Her Single Rose (Remus Lupin)

Seventy-Seven

For a few seconds, James truly had no idea what to do. The poor boy had never been in such a situation before. Not even Sirius had come cradling injuries in wounds like these. Certainly not a knife wound. And certainly not unconsciously brought be a house elf.

Once he finally gained his bearings, he yelled.

"Help! MOM!" James panicked as he quickly went out the door and looked over Aries.

Mrs. Potter quickly came out, gasping once she saw the girl on the ground passed out, "James step back!" She said quickly pulling out her wand.

"Wingardium leviosa"

With that, Aries floated into the air, the silver metal visible in her side as Mr. Potter and Sirius came out of the kitchen.

"Aries?" Sirius spoke at the sight of his twin. As they passed under the light, it was then that he saw the object glistening with blood, lodged into his sisters abdomen. He touched his side where he had been feeling a cramping sensation. He had thought it was just from Quidditch, but now it all made sense.

"Oh Merlin. James, Sirius, clean off the table, we'll put her there." Mr. Potter said quickly as he opened the door more the get the unconscious girl through.

James and Sirius seemed rather stunned for a moment before Mr. Potter slammed the door shut once Aries was inside.

Quickly the two scrambled to push everything off the table, bringing a pillow from the couch for under Aries head.

"Fleamont, get wormwood and-"

A harsh whimper left Aries mouth as she started waking up. She looked around slightly, confused where she was until she tried to move.

A gasping shriek left her mouth as she threw her head back on the table, the pain in her side becoming too much for her to hold in her tears.

"My- my bag." Aries breathed, looking at Sirius. "The s-small one." She looked up at the ceiling as Sirius rushed to grab her backpack.

Mr. Potter rushed back with a potion, placing it in Mrs. Potters hands. "We're out of dittany, Mia." He said nervously.

"We have to take her to St. Mungos." Mrs. Potter announced.

"No!" Aries cried out as Sirius looked through Aries bag. "I have-...I have potions, ointments- it's all in there." She explained, whimpering between her words.

James was holding a now very bloody rag to Aries side keeping the blood from spilling more, putting Aries in all the more pain and need to scream out from it all.

Sirius dumped out the medical supplies for Mrs. Potter to see, "the dittany, hand me the jar of dittany, and the blue ointment." Sirius quickly handed Mrs. Potter the jar and the ointment while Mr. Potter got more clean rags and a cup of water.

He took out a dittany leaf and crushed it into tiny pieces and mixed them into the water cup, lifting up Aries head slightly and allowing her to drink it.

The dittany leaf mix began to set in her system as Mr. Potter gently placed her head back down on the pillow.

"Ok, now for the painful part, James, Sirius, you two need to do this alright." Mrs. Potter said sternly.

"That wasn't the painful part?!" Sirius gasped out, he looked ready to pass out from constantly looked at the knife in Aries side. Helping his twin out of a corset was one thing, now this? Sirius was beginning to realize how much he regretted not bringing her with him when he left the wretched place.

"Sirius, darling, I'm gonna need you to pull out the knife carefully and place pieces of dittany in the wound, alright? James, I'm gonna need you to take this rag-" Mr. Potter handed Sirius the clean rag, "-and press it hard against her side once Sirius pulls it out. She's going to lose a lot of blood, so we have to be fast." She explained.