19
Sirius winced as James wiped away the dried blood splattered around his torso. He would almost feel guilty if it hadn’t been for Sirius purposefully taunting Remus over and over to catch him despite his warnings. Sure, it had only been an angry stomping and slight jabbing of his antlers, but it had been clear enough. Sirius just enjoyed riling the wolf up.
“Almost done, Pads,” James assured the boy.
The gash wasn’t wide, but it surely was long, stretched from above Sirius’s belly button to his right hip bone. They both weren’t sure what had made it yet.
“You think I’ll turn into a wolf?” Sirius joked. James would’ve thought he was unaffected by his wound had it not been for the faltering amusement in his tone.
He stopped wiping the blood, hoping Sirius would feel his sincerity. “No matter what, it wasn’t the teeth, Pads,” he reassured. “At worst, you’ll crave meat. At best, you simply scratched yourself on a branch while chasing Moony. Let’s not speculate, alright?”
Sirius sighed and plopped down unto his bed, legs still halfway off the mattress. He rubbed at his eyes with his wrist and left it there. James wasn’t quite certain if he should continue tending to the wound or not. It had been disinfected already, but they should still bandage it.
Exhausted, James instead plopped down next to Sirius. He closed his eyes, hoping for a few minutes of rest before they headed to morning classes.
“Not a word to Moons until we’re certain.”
James frowned, but still, he agreed.
***
Amita didn’t leave the infirmary that morning. While joking with Regulus had alleviated her anxiety, every interaction she had with him — whether they were tangible or lived within her mind — was tinged with unexplainable guilt.
Regulus’ death was the most violent she had experienced. It was tinged with fatality and foreknowledge of its happening, and yet the boy she had seen in her visions couldn’t help, but struggle for survival until his last breath. He was a fighter, twisting and turning under the hands that dragged him into the lake’s depth unrelentingly.
She could see that boy so clearly in the Regulus of today. So lonely, so accepting of his disposability, and yet so anxious, fretting over her well-being, whether she breathed correctly, whether she visited Madam Pomfrey, whether she grew stronger. She could tell he was looking through her when his eyes filled with worry, into her, as if he was looking into his past, upon his younger self.
Amita could hold him like she had wanted James to. She could wrap her arms around his back, her head in the crook of his neck. She had already witnessed his death, there was no reason not to initiate physical contact. And yet, she couldn’t bear to let her flesh touch his without the vision resurfacing. She was an inferi, a void corpse held together by forbidden magic. She couldn’t bear to be the reason of his suffering, couldn’t possibly allow herself to hold someone less broken than her.
Or they would both crumple, wouldn’t they?
Amita’s sight blurred. She scrunched her nose in the hopes of quelling the onslaught of tears, but nothing helped, not the pitiful breathing exercises, not the feeling of her knees to her chest, not the whispering murmurs of Madam Pomfrey in her ears.
Just how broken was she?
She fell asleep under the soft lulling of Madam Pomfrey fingers in her hair, and the emotional fatigue from repressed tears.
***
Amita only remembered Remus’ presence when Lily entered the infirmary, James in tow. The boy looked ragged like he had barely slept in a week and then won a quidditch tournament. Because that’s what he looked like, exhausted and yet so very pleased.
He looked upon Lily like the world had been created upon her request, laughed ever so softly and the way she reprimanded him. He certainly loved the sound of her voice. Amita doubted he knew just how close to Lily he leaned towards, desperate not to miss any of her syllables, any of the inflections of her voice.
Her heart tinged and she turned around in her bed, back facing the duo, and feigned sleep. The pair first headed towards a bed on the other side of the room.The two Gryffindors having passed her bed, Amita now had a perfect sight of the two and the only other bed with drawn curtains.
“Mate! Moons’! Lily made you notes,” James praised while shaking his friend away.
Remus grumbled, but sat up nonetheless. He looked over the parchment quickly and politely smiled. Lily seemed glad, no matter how obvious the smile seemed forced. Amita wondered just how often this happened—Lily offering her notes to a sick Remus. She knew he often missed classes because of his poor health, but she hadn’t expected such a familiar exchange.
Remus cleared his throat and his groggy voice sounded throughout the infirmary, “As always, I’m grateful, Lily.” He paused, golden-brown eyes peering into green. “Could you make an extra copy for Amita?”
Said girl tensed, and quickly shut her eyes. Of course Remus knew she was here! How daft, she was. She sighed and sat up, propping her pillow behind her back.
Lily turned around at the motion and she stood unmoving, eyes looking at her, but seemingly now registering her presence. Finally, she snapped to and rushed over to the side of her bed.
“Amita, God, do you even know how anxious Marlene and I was?” she admonished, small pink hands grasping her own. “You can’t just run away like that! McGonagall said you were fine, but do you know how awful we felt? You didn’t even send an owl!”
Lily’s nagging was entirely foreign. Not even Lady Cardenia worried as much.
“We’re used to you skipping out on curfew, we notice those things, you know,”—No, Amita didn’t know, it was news to her—“but not coming back the next morning, that’s beyond dangerous!”
Amita couldn’t pry the words out of her mouth, her throat was clasped shut. She forced her mouth open, to gulp air at the very least, to remember to breathe—how to breathe—but Regulus came to mind with his yielding eyes and yet unwavering desire to live, and all of a sudden the only thought that came to her was that she needed his painting. It was in Dumbledore’s office, but even if she had to break into the room and steal it, she would, the dying boy deserved at least that much, to be stored in a place where he wouldn’t be displayed for art, where he wouldn’t be used and defamed, and somehow Amita no longer knew how to breathe and Lily looked down at her in worry, and her small hands weren’t enough to ground her, she needed Jame’s palms on her back, or her head on his thighs and a warm crackling fire, she couldn’t hear the words she was spewing out. She was drowning.
***
Remus hadn’t known how truly unhinged Amita was before this morning. Sure, she had never had many friends, her presence much more reminiscent of the Hogwarts’ ghosts than students, but she hadn’t seemed out of touch with her mental well-being. The boy had known that she bore resemblance to Sirius—after all, no pureblooded wizard could remain sane of mind with the rubbish the nobility spewed out of their mouths—but this instability was uncalled for, and all of a sudden, he understood James’ wavering confidence and his need to help the girl.
Sirius had never fully broken down in front of him, he mostly reserved that version of himself for James—or at least, since the summer fiasco. The sight of Amita crumbling, however, made his wolf restless in a way that only happened when it caught sight of the scars on Padfoot’s body. It was a carnal sort of need to either fully protect the child before him—a child he had learned, for whom recurring panic attacks were the norm, so much so that she would need to seek out the help of Regulus Black of all people—or completely dismiss her, let her writhe on the floor in agony, and not flinch because she wasn’t one of his people.
He hadn’t needed to make that choice, because Lily was already fretting over her body talking to grab her attention while simultaneously calling for Madam Pomfrey. James, on the other hand, had moved to stand beside Lily so quickly that Remus hadn’t noticed his departure.
“Amita!” Lily pleaded, tears running down her cheeks at the girl’s unresponsiveness, “‘Mia, please, you can’t hide away again! You have to talk to me!”
Amita mumbled something incoherent under her breath.
James simply looked at the two, voiceless. Remus noticed the way the boy’s eyes wracked over the girl’s body, the way he bit his lip in worry, gnawing at the flesh.
“I’m sorry—so sorry—don't touch me,” Amita’s voice pleaded almost silently and Remus doubted the other two had heard the words without enhanced hearing.
“Was it Carrow again?” James whispered, voice incredibly low, and yet both Lily and Amita stilled at his tone. His friend’s face was so incredibly blank, Remus could’ve thought he had learned occlumency, had it not been for the faint twitching of his jaw.
He crouched down to Amita’s seated height and peered into her eyes. He placed his palm unto the side of her arms, stilling her. “Who did this to you?”
The girl finally looking at him, registered his presence, his words, and she seemingly melted. Letting her head drop unto her knees, she closed her eyes and finally breathed. James’ right hand moved from her arm to the side of her dangling head, orienting it ever so slightly so her nose pointed to her side rather than the floor.
“Who did this?” James repeated, but Amita simply looked at him with pity and quickly shut her eye lids.
“Me,” she breathed out. “It’s always been me.”
Remus noticed James’ face break and motioned for Lily to find Poppy. Prongs crumbled, reminiscent of the girl before him, and he let out a single sob before fully raising Amita’s head to look at him.
“It’s never been your fault, Amita,” he spoke as if a mantra, both to her and himself. “Never.”