From the playlist:

Quiet Moon - Colossal Trailer Music (lol)

Howl - Florence and the Machine

In The Woods Somewhere - Hozier

Ch. 9 - Just a Scratch

She could recall several not-so-bright ideas she'd had throughout her life, but going out looking for a werewolf had to be towards the top of the list.

Godric's Hollow was bordered by a thick forest, and luckily Remus's house was right on the outskirts of the village. Emmeline moved clumsily through the trees, and no matter how much they walked, she never felt like she was getting a handle on her footing. Though the tree cover made their path pitch black, she decided not to light her wand for fear that Remus would find her before she found him. Her vision never quite adjusted to the dark, so she relied on Sirius's canine eyes to lead her through the thicket. In the form of a black dog he moved nimbly by her side, sniffing the ground constantly in pursuit of Remus's scent, undeterred by the cold or the terrain. Occasionally, Emmeline had to swashbuckle her way through a spiderweb, or they were spooked by a retreating deer. Other than Sirius's sniffing and the crunch of the frost underneath their feet, their search was disconcertingly quiet.

Several hours passed with no lead, and Emmeline - frigid, exhausted, and still hungry - was beginning to wonder if they'd gone in the wrong direction. After all, the forest was expansive, and Remus could've been anywhere. He might've been sleeping soundly like a tired pup in a pew at St. Jerome's for all she knew, though she suspected that this was highly unlikely. Sirius had years of experience with Remus's transformations, so she trusted his judgment and followed his lead. He knew what he was looking for, and he knew where he might find it. It unnerved her that, visually, she didn't quite know what she was looking for, since she'd never seen Remus during a transformation. The only things she had to go on were her recollection of frightful, hyperbolic drawings in school textbooks, and her own mother's anecdotes. The silent hours presented too much time for her to use her imagination to fill in the gaps.

Drained physically and otherwise, Emmeline was having trouble keeping her eyes open as she walked. Another hour or so went by, and by then she was certain they wouldn't find him. Certain, that is, until Sirius's brought his muzzle up from the undergrowth and began to whimper, pawing the ground.

Her adrenaline surged, waking her right up. "Find him, I'll keep up," she bade him, tightening her grip around her wand.

Sirius bounded off to the left with Emmeline racing behind. She struggled to stay with him, but pushed her screaming muscles harder to keep the black dog in sight, praying that she wouldn't run face-first into a branch. The icy air stung her throat and nostrils, and seemed to reduce her lung function (or so she told herself). She hadn't had much to run from in the last year. Well, okay, really run from.

They eventually came to a small clearing table where Sirius slowed to a halt. He lifted his head into the air, ears perked, listening. Thankful for the rest, Emmeline let the satchel drop from her shoulder and leaned against a tree to gulp for air.

Something on the bark felt sticky.

Thinking she'd placed her hand in tree sap, she pulled away, rubbing her fingers together. No, this was less gummy than tree sap, and smelled of iron. She took a few steps forward to hold her hand up in a sliver of moonlight, revealing that the liquid shone dark red.

It was blood.

"Sirius," she called out, but he was occupied, sniffing a furry mass farther into the clearing. Moving in for a closer look, Emmeline realized it was a large buck. It lay dead and bloodied with its neck broken, its head laying at an unnatural angle.

Her own blood ran cold. If James was not on his honeymoon right now, she would've wondered…

"Godric…" she breathed, assessing the damage to the deer. It hadn't only had its neck snapped; it had been ripped into and feasted upon by claws and fangs. Remus wasn't normally hostile toward other animals when he transformed, and almost never had an appetite for them. The massacred buck did not bode well for whatever state Remus might be in, when and if they found him.

Then she had a thought, and moved around to the other side where the buck's head had been twisted. There was blood on its antlers.

"Sirius," she called, pointing.

Sirius came around, sniffed it, backed up a few paces, and began checking the ground again.

"It's his, isn't it?" Emmeline asked, trying to quell her dread, but unable to take her eyes off the antlers. She couldn't blame the deer for trying to defend itself, but by the looks of it, it had certainly left its mark. Supposedly, Remus should have been able to heal very quickly, but nevertheless, heart rate steadily climbed again.

Emmeline jumped when Sirius slid his muzzle under her hand, beckoning for her to follow him past the clearing, deeper and darker into the copse. Remus's blood had given him a fresh scent to follow.

She doubled back for the satchel, said a prayer, and pressed on.

Another hour or so went by, maybe two, but this time, Emmeline was not at risk of nodding off. She didn't think she'd be able to sleep for a few nights after what she'd just seen. Not only the dead buck; it was more than that. In the darkness, her mind had fashioned images of Remus's bloodied, wolfish corpse, strewn among the blackthorn.

Just when she feared the worst, Sirius became very alert, stopping in his tracks. Emmeline soon found out why: there was a figure moving swiftly on the outskirts of their perimeter. The figure stopped suddenly, a deep growl rumbling from its shadowy frame.

Sirius bared his teeth and leapt in front of Emmeline, who was ready with her wand. Her mind raced as she began running down a list of creatures in her head, narrowing it down by what was native to the area, and might've been that large and that fast. The list dwindled smaller and smaller, until Emmeline concluded that the figure probably belonged to the person she'd been searching for all night.

But the figure in the trees fell silent. It was so hard to see that Emmeline wondered if it was still there at all…

Sirius sensed it before she did. All of the sudden, a large form barreled toward her from the left, and Emmeline had no time to react as it swatted her to the ground, knocking her wand several feet away. She looked up and was met by gnashing teeth.

In his werewolf form, Remus was a massive, hulking creature with glowing, amber eyes. Emmeline could scarcely believe that the soft-spoken boy she knew had somehow been repackaged into this.

She didn't get to observe much else about him before Sirius thrust him off of her, shifting Remus's focus and giving Emmeline time to feel around for her wand. With the satchel still hanging around her torso, she crawled around on all fours, frantically patting the moss and decaying leaves.

Wait a minute, Remus and Sirius's wands were tucked away in the bag. She got up on her knees and began rummaging, but not quickly enough. Hearing a canine yelp from behind, she spun around to find that Sirius had been hurled against a tree trunk. Remus turned his attention back to her, snarling.

She shot up and started sprinting as fast as she could, knowing full well that at any moment, Remus would catch up to her. There was a time when Emmeline had been mentally prepared for this situation, understanding that this was the risk she took for the love of a werewolf. Her mental fortitude in this department had decayed since then, and she found herself terrified, imagining Remus's face when he transformed back to find her torn to shreds on the forest floor. She regretted now that she was never going to be able to tell him how she still loved him, and that she had never really stopped, and that if she died by his hand in these woods tonight, in some poetic way, she would deserve it.

A cry tore from her throat as she was thrown to the ground from behind, feeling a sudden pain shoot up her left side. She rolled onto her back as Remus loomed over her, his snout still crusted with the buck's blood. Without her wand to defend herself, there was only one last thing she could try.

"REMUS, NO!" she shrieked.

The werewolf hesitated, his eyes twitching. Emmeline lay motionless, terrified to move or breathe or reach for one of the wands again lest Remus snap out of his momentary stupor.

A series of howls coming from the trees behind them further distracted him. Sirius had transfigured back into his human form, and was making a tactical commotion as he ran towards them with Emmeline's wand in hand. He drew Remus off and held his attention just long enough to fling her the wand. His few years of Quidditch had paid off - it landed right next to her, and she snatched it up.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

A small burst of white light shot out from her wand and froze Remus in place just before he reached Sirius.

Sirius caught up to Emmeline and dropped to his knees at her side, panting. There was blood trickling down the right half of his face from a cut above his eyebrow. "Emmeline, don't move," he ordered sternly, unbuckling the satchel's strap to remove it from her and pulling out the shirt they'd packed for Remus. He began to tear it into strips.

That's when she noticed blood seeping into the side of the coat. Leaning forward, she peeled it open, revealing four gashes where Remus's claws had cut into her torso with the precision of a scalpel. The shock and adrenaline must have temporarily dulled the pain. She was certainly beginning to notice it now, and slumped onto her back with a groan.

Sirius lifted the blouse just below her chest, assessing the wounds. "I'm a dead man," he breathed.

"Wait, Sirius, give him the potion first."

"It won't help him now, that's not how it works." He began quickly but deliberately wrapping strips of the shirt around her, kicking himself for not packing silver and dittany. One at a time, he tied them taut, and she grunted in discomfort. "Sorry," he muttered ruefully. "I'm rubbish at the bandaging charm."

"Nice throw, by the way," she gurgled, her face scrunched up in pain.

"Didn't want to risk your wand not cooperating for me. Nice work on the body-bind before he tore my head off."

While he continued to bandage her, Emmeline reached for her wand and raised it to his forehead. "Episkey."

The cut felt warm, then cool, then it was gone from his face. He tried to wipe off some of the leftover blood with his sleeve. "Thanks. Wish I could return the favor."

"...Sirius, look…"

He gazed up in the direction she was pointing in. Over the trees to the east, the sky was beginning to hint at the dawn. The moon had faded.

There was a soft rustling noise a few feet away as Remus began shrinking back into his human form. When he appeared to have lost the claws and fangs, Emmeline raised her wand once more. "Reparifors," she muttered, unfreezing him, but feeling sorry that this made him collapse forward on his face.

Remus stirred, his naked body shocked by the fall and the bitter cold. Weakly, he pushed his skeleton up off the brush, then shifted around and squinted at the two people behind him. Unsure of where he had ended up, how, and with whom, he covered himself with his hands.

"Last one," Sirius promised, tightening the final bandage around Emmeline.

"Merlin, Morgana, and Mungo," she moaned as he tied it off.

Remus recognized the first voice instantly. "Padfoot?"

When Sirius turned to look at him, he had a clear sightline to Emmeline.

She was laying on the ground with half her ribcage steeped in blood.

Remus lurched to his feet so fast, he saw stars. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" he clamored, stumbling to her side. His absolute worst nightmare had just come true.

Emmeline reached for him. "It's okay, I'm okay-"

"What have I done?!" he cried. He began to shake, unsure if it was because of the temperature or the hysteria or both. "Did I-" He felt tears threatening his eyes. "Did I bite you?"

"No, you just took a swipe at me. I'll be alright," she tried to reassure him. She checked his body for any antler wounds, but it appeared there were none; they'd already healed.

"Why did you come?" he asked through clenched teeth, but rotated and addressed the question to Sirius.

"I needed to make sure you were alright-"

"Have you ever tried telling this girl 'no?' She's stubborn as shit. Here," Sirius directed, handing him the satchel. "That first. You're no help if you're hypothermic."

He hesitated, not wanting to leave her side, but the biting cold on his bare skin was affecting his ability to think clearly. Now that the shock was subsiding, staggering to his feet became exceedingly more difficult, and the throbbing muscle aches, inflamed joints, and fatigue was rapidly catching up to him.

Reaching into the satchel, he snatched out a pair of trousers, a coat, his and Sirius's wands, and the now unnecessary bottle of Wolfsbane. If it wasn't so sodding expensive, he would've lobbed it against a tree.

He felt acid rising quickly in his throat as he finished pulling the trousers on. The raw deer flesh didn't agree with his human stomach. He teetered a few feet away, hunched over, and threw up.

"Damn it," he sputtered.

"You okay?"

"Don't worry about me, just see to her," Remus beseeched through a gag, then wretched again. And again.

"Next time, maybe leave bambi alone, yeah?"

"Shut up, Padfoot-!"

"Sirius, come on-"

"-This is not even remotely funny!"

"I was trying to lighten the mood-"

"Well don't."

Once he felt like he couldn't possibly vomit anymore, Remus wiped his mouth with his forearm and threw on the coat and satchel, nearly crawling back to Emmeline. "I'm so sorry." He reached out to touch her face, but stopped himself when he remembered the dried blood all over his trembling hand. "I'm so utterly sorry."

"It's just a scratch, honest."

"It's a rather deep scratch. I think I should take her to St. Mungo's," Sirius suggested, retrieving his wand from Remus then turning to Emmeline. "Do you think you're fit to apparate?"

"I can manage," she claimed, trying to sit up but recoiling.

"I'm coming with you," Remus declared, his eyes on Emmeline. The side of the coat was getting more red by the minute.

Sirius observed the state of him. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"I don't care." He winced as he lumbered up again, and began to wonder whether or not he was fit to apparate. "Sirius?" he appealed, unable to trust himself or his body.

"Arms up around my neck, Emmeline."

She tried to play off the pain, but could not prevent herself from whimpering a little as she leaned up.

It made Remus want to die.

"There you go- atta girl-" Sirius grunted as he lifted her into his arms and stood, wincing himself. The tree trunk hadn't done him any favors.

"Hang on," she stopped them, glancing at Remus. "What do we tell the healers?"

"I'll come up with something," he muttered impatiently.

Her eyes widened. "…Take me back to the house-"

"No."

"I don't want to go-"

"You need to be treated-"

"Not if they'll suspect you."

"Emmeline you're hurt-"

"I'll be fine if you just-"

"We don't have time to-"

"You're covered in blood!"

"Sirius-"

"I won't jeopardize you-!"

"For the love of God, Sirius-!"

"Shut up and make a decision!" Sirius snapped, more aware of his own soreness and having trouble supporting Emmeline.

Remus took hold of his shoulder. "Go!"

"Aneurysm," Sirius grumbled, disapparating.