21. Morning

I woke in the hospital wing when it was still dark outside. I could hear a hard rain falling, but the cold couldn't penetrate the bubble of safety which the candles on my bedside made. Under the rushing sound were soft whispers coming from the other end of the wing, and I turned my head achingly to see Poppy and Severus standing by the door, engaged in an inaudible conversation. Poppy saw me move in her peripheral vision and looked over. Severus's gaze quickly followed. Poppy was openly relieved, but I couldn't tell what Severus was feeling. I felt my face grow hot with shame, as the memories of that night flooded back to me.

I was happy, though, to note that the pain in my body was significantly less than it had been. Rather than feeling like I was being raked over hot coals, the low infrequent pulse in my abdomen brought to mind a painful menstrual cycle, nothing more.

Poppy came to my bedside to check on me. Severus came a bit closer, but not very close, and kept looking out the window. He looked exhausted. After I assured Poppy that I wasn't in any outstanding pain, she told me what had happened while I'd been in and out of consciousness. They had been giving me more potions throughout the night based on my condition, when I was awake enough. My body had gradually stabilised, and my fever had finally broken at four in the morning. Poppy had given me a sponge bath. That explained why I felt so surprisingly calm and clean.

"I discovered a scratch on your lower back, which looks like it will take some time to heal," she told me. I wondered if that was because of the full moon; scars from transformed werewolves never healed… perhaps this one would take a few months, since it had come from Remus just before his transformation.

"Poppy," I started, "do you know what actually… happened? Last night?"

"Severus filled me in," she said. I swallowed, remembering how Severus had used Legilimency, and wondering just how much he had seen.

"I meant… Why the pain?"

Poppy shook her head. "I don't know. Neither of us knows. We'll have to do loads of reading until we do. For now we know that, though the pain will probably linger for a little while, you will be alright. It's a good thing Severus was able to think quickly. Precious few wizards could have come up with the remedies he did with no secure diagnosis."

Severus turned, though his face showed no sign of pleasure at Poppy's words of praise. He looked directly at her, seeming incapable of directly acknowledging me. "I can give her something," he said, "to change the timing of her cycle, so this never happens again."

Poppy raised an eyebrow. "I don't know about that," she said. "It could do hormonal damage. Besides, when I send in my report I'll be quite sure to explain to the Ministry what has happened here. They ought to see sense this time. Now, Severus, if you would allow us a minute in private?"

He looked at the floor, turned with a sweep of his cloak, and strode out the door. I felt a pang of guilt. After a long week of nothing but coldness between us, I had called on him for help in my hour of need. He had given it freely, and I saw how foolish I had been to hold a grudge before. But I wasn't yet sure if he saw it the same way. In his eyes, was I an inexperienced fool, falling all over the place, in need of rescue?

Poppy had disappeared into her office, and now emerged holding a piece of parchment and a basin covered by a cloth. "Now, I need to do an examination, dear." She saw the wariness in my eyes, and I knew she wouldn't lie to me. "It will probably hurt a bit, but there'll be a cup of tea for you when it's over with."

I nodded, pressing down my nervousness as Poppy prompted me to open my knees. I looked at the stone ceiling. I knew it would hurt to have anything inside of me after last night–and I was right. I had to clench my teeth hard to keep from yelping while Poppy did what had to be done. It was over in a minute, though.

I winced and blinked away tears while she put her equipment back in her office. She emerged with a cup of tea, and I sat up so I could hold it. It hurt to sit up, but I told myself to be tough. I had handled worse. The tea was warm and I cradled it against my chest while I watched the dark rain falling past the windows.

Poppy wrote for quite a while on the parchment she'd brought, while I sipped my tea, and then signed it. "I'll send this to the Ministry at breakfast," she said. Then she looked at the clock. "I need to go and get Remus now. Severus will stay with you. You're free to remain in bed if you wish, but you're free to go."

"Thank you," I told her.

"Oh, it's not me that needs thanking. Severus deserves all of your gratitude. If it weren't for him, you might have died tonight."

Her words sank in as she gave me a tight smile, and walked out of the hospital wing. It came back to me, just how much it had hurt. I remembered what I had read in that book, about the wife of the werewolf dying from their lovemaking on the night of the full moon. My thoughts ran back to the night itself, how powerful Remus had been. If he'd wanted to hurt me, he easily could have. But the actual sex hadn't hurt at all. Quite the contrary. It had been the most intense and mindlessly pleasurable of my life. I didn't know what exactly the cause of the pain had been, but whatever it was, it was obvious now that the pain could have been deadly.

I set the tea on the bedside table and decided I wanted to go back to the Defence Against the Dark Arts bedroom. I couldn't be here when Remus returned. I would certainly have to tell him what had happened at some point, but I didn't want to reveal the extent of it. It would terrify him, and I myself was terrified of what his reaction would be. I would go back and sleep in the bedroom until he was well enough to visit me, and by then the pain would probably have eased enough for me to fake it. I hoped that his own pain would keep him indisposed for a couple of days, and would distract him enough for him to believe me, once he got around to worrying about me.

I was standing up and finding the strength in my legs when Severus entered again. Though he was trying to shield the stress in his face, I could see that he had not slept, and felt terrible knowing it was because of me.

He stood stiffly in the corner, watching me as though I would burst into flames. "I'm alright now," I promised him, even as my knees wobbled slightly and I steadied myself against the foot of the bed. Poppy's words echoed inside my head, and I felt my heart trying to open towards him. "Severus," I said, "thank you for helping me. I can never repay what you did last night."

But his face stayed blank and sour. "Poppy did most of the work," he said stiffly. It was clear that he would take any kind of gratitude as a compliment, and wouldn't suffer any of those.

"You don't need to stay," I said. "I'll go back to my room."

"I will go with you," he said, and I nodded, accepting his escort.

Walking was not too bad in the end, though I did feel extremely weak. It was as though all of my muscles and bones had been worn down to threads and shavings, and then tied and glued together again. Of course, there was also the occasional low throb of pain around my hip joints.

Severus was very obliging, pausing when I needed a moment on the way up the stairs. He offered me his arm once, but I politely refused, not wanting to rely on him any more than I already had done.

He delivered me to the door of the classroom. "I will bring breakfast later," he offered.

"Oh… thank you. But there's really no need. I don't think I'll be able to eat."

"You ought to. Get your strength back."

"I'll come down later, then." But we both knew I would not. "Thank you, Severus," I said again, wanting to use his name, wanting him to feel that I meant it.

There was the briefest flicker of rare kindliness in his eyes, and I felt a small pinprick of surprise in my chest when I saw it. But then the darkness fell in front of his face again, and the corner of his mouth twitched as he began to turn.

"Rest, Mrs. Lupin," he said, and then he descended the staircase again.

I walked up through the classroom, remembering the long, pained, moonlit journey many hours before, and heaved a sigh of relief at the sight of the bed. The sheets were still coiled, and remembering how they had been damp with sweat I performed a few quick charms that would suffice until we next did laundry. For now, I needed to rest.

I was surprised when I woke up some time later. I hadn't intended to fall asleep, but I had done, and my unconsciousness had been dark and churning.

My anxiety only swelled when I rolled over and saw Remus sitting in a chair across the room. He was wearing the same clothes I'd last seen him in the night before. They were a bit dirtier, though. I couldn't believe that he was here, so soon after transforming. Normally he was bed-bound for the first two days. The rain had softened, and weak rose light bled through the windows, caressing his grey and careworn face. He looked as though he'd risen from the dead, and was trembling ever so slightly as he stared hard at the door.

"Remus," I said.

He looked over, seeming as though he'd been roughly called out of another world. A barricade had risen in his eyes, and I felt my heart fall as I realised he was keeping me out on purpose. I swallowed, and reminded myself to breathe. "Why aren't you in the hospital wing?" I asked.

He looked at me blankly for a moment longer. It honestly looked as though he hadn't heard me at all. When he spoke his voice was hoarse, and shook violently. "Did it hurt?" he said.

I shrugged. "Not too badly."

But I knew I had made the wrong choice by lying, for the walls in his eyes crumbled and he smiled ruefully. "If that were true," he said, "you wouldn't have limped your way to Severus's office last night looking like you'd been attacked."

My eyes went wide; I couldn't help it. "Did he reprimand you?"

"No," Remus said. "I went to him myself, because I knew you wouldn't tell me the truth."

That hurt even more than the alternative, and he seemed to know it, because his tone had been bitter–and no sooner had the words left his mouth than tears slipped from his eyes. He lifted a trembling hand to brush them away, and I saw the pain contort his face from the effort. Had Poppy allowed him out of the hospital wing herself? He must have taken a significant dose of potion to be sitting up at all–that, or be running on an extraordinary amount of adrenaline.

My heart lifted into my throat and formed a hard lump there. Seeing him in such pain was excruciating to me. "Remus…" I choked out. I slipped out of bed and forced myself to walk normally as I slowly approached him.

He was gasping through his tears now. I had never seen him quite like this, not since walking in on him in Sirius's bedroom. He was hunched over in the chair, his face buried in his hand as the other one tightly gripped the armrest. His words came out abruptly between sobs. "I spent– the whole night– worrying– afraid– that I would– come back– and you'd– be–"

But he could manage no more. He had frayed into complete tatters. I felt tears fill my own eyes and promptly slip down onto my cheeks. There was nothing to do but to go to him. I couldn't bear the thought of him, trapped in that terrible shack all night, afraid of what he had done. I wondered suddenly if he had hurt himself at all–but if there were new scars, they weren't visible.

I tried to touch him, to comfort him, but his body violently stood and escaped mine, as though I had threatened to curse him. He looked up at me again, his eyes wild. "No!" he cried. "Don't touch me."

I held my hands out in front of me helplessly as he edged towards the door. "Are you going to Poppy?" I asked urgently.

His hands flew up to cover his ears. He looked as though he might fall, and I noticed his bad leg dragging a bit on the floor. "I don't know."

"Then just stay here," I said, trying to stay calm. "Just stay and watch over me while I sleep, if you won't sleep yourself. Please, Remus…"

"You want me to watch over you? Me?"

"Yes, I do."

"You're mad," he said, in such a way that I almost believed it. And he turned to stumble down the stairs into the classroom.

My mind reeled, grasping for any way to keep him here. I had the terrible gut feeling that if I let him go now, I would not see him again for a long time. I felt him slipping through my fingers, and everything we had tried to build. All of the hope which had managed to grow from our union.

It washed through my body all at one, what he had told me last night in his moment of vulnerability. I love you.

The words rang with truth, rang through my blood like magic, or poison, and I felt them rushing to my mouth, to the tip of my tongue, desperate to be heard.

"Remus, stop–" I said, my voice raising as he began to struggle down the stairs. "Stop… I love you."

There was a long silence.

He turned on the stairs, his face bitterly contorted into a grimace of a smile. "Is that true?" he said.

My whole body trembled with the truth of it. "Yes," I said, my own tears blooming from my eyes. "Remus. It's true."

There was a hurricane of fear tearing silently through his eyes. "Then we both must be sick."

My heart twisted, like a cloth being wrung out. I felt betrayal dripping from every heartbeat. My knees could have given out then and there. But then the truth sent its small message through my blood again. I was offended, but not destroyed. "That's not true," I said, my voice shaking but strong. "We aren't sick."

He scowled. "Then I am."

"You aren't, Remus!"

I was surprised by the size of my own voice, and also surprised at the sound of a knocking at the classroom door.

Remus looks at the door in fear, stumbling down the last few steps and gripping the stone bannister. "Sit down," I said. "Please."

I descended the stairs after him and reached out to guide him to a chair. But he put his hands up and went himself, so afraid to be touched by me.

It bit back the grief this brought me. Was everything broken? Would it ever be mended? I wiped my tears away roughly as I walked the length of the classroom to the wooden door.

It was Severus standing in the corridor. He had with him a platter, with a bit of everything from the breakfast table, and a steaming cup of tea.

"Oh," I said, my mouth falling open in surprise. I had forgotten his previous offer, and hadn't expected him to follow through on it, even though I'd slept through breakfast. I realised that I actually was a bit hungry, but that sensation had been stomped down deep by the outpourings of emotion in my last two minutes with Remus.

I noticed Severus take in my red eyes, the trembling in my body. He glanced over my shoulder and his face hardened when he saw Remus. I felt a hard wall of defensiveness rise in my heart, against my better sense. I didn't want Remus to feel any hatred or darkness from Severus's eyes.

"I see this is a bad time," Severus said.

"It's alright," I said. "Thank you so much."

He handed the tray to me, and said nothing more before turning on his heel and going, in a wave of black fabric.

I looked back at Remus, who had begun to stare at the floor, seeming ashamed of himself. I guessed that their conversation had been less civil than Remus had led me to believe.

I set down the platter on the nearest desk and slowly made my way to him. He was shaking visibly now, and I had been with him after enough moons now to know that it was from the inescapable pain in his bones. My fingers trembled as they reached out instinctively to touch him.

"Let me help you," I whispered. "You're hurting."

I wanted to feel his forehead for fever, but he flinched away from me. I felt my jaw trembling with emotion, but couldn't speak. I shook his head, and looked up at me, his eyes deep wells of pain.

"How are you like this?" he said, his voice equal parts doubt and wonder.

My eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know what you mean."

"How are you caring for me? Wilma, I could have killed you." And his tears surged up again.

"Hush, now," I said, forcefully keeping my own arms from embracing him. "I don't want to hear any more. Truly. I'll be just fine. Anyway, didn't I try to tell you to tell you we should have done it on the first day, rather than the third?"

I immediately regretted my short tone and wished I hadn't said anything. My anger had suddenly poured out of me.

But rather than arguing Remus just looked down. He knew I was right.

"Let me help you lie down," I said, softening myself. And he nodded his head mournfully.

He relied on me, letting me help him to stand up, leaning on me as he had done after our first full moon together. I felt full, needed. Relieved.

As I helped him slowly climb the stairs, my core muscles tensed and I hissed a bit.

I felt Remus's body tense alongside mine. "What is it?" he snapped.

"Nothing."

"No, what is it."

"I'm just a bit achy, that's all."

"Are you lying?"

"No." And I wasn't, not really. Whatever pain that lingered from last night was a dewdrop in comparison to the monolithic pain he was surely going through.

He let me lay him down on the bed. I untied his shoes, and started to unbutton his shirt, but he stopped me. I prayed that I hadn't been right earlier, about him clawing at himself last night. But I didn't want to argue any more. If he had, I would find out in due time. I took my hand away and pulled the blankets over him as carefully as I could.

I eased my own body into the chair beside the bed, and watched over him. I very slowly slipped my hand into his, and when he didn't fight me I held it, not too tightly. An unbridled chemical relief surged through my veins, the nausea ebbing as my body recognised safety again.

There was a long silence before he spoke. "I'm so sorry I hurt you," he said, his voice constricted with regret.

There was no good denying that he had, but as far as I was concerned, it had been no fault of his own. I knew he would never accept that, though, so chose my words carefully. "I forgive you," I told him.

He swallowed and closed his eyes, a few tears leaking out. I could feel, even from his hand, that it had been what he'd needed to hear.

Eventually his tears slowed and then stopped, and then his breath calmed and I knew he was asleep.