Chapter 4
When Remus awoke, he found himself in an unfamiliar hospital bed. He was alone but heard others speaking outside the three white curtains that surrounded him. He tried to sit up, but realized he was held to the bed with unseen restraints and could not move. Trying to swallow his panic, he cleared his throat and called out.
“Hello?”
The disembodied voices stopped talking, and half a moment later James and Peter appeared at the foot of his bed. Neither of them looked like they had slept but James was much worse off. One of his arms was in a sling and Remus could see small scrapes and bruises on his face.
“Remus! You’re awake,” Peter said helpfully.
“Where are we?”
James took a seat on the bed near his legs. “St. Mungo’s, the wizarding hospital,” he told him, refusing to meet his gaze.
Remus looked down at his body to examine it. He was in rougher shape than usual, covered in bandages, and having what felt like a few broken bones as well as an odd aching sensation in a very sensitive place. However, none of it was worse than what he knew Madam Pomfrey could handle, so why wasn’t he in the infirmary?
“Why—”
“Listen, Remus,” James interrupted, still not looking at him. “What do you remember of last night?”
“Not much, like always. I remember Sirius turning into Padfoot before I changed, but after that everything is blank,” he answered, still confused. “Hold on, where is Sirius? Why isn’t he here?”
Peter looked nervously at James, who held up his hand to keep him quiet. “Listen,” he said again, “things went wrong last night—”
“Sirius? Sirius!” Remus began to shout repeatedly. This could not be true; he wouldn’t accept it. He tried to get up and struggled against his restraints again. Now he knew why he was strapped in place; he was a prisoner.
Both of his friends tried to quiet him and talk over him, but he didn’t want to hear what they had to say. To his right, the curtain flung open to reveal another room like his.
“Merlin, give it a rest, Moony!” Sirius shouted over his shoulder. “I’m right fucking here.”
He was lying on his side in the other bed, facing away from his friends. With a flick of his wand, the curtain closed as quickly as it had opened.
“As we were trying to say,” Peter whispered to Remus, “Sirius is asleep so we should be quiet.”
Remus attempted to calm his rapid breathing and heartbeat—the very idea of losing Sirius had terrified him. He was still confused, and still restrained. He sat up as best he could to face James.
“What happened last night?” No one answered, no one met his gaze.
“Peter,” Remus singled the small boy out. “What happened?”
Peter visibly tensed, but he knew that his friend always talked in the end. “Well, last night—”
“We promised McGonagall that we would wait,” James said in a warning tone.
“Wait? Wait for what?”
“To tell you anything before she arrives,” Peter whispered when a few moments had passed and James had remained silent.
Remus laid his head back down and closed his eyes. Despite his splitting headache, his mind was speeding through scenarios, each one worse than the one before. Thankfully his misery didn’t last long, for he soon heard the unmistakable noise of Professor McGonagall’s heels in the hall.
The outer curtains and the divider were elegantly tied open with red ribbons. In stepped Professors McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Slughorn, and a well-dressed but unknown wizard in tow.
The witch pressed forward to scold James. “I told you to say nothing.”
“We didn’t, Professor, with all honesty,” he said earnestly.
“A Healer told me he was yelling.”
“That was just a misunderstanding,” he explained. “But we didn’t tell him anything about last night.”
“You speak like I’m not right here,” Remus interrupted them. “Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?”
“Language, Mr. Lupin. I want to preface this,” McGonagall said, turning her attention to him. “We know that when you are in your transformed werewolf state, the human part of you has no control. Your actions are not entirely your own. What happened last night was a freak incident, nothing more.”
“I hurt Sirius, didn’t I?” he said quietly. “Did I bite him?”
He quickly looked over to his friend, who was still facing away and hidden under covers. Even so, he could have sworn he saw him tense at his name.
“You didn’t turn him, if that’s what you mean, Moony,” James answered first.
“Do you want to tell it, James, or shall I? I am not sure if your friend over there is well enough to do it,” Dumbledore offered kindly.
“I will,” he said. “I don’t know all the details, only what I saw and what I pieced together. Last night didn’t go exactly to plan. Padfoot arrived—right, our professors know about the Animagi thing now—he got to the Shack just before you started the change, that was all fine. The change was how it always was, but one of you must have been followed; someone somehow got in and you heard him right after your transformation ended.”
Remus’ stomach sank. It was awful enough to think that he had hurt Sirius and probably James, but a third? He really was a monster.
“Who was it?”
James hesitated and looked back at their professors.
“Severus Snape,” Slughorn contributed solemnly.
He tried to control his breathing, but his mind was racing. “Where is he? Did I turn him?”
Again, James was quiet for a moment, trying to find the words. “Remus, he… the wolf’s instincts were too strong. Padfoot tried to stop it, but he couldn’t. Snape is…”
“Dead,” he finished for him. His friend only nodded, looking unnaturally pale. The room was spinning around him. He could feel the tears well in his eyes, but he was determined not to cry in front of his teachers. “How…?”
He felt his stomach suddenly seize, and he grabbed the bedpan in the nick of time. He coughed and wretched but nothing came out.
“I don’t have the details,” James repeated. “When I got to the Shack, he was already gone. Sirius won’t talk about it.”
For a moment it seemed every eye jumped to Sirius who was still motionless and facing away. Remus felt a surge of guilt; not only had he hospitalized him, but who knows what kind of horrors he had seen? He wouldn’t look at himself either if he was Sirius, he was probably terrified of him.
Slughorn cleared his throat. “The Healers say his neck was snapped.”
“Yes, thank you, Horace,” Dumbledore said somewhat awkwardly. “I cannot imagine how you and your friends must be feeling, Mr. Lupin, but before we leave you to rest, we have a guest from the Ministry who must speak with you.”
He gestured to the wizard that had been waiting quietly behind the Hogwarts staff. He stepped forward and inclined his head slightly to Remus.
“My name is Aurelius Mugwort, Mr. Lupin,” he introduced himself. “As your headmaster said, I work for the Ministry of Magic, specifically in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I believe you are familiar with our duties?”
Remus nodded. He was thankful that Mugwort didn’t mention his father.
“It is my unfortunate task, then, to inform you of last night’s consequences. Firstly, you have been added to the Ministry werewolf registry and must comply with their instructions. Secondly, a trial before the Wizengamot will be held when you and your friends have recovered enough. Because you are a minor and under the protection of Professor Dumbledore, the circumstances and consequences need to be fully clarified by the court.”
Mugwort paused to dab his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief. “And lastly, you have been expelled from Hogwarts.”
His friends audibly gasped and started to protest on his behalf. “That’s not fair, you can’t do that!” Peter cried.
Remus looked at McGonagall, who only hung her head, confirming the truth. “Where am I supposed to go? My only living family member won’t have me.”
“I am sorry, Mr. Lupin,” Mugwort continued, effectively speaking over the others. “As for your friends, the three of them will be required to add their names to the Ministry’s records of known Animagi, and a note will be made on their school record.”
James scoffed but he knew that this was a light punishment; he was more enraged on Moony’s behalf.
“Remus, you can live with me and my parents. They love you, and on full moons we could—”
“Where Mr. Lupin will be living after his trial is completely dependent on the trial’s outcome. We will have to wait,” interjected Mugwort.
The Ministry wizard continued speaking to those around him, but Remus stopped listening. It was so much bad news to receive at once, especially since he had woken up not long ago. He turned on his side, as well as his restraints allowed, to look at Sirius. He needed to know what he had done, what he had done to him. Not only for the sake of his conscience anymore, but he deserved to know what he was going to trial for.
When Mugwort had left, Remus’ focus returned. The professors were standing aside, heatedly discussing something in a quiet whisper. Peter was sitting on a chair at the foot of Sirius’ bed , his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. It was clear that he was crying, but no one acknowledged it aloud. James had returned to sit on the corner of Remus’ bed.
“What happened to your arm, will you tell me?” the latter asked the former.
James took a deep breath before turning to look at him. “Are you certain you want to hear it?”
He nodded emphatically.
“Well, I was Prongs at the time,” he started. “And it turns out that the legs of a deer don’t have a wide range of motion side-to-side. At one point, the wolf grabbed my front leg—or my arm, I guess—and we discovered the limit of that motion, one could say. But the Healers said it’s going to be an easy and full recovery.”
Remus paused and let the information set in. He knew that James was downplaying it, but he could probably fill in the gaps later.
“What did you see? You’re keeping things from me, I can tell.”
His friend looked over his shoulder at the professors. “I don’t know if now is the time…”
“I have a right to know my own actions. I’ve heard so much bad news in the hour I’ve been awake, just put it on top of the pile,” Remus said, perhaps more bitterly than he had meant.
Before they could argue further, the three professors turned around to address them once more. Slughorn stepped forward.
“We must carefully consider how this incident will be explained to the school before the details become public knowledge. Until then, Remus, I think it is best that we neglect to say you are the werewolf in question, instead you were injured like the others. Yourself, Sirius, and Severus were serving detention for me by gathering ingredients found at the edge of the Forbidden Forest but you three went off path and became lost. When attacked, one of you sent a Patronus to James for his help. The encounter killed Severus, injured you and James, and disfigured Sirius. We will most likely need to explain the stag that ran from the tower down to the grounds, but that’s less significant…”
Slughorn’s story washed over him, but the word disfigured rang in his head. He still had yet to see any part of Sirius, he didn’t know what he imagined had happed to him, but not that.
“’Disfigured’? How do you mean?” Remus asked.
The Head of Slytherin looked at his colleagues and the other Marauders in embarrassment, realizing he had mentioned something they had not. “I overstepped, forgive me…”
“Sirius, what does he mean?” he demanded. “What happened?”
His friend’s blanketed silhouette stirred, and finally his dark hair appeared against his white pillow. When he turned over, Remus’ question was answered. The entire left side of his face was plastered with bandages, and his right side was discolored with bruises. He was missing chunks of his beloved hair, like they had been ripped out. His bandages continued beneath his dressing gown, their full expanse unknown. With his one uncovered eye he stared emotionlessly at a point above Remus’ head.
“Disfigured,” he parroted. He pulled the sheets back over himself.
“What—”
“It is nearly lunchtime,” Dumbledore interrupted him. “We should return to Hogwarts soon if we wish to assemble the students at noon. Let us give Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin some peace.”
“Can we stay here with them?” Peter pleaded.
“No, boys, you must come back with us,” McGonagall said kindly, “but we will visit again soon.”
The professors shepherded James and Peter away with them, their friends giving awkward waves to Sirius and Remus.
When they left, all of the curtains closed behind them, except the divider between the two boys. Once alone, Remus laid back and let his tears silently slide down his cheeks. Images flashed in his mind, his imagination’s attempt to visualize what he had done. As the wolf he saw himself ripping out Snape’s throat while Sirius laid in a pool of his own blood at his feet.