"Since there was no one else for me to attack, I bit and scratched myself...."
Chapter Eighteen: Under this Killing Moon
After the last incident with Snape the hatred between both James and the greasy-haired boy had grown immensely. Neither one could now look at the other without scowling in complete loathing. The weeks passed slowly with further attempts by both sides to try and hurt each other. Each new battle they encountered ended with minor cuts and bruises. That was, until Sirius had decided to make some use of the jinx book he had received from Remus over Christmas. This last battle had ended with the four boys leaving Snape in Filch's office, hog tied with a ten foot rope, laying on the old man's desk, shortly after they had caught Snape cornering Remus after their Potions class.
After this "accident," or so they had claimed, and all the detentions that resulted from it James decided to try and avoid Snape at all costs. Ultimately, this proved to be quite difficult because the slimy git seemed to go out of his way to try and harm them. Yet, with recent defenses they had acquired from Sirius the boy eventually seemed to get the point.
James sighed deeply as he stared at Professor Binns' floating form at the front of the classroom. James looked around at the class as it sat in its usual stupor and found that his mind had begun to wander away from the topic at hand, as usual. The ghost continued to drone on about yet another goblin rebellion led by Gorak the Ghastly and James found himself contemplating why on earth someone who led such an absolutely boring, uneventful life would be keen on not trotting off to the after life. He felt his forehead contort into frustration as Sirius poked him in the back and proceeded to point at Remus who was paler than usual. James sighed openly, it was the day of the full moon and, yet again, the boy was going to be sick; it was inevitable.
James turned back to Sirius who surprised him greatly by not conveying a look of utter disgust at the idea of Remus being a werewolf. Instead that form of detest had been replaced with nothing short of sympathy, a look not often seen displayed on that boy’s features. James smiled weakly at Sirius, not knowing what else to do, and turned back to the sleep inducing lecture.
The droning monotonic tones lasted right to the bell, which seemed to be the only thing that ever jolted any sense of shock into the ancient being at the front of the class. The four boys filed out of the room and once outside James heard Remus whine as if he were an injured animal as he passed the window. James shut his eyes in what almost could be categorized as remorse as he heard Remus mumbled behind him, ever so quietly, "I'm going to the hospital wing."
James just turned around and followed the boy to his destination with Sirius and Peter in tow. They entered the ward and sat with Remus on the white hospital beds in complete silence before Madam Pomfrey came out of her office. Upon the sight of Remus she simply turned to the other three boys and ushered them impatiently out of the room. James just walked in silence in the direction of the general common room, leaving Sirius and Peter with nothing to do but to follow him. Then he prodded their house seal and casually went inside heading straight for the comfy chairs by the fire.
None of them spoke one word, for silence was bliss and speaking meant either an argument or the welcoming of complete grief.
"Maybe there's still a chance you're wrong," Sirius said finally, breaking what had been a crude form of temporary comfort.
"I hope so," was all James could manage to will out of his mouth as he took out the small crumpled piece of paper from his rucksack and wrote down the day's date.
"April 21 - Remus Sick"
They all stared at the drying ink, each in silent meditation. When the thoughts were finally too much for them to handle they resorted to working on their Astronomy homework for later that evening. They did this in absolute silence and only left the general common room when it came time for that particular class.
The three boys, once situated in the Astronomy Tower, took down their charts and stared at the stars as the full moon glared at them in the distance for the duration of the double period. When the bell did finally ring they walked up to their own common room, fully intending to do nothing more than sleep. Yet, when they reached Gryffindor tower they saw something lurking in the shadows of the torchlight. James stopped and the rest of the remaining group followed suit and stayed entirely still.
A flash of red light erupted in the dark room, blinding them completely as their eyes tried desperately to adjust to the dim corridor, yet again. James felt his arm get ripped open as the light died away and a voice echoed through the room to fill the recent void the light had left. Upon hearing the voice crack through the darkness Peter made a quick grab for his wand in an attempt to protect himself, but he was disarmed as soon as it appeared in the sight of their attackers, leaving him defenseless.
Then James watched as the figures came out from their hiding places. Knowing who they were, not only by the leader's voice but also by the way they had attacked, James and Sirius both dove their own hands into their robe’s pockets, searching for their own wands. Once they were located, they withdrew them, and pointed them at their attackers. Snape quickly disarmed James and hit him with another hex. This one did not appear to do anything, but from James' previous experiences with Snape's dark spells he was certainly going to feel that later on in the night. To the side of him before either Knott or Avery could even think to attack Sirius the other boy had hit him with the first hex that had come into his mind. "Scourgify!"
Immediately soap bubbles began to pour out of both boys' mouths. Sirius smiled widely at his handy work, which had provided them with a slight decoy. Snape had begun to yell at his friends to fight back when James grabbed his wand off of the floor and hit him with a forceful stunning spell. He then ran towards the Fat Lady's portrait where he practically screamed the password, not caring if the three stooges heard it or not. The three boys clamored into the common room and made a beeline for the boys' staircase and went into their dormitory. Once inside Sirius proceeded to kick his trunk every time he uttered a new word. "Stupid, Ignorant, Prat!" he growled out in frustration.
James just stared at his injury, which had bled through his ripped Hogwarts robes. He didn't have anything to say to add to Sirius' sentiments as the burning from the cut flesh began to set in. He heard Peter cry in fear as the boy climbed into his bed and shut the curtains around him, closing himself off from the others. James looked over at where Peter had retreated to as he heard the soft cries filter through the crimson curtains.
He knew (along with Peter himself) that a lot of people did not believe that Peter belonged in their house because he wasn't nearly as talented or brave as the other students in Gryffindor. Yet, due to the fact that he could even attempt to stand up against those bullies, James was certain that Peter was, indeed, in the right house. He also knew that Peter never believed these words even if they were true. The boy was simply too hard on himself.
James took off his shirt and ripped the sleeve off knowing it was useless to him now that it was ripped across the shoulder and soaked with his own blood. He instructed Sirius to help him tie the cleanest bit of the ripped shirt around his wound to try to stop the bleeding. Sirius complained openly at this chore, plainly grimacing at the blood. Sirius sighed deeply as James explained that the reason he was making him do this was because he didn't want to see Madam Pomfrey again that evening.
When Sirius was done with his amateur job at bandaging, James crawled into his bed after changing into his pajamas. He laid there in his casual stupor, not quite tired, and yet, not exactly wide awake either, and waited for sleep to drift over him as he listened to the sweet humming noises of Peter, and the rustling of bed sheets as Sirius struggled to find a comfortable position to lie.
When James' eyes opened, at what appeared to be dawn, he felt the terrible pain in his left shoulder that was the cause of his awakening. He sat bolt upright as the pain fully sank in and searched at his side for his glasses that had fallen off his face sometime after he had fallen asleep. His arm was throbbing immensely as he grabbed for his wand on his nightstand, after he had stationed his glasses upon his nose, he felt tears well up in his eyes as the pain shot through every nerve in his body. "Lumos," he whispered, his voice raspy in the dark.
When the light emerged from the tip of his wand he glanced down at his arm and frowned at the blood soaked bandage now covered in puss. He noted that the cut itself was bruised a dark purple color and it smelled slightly. He looked up at his canopy and cursed loudly for lack of a better thing to do. Then he opened his curtains, got up out of his bed, walked over to Sirius' and did the same.
"Sirius," the lad he addressed grunted and opened his eyes. Upon spotting the light he buried his head under his pillow. "Sirius, please, I need to get to the infirmary."
"You know where it is," Sirius muttered from underneath his hiding place.
James groaned and pulled the pillow off of his friend's head and pointed at his injury, which was now oozing in the eerie light. "Tasty," was the only thing Sirius said as he hoisted himself up out of his bed.
James took out his invisibility cloak and draped it over Sirius' and his shoulders. They walked out of the room, leaving Peter to play in his dreamland. Once they had made their way down the many flights of stairs with one almost very bad situation with Peeves, they entered the empty room. Both boys stared at it for a moment, for it was a little unnerving to find it in this state considering they had left Remus in there only sixteen hours before.
He heard Sirius groan at his side as if he were just now waking up from his long sleep. James pointed to the cabinet on the opposite side of the room and then walked, with Sirius in tow, towards that cabinet. He opened the wooden case as quietly as possible and looked over all the assorted potions bottles, carefully reading each of the labels.
"Madam Massie's ever fixing healer... for all terrible infections." James took the bottle off of the shelf along with a bunch of new bandages that had an anti-soaking spell on it so the gauze would not get drenched with blood or puss. This would prevent him from changing his bandages every hour. He shoved the items into the pocket of his cloak and turned around, ready to leave, with Sirius still closely behind him grumbling about why he even had to go on this particular adventure.
James had nearly reached the double doors when he stopped abruptly causing Sirius to collide into his back. "What the--" James motioned for his friend to be quiet and moved against the wall just beside the two doors.
"Take him in here."
"Are you sure he'll be all right?" the whispers were hushed more than usual and no reply was provided for the latter.
James and Sirius exchanged quick glances of concern as they watched Madam Pomfrey enter the room with McGonagall close behind her helping the medi-witch carry the limp form of Remus Lupin. James felt Sirius move slightly backwards, closer to the wall, as if he were looking for something stable to hold onto as the two women placed their friend on the nearest hospital bed.
James' eyes slowly wandered from the scene at hand to the floor where a trail of blood glistened eerily in the early morning light as it lead his eyes back to the very thing he didn't want to see. Yet, that very thing that he wanted to avoid he couldn't bring himself to look away from. He glanced at Remus' frail form and quickly noted the boy's breath, shallow and uneven, as Madam Pomfrey poured a potion down his throat, massaging it as a way to let the fluid flow down his tattered throat.
He also noticed, as he let his eyes wander further, that the boy's muscles were hanging off of his arms, exposing bits of bone that were cracked sporadically underneath the rubble of meat. On Remus' legs, there were teeth marks where large chunks of meat had been ripped off of his body in assorted places. The boy's left arm was bent at a terrible angle, unnatural in any case.
James' eyes moved slowly back up to the battered boy's face only to see that it was scratched deeply and was still bleeding profusely. It was gashed in four different places and most likely these cuts went all the way through his cheek. This was where the claws, his claws, had made contact.
James fervently tried to hold back the aching sob in his heart as he watched Madam Pomfrey instruct McGonagall on how to issue him another potion. Then the woman went on to cast many spells to prevent the boy from bleeding any further. She healed his tattered muscles and issued, yet another, potion to aid in the healing of Remus.
James felt Sirius move beside him, still closer to the wall. He too was trying to pry his eyes away from the sight that, eventually, if he continued to look at, would make him throw up. James watched intently as the witch set Remus' left arm back into place. The witch continued to fix Remus, and James continued to ignored Sirius' obvious queasiness at the sight of the pool of blood on the floor that he stared at fixedly.
After a few more minutes Madam Pomfrey and McGonagall lifted Remus out of the bed and carried him to the wall across the room. There, McGonagall tapped five of the stones in a clockwise motion, exposing a small room on the other side. When they stepped through the small opening their professor had made, the wall immediately went back to its original state.
James stared at the wall for a long while not knowing what to do. Sure he had known this fate of Remus' all along but never had he expected anything like that. He finally willed himself to turn towards the bed. The white sheets were now tainted in blood so deeply red it was nearly black.
His arm no longer hurt as he turned from this remnant of the horrible reality they'd just witnessed over to Sirius, who was still stunned by how much blood one person could lose and still manage to survive. Both of the boys stood in silence, for they could find nothing to say. They stayed in the abandoned room for a long while, saying nothing, until James finally asked the question he thought Sirius would have asked ages ago. "What do we do now?"
Sirius just looked blankly at his best friend, stubborn tears in his eyes still unwilling to fall. "He's our friend," he stated simply.
And that was all that was needed.