ᴍɪꜱᴄʜɪᴇꜰ ᴍᴀɴᴀɢᴇᴅ ~ Wolfstar

Year 5- Chapter 19: Black And Blue

***

"Moony? Moony?"

He's somewhere. There's something on his face and a voice from very far away.

"Come on Moony, come on— ground control to Remus, come on—"

The thing on his face slaps him. He's lying on something cold, or is it damp? He opens his eyes, hazy. The first thing he sees is Sirius' face, beaming. It takes him a second to notice what's behind it. Trees?

It all comes back at once.

He jolts upright so fast that his head swims dizzily. With so much feeling that some birds flutter out of a tree overhead, he shouts, "Fuck!"

Sirius tips over in surprise, falling against his hands on the forest floor. "Take it ea—"

"You let me out!" Remus cries at James, who's sitting on a stump beside him, casual as anything. "You let me out of the Shack while I was—while I was— what the absolute fuck is wrong with you?!"

James just sniggers, which makes Remus want to strangle him even more than he already did. Which is saying something, as the sole thing keeping Remus from attacking him right this second is the loss of feeling in his left arm. It's bleeding quite a bit.

"You were dying to go outside," James says. "Poor thing— you wanted to run around!"

"I wanted to run around because I wanted to fucking bite people!" Remus screams, hoarse around his sore throat.

"Did you, though?" Sirius asks. "You got less vicious as the night went on." He turns to Peter for backup. "He did, don't you think?"

"Yeah...you...y-you..." He's staring at Remus, struggling to make sounds.

"Thanks for the analysis, Wormtail," James says breezily. He looks to Remus again. "Admit it, you had fun."

"Fun?! This isn't about fun, it's...it's..." Remus trails off. The shocked horror is slowly ebbing away to be replaced with a new, even less pleasant feeling: self-disgust.

Sirius laughs. "You did! Look at him— he can't even disagree!"

For a few moments Remus gapes wordlessly, trying for an argument but capable of none.

He did have fun.

"Er," says Peter, finding his voice at last. He looks up at the sky that's fading from deep blue into pink around the far-off mountaintops. "What time does Madam Pomfrey usually come to collect you?"

"Around sunrise," Remus answers, distracted. He's looking down at his body, assessing the damage or, rather, lack thereof. A single row of ragged scratches across his torso, and one bite mark on his forearm— it's nothing. Even after the easiest moons he's never, ever come out as unscathed as this. How on earth will he explain this to Madam Pomfrey?

"Er," says Peter again. He points out toward the lightening horizon. "I've never had the greatest marks in Astronomy, but..."

It takes a second to sink in.

"Fuck!" cries James at exactly the same moment that Sirius scrambles to his feet so quickly that he almost falls over. In a blind panic the four of them push to standing and look around, frantic, to figure out just where the bloody hell they are.

"Look!" shouts Sirius, pointing. "There's that one hill, it goes to the school gates, so we're just outside Hogsmeade! We cut it south through the village and we'll make it in time!"