Chapter 23: The State of Sirius
James left the Hospital Wing the next day. Sirius was well on the way to being fully recovered but Madame Pomfrey insisted that he stay until she was sure he would not put himself at risk by going back to lessons.
Remus was not so lucky. During the full moon the night before, he had transformed horribly, but not woken from his unconscious state. The calluses on his chest were getting worse, becoming puffy and turning a deep purple colour. As James, Lily and Peter went to visit him and Sirius after lunch, they found two unfamiliar people standing by Remus’ bed with clipboards, prodding him and making notes.
James and Lily went to Sirius’s bedside. He was awake and sitting up.
“Who are they?” Lily asked, looking over to the strangers.
“Healers from St. Mungo’s. They arrived about half an hour ago. Dumbledore said they’re here to see whether he needs to be moved there.”
“Moved?” James asked, confused. “Why can’t he stay here?”
“He’s clearly not getting any better, James,” Lily said. “There’s only so much that Madame Pomfrey can do for someone who was cursed by a Death Eater.”
“But still, St. Mungo’s is in London! I don’t want him going to London!”
“Best place for him,” Madame Pomfrey said, appearing behind them. “Miss Evans is right, there’s nothing more I can do for him.” She sighed. “Now, how are you feeling today, Mr Black?”
“Fine. My vision’s clearing up.”
“What was wrong with your vision?” Peter asked.
“It went all blurry this morning. All white. But it’s better now.”
“Excellent. It’s a good job I didn’t let you out with Mr Potter then, isn’t it?” She bustled off to talk to the Healers.
Remus was moved from the Hospital Wing soon after. The Healers had diagnosed him and decided to take him back with them to St. Mungo’s as Dumbledore had suggested. His state was no better than it had been when he was brought in and the expert staff in London would have more of a chance of helping him.
James and Peter stayed with Sirius for most of the day, who had improved significantly so that he didn’t get so sleepy as often as the days before. The three remaining Marauders talked of Remus’ condition, and of whether or not they thought it likely that he would return in time for the N.E.W.Ts, which were now only a month away.
“He’ll be lucky to miss them,” Peter said. “I wish I could. I’m going to fail miserably anyway, I might as well be in a coma like Moony.”
“You won’t fail, Wormtail,” James replied. “Not with the amount of revision you’ve been doing.”
“It doesn’t matter how much work I do in preparation, I always panic under pressure. It’s my weakness."
“Well it doesn’t really matter if you fail…” Sirius said.
“Yes it does! These exams determine the rest of our lives! Without good results I’ll never get a decent job.”
“Well me and Padfoot will be high-flying Aurors,” James said, “and when Lily and I get married, we’ll find a house with an extra room that you can lodge in.”
“Haha,” Peter replied, smiling and raising his eyebrows.
“Look who it is,” James said, nudging Sirius and pointing to the entrance to the Hospital Wing. Ellie was standing there, looking in on the three boys nervously.
“Hi Ellie,” James greeted her.
“Hi,” she replied sheepishly.
“Well aren’t you going to come in?” James asked.
She took a few cautious steps into the Hospital Wing, and then paused before rushing to Sirius’ bedside.
“Look at you! You look like death!”
“Cheers!” Sirius replied, smiling. “What a nice thing to say to someone.”
“Oh you know what I mean! I mean compared to what you usually look like…” She trailed off and looked aside. There was an awkward silence.
James nudged Peter. “Hey, Wormtail, don’t we have that…?”
“Uh, yeah, that … thing we have to do.”
“Yeah, that.”
They rose from their seats. “See ya around, Padfoot,” James said, winking. And they left. “Could we have been more obvious?” Peter asked once they were clear of the Hospital Wing.
“Probably not, but it’s best that we leave them alone. It’s about time Ellie told Sirius how she feels."
“Do you think she will?”
“Definitely. Girls are weird like that. Shove a bloke she fancies under her nose all the hours of the week and she won’t say anything. But throw in a life-threatening experience and she’ll be all over him!”
“How would you know?”
“I, my friend, am an expert when it comes to women.”
Peter snorted. “Try telling that to Lily.”
“Hey, at least I have a girlfriend! What’s going on with your love life?”
“I don’t have one. Simple as that.”
“What about that girl you took to the Christmas Feast? What was her name again?”
“Gemma? She’s in Fourth Year!”
“Still, she was…sort of pretty…”
“Shut up, Prongs! Just because you bagged one of the most good looking girls in the year!”
“What can I say? There’s just something about me that draws attractive women to my side.”
“Keep dreaming, James. Do I need to remind you how long it took you to get Lily?”
James sighed. “I knew I’d never live that down!”
They entered the Great Hall where they found Lily and Yves already eating their lunch. Yves gave James a hug as he sat down in between the two girls. “Good to see you up and about, James. You gave us quite a scare!”
“Me? I’m rock solid.”
“How’s Sirius?”
“Improving. Ellie’s in there with him.”
Both girls choked on their food. “Ellie?” Lily asked. “No way!”
“We saw it with our own eyes, didn’t we Peter? She came in and we left them to it.”
“Wow, I never thought she’d work up the nerve to be alone with Sirius,” Yves said. “I wonder what will happen…"
“Knowing Sirius, he’ll lap up all the attention,” Peter said.
“Shall we go and spy on them?” Lily asked Yves.
James frowned. “What is it with girls and being so nosy? Can’t you just leave them to it?”
"No way!” Yves replied. “We want to know the gossip. Come on, Lils. I’ll just go and tell Michael I’m off and then we’ll go and find Ellie.”
“Sure.”
Yves hurried to the Ravenclaw table, while Lily finished the last of her lunch. “Where are you going after lunch?” she asked James.
“Common room. I need to try to catch up on some work.”
“See you there?”
“Definitely.” He gave her a kiss and she left to drag Yves away from Michael Younge.
On the way back from lunch, James and Peter ran into Professor McGonagall. She looked tired and haggard, but smiled as they approached her. “I’m glad to see you two back to your normal selves,” she said. “Professor Dumbledore has told me much of what you went through, although I am sure there is much more that he couldn’t say. Nevertheless I am proud to have you as Gryffindors. And indeed Mr Black, Mr Lupin and Miss Evans. You are assets to our House.”
“Thank you, Professor,” James said, smiling.
McGonagall started to walk away. “Professor?” James called after her. She turned back to face them. “Uh, my essay…”
She smiled weakly. “I am not prone to giving out permission for late homework, but considering the circumstances… This Friday, please, boys.”
“Thanks!” they said simultaneously, and continued on their way to the common room.
“She must really like you, Prongs. I don’t think McGonagall has ever given anyone permission to hand in homework late.”
James chuckled. “I think she’s more shocked that we managed to take on two fully grown Death Eaters than anything else.” They reached the portrait hole. “Verity.” The Fat Lady swung open to admit them, and they entered.
The common room was eerily quite for the number of people in there. It was fairly full with students frantically working towards N.E.W.Ts and O.W.Ls and other end of year exams. The O.W.Ls were due to start first, immediately after the Easter Holidays, so the students doing the most frantic work were in Fifth Year, although James and Peter found Frank, Sarah and Rachel working hard at table near the Girls’ Staircase.
“How’s the work going?” James asked them as he sat down next to Frank and pulled a book towards him at random.
“Badly,” Frank replied. “I keep having to redo this one section on the properties of unicorn blood. It just doesn’t read right.”
James flipped through the book he had picked up. “I’ve never even seen this book before! You know, I think I should begin camping out in the library. It’s the only way I’m going to force myself to work hard enough to get good grades.”
“I know what you mean," Frank replied. " We both need at least a handful of O’s if we’ve got any chance of being Aurors."
Sarah Tyas looked up from her work. “Aurors? Wow, that’s interesting. I wish I had something like that lined up. But my dad wants me to work in Gringotts like him. I can’t think of anything worse to do with my life.”
“I don’t know about that. Gringotts is amazing!” James said. “I’d love to spend all day in those carts speeding around miles underground.”
“If only that’s what I’d get to do… my dad works in the Accounting Department. It’s all figures and it’s deadly boring. That’s why I’m doing Arithmancy.”
“If you don’t want to do it, why don’t you tell your dad?”
“You don’t know my dad…” She trailed off just as Lily and Yves approached their table.
“Where’s Ellie?” James asked innocently.
“Still with Sirius,” Lily replied, moving to sit on James’ lap. “We went in to say hello but it wasn’t very successful. They were just sitting there from what we could see.”
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked.
“These two nosey girls went to spy on Ellie and Sirius.”
“What about Ellie and Sirius?”
“Not much by the sounds of it. We all thought they were going to get together when Ellie came charging into the Hospital Wing.”
“Wow, that doesn’t sound like her. But I doubt Sirius has it in him to settle down with a proper girlfriend. Ellie would do better to go after someone like Josh Johnson in Hufflepuff. Now he’s a looker.”
“Josh Johnson?” Lily asked. “That scrawny idiot of a boy?"
“He’s not scrawny, he’s slim fitted.”
“Well I like them built up a bit more.”
“Then why are you going out with James?”
“Hey!” James protested, as Sarah laughed at her own joke. “I work out!”
“On a broomstick?”
“Yeah!”
Frank threw down his quill. “I can’t do this. It’s too hard. I’m going to find Alice. See you guys later.” He gathered up his books and scraps of essays.
“See you,” James said.
As he was leaving, Frank was passed by Ellie, who sat down in his seat and took out a heavy hardback book from her bag.
“Well?” Lily asked, as she and Yves leant in.
“Well what?” Ellie replied coolly, not looking up from the book.
“What happened?”
“Oh.” She paused. “Sirius and I are going out. Pass me that parchment, please, Sarah.”
There was a huge scuffle as James and Peter jumped from their seats at the same moment that Lily, Yves, Sarah and Rachel sent all the books flying from the table as they struggled to get closer to Ellie for the gossip. James and Peter immediately flew off towards the portrait hole, at which point James turned back, rushed back to the table, briefly kissed Lily on the top of her head, and returned to Peter.
The boys left the Common Room and hurried to the Hospital Wing to see Sirius. He was reading a copy of Witch Weekly.
“What are you doing reading something like that? It’s a girls’ magazine!” Peter said as they approached his bed.
“Don’t be so narrow-minded, Wormtail, old friend. There’re some very interesting things in this that we as the male species should know. Besides, I was bored and it was all that Madame Pomfrey had to offer me.”
James had a brief vision of Madame Pomfrey curled up by the fire with a box of chocolates and an edition of Witch Weekly before he changed the topic. “So… what happened with Ellie? She said you guys are going out now.”
“She did? Oh, well I suppose we are, really.”
“You suppose? What happened?” James repeated.
“Well she was taking her time about it, talking about the weather and how much work we have and stuff like that, so I gave her a helping hand. I asked her out.”
“You did? I never thought I’d see the day when Padfoot asked out a girl all by himself.” Peter said mockingly.
“You joke, Wormtail, but neither did I. It was just too painful to watch her sit there and mumble about nonsensical things, I had to put an end to it.”
“Do you even like her?” James asked.
“She’s cool,” Sirius said nodding.
“Cool?”
“All right, all right, I really like her and I’m looking forward to getting out of this place so I can spend some time with her and we can get to know each other better. Is that soppy enough for you, Prongs?”
“Just about,” James replied, smiling. “Hey, we can go on double dates!”
“Hey!” Peter said. “Make me feel even worse about my single state, why don’t you!”
“You’re too good for the lot of them,” Sirius said, thumping Peter on the back, just as Madame Pomfrey came bustling over with a goblet of medicine for Sirius. “Here you go, Mr Black. Swallow this down and then I want to give you a thorough check over. If I am satisfied with your recovery thus far then you may leave when I am finished.”
“Brilliant!” he said, grinning. "I’ve had enough of this bed.” He took the medicine from her hands.
“You two have thirty seconds to finish your conversation while I fetch something from my office, and then you must leave, please.” She stalked off.
Sirius looked at the goblet in his hands with a sceptical expression. “I hate this stuff,” he said grimly before pinching his nose and downing it in one long gulp. He looked like he was going to be sick, but instead he turned to James and said, “You know, Prongs, next time you curse me, can you make sure the remedy isn’t quite so disgusting. I’d be much obliged.”
The others laughed just as Madame Pomfrey came back into view with several implements in her hands. “Now, Mr Black,” she said, “lie back please so I can examine you.” Sirius looked petrified at the thought of this.
“Off you go, you two,” Madame Pomfrey said, shooing James and Peter away with one hand and readjusting the pillows under Sirius’s head with the other. They left him to his fate, and slowly began to make their way back to the Gryffindor Common Room to meet the others and catch up with work.
“How long do you think it will last?” Peter asked as they climbed the staircase with the trip step.
“Padfoot and Ellie? I give them a month.”
“A little cynical, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps, but when has Sirius ever been with a girlfriend longer than that?”
“Maybe Ellie’s more right for him than they were.”
“Maybe. I hope so. He could do with some taming,” James said.
“Taming? You make him sound like a … "
“A great big shaggy dog?” James finished. “Yeah, he’s pretty practised at that!” he said, and they both laughed merrily.
Love Conquers by dumbly_dorr
Chapter Notes: Here it is, the next chapter. Sorry for the wait but it needed a lot of ... tweaking. Let me know what you think please! I love your reviews!