentle fury I didn't think possible. "You're at fault for nothing in this war."
"I'm the reason he has a target on his back."
"He has a target on his back because he's the disgraced son of crazed blood purists - you just happen to be dating him. I'm sorry, Cricket, but the world doesn't revolve around you. This isn't your fault. You want to blame someone? Blame me."
"Professor-"
"I should've known better, trusted my gut. I never should have been at Hogsmeade this weekend. That's on me. But this war isn't anyone's fault but the man who started it and the people who did nothing to stop him. So you better get arse in there, kiss his wounds better, and tell him you love him."
"I don't love him."
"You'll need to work on that," He murmured.
"What?"
"Lying," Moody replied with a raised eyebrow. "Aurors have to be excellent liars."
"And if I don't to be an Auror?"
"Then you'll need to get better at lying to yourself. 'Else you'll never be able to sleep at night." I looked up at Moody then, taking in his tired and haggard appearance, the scars - new and old - that stretched across his face and neck. His hair hung in stringy locks, matted with dried sweat and blood, along his cheeks, stopping just past his chin. The ghost of a five o clock shadow peppered his jawline. I reached up to tuck one of the stray strands of hair that hung along his cheekbone behind his ear and his eyes tightened for a moment as my fingertips grazed his skin. It wasn't romantic like when Sirius did it, or stomach rolling like Rosier's touch, it felt like two people who saw each other so wholly and completely that they might be cut from the same cloth. As I looked into his watery blue eyes that churned with a sea of emotion I felt seen.
"I'm scared." Moody nodded like he knew far better than me what it was to be afraid to love and to lose. He took my hand, still nestled into the crook of his elbow, and brought it up. He pressed my knuckles to his lips, kissing them softly in a show of respect I wasn't sure I deserved before letting go and placing a hand between my shoulder blades.
"Me too, Cricket," He smiled sadly and pushed me toward the doorway. "Off you go."
"Professor-"
"Go." The force of his push wasn't enough to knock me over, more akin to a gentle nudge as I let it move me toward the doorway and toward the little family I'd found for myself. He was busy talking to Euphemia, his head back against the pillow as she fussed over him, straightening his blankets and brushing hair off of his forehead. Sirius laughed at something she said, but it quickly turned into a grimace that had her fussing even more. Despite the fact that any other 17-year-old, myself included, might have found a mother fussing embarrassing - annoying even - Sirius couldn't hide the look of pure adoration that settled across his face at her attention. Remus must have said something to him about it because Euphemia's sharp glare at him, and gentle thwack over James' head at his laughter, sent the group into a chorus of laughter. Sirius smiled in response, but it didn't quite reach his eyes, and I caught him looking around the room again in search of something. He started at the doorway first and it was with a rush of heat that I realized it was me he was looking for.
His face lit up in relief and he made a move to sit up that was quickly aborted with a sharp cry of pain. The fear that had paralyzed me only a minute ago washed away and I closed the distance as quickly as my shaky legs would allow. Remus met me at the corner of the bed, holding his hand out for me to catch as I stumbled toward the boy in the bed. With his help, I was able to sit on the corner of the mattress and wrapped Sirius in my arms.
Instantly the smell of sweet fire flooded my nostrils, next to the scent of antiseptic and blood-replenishing potion. Despite the shift in his smell, the fire his touch always brought on was present as my hands moved from his shoulders to his face, clutching his cheeks in my palms and smoothing my thumbs over the pale chilled cheekbones. He scanned my face and body quickly, checking for injuries with the same wide panicked eyes I'm sure mirrored my own. When his gaze landed on my face, a smile bloomed across his pale lips and he leaned forward slightly to close the distance between us.
When our lips touched, the heat of it spread through my limbs warming more than the fire and the tea had been able to. His right hand found my cheek and he stroked the tears that had fallen there away with his thumb, and I couldn't fight the choked sob that ripped from my throat as we broke away. With a grimace he leaned back, the effort of holding himself up must have been exhausting, but he kept his hand on my cheek using it to pull me down with him as he laid back against the pillows. His hand weakly carded through my hair as I cried against his chest.
"It's alright, Red," He murmured breathily. "I'm all sorted now, right as rain."
"There was so much blood," I gasped, breathing in the smell of the bandages that wrapped tightly around his chest. Someone had clearly doused them in dittany. "I thought you'd died."
"Can't die in the middle of a date," he chuckled lowly before sucking in a tight breath between his teeth at the pain it must have caused. "It's bad form."
"This isn't a joke!"
"I know, Red," He brought his head down to mine as he murmured into my hair. "Are you alright?"
"Effie's got me sorted," I sniffed and brought my gaze up to meet his. While his cheeks were still startlingly pale, and the dark circles under his eyes betrayed his exhaustion, the storm that churned in them helped me breathe a little easier knowing that he was going to be alright. "What happened?"
"It's a bit of a blur," He murmured. I sat up to look into his eyes, noting the dark circles that surrounded them, and the sharp knit of his brow as he tried to remember.
"When Ginny and Lily ran for the alley is when I found you," James chimed in. We all turned to face him. His fingers were tracing a vein along Lily's wrist, pausing every now and again as if he was checking to make sure the pulse still fluttered under his fingertips for reassurance. James' hair was always messy, but now it looked like he must have spent hours running his hands through it as it stood on every end, caked in dried mud and what I'm certain was blood. While someone had taken the time to heal the cuts that had littered his face, clearly no one had made time to clean the dried blood those blemishes had left behind. He looked haunted as he continued. "You were fine then. We were fighting… someone, I don't know who - but they recognized us. Kept calling us blood traitors. One of us stunned them, and then, before we could even think about going to the girls, two more showed up. I took one, you took the other, and by the time mine was down you were gone."
"That's when I found you, James," Remus interrupted. "I was dueling with one I know I recognized, couldn't give you a name though. Ravenclaw, had to have graduated 4 or 5 years ago…fuck I don't know…but when he went down you were there. You kept shouting that we find Sirius and get to Lily and Gin."
"He drew me over near Madam Puttifoot's," Sirius realized, eyes widening as the memories came back to him. "It was Rodolphus."
"Lestrange?" Euphemia gasped.
"Yeah. He drew me over and when we were in the alley Bellatrix was waiting for us." I gripped his hand tightly, waiting for him to continue as my heart pounded in my chest at the mention of her name. My blood turned to ice in my veins. "It was fast from there. Mostly me just deflecting, and shielding, don't think I got a curse in edge-wise. Then the Aurors arrived, and things slowed down. I hit Rodulphus with a slicing hex, nothing nasty but he was bleeding, and Bella got mad. He was grabbing at her, telling her to leave, and then your Patronus found me." Sirius turned to look up at me with wide eyes. "She got excited when she heard your message. Really fucking excited. I got distracted, and that's when she hit me with the curse."
"And when did Regulus find you?" Remus asked him, and Sirius looked back at the other boy with wide eyes.
"Regulus found me?"
"He brought you here, and then he disappeared," Euphemia told him gently.
"Reg? No, that's -" He looked at me with panic in his eyes, wide and swirling with fear. "That's not. He's a-"
"He brought you here. I saw him," I assured him.
"Where is he?"
"Don't know," Moody interjected from his spot closest to the doorway. He looked wearily at our little group, a pad of paper clutched in his grip as a self-inking quill scratched away. "There was a bit of a commotion when you were brought in, by the time it all died down he'd disappeared."
"Prongs?" Sirius turned toward the other Marauder quickly. "Did you check the-"
"Not there," James answered with sorrow in his eyes.
"Well when you find him, he'll need to speak with an Auror. I need statements from everyone who was there," Moody shrugged, tucking his pad and quill away.
"He's a child," Fleamont grunted, the frustration from earlier still evident in his tone.
"He was at the scene of a crime, as were all of you. Everyone gave Frank or Alice a statement?" A chorus of yes' rang through the students gathered around Lily and Sirius' beds. It seemed to satisfy Moody. "Good. Send him to Dumbledore when he's found, he'll see to it I'm called."
"Alastor," Effie called to him quietly, reaching toward him in the way that old friends did but he brushed it off with a tired shake of his head.
"You all did well today," He said to the group. "Constant vigilance. That's what I always say."
"Every day but today?" Fleamont asked him through gritted teeth.
"Fleamont!" Effie admonished him.
"He's right, Effie. I got carried away," Moody replied. "This is my fault, and I'm sorry. They'll never catch me with my back turned again. This I promise you." The old, harried auror looked around the group with a deep sorrow etched across his brow. Sirius reached for my hand, giving it a soft squeeze that set my churning stomach at ease. Moody's gaze landed on me, and he gave the tiniest nod. "Get better, Black."
"Need me for the Aurors too?" Sirius asked with a weak but cocky grin. At Moody's grimace, the group fell into soft laughter that only Monty didn't join in on, and then the man turned to leave our group alone.
When the excitement over Sirius' recovery died down, the exhaustion set in. It was the deep bone tired kind of weight from too much exertion, too much frenzy, and too many potions that settled amongst our group. Effie and Monty were set up with a room by Professor McGonagall as they refused to leave the castle until Sirius and Lily, who they'd adopted as one of their own in the absence of her parents, were allowed to go back to their dormitories. James lay in a cot at the foot of Lily's bed after he somehow managed to convince Madame Pomfrey that he wasn't well enough to spend the night in his dormitory. Remus, who only raised an eyebrow in the matron's direction at her suggestion he may be more comfortable in Gryffindor tower, was slumped in a chair next to Sirius' bed snoring softly. I was given a cot of my own that lay in the space between Lily and Sirius' beds, but sleep was eluding me.
Every time I closed my eyes they danced with images of pooling blood, and Sirius convulsing. When I'd relaxed enough to fall into a fitful slumber, the feeling of Rosier's fingers on my cheek, or the stench of his breath, sent me bolting upright in a panic as I searched the room for him. He wasn't there, but it did little to ease my anxiety. And so I lay on my cot, gazing up at the boy who I thought was dead only hours ago, watching as his chest rose and fell. The breath was still a little too shallow for my liking, and his cheeks were still alarmingly pale, but the fingers that dangled off the bed and tangled with mine were warm - and that was comfort in itself.
As I studied the face in front of me, etching every scar, and line into my memory, the snoring on Sirius' other side stopped abruptly and I realized that Remus was awake. I didn't think anything of it, we'd all been sleeping fitfully tonight - everyone but Sirius who'd been given enough potions to knock out a Hungarian Horntail - it seemed normal until his voice cut through the silence.
"What are you doing here?" Remus's whispered.
"Is he going to be alright?" A new voice responded, careful not to wake anyone around him.
"Yes," Remus replied. "Sorry to disappoint you. It seems Sirius is going to make a full recovery."
"Good," the other boy responded.
"Is it?"
"Well I didn't exactly bring him to you lot in the hopes that he'd die, now did I?" Regulus. What was he doing here?
"No, but you left him here and ran like a coward, so forgive us for not trusting you and your sudden change of heart."
"I had other things to tend to." Was Regulus' clipped response, Remus scoffed.
"Master calls?" There's a shuffling near the foot of the bed, like a step taken too quickly, a counter step near the head, and I peeked over the edge of the bed to see both boys standing and glaring at one another with clenched fists. Regulus looked more tired than I'd ever seen him. The paleness of his cheeks rivaled Sirius' but his blue eyes were rimmed in dark purple-black circles that made the gauntness of his cheeks stand out far more than they ever had. I was reminded of a fleeting memory of Sirius Black when I first met him in the summer before my fourth year. Tired, gaunt, and too skinny, but the biggest difference between the Sirius of my memories and the Regulus in front of me was the fire in their eyes. When we first came to Grimmuald place the summer before my fourth year Sirius' eyes had a fire in them, a glimmer of humor, but the Regulus before me had no fire. He just looked dead.
"You'd be careful talking about Masters, dog."
"There's only one of us with a brand here. Come on, Reggie, I'll roll up my sleeve if you roll up yours."
"Don't call me that." Remus snorted in response. "You know, nothing Lupin."
"I know you're an idiot, Black," Remus sighed. "Did you go and get yourself mixed up in something you can't get out of?"
"Piss off."
"Made a mistake?" Remus asked again and took a calculated step toward the younger boy who stood nearly a head shorter than him. Regulus' wide blue eyes stared at him in fear. "Sirius wasn't there to take the beating this time was he?"
That's when realization washed over me. The pale cheeks, the dead eyes, the muscles that trembled under long black robes but never seemed to stop shaking. He'd been held under the cruciatus. Oh, Regulus.
"You don't know anything," Regulus spat at him.
"He left, so it fell to you?" Remus asked him before shaking his head. "You're a fool."
"I am a trusted servant of the Dark Lord." Remus let out a low dark chuckle.
"He's using you, Reggie," Remus told him and Regulus barked out a laugh of disbelief.
"And Dumbledore's not?" Remus' eyes flashed with anger. "Look around you, Lupin. Your friends are in a hospital bed, my brother nearly died today, they're all just using us. At least I'm fighting for a side I believe in."
"You really believe in all that magical supremacy bullshit?"
"Of course I do," Regulus sneered and Remus only shook his head in response.
"You're good at that."
"What?"
"Lying to yourself," Remus shrugged.
"I'm not lying."
"Keep that up, it's good, almost convinced me that time."
"You disgust me," Regulus seethed, but Remus had a point, there wasn't much gusto to his words. The words didn't drip with hatred, he seemed tired.
"Try it with a bit more venom when someone's around to hear you, yeah?"
"I hate you all, the lot of you."
"Then why didn't you leave him in that alley?" Remus asked, quirking his head to the side in question as he did it. Regulus seemed to mull over his answer for a moment, his teeth chewing the inside of his cheek as he thought over how to respond. A cruel smile crossed his lips and his eyes flicked up toward Remus as he opened his mouth to respond.
"Well not all of us are willing to leave our brothers behind." While the words floored me, setting a blaze of anger through my veins at the thought that Regulus would just throw something so horrible back into Sirius' face, Remus wasn't even the slightest bit fazed. I wanted to stand and shout Regulus down, how dare he use something so awful, so traumatic, for Sirius as a means of hurting him again? How dare he insult him like that? How dare-
"He tried to go back for you, you know?"
"Who?"
"Sirius." The heat of anger stopped coursing through my veins.
"What are you on about?" It seems the words caught Regulus off guard too, as he eyed Remus wearily.
"Last year, after he left you lot. He showed up at the Potter's, practically fell out of the floo bleeding and beaten, and when he came to, he tried to go back for you."
"Don't lie to me."
"Why would I lie, Regulus?" Remus asked him as he rubbed a tired hand down his face. In the moonlight his scars made him look older than his 17 years. "What do I have to gain by lying to you? The trust of someone who thinks I deserve to die? Who's disgusted by me?"
"You're manipulating me."
"I wish I cared enough to manipulate you, Regulus, but I don't. I don't give a flying fuck whether you live or you die. It wouldn't matter to me if you dropped dead on the floor right now. In fact, it would probably be best if you did. I'm sure a lot more people would get to live if one of you-know-who's supporters up and died. The only person who cares whether you live or die is Sirius. Sirius tried to go back for you. I went with him, but you were gone."
"What are you on about?"
"It was a few days later, when he was able to walk again," Remus glared at him as if he had been the reason Sirius ended up at the Potter's that night. And he may have been, I knew next to nothing about that night. "We snuck in through his old window, broke into your room, but you were gone. Orion was waiting."
"My father?"
"He knew Sirius would come back for you. You've always been his blind spot. Even when you were ignoring him, and insulting us all."
"You don't know anything." Regulus was shaking with anger as he spoke, and his eyes swam with tears that didn't fall.
"Orion knew that you were always Sirius' weak spot, so he gave Sirius the choice: take an unbreakable vow or watch as Orion killed you."
"My father would never-"
"Wouldn't he?" Remus cut him off. "Wouldn't he beat his sons with a cane? Lock them in closets? Starve them for days? Let his wife unleash all manner of abuse on them? Wouldn't Orion Black kill his heirs to prevent them from sullying his perfect bloodline? Grow up, Regulus. Of course, your father would kill you."
"He took the vow?"
"Sirius promised that he would leave you alone. He wouldn't try to come back for you ever again. Orion promised that he and Walburga wouldn't hurt you."
"Why would he kill me? Without me, there's no heir."
"The heir, and the spare. Tradition as old as time."
"Sirius would never have been their heir if I were dead."
"Well, between you and me, I don't think Sirius was willing to call his bluff." Regulus shook with emotion, anger, shock, and something that brimmed under it all carefully hidden away but there if you looked deep into his eyes: regret. Regret at what, I wasn't sure, but it was regret all the same.
"He left to protect me?"
"Hasn't he always?" Remus leveled him with a long look and Regulus could only shake in response as he stared down at his brother still sleeping soundly on the bed.
"I should go."
"Probably." Regulus didn't leave.
"Don't tell him I was here," he whispered.
"Merlin forbid he thinks you care about him too, right?"
"Lupin-"
"I won't tell. Don't worry. He'd never believe me anyway."
"Just-" Regulus took a shaky breath in. "Keep him safe?"
"Whatever," Remus shrugged and leaned back into the chair he'd been sleeping in earlier. His head fell back against it and his eyes shut softly.
In the silence and the darkness where he assumed that no one was there to see it, the tears that had been swimming in his eyes finally fell down Regulus's cheeks. He let himself cry for only a minute, let the tears flow down as if mourning the death of something beautiful, before wiping the tracks away with a flick of a shaking finger. The dark-haired boy steeled his shoulders as if walking into a battle, straightened the robes on his back, and left the hospital wing and his brother behind.