Chapter 11
When Remus woke up again, it was to blindingly bright light that hurt her eyes and made her head ping, first with pain and then with cultural associations. She seized up with terror, until her nose caught the sharp bite of antiseptic in the air and her ears picked out the familiar sound of shoes squeaking on linoleum floors. She squeezed her eyes shut and managed to focus when she opened them again, registering the starchy pillows she was propped up on, the plastic curtain with the headache-inducing geometric design running down the side of the bed, the sickly green walls.
Not dead, then. She wasn't sure exactly what was waiting on the other side, but she was pretty sure it wasn't going to involve the NHS and their depressing attempts to make their hospitals look anything other than chronically underfunded.
She was also pretty sure it wouldn't involve anything near the amount of pain she was in right now. Her head felt like someone had rammed her scalp-first into an anvil, her arms and upper body ached with cuts and bruises, but all that vanished in comparison to whatever the fuck was going on with her left hand, which appeared to have been strapped diagonally across her chest. She tilted her head down on the pillows to try and get a look at what she was dealing with, but only caught a lot of bandages and medical tape before her vision started swirling. She lay back as carefully as possible with a frustrated huff.
"Drugs wearing off?" came a voice from the left.
Remus frowned and rolled her head around. There was a woman sitting on the next bed over, waving tiredly.
"Over here," she said. "Cathy. We met last night. And also earlier this morning, but I don't think you'd remember that. They had to knock you out pretty fast to get your hand under control. It's getting near midmorning now, the doctor should be along to talk to you in a bit."
Remus squinted at her, took in dyed-blonde hair going grey, wiry muscles and some familiar-looking scars. There was a thick layer of dressings sticking out from under her shirt on her right shoulder. Remus eyed them as she reached for some memories from the night before. They were usually unfocused and fleeting and a little terrifying, but these were different to usual. All she could remember was a feeling - or, more, a series of feelings. Recognition. Fear. Hostility.
"Oh," she said. "Fuck. That was your territory."
Cathy made a see-sawing motion with her hand. "Eh, sort of. I haven't officially claimed it or anything, it's just that no one else usually uses it, there aren't many of us in this part of Wales. My husband and I take the camper out there every month, he didn't half get a shock when I came back covered in blood and dragging a whole extra person. He's the one that called the ambulance - muggle, bless him - he's just off getting my discharge papers sorted."
"I'm sorry," Remus offered. "I wouldn't have gone there, but I was low on options. If I'd known-"
"Sweetheart, don't even. There's no way you could have known - and anyway, I should be apologising to you, for your fingers if nothing else."
Remus' stomach dropped. "Did they come all the way off?"
Cathy nodded, her face creased with guilt. "Two of them. They stopped the bleeding and got everything stitched up, but they didn't seem too optimistic about getting them reattached. I'm really sorry, love."
Tears stabbed hot and sharp at the back of Remus' eyes. She closed them and dropped her head back against the pillows. "Fuck," she whispered. "Fuck. I really need my hand right now."
"Hey now, they're doing wonders with technology these days," Cathy said, semi-encouragingly. "Or - there's got to be some magical fixes, right? I'm assuming you're a witch and not a squib like me. I know it's shit, but there'll be a solution."
"It's not even that," Remus said, plucking anxiously at her blankets. "There's things - I'm - I just really, really need my hand, I..."
She trailed off as another horrible realisation set in.
Sirius had no idea where she was right now. Remus had no way of contacting her.
"Hey, hey!" Cathy reached over ineffectively as Remus fisted her good hand in her hair and tugged hard with a frustrated growl. "Merlin, please calm down."
"My wand," Remus grit out. "My clothes. I left it all back there, I thought I'd be able to just find it again in the morning, I'm such a fucking moron, she'll think I just pissed off and left them like I didn't mean anything I said yesterday-"
"Listen," Cathy insisted. "It's going to be okay-"
"No it's fucking not, if I'm stuck here and my shit's buried in a fucking hillside then how the fuck am I meant to-"
The curtain at her side ripped back, revealing an irate-looking nurse. "Excuse me!" she barked. "Language like that is not permitted on my ward!"
"Leave off, she's just lost two fingers," Cathy said sharply. "Her painkillers are wearing off too."
The nurse sighed and moved over to check Remus' chart. "We can give you another dose, Miss," she said. "If you'll just-"
"What? No," Remus said, holding up her arm to stop the nurse getting closer. "No, I don't want any more drugs, I need - ow, fuck - I need my head clear, I-"
"What on earth for?" the nurse asked, bewildered. "You're not leaving that bed anytime soon."
"Don't want to be rude but I definitely am. Can I get some discharge papers?"
The nurse opened her mouth to argue, but a doctor with thinning hair and lopsided glasses came strolling up before she could say anything else.
"What's the problem, Nurse?"
"This patient is refusing care and asking to be discharged early," the nurse said. "I'm trying to explain to her why that's a terrible idea."
The doctor frowned and held out his hand for Remus' chart. "Let's see, Miss... oh, we don't have your name yet."
He looked at Remus expectantly. She glared to hide the effort it was taking to try and come up with an alias - Merlin's tits, her hand hurt. She forced herself to focus and seized onto the first name that came to mind.
"Minnie."
The doctor made a note and didn't appear to notice Remus' immediate regret. "Surname?"
"I..."
"Miss?"
Remus blinked hard and tried to pass off the complete blank she was drawing as being distracted by the pain. "Um..."
"Carter," Cathy jumped in. "Same as me. She's - she's my niece."
The nurse raised an eyebrow. "You didn't mention that before."
Cathy shrugged with her uninjured shoulder. "We're not close."
"The chart says you were attacked by a dog, Miss Carter," the doctor said. "I take it this was the same one that attacked you, Mrs Carter?"
"I - yes. We were out for a walk in the hills, you know, a little auntie-and-niece bonding time-"
"You just said you're not that close." The nurse was squinting at them both suspiciously now.
"Right, hence the need for bonding time."
"Hmph."
"If it was a dog attack, the police will want to speak to you, find out who it belonged to," the doctor said, scribbling something on the chart. "Could you-"
"No!" Remus interrupted, too loudly. He gave her a strange look. So did the nurse. "No police, we don't want to press charges. I just want to get out of here, please."
The doctor sighed. "I really can't recommend that. You lost a lot of blood last night and your hand isn't stable yet. You're scheduled for another x-ray in a few hours but you'll almost definitely need surgery, plus physiotherapy-"
"I'm hearing what you're saying, and it's not doing anything to change my mind. Please let me go."
The doctor looked at the nurse, who folded her arms and shook her head. Cathy leaned forward.
"Look, can you give us a minute alone? I'll try and talk some sense into her."
Remus turned her glare on Cathy as the nurse and doctor backed off to the other side of the ward. "Why did you lie for me?"
"You seem to be in a bind, and I bit your fingers off so it's at least partially my fault. You want to tell me why you're so hellbent on leaving?"
"Nope."
"Alright."
"That's it?"
"Sweetheart, no offense, but I doubt you could stand up right now if you tried. I can't imagine you'll be pulling off any daring escapes any time soon."
"I don't need a daring escape, I just need some floo powder and a fuckton of skele-gro."
"And how are you planning on getting that? You said you left your wand buried in a hillside, and if you're anything like my brothers you're probably not getting very far without it."
"Ugh."
"Alright, don't start. Look, you know I'm right. You don't even have any clothes."
Remus scowled at the hospital gown someone had put her in. "I'll figure something out."
"Right. Well, you stew on that for a while, and I'll - oh, hi love."
Remus looked up to find a middle-aged man walking towards them, balancing a newspaper and two paper cups, trying valiantly not to spill tea all over the floor. "Hiya, Cath. Got your papers sorted, brought you a cuppa - and I see our friend is awake. You alright there?"
"She's our niece now," Cathy supplied, taking the cup he was offering her and downing half the tea in one gulp. "As far as the doctors are concerned, anyway. Minnie, this is my husband, Judd. He saved your life last night."
Remus glanced between them. "I - thanks. Nice to meet you."
Judd nodded to her. "No worries - Minnie, is it? Nice to meet you too. Sorry I didn't get you a tea, thought you'd be out for hours still."
Remus waved him off. "Doesn't matter, I'm not staying. Where did you got to get discharge papers?"
Judd laughed incredulously, but trailed off when Cathy shook her head at him.
"You're not serious," he said. "You almost died last night - I had to do a tourniquet, you could've lost your whole hand!"
"Right, but I didn't," Remus agreed. "Appreciate the save, really, but I can't be here and I definitely can't have surgery. It'd leave me way too..."
She stopped. Horror seeped into her bones like ice water.
"Minnie?"
"Vulnerable," Remus whispered. "Shit."
Cathy had said it was nearly midmorning. That meant it had been almost a full day since Remus had last refreshed her anti-trackers.
She had two, maybe three hours before they wore off completely. If Bellatrix and her fanatics were still out there looking for Harry, if they knew she'd been helping hide him and were tracing her too, they'd be on her in a matter of minutes. She was wandless, exposed, and surrounded by muggles.
Every second she stayed was putting the entire hospital at risk.
She ripped back the blankets, swung her legs off the side of the bed and surged to her feet. Then she staggered and sat back down again, blinking hard until the room stopped spinning.
"What the hell are you doing?" Cathy hissed. "Get back in bed!"
"Can't," Remus grunted, closing her eyes and trying to breathe through the worst of the pain. "Really, really can't."
"Listen, I don't know what it is that you're - are you afraid of hospitals or something? Because-"
"It's not that." Remus opened her eyes to meet first Cathy's, then Judd's, let her face set and her eyes harden, let her expression show how rock-solid serious she was. "This is life-or-death. I need you to get me the hell out of here."
They stared at her. She stared back.
Judd swallowed. "Alright," he said. "Okay. What is it you need?"
Remus looked down at herself and weighed her options. "Trousers," she said firmly. "I need some motherfucking trousers."
Wormtail crawled out of the sewer and suppressed a triumphant squeak when he found himself in the right alleyway in the right village. Keeping count of storm drains in this form took a lot of effort, especially with how thrown off he'd been dodging the aurors' spellwork at every turn. He scurried over to the skip he'd hidden his belongings behind, relieved to find his wand where he'd left it wrapped in discarded newspaper, mostly untouched by the rain.
He picked it up in his teeth and, with effort, managed to execute the maneuver he'd been working on - transforming, dropping his wand into his hand as he spun on the spot and disapparating all in one movement. He smiled when he made it through with no splinching to the right place, a condemned church in Stoke he'd found a few months back, halfway relieved in spite of the panic still pounding through his system.
He rubbed his face and paced a little bit. He was almost done. The Dark Lord's wand was safe, hidden away where no one would find it. The issue now was finding himself somewhere to hide - his cover at the Burrow was thoroughly blown, and the aurors would almost certainly be hot on his heels as soon as they got their shit together, to say nothing of the Death Eaters. He closed his eyes at the thought - but no, most of them didn't even know about his role in things, he reminded himself. And those that did hopefully thought he was dead already.
The church was probably alright for a few hours, but he'd never gotten a chance to ward it properly, and it definitely wasn't structurally sound enough for him to feel okay sleeping in it. He ran through his mental list of safe houses, but they were probably burned as well, considering how fast the Order had caught on to his disappearance. He cursed internally and spat on the floor - he'd been so sure that Sirius would come after him, sure enough that he hadn't bothered coming up with a proper contingency.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He shook his head. Not helpful. He needed to think constructively. He sat down on one of the rotting pews and rubbed his forehead, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth like Remus had taught him during their OWLs, a lifetime ago.
He paused, and stayed on Remus for a minute. Last night had been a full moon, he was pretty sure. If the Order was right and she really was on the run with Sirius and Harry, she'd probably split off from them last night - there was no way she'd risk being anywhere near a baby when she transformed. If Peter could figure out where she was, he might figure out something to use - something to leverage against the Order if they caught him. If he could only work out where they might be hiding - if he could only think-
Behind him, there was a 'pop', followed by a quiet, cruel laugh. He froze.
A hand landed on his shoulder.
"Time to make yourself useful, Pettigrew," a voice breathed in his ear, muffled behind a mask.
Sirius couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She couldn't breathe.
Moony's scent led a pretty straight shot through the hills. Padfoot hadn't been able to find the source, it must have been washed away, it was still raining when Remus had apparated in. Sirius wasn't sure when the rain had stopped, but it must have been before moonset. Before...
She dropped to her knees on the torn-up grass. Her eyes picked out the claw marks than rent through the ruined topsoil almost automatically. There were too many for one wolf alone to have made.
There was blood soaking into her jeans. She closed her eyes, but even in her human form she could smell it, the tang of copper and salt sharp in the cold air. Her nostrils twitched, and it took everything she had not to throw up. She had a go at trying to convince herself that there wasn't as much of it as there seemed, that it had mixed into the water on the ground and diluted, spread. She opened her eyes again and stared at the red-stained earth. There was a cold, shivery sensation taking root in the pit of her stomach. Her hands shook.
Remus was hurt.
Remus was gone.
"Where are they hiding the boy?"
"I don't know!"
"Try again."
"I promise, I don't know!"
Lestrange scoffed. "Because your promises are worth so much," she drawled, twirling her wand between her fingers. "Slimy, squirming, faithless traitor... you have far too much to atone for to risk lying to me."
She circled him slowly, ignoring his fruitless struggle against the conjured ropes biting into his wrists and ankles. Rodolphus, Rabastan and Crouch watched from their posts at the church's exits. Peter tried to follow Lestrange with his eyes as she stepped in and out of his line of sight, hardly daring to blink for how suddenly she might turn her wand on him again.
"Let's try this again," she said, savouring the words as one would a fine whiskey. "Where is Harry Potter?"
"I don't know," Peter insisted. "All I know is that Sirius has him, and that she's been getting help from Remus Lupin. I don't know where they are or how they're keeping him hidden, we haven't spoken in months!"
Lestrange sniffed, bored, and tilted her head at him. "So be it," she said. "Cruci-"
"Wait!"
She paused, wand arm poised halfway through the motion like a snake about to strike, expression irritated. "What?"
Peter breathed in and out, in and out. "I can't - I can't tell you where they're hiding the boy, because I don't know," he said, hating how his voice trembled. "But I have other information."
Lestrange raised an eyebrow but didn't lower her arm. "Oh?"
"The Order of the Phoenix has set up new headquarters," Peter said, eyes fixed on Lestrange's wand. In and out, in and out. "I - I can tell you where it is. And I can get you in."