[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Blankets for a Werewolf


The day before winter holidays, the boys were in the dormitory, packing for the journey back to London. Sirius had been so busy dreading going home to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, that he had quite forgotten his plan to knick Remus some blankets until the very moment when Remus announced, “Well… You lot have a Happy Christmas… I’ve got to go.”

“Happy Christmas,” said Peter hurriedly, too busy packing and mentally preparing for the feast that his mum would be preparing to say a proper good-bye to Remus.

Sirius dropped the books he’d been packing into his bag - he was the only one bringing along homework, as he figured there’d be nothing much else to be done while he was locked away in his room back home. His Transfiguration text fell off the bed and onto the floor with a thump. “You’re not going out there already!”

“I’ve got to,” Remus replied. He held up the note from Dumbledore reminding him of the moon. “I should’ve gone last night so that nobody saw me sneak out, but it was too cold to even dream of it. That old shack hasn’t got the best insulation.”

“Blast!” Sirius exclaimed, remembering the blankets that he and James were supposed to have gotten for Remus over the last month. He smacked his palm to his forehead, “Bloody hell, I’m the worst friend in the world!”

Remus looked confused, “What?”

James looked guilty, too. “We were going to knick you blankets from the laundry room,” he explained. “Clean ones, of course,” he added as an after thought.

“For the Shrieking Shack,” added Sirius, “So you wouldn’t be so cold out there.”

Remus smiled, “I appreciate the thought,” he said.

“Thoughts won’t keep you warm at night!” Sirius said in frustration.

Remus shrugged, “Some thoughts might.”

Later that night, the dormitory was quiet once again with sleep and the light of the full moon streamed through the window, lighting up Remus’s empty bed ominiously. Sirius sat in his own bed, hugging his knees, staring over the sleeping forms of James and Peter, at the place Remus ought to have been, and shivering, refusing to get under his own blankets in interest of feeling the same cold that Remus must be out there in the shack. He rubbed his palms over his toes. They were like icicles.

“Bloody hell,” he mumbled. He couldn’t stand the idea of Remus out there, half frozen like he was picturing. Quickly, he got up and went over to James, nudging his friend, “James. Wake up.” But James didn’t budge other than to roll over and pull his own blankets tighter. Sirius frowned, “James, get up, we need to get blankets for Remus.” But stil, no matter how hard Sirius shook him, James wouldn’t wake up except to mutter something about a quidditch pitch. Sirius sighed. “I’ll do it myself, then.”

Alone, Sirius snuck out of the dormitory and through the portrait hole to the Trophy Room, careful not to make a sound. He didn’t run into a single soul on the way to the room. The light of his wand cast long shadows of the trophies in their cases across the walls, reaching up toward the ceiling. He stood before the frame of Scrimgeour’s empty portrait canvas and muttered Beati Pacifici and ducked into the passage quickly. He felt a lot better about not being caught once the portrait had resealed itself and he was running down the dark passage.

He had not yet tried going down to the laundry room and he hesitated at the edge of the seemingly endless pit, standing next to the blue flame marker with a lump in his throat. Nervously, he inched closer and peered into the darkness that loomed beneath him. It seemed a lot more daunting now that he was here than it had when he’d thought of it before. He wondered at James’s heroics months before, when he’d launched himself down that very chute without hesitation to attempt to rescue Peter. Sirius thought it may have been the most brave and reckless thing he could imagine.

But this time it wasn’t for Peter. It was for Remus. And not only that, but he knew what awaited him at the bottom and he took a deep breath, then hopped over the edge, holding his nose as though he were jumping into a swimming pool.

Down, down, down he fell, the wind whipping his hair back from his face and his pyjamas fluttering about his ankles. He instinctively tried to grab onto something to stop the falling but there was nothing but smooth walls that came ever closer and he had a panicked thought about the magical properties of spaces in Hogwarts. What if the chute only sometimes went to the safety of the laundry room? What if sometimes it really did never end and here he was dropping off to the center of the earth, where he’d be boiled alive in magma and lava? But before he could panic too much, he felt the coolness of the wall on his back and the slow change from falling to sliding and then, like he was on some crazy ride at a muggle amusement park, he was out the chute and into a great bin of stinking laundry.

He took a few moments to regain his wits about him, shivering in the warmth of the clothes and blankets he’d landed in. He crawled out of the bin once he was fairly certain that he could do it without his knees giving out on him. He looked about the room.

It was just as magical as James and Peter had described it, with clothes and blankets flying through the air to be magically dried and folded on their own accords into sacks that the house elves would carry up to the dormitories. It smelled sweet and citrusy in the room. He moved, ducking around the laundry flying through the air, and peered into the little bags, shuffling among them until he found one that was filled with blankets. He cinched the top of it and slung the bag over his shoulder quickly and made for the door at the far end of the laundry.

The hall beyond was dark and he wasn’t certain where in the castle he was, but he found his way eventually to the entrance hall and he struggled to pull open the great wooden doors. Outside, it was below freezing. He had worn his heaviest cloaks but he was still very cold as he ran across the grounds, his feet crunching in the frozen snow. The whomping willow was still, her vines and leaves icy. He used the cold snow to form an ice ball and took aim for the knot as Remus had shown them nearly two months prior. He missed.

Several ice balls later and Sirius’s hands were pink from the cold, his feet starting to get numb, and tears threatened to freeze in the ducts of his eyes. He had to hit this bloody tree. He scraped up his seventeenth ice ball and took a deep breath, staring at the knot with determination. He still missed. There had to be another way, he thought, and he rubbed his chin - at least tried to, his skin was too cold from the ice and he tucked his hands into his robes pockets to try and thaw them out. He felt his wand there and an idea struck him. He made one last ice ball. “Wingardium leviosa,” he whispered, and he magicked the ball across the space between him and the trunk of the whomping willow, lining the ball up so that it hovered over the knot in the tree before cutting the spell and allowing the ball to fall. It hit the knot and the willow sighed, frozen now in a different way.

Feeling rather brilliant and proud of himself, James gathered up his bag of blankets and ran across the snow to the hole in the ground and jumped through into the darkness of the tunnel.

The tunnel seemed even longer by himself than it had done when he was with his friends and much more dreary. He hated the thought of Remus travelling it alone every month and he clutched the bag of blankets even tighter in his fists, all the more determined to get them to the shack. He pictured Remus, huddled up and alone on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, probably reading one of his textbooks, and waiting for the full moon to pass on by. He didn’t once think of Remus as being in his wolfish form.

Not once.

When he got to the end of the tunnel at long last, he put the bag down for a moment to push open the trap door that led up into the shack, then he stuffed the bag through and reached to climb up himself. “Remus?” he called into the dark, looking about as he pulled himself out of the tunnel and stood up. He picked up the bag of blankets. The Shrieking Shack was ice cold, his breath came out in clouds ‘round his mouth, and he shivered. “Remus, it’s me, Sirius. Blimey it’s cold out here… I brought you some blankets.” He looked around, but didn’t see his mate anywhere.

It felt a bit like trespassing, honestly. He moved uncomfortably through the little kitchen, putting the bag of blankets down by the overturned table. On the floor, he spotted Remus’s book bag, books spilled onto the floor, illuminated by a beam of moonlight that cut across the dark, pale blue like cool sliver. “Remus? Hello?”

A creaking floorboard was the most warning he got.

Sirius turned around to see the most terrifying creature he had ever laid eyes upon. Mangy, with great bloody gashes across his legs, skin chewn to the point of being almost leatherlike, with thinning grey fur that was blotchy at best, and glowing yellow eyes…. The werewolf was nothing at all like Remus Lupin. Sirius was jolted by the shock of it. He remembered a dream he had - a nightmare, rather - the term before, where he’d been in his mother’s library and attacked by a werewolf. The real thing was no less terrifying than it had been in his nightmare. And even more so when the beast lunged toward him, jaw open wide.

Sirius only just managed to get out of the way in time as the wolf came at him with teeth bared and anger in his eyes. Sirius hit the floor and rolled, popping up a few feet away as the werewolf slammed into the table, kicking the textbooks every which way. Pages were shredded, a cover fell off, and one book slid clear across the room as the wolf struggled to his feet and turned on Sirius, his eyes angry and wholly focused on Sirius. He could almost feel the pressure of the eyes looking at the spot where his jugular was in his neck and he instinctively put his hands up as he cowered away.

“Remus, it’s me,” Sirius said desperately, his back against the wall. Wall paper was ripped and hanging limply against the wall where it had been scratched away. His eyes moved to the trap door, upon which the werewolf - it was impossibly hard to think of it as Remus! - stood, baring his teeth and growled lowly, the hairs that ran along the ridge of its spine all straight up and prickly. “Oh Merlin’s beard,” whimpered Sirius, who had never been so terrified of anything in his entire life. “Remus, please, it’s me… Sirius. Your mate. From Gryffindor. You know, we room together. We’re friends, you and me. You’re a great friend, mate…” The wolf stepped closer and Sirius swallowed, crouching in fear. “You’re Remus Lupin, man,” he trembled. “You know who I am. Please. Remember who you are, Rey!” But there wasn’t even a flicker of recognition in the wolf’s eyes.

Sirius knew he had exactly three options. One, he could stay here and let the wolf bite him and possibly (probably) kill him. Two, he could grab hold on something - a chair or a book or something - and try hitting the wolf, running the risk of making it angrier than it already was. Or three, he could draw it away from the trap door a bit, just to get it off the door, and make a mad dash for it.

He stood slowly, inching his way up the wall, the wolf watching, calculating its attack. At any moment, the wolf would lunge forward and Sirius would be done for. He held up his palm, shaking, “Good - good doggy,” he whispered. “Good doggy.” His voice was but a squeak. He backed slowly away, keeping his back to the wall, his knees too weak to hold him up. Just a couple feet, he thought. Not too far. He could do this. But would he be able to make the move to get to the door without the wolf grabbing onto him? That part he wasn’t so confident about. The werewolf took the bait, though, stepping closer with each motion that Sirius took away from it, keeping the distance equal. Slobber was falling from the lips of the wolf, falling in great thick strands. It made Sirius’s stomach churn.

Suddenly, sick of the slow steps, the wolf made his move. He leaped through the air, his strong back legs springing him forward. Luckily, Sirius had seen the tensing of his muscles and he dove to the floor, sliding painfully across the wood and rolling to the trap door. The wolf rebounded off the wall and ran toward Sirius, snapping and snarling as he came, his long yellow teeth bared. Sirius pulled open the trap door as quickly as possible, and swung himself down into the tunnel. Afraid that the wolf would follow - and what then? He’d be doomed! - Sirius reached for the cord to pull the door shut behind him. The wolf stretched out his long-clawed foot, catching Sirius’s arm with his claws and ripping the skin, tearing it away, drawing blood. Sirius screamed in pain, but managed to hold onto the cord as he pulled it the rest of the way shut. The wolf’s paw caught in the door and struggled to push his way through, but Sirius pulled the cord with his entire body weight and the wolf was forced to withdraw as the trap door slammed shut, sealing the angry wolf onto the other side.

Sirius clutched his bleeding arm as he fell to the floor, tears in his eyes, breathless. He could hear the wolf snarling and snapping and scraping at the door, digging, and he imagined that the wood might break and the wolf might break through somehow and get into the tunnel and he scrambled to his feet, heart in his throat, and ran as fast as he bloody well could through the tunnel, blood leaking out of his arm and dripping onto the floor. He felt dizzy as he stumbled to the other end. He’d run that full length and his lungs burned and he struggled to pull himself out of the dark after pulling the lever on the hole and he rolled across the ice and snow that covered the ground beneath the willow. Blood stained the snow reddish pink and Sirius cried as the cold crystals bit into the skin around the wound. He looked at it, trembling. Four bright red gashes across his forearm, deep and oozing.

He knew he had to go to Pomfrey. There was no way around it. If he didn’t, he would certainly lose all of the blood within his body. He already felt as though he had lost a good part of it. What would he tell Pomfrey, though, he wondered desperately. What if she took one look at it and knew it was a werewolf that had caused the wound? What would happen to Remus? Did werewolf scratches work the same way as a werewolf bite? He stumbled across the snow, headed for the main doors of the castle, so cold he could barely move, clutching his arm as the night and the castle swam before his eyes, blurry and far off.

Sirius fell on the stairs… once, twice… a third time… his knees scraped against the stone, pain jolting up his arm as it broke his fall. He was so tired.

“Bloody hell,” he heard a voice say from what seemed like eons away. “What’s happened to you?”

Sirius fought to focus on the face that peered down at him. Why was Derek Bell outside, yet again, at this late of an hour? But Sirius didn’t have too long to wonder as he lost his strength entirely and everything went dark.