Making Amends
Remus Lupin had never been one to chatter, but fortunately his guide to Sirius's room was enough of a talker for them both. He carried on about the latest news in Wizarding Britain and plied Remus for details of growing up with the infamous Sirius Black. If he noticed that Remus avoided or deflected the questions, he gave no indication.
“So, news of the trial got all the way to you in...?”
“India,” Remus supplied. “And, yes. Word traveled that far.”
What he didn't say was he honestly hadn't intended to set foot on English soil again for another few years, at least. Being back where three of his closest friends were murdered and the last was imprisoned for it didn't settle well in his stomach. Besides which, regulations for beings like himself were more relaxed farther east.
Then he'd heard about the exoneration and thought, perhaps, he could start making his way home. Not immediately, of course. Sirius would need time. But eventually. Assuming there was any chance at reclaiming what there once had been.
“Sirius does know that I'm coming?” he asked, cutting off yet another chain of questions.
His guide paused, hand poised to rap at Sirius's door. “I'll just tell him first, shall I?”
Without another word, which was on its own remarkable, he slipped through the door. Remus fixed his attention to anything else. The way the cool green tiles fit together beneath his shoes. The unwavering light that shone from the charms embedded in the ceiling. If he was going to be turned away without even being seen, he didn't want to hear Sirius doing it.
Really, what was he expecting, coming this far without sending so much as a card? What could he even say? Sorry I didn't come testify on your behalf; honestly thought you were a murderer—still friends?
After far too long, the door opened again. His guide stepped out and closed the door quickly behind him before Remus could see through. Some small bit of hope he hadn't realized he'd been carrying went out.
“He won't see me, then?”
“I, ah.” The attendant, formerly so talkative, worked his mouth for a few seconds wordlessly. “You just. You stay here. Don't move. I need Healer Zheng—”
He sprinted away down the corridor, and Remus flung the hospital room door open. If something had happened—if Sirius was—
A thousand worst-case scenarios flashed through his mind, but nothing prepared him for the empty room he found himself in. Lunch still waited on the serving tray by the chair in the corner. The bed was neatly made. A handful of books and a few pages of the morning's Prophet sat piled on the nightstand. A random toothbrush lay on the floor. No Sirius.
Remus drew in a deep breath through his nose. He'd know Sirius's scent anywhere, no matter how long they'd been apart, and the room was full of it. Other people’s, as well, probably orderlies, nurses, attendants. Various potions and concoctions and the astringent smell of healing charms. Other wixen, apparently, couldn't tell or didn't notice that spells had a specific scent, but Remus always knew where magic had been worked recently and what kind.
He made a slow circuit of the room. There was another scent here, sharp as flint on steel.
The door behind him burst open, and an older witch with greying hair and coal-black eyes bustled in. She talked urgently with the three others behind her, demanding answers from charts and timetables and last-to-sees.
“Healer Zheng?” Remus asked, cutting off her rapid-fire questioning. “Remus Lupin—you wrote to me about Sirius's recovery.”
She pasted on a tight smile. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Lupin, but you can't be in here right now. I will be with you shortly.”
“A moment, please?” Before she could object, he barreled on. “Do your attendants make a habit of using Stunning Spells on patients who have only recently come off restriction?”
Healer Zheng's mouth pursed, her eyebrows snapped together. “Nobody on my ward would dare.”
“Someone did.” Remus inhaled again. “Recently. It has a very distinct odor. Don't ask.”
A look like recognition flashed across her face, and she and her team were off at the run. Remus only caught a few words as they dashed away, theories about where and how long ago Sirius may have been taken.
After one last look around, Remus set off on a hunt of his own. Not that the Mungo's staff didn't have their own ways of tracking an errant patient that were probably equally as effective and much more subtle, but he didn't believe in subtlety just now. With a flip of the wand, he sent a Patronus soaring and went sprinting after.
~ ~ ~
“Let's start with something easy. Azkaban.”
Black's eyes widened. Perfect. Easy as dropping from a diving board into water, Liam leaped into Black's mind. The trick was to keep the patient's focus specifically on the memories that he wanted to eradicate, to find them, and then to excise them without actually getting sucked into them.
If Zheng had any appreciation for the demanding, delicate nature of his work—no. He couldn't allow himself to get sidetracked with his own thoughts. Liam tightened his focus. Azkaban. Dementors. The never-ending cold and darkness. The wails that seeped through the stone until it felt like they had twined themselves into your very flesh.
There—he lashed out at a memory. It burned away to nothing, leaving only a cinder-like smear where that chapter of Black's story had been.
Liam settled into the rhythm, letting scenes drift to him and away as he sniped at the ones he wanted to Obliviate.
“—Padfoot—”
The voice jolted Liam from his Legilimens trance. He spun, a streak of silver glimmering in the field of his vision. But nobody was there.
“Who—”
He never finished the question. Black's teeth latched onto his wrist, a dozen stabbing points cutting deep.
“You ungrateful—” he started, and Black chomped harder. And Liam's wand slipped from his grasp.
With no charm to sustain them, the ropes binding Black vanished. Red dripped from his lips. Bleeding wrist clutched to his chest, Liam backed away toward the door.
“Word of advice,” Black growled, thin fingers wrapping themselves around the hilt of the dropped wand. “Run.”
And he did. Blood welling from between his fingers, Liam turned and fled down the hall. The lift was too far, so he dove for the door across the hall. If he could—
“Colloportus,” came the call from behind him, and the latch clicked into position under his hand.
Shit.
Liam ran for the next. The next. The one after that, but each door slammed and bolted shut just as he reached it, Black strolling leisurely behind him all the time.
“Stop! Help! Anyone! Sirius Black is trying to murder me!” he shouted as he ran. And of course not a single person in sight to save him from this lunatic!
A silver blur shot past him, hip-high and loping. He allowed himself a glance over his shoulder. The shining wolf—a Patronus? An actual, corporeal Patronus?—nudged Black once with its nose and vanished, and Black stalked on.
Finally, at the end of the hall, the lift came into view. Liam sprinted for all he was worth, feet slapping the floor. Then his knees and ankles locked together and pitched him forward onto the stone.
“ I-I was only trying to help!” He struggled to his feet, the Leg-Locker hobbling him, and continued hopping away. “I only took Azkaban! Azkaban! Who wants to remember that?!”
Another Patronus streaked by. Meters to the lift now, he didn't dare turn to watch. Black's footsteps were close enough to practically feel.
At last, Liam slapped his bloody palm against the call button. Please, he begged, watching the numbers tick down as yet another Patronus burst out from the lift shaft and passed him. Where the blazes were they all coming from?
He pressed the button again, hammering on it like that would summon his salvation quicker. The doors slid open at last, and Liam topped through.
“You—you have to help me—” Liam blurted out, ducking behind the man within. He glanced around at Black, still leisurely pursuing him. “He's mad, absolutely mad, he—”
Then he saw the wand in the man's hand, the end glowing a wispy silver. The one sending the Patronus charms. He'd thrown himself directly into the arms of the tawny-haired stranger he'd seen above.
“Well, Sirius,” he said, blocking the closing door with a foot, “I see my attempts at a valiant rescue were wasted. Seems you had it well in hand.”
Black stepped into the lift, tapping his stolen wand against his palm and eyeing Liam like a dog left alone with a steak. A smear of red streaked one of his cheeks. Liam half-expected him to lick his bloodstained lips.
“On the contrary, Moony. Your Patronus gave me the distraction I needed.”
'Moony', as he was called, pressed the button for the rehabilitation floor. Liam lurched, trying to get between them and out of the lift before the doors closed, and Black hauled him back by the scruff of the robes.
“Ah-ah-ah,” he said, a cruel smirk tugging at his bloody mouth. “Don't make me stun you.”
The doors slid closed, sealing Liam in the little metal box with two madmen. Slowly, his prison rose.
“He'll—he'll be punished, you know. Attacking a Healer,” Liam stammered. He looked to Moony, who seemed the more open to logic of the two.
“Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that,” Moony said nonchalantly. He'd put his wand away and stood watching the numbers on the floor indicator. As if he'd only speculated on the weather or some other mundane triviality. “Healer Zheng knows you Stunned him. She seemed furious when I left her. I'm not sure if I'd be more afraid of her or the Aurors she sent to the Ministry for.”
The next time the doors parted, Moony and Black let Liam spill himself onto the floor. He crawled forward until he ran straight into a pair of legs. Legs attached to a lithe frame. A slender hand reached down for him and helped him back to his feet. He found himself looking down into the face of a tiny black woman with tightly-cropped curly hair.
Behind him, Black and Moony exited the lift. Black laughed, and something about the humorless sound set every hair on the back of his neck upright.
“Healer Abbott,” Black said, “Meet Brynn Smallwood.”