Chapter 13: Injuries and Warning of a Death

“What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end.”

- The Things They Carried; Tim O’Brien

“It smells disgusting in here.”

“Ugh. What is that?”

“Shhh! Madam Pomfrey’ll hear us!”

“Ah, shut it, Pete.”

Peter pouted as the three boys snuck into the hospital wing to visit Remus. The previous day had been the full moon, and they wanted to tell him all about the exciting recent events that he’d missed.

Sirius pressed his hand over his mouth and nose as the smell grew worse. “If this gets any worse, I’m gonna hurl,” he announced to the others.

“That’s lovely,” James replied sarcastically, wrinkling his nose and pushing his glasses up farther.

As they approached the end of the ward, they could see Remus sleeping on the last bed; the same one he always used each month. However, as they drew closer, they discovered that the smell was stronger as well.

Though Remus was asleep, his eyes were not closed completely, and it seemed like he was staring off into space. Dried tear stains ran down the side of his cheek bones. His mouth was halfway open, and they could see a mixture of dried blood and vomit around one side. There was blood smeared on the sheets and pillow, as well as the clothes that he wore. His diaphragm rose and fell in short, almost spastic movements as he breathed. His right arm was folded over his chest, his wrist held tightly between a pair of magical splints. There were long gashes running down his throat, and though they were healing quickly under the influence of Madam Pomfrey’s special ointments, they were still an angry dark shade in the gloom of the room.

The three boys stared open-mouthed at their friend for several moments.

“I suppose we shouldn’t wake him up, then?” Peter spoke quietly, trying to sound lighthearted, and not reveal the shock in his voice.

Before either of the other two could answer, though, the door to the infirmary opened, and Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey entered the ward. There was no time to hide under the invisibility cloak, so James quickly stuffed it into his cloak.

“Oh my!” McGonagall exclaimed when she saw the boys. “What in the world—?”

“Is Remus going to be all right?” Sirius cut in, stepping forward.

The two women glanced at each other.

“Well…he’ll be in here for another day, I suppose,” Madam Pomfrey said evasively.

Sirius sighed loudly in annoyance. “We already know about him. You don’t have to lie about his monthly trips to us anymore.”

McGonagall gasped. “You all know? But…does Remus know you know?”

“Sure he does. We told him as soon as we found out.”

“It was ages ago,” James added.

“It’s so much easier when we all know, because now Remus doesn’t have to make up all those ridiculous stories about relatives falling ill. Anyway, what happened to him yesterday? This is worse than it normally is.”

Madam Pomfrey overcame her shock a moment before McGonagall did (whom was beginning to actually look teary-eyed, to the amazement of the boys), and explained, “I’m not really sure. Either Remus was not in the best of moods before he transformed, or he was already ill, and that made him more susceptible to being badly injured.”

“In a bad mood?” James asked, confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall spoke up, “if Remus was angry before he transformed, the dark mood would have carried over to the wolf when it took over his body, and it would have taken the anger out on himself because there was no one else around.”

“Ohh. Well, he didn’t seem to be in a bad mood when we last saw him,” James replied.

“No, that’s not entirely true,” Sirius cut in.

“Huh? What do you mean?” James turned to him, frowning.

“Didn’t you notice? He was quiet all morning before he left, like he was ignoring us or something. I think it might have had to do with—” he broke off abruptly, remembering that McGonagall and Pomfrey were listening.

“With what?” McGonagall questioned, frowning at him.

“Ahm…nothing. I just remembered that it wasn’t what I thought,” Sirius said evasively. He shot a warning look at James, who looked as though he was about to say something.

McGonagall did not even look like she believed one bit of his words, but she did not try to catch him, because at that moment Remus shifted on the bed and moaned softly.

“Alright, I want you boys out. I don’t care if you already know about this, but he does not need three extra people watching him in misery. Out.”

And grumbling, the boys left the hospital wing, to head back up to Gryffindor tower.

“Hey, I need to practice Divination,” Sirius complained one afternoon, lying on his stomach on his bed. He tossed a crystal ball from hand to hand.

“Leave me out of it,” Peter muttered, rummaging through his trunk for a book he needed for Ancient Runes (James wouldn’t let him borrow his copy). “I don’t need to be told that I’m going to fail the big test tomorrow.”

“Alright then…Jim? How about you?”

James mumbled something noncommittal, and Sirius scowled.

Remus happened to glance up and fully noticed the crystal ball for the first time. “Where did you get that?” he asked suddenly.

Sirius immediately stopped scowling and gave a wide grin. “Snitched it. Ollicalisi will never notice. She’s got plenty more anyway.”

“Sirius,” Remus sighed disapprovingly, “you can’t just steal things from people because it seems like they have more than enough.”

“And why not?” Sirius rolled the crystal ball around on the floor by the foot of his bed.

“Because it’s wrong, that’s why. When are you ever going to learn?”

“Never,” James and Sirius said simultaneously.

Remus dropped his head into his hand. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“So will you let me practice divination with you?”

Remus, unlike his friends, had finished his homework much earlier in the evening, and was currently reading a book. He momentarily debated with himself about making Sirius suffer for his own problems, but then he decided that he would rather not be so cruel.

“Oh, all right.”

“Haha, yes!” Sirius picked up the crystal ball and set it in its stand on the floor before climbing off of his bed to sit next to it. Remus set his book aside and joined him.

“I don’t quite understand the point of this, Sirius,” he sighed, crossing his legs before him and leaning back on his palms.

“Well of course you don’t. You don’t have any interest in this subject, so why should you see the point of it?”

Remus knew that if he were to retort to that, all that would result in would be a fight.

“All right,” he settled on saying, “so what exactly are we doing with the crystal ball?”

“Shh. I’m trying to concentrate.” Sirius seemed to think that ‘concentrating’ meant scowling into the surface of the crystal ball. “Hang on, there’s a smudge on it!” He picked it up as Remus laughed, and he rubbed the bottom of his shirt on the ball to clean it off. As he was setting the ball back on its stand, he gasped and leaned closer to it, peering into its depths.

“What is it?” Remus asked despite himself.

“It’s…I see something in there!” Sirius flopped down onto his stomach so that he could be as close as possible to the crystal ball with out having a crick in his neck.

“You look ridiculous, mate.”

“Hush—there’s, there’s—I don’t believe it…Merlin.”

“What?” Remus pressed exasperatedly. “If you want my help, you have to tell me what you’re seeing, you twat.” He flipped disinterestedly through Sirius’s Divination textbook.

Sirius glanced up at Remus and then quickly back down, and worried expression in his eyes. “I see death,” he whispered. There was no joking tone in his voice any more.

Remus let the pages fall shut. “And…does this apply to my future, or yours?”

Sirius was silent for a moment. “Yours,” he said finally.”

“My—” Remus wet his lips. “Mine? You sure?”

“Absolutely.” Sirius’s face was grave.

“But…” Remus glanced over at James and Peter, who didn’t seem to have noticed anything. “But does that mean I’m the one who’s going to—to kick it, or someone close to me?”

“I—” Sirius blinked and looked back at the crystal ball. “It’s…” he bit his lip. “You. It’s horribly clear. See? Look.” He yanked Remus around to look at his side of the ball.

“I don’t see anything,” Remus protested.

Sirius shrugged. “I guess you don’t have an inner eye for things like this.”

Remus’s brain, however, was racing. He was going to die? But…

“How can you be so calm about this?” He demanded, distancing himself from the crystal ball as if it were something evil, something contaminated. “You said it yourself—I’m going to die.”

“You think I’m being calm about this?” Sirius hissed back, frowning. “How do you think I feel, after seeing you—ugh, I don’t even want to say it—”

“What do you—”

“What are you two arguing about?” James suddenly asked loudly from his bed. “Did Sirius see that horde of dancing banshees again?”

“I’m going to die,” Remus announced, pointing at the crystal ball, his voice trembling and near the verge of hysteria. “He says so.”

James flung his legs off of his bed and strode over. “Is that right?”

“I’m not joking, you halfwit!” Sirius exclaimed immediately, before James could accuse him of lying. “I saw it! I saw him—” he broke off and swallowed tightly. “Do I have to describe it?”

“Yes!” Remus found himself saying sharply, angrily. “I want to know how I’m going to die! I can’t avoid it, but…at least I’ll know when it is. When am I going to die anyway?”

“How should I know?” Sirius snapped, seizing his textbook and getting up, leaving the crystal ball where it was on the floor and then going to toss the book in his trunk.

“You’re the one who saw it!” James shouted.

“So? It doesn’t have a date. It doesn’t say, Remus Lupin, deathday of such-and-such.”

“But—” Remus felt lost.

“Look.” Sirius turned to face him. “It would be best to just let it all take its course, because there’s nothing to do about it anyway.

“And besides,” he added, starting to turn away, a small smile on his face, “I lied.”

It took a second for the words to sink in. Remus blinked.

“You what?”

Sirius was grinning now. “I lied!” He looked positively gleeful. “My God, you’re gullible.”

“You—you—” Remus couldn’t form a sentence.

James began laughing. “You utter, complete berk! I can’t believe you did that! You even had me fooled!”

Remus began breathing again. “Sirius Black, that was the cruelest thing I have ever witnessed you doing.”

Sirius made a low bow. “Why thank you, dear client. I always aim to disrupt.”

“Ugh. You know I hate you sometimes?” Remus sighed.

“Of course. And you know we all love you to teensy little bits, right? Because you of course aren’t allowed to be whole. That would just be a complete waste of potion ingredients, after all.”

Remus didn’t think it would be worth the mental power to ask what in the world Sirius was going on about.

“I’m going to bed, you lot. If I’m not scheduled to died in the morning, of course. But we can trust Sirius to warn us about that, so there’s nothing to worry about,” he pronounced darkly, climbing into bed and tugging his blankets over himself.

“One of these days you’re going to cry wolf and no one will even blink,” he muttered, wrenching his curtains closed.

“I don’t think he appreciated that, mate,” he heard James say a moment later. “You’d better watch it from now on….” He laughed slightly, and then there was no more talking.

To Be Continued….

AN: Yes, a horribly short chapter, but I felt I should post something after all this time if just to show that I haven’t forgotten the story. I have some things planned for the rest of third year, and then once third year is over, the updates will hopefully come more easily, as I have a ton of stuff already written/planned out for the rest of the story.

Review, please!