Gasping for breath, trying to fill his lungs with air, Sirius felt the wet, cold ground seep into the back of his robes. The pain from the last kick by Lestrange was severe and Sirius did not register Lestrange, Snape, and other Slytherins fleeing from the scene. He closed his eyes, willing the pain to dull, but the left side of his body still felt as it was on fire. Sirius opened his eyes and was surprised to find James kneeling beside him. James swiped his sodden bangs out of his face, squinting through his rain, streaked glasses.
“Let me help you up,” James said offering his hand. Despite the fact it was still raining and the muddy ground he lay on was getting colder by the second, Sirius found the damp smell of the grass around him comforting and he was content to stay exactly where he was.
“Remus, come help me get up Sirius up. We need to get him out of the rain.”
Before Sirius knew it, with their combined effort, James and Remus had hauled Sirius to his feet.
“I can walk,” Sirius said immediately, brushing aside his friends’ aide, despite the fact the world was still spinning, and he staggered as he took the first few steps.
Though still slightly dizzy, Sirius trudged ahead to the castle, intent on making it there without any help. James walked silently beside him the entire way. Sirius had a feeling that James expected him to collapse at any moment. It took all of Sirius’s remaining energy to make it to the first alcove inside the castle. He leaned his aching body on the first wall he spotted. He closed his eyes to control his breathing. He’d broken out into a sweat, though it was not noticeable as it had intermingled with the rain drops.
“Sirius “ are “ you-“
“I just need a moment,” Sirius cut in before James could finish his question. Opening his eyes, it was only then Sirius noticed Peter was clutching his arm and his color as pale as Remus a few hours before his werewolf transformation.
“What’s wrong with Peter?” Sirius asked deflecting their concern onto their other friend. He also began to cautiously peel his tattered cloak off; the wet cloth felt heavy and suffocating.
“Sprained wrist, I believe,” Remus answered. “You both need to get to the Hospital Wing quickly.”
“It looks worse than it is,” Sirius lied.
“I’ll get Madam Pomfrey to come here if you can’t make it all the way,” James offered.
“No, I can,” Sirius said. “Only what are we going to tell her?”
James and Remus shared a puzzled look.
Sirius elaborated. “Peter’s wrist we might be able to explain as an accident, but not my injuries-”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Remus asked in exasperation. “You look like you can’t take another two steps without collapsing.”
“We can handle this better on our own without teacher intervention,” Sirius implored, ignoring Remus, who sighed and shook his head.
“Let’s worry about that later,” James said. “If you don’t lose consciousness on us, Peter just might.”
Peter did indeed look as if he was suffering, so Sirius pushed off the wall he was leaning on to help propel himself forward.
They reached the Hospital Wing just in time. If the Hospital Wing had been a step further, Sirius believed he would have collapsed as his friends had feared.
Madam Pomprey was all a flutter the moment they entered.
“Lay down, Mr. Black,” she commanded. Sirius gladly followed her order.
“Mr. Pettigrew, have a seat beside Mr. Lestrange.”
Sirius picked his head up slightly to see Peter shrink back from where Lestrange sat. Lestrange was holding a compress to his face where Sirius had punched him, and was now glaring at the four Gryffindors.
“Any injuries, Mr. Potter?”
“No, but…”
“Mr. Lupin?”
“No.”
“Out you two go then.”
“But-” James began again.
“Come back in two hours to visit if Mr. Black and Mr. Pettigrew haven’t returned by then.”
Sirius could hear James muttering some more and then a sudden silence as the door shut behind James and Sirius. Madam Pomprey began working on Sirius immediately. He was stripped to his undergarments, and she began dabbing each laceration with a garment soaked in a smoking liquid.
“What spell hit you, Mr. Black?”
“I don’t know,” Sirius said back truthfully. Probably the only truthful thing he’d say about the incident.
“There’s a touch of Dark magic in this spell. I believe that is why the cuts aren’t healing at all by themselves.
Then she put a pumice of strange herbs on the larger of the two gashes; one which was near his elbow and the other in the middle of his thigh.
“Lay still and I’ll be back in a few moments.”
Sirius could hear the nurse speaking with Peter. Madam Pomprey returned with two large spoons of green sap, which she told him would boost his immune system. As great as magic was to heal things, she believed nothing worked better than your own bodies healing. It would also make him very drowsy for an hour or so until the effects wore off. As awful as the green mixture looked it was tasteless and went down as easily as a cup of water. The drowsy side effect was immediate. The room appeared to darken and Sirius already exhausted from the day’s trauma and pain, had no strength to even begin to fight the sleep.
Sirius opened his eyes, feeling disoriented. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. He found the right side of his body had been bandaged.
“Awake, Mr. Black?”
“Yes. Can I go now?” Even though he hadn’t been in the Hospital Wing for an insufferably long time, he was ready to leave.
“I suppose,” Madam Pomprey said. “You have to keep those bandages on until morning. Do not remove them yourself. Come to see me before breakfast tomorrow morning. The bruise on your cheek will have to heal on its own.”
Sirius nodded, and carefully extracted himself out of the bed. He was surprised how weak he still felt as he stood up, but he wasn’t about to tell the nurse.
“I almost forgot-”
Sirius froze halfway to the door.
“-You’ll need to go straight to Professor McGonagall’s office.”
“For what?” Sirius asked innocently.
“I was not born yesterday, Mr. Black. Those are serious injuries you received, and they’ll have to be reported to your Head of House.”
Out in the corridor, Sirius began fretting. What was he supposed to tell McGonagall? Had Peter, James, or Remus already spoken to her? What had they said? He could tell the truth, but there was no guarantee that his friends had gone with the truth, and a huge variation in their stories would arose suspicion.
He immediately checked his pockets carefully for the two-way mirror, even though he knew it was not there. When he’d left the dormitory earlier that day, Sirius hadn’t expected to be separated from James and had seen no sense in dragging the mirror along. It wasn’t that it was heavy, but it could be cumbersome and the charm to lighten its weight had long worn off, and Sirius hadn’t bothered to look up how to re-charm it.
Sirius dawdled as long as he could in the hallways as he made his way from the Hospital Wing to McGonagall’s office. He knocked softly on the door hoping that McGonagall would be so engrossed in whatever she was doing in there that she would not hear, and he could be on his way.
“Come in.”
Pushing the door open, Sirius entered the room. His eyes widened in surprise; his three friends were standing side by side in front of McGonagall.
“Madam Pomprey alerted me that you were on your way, Mr. Black, so I sent someone to fetch the rest of your group.”
James smiled at him. Remus threw him a worried look. Peter had his gaze fixed on the floor.
“We’ve been waiting for the past seven minutes for your arrival.”
Sirius mumbled an apology. McGonagall had to have known that he had ‘taken-his-time’ to arrive.
“Now then, there was an altercation that resulted in injuries on both Mr. Black and Mr. Pettigrew. Please explain to me what happened.”
The four boys remained silent. Sirius found it peculiar that McGonagall had decided on speaking to them all together. Usually the teachers questioned them separately, and then compared their answers in hopes of gleaning some sort of truth. Maybe the truth would be the best bet for them, even if it meant revenge against Snape and the Slytherins would have to be done in a sneaker, less obvious way.
Sirius cleared his throat, readying himself to speak.
“We were attacked,” Peter blurted. “Only we couldn’t identify them. Sirius and James don’t want word to get out since they are a bit embarrassed that they were caught unaware. They don’t want people thinking their dueling skills aren’t up to par, but I told them not to worry. It wasn’t a fair fight. We were, after all, ambushed.”
Sirius, Remus, and James all looked at Peter in various degrees of surprise, not only for being the first to speak up, but for coming up with a fib.
“Why couldn’t you identify them?” McGonagall was also caught off guard by Peter’s answer, so she did not notice Sirius, James, and Peter’s reaction.
“Their faces were hidden by the hoods of their robes. Umm…they wore Hogwarts robes, so we know they were students. They were hidden right at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.”
“And during the attack, during the scuffle, not one of their hoods fell down to reveal their faces?”
“No,” Peter said. “It is strange, isn’t it? They must have used some sort of Sticking Charm so that wouldn’t happen.”
“Hmm…do the rest of you have anything to add?”
“No,” Sirius, James, and Remus said in unison.
McGonagall surveyed them. Sirius could tell she wasn’t sure what to make of the story. It was widely known that Peter wasn’t a very good liar, especially under the scrutiny of a teacher, but her gut was telling her that she wasn’t getting the full story.
“I’ll make a report of it, but unless you can identify anyone, there is not much I can do. And since you do not know who your attackers are, I should not find half of Slytherin house sporting pink hair or covered in tree sap tomorrow.”
“Of course not, Professor,” James said suppressing a grin.
“Good. Off you go then.”
The boys left the office, and stayed quiet until they were far away enough not to be worried about being overheard.
“Peter, way to think on your feet!” James exclaimed patting Peter on the back. Peter beamed at the compliment.
“Since when can you lie?” Sirius asked abruptly. He wasn’t sure why, but he was bothered my Peter’s change of role in their group, even if it had only been for a moment. Peter always expected one of them (Sirius, James or Remus) to bail them out of trouble.
“I’ve had some practice over the summer. My Mum wouldn’t let me go anywhere, so I had to learn to be a bit deceiving,” Peter stated.
“Your plan didn’t go exactly as planned though, Sirius,” Remus said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t want us to tell the truth because then we can’t enact revenge on the Slytherins. I don’t think McGonagall completely bought our story, and if anything happens to the Slytherins, she’ll know it was us.”
“Remus, Remus,” Sirius said shaking his head. “McGonagall only mentioned about nothing happening to the Slytherins tomorrow. She didn’t say anything about the next day or the day after that.”
“He has a point, Remus,” James chimed in with a laugh.
“Fine. Engage in your revengeful thoughts,” Remus replied.
“Thank you for your permission, Prefect,” Sirius said formally.
“Don’t remind him of his prefect duties!” James cried out, and the four boys burst into loud laughter as they continued on to the Gryffindor Tower.
Despite thinking revengeful thoughts, Sirius and James found they had no time to actually put any plan into action that week. Walking back from dinner later that week, Sirius noticed a boy with black hair a few strides ahead of them hurriedly picking up a folder he’d dropped. As the boy straightened up making sure to tuck away the newspaper clippings back into the folder that were sticking out, Sirius found himself face to face with his brother.
Instead of walking away or pretending he didn’t recognise Sirius “ all things Regulus usually did when they encountered each other “ Regulus was watching him.
“Go on ahead without me,” Sirius mumbled to his friends.
“Are you sure?” James asked looking at Regulus distrustfully.
“I’ll be along in a moment,” Sirius replied. He wasn’t eager to speak to his brother, but he walked up towards Regulus as if he had no care in the world.
“What do you have there?” Sirius motioned to the folder.
“Nothing,” Regulus said a bit too quickly. “Interesting look you are going for with that bruised cheek.”
“And I’m sure you have no idea who did this,” Sirius said sarcastically. There was no doubt in his mind that the Slytherins had bragged about the attack in their common room.
“I know how you like to get into fights.”
“Fight? This was an ambush.”
“The official story is you didn’t see your attackers.”
“That’s correct. How’s Lestrange’s nose? I heard a fifth year did that too him.”
“I don’t think you want to start comparing injuries.”
“Only because it wasn’t a fair fight.”
“Things always have to be fair with you Gryffindors.”
“And Slytherins can never win, unless things aren’t fair.”
“Everyone is waiting for your retaliation.”
Sirius snorted. “You think I’m going to tell you when and where?”
“I think it is all pointless.”
Sirius regarded this brother’s words for a moment. Strangely, Regulus rarely involved himself in Slytherin House versus Gryffindor House feuds. Sirius had yet to figure out the reason, since Regulus held Gryffindors generally in disdain.
“Was your plan to try to talk me out of retaliation?”
“I know that wouldn’t work. Though, why retaliation? Why not just tell the teachers who attacked you?”
“They’d get thrown into detention, and then what?”
“For some people detention isn’t something to strive for.”
“My way is more satisfying.”
“I see.”
“I suppose you’d rather wait to fight it out on the Quidditch pitch?”
“So you’ve heard?”
“Who Slytherin’s new Seeker is? Of course, I heard! Did you forget that James is my best mate?”
“That is something I can only dream of forgetting.”
“Ah! Mr. Black!” Professor Keenan was walking toward them smiling like a Cheshire cat. “And Mr. Black!”
“Good evening, sir,” Regulus stated.
“Interrupting anything?”
“No, sir. We’re finished,” Regulus said. His answer confused Sirius. He hadn’t been sure where the conversation was heading, and now he would never know. The Black brothers certainly never spoke to just speak.
“Excellent. I wish to speak with Sirius.”
“He’s all yours. Have a good night, sir,” Regulus said and he walked briskly away without saying another syllable to Sirius.
Sirius sighed. He couldn’t think of a reason for Professor Keenan to single him out. He’d completed all his class work and homework for the week. He’d even been relatively well-behaved in class the last few days.
“Let’s go to my classroom. Right this way, Mr. Black.”
Sirius followed Keenan to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Other students watched curiously as they walked through the hallways, and many called greetings to Professor Keenan.
Inside the room, Keenan began, “I have “ had “ a brother. He was younger than me too.” Keenan picked up the picture from his desk and handed it over to Sirius.
“He looks nothing like you,” Sirius observed. The younger man in the picture was blonder and paler, than his dark-haired, tanner older brother.
“Something he was quite proud of,” Keenan revealed. “He didn’t look anything like my mother or father. He took after my mother’s side. All her brothers were blonde. Strange how that works, eh.”
Sirius nodded, noting in the back of his mind that the picture had been taken by a Muggle camera.
“I always wished we’d been closer as brothers,” Keenan said taking back the photograph and looking at it with a closed expression.
“Am I in trouble for something, sir?” Sirius asked. He’d never been the type of student to speak candidly with a teacher or about personal things, and he wasn’t about to start with Keenan.
“No.”
“Then why am I here?”
“I’d like us to talk.”
“Is that part of your list of teaching duties, sir?”
Ignoring Sirius’s out right rudeness, Keenan continued, “If you recall that first day I had you write a little about yourself?”
“I recall, sir.”
“You never did answer that satisfactorily.”
“Then put me in detention.”
“That would accomplish nothing, Mr. Black.”
Except you leaving me alone, thought Sirius.
“We have a lot in common.”
“I’ve never heard of the surname Keenan. And trust me, sir, my mother made sure I knew all the families worth knowing. Judging by your stagnant photograph, your family is Muggle.”
“Correct. I was the only wizard in my family. Though there was a Great Uncle on my father’s side who the family stopped speaking to, who we believe may have been magical. Just because I am not part of the wizard elite doesn’t mean I can’t understand what you are going through or relate. My family is well-known among Muggles. My family is both wealthy and powerful“ my name was listed to attend Eton before I got me letter-”
“Yet you became a teacher.”
Keenan smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. There was a sudden banging on the classroom door and a Hufflepuff Prefect burst in. “Sir! There’s a fight in the hallway! They’re going mad!”
“I’ll be right along.” Professor Keenan glanced wryly at Sirius. “A decision I may regret after this year though. You’re dismissed for now.”
Keenan’s last words ‘for now’ echoed in Sirius’s head. What on earth did Keenan want from him? Even if they had similarities, which Sirius seriously doubted, why did it matter and why would Keenan even care?
With his thoughts banging around in his head, Sirius almost walked right past the Portrait of the Fat Lady. James was sitting at one of the round tables yawning as Sirius entered.
“That was a long chat with your brother,” James started.
“I got wrangled into a talk with Keenan.”
“In trouble for something?”
“That’s what I thought “ but he just wanted to talk.”
“That’s odd.”
“I know.”
“Do you think your mother asked him to speak to you?”
The idea had crossed Sirius’s mind, but there had been genuineness behind Keenan’s words; his mother had not been behind this.
“No. He thinks we have things in common.”
“He wants to be chums with you? Does he not have any friends his own age?”
“He showed me a picture of his brother.”
“The one on his desk?”
“He showed it to you too?”
“No, I just noticed it. Maybe his brother is like Regulus.”
“I doubt it. Keenan appears to like Regulus.”
“It’s a mystery then.”
“That it is.”
Dark Side of the Moon by Lioness06
Chapter Endnotes: I hoped you enjoyed it. Let me know what you think with a review!