fatal love

chapter 92

The next week, Sirius saw Benjy again twice. They had a nice, comfortable thing going. Sirius would go over to Ravenclaw, and they would get off, normally more than once, before Benjy's dorm mates would come back from studying at about midnight and Sirius would go back to Gryffindor.

It had been a bit awkward, the first time they walked in, because Sirius couldn't find his trousers. But hey, these things happened, and it had been funny, if nothing else. The guys in Benjy's dorm all seemed nice, as well. One of them, Caradoc, had been acting a little funny, and kept staring, but he hadn't said anything untoward.

Remus was always awake, when Sirius got back to Gryffindor. He pretended to be asleep, but Sirius could tell by the lack of snores that he was faking. He didn't really know what to make of that.

But seeing Benjy again regularly was good. They ended up chatting a lot, in between all the getting off, and Sirius was learning a lot about him. Like how he wanted to be a journalist - for muggle and wizard newspapers. He talked about it passionately, the sort of stories he wanted to cover, and how there weren't enough black journalists in muggle Britain, or muggleborn journalists in wizarding Britain.

Friday was another full moon, and after a night of running around the Forest, Sirius left Remus in the Shack for Madam Pomfrey to collect, and stumbled back to the dormitory under the Cloak with James and Wormtail. At least it was a Saturday, he thought, and they could all have a lie in. Doing a full day of lessons after a full moon was always exhausting.

He didn't get a lie in though. His eyes were shut as soon as his head hit the pillow, but he felt like he'd only got a few minutes of sleep before he was being shaken awake urgently.

"Sirius," a voice whispered, "wake up."

A girl's voice, he realised.

He blinked, opening his eyes in confusion, to see Evans standing there, crouching over him, and started. "Bloody fuck," he cursed, "what the fuck are you doing here?"

"It's..." she paused, like she wasn't sure what to say. "...There were werewolf attacks last night, lots of them. It's on the front page of the Prophet. Fourteen dead, eleven more bitten."

Sirius sat up, suddenly wide awake. "Voldemort?"

"Yes."

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked suspiciously.

She went silent again, for a long time. "I just... I just think... if there's someone who doesn't know yet, who... that maybe that person would want to hear it from you. I'm not... I'm not asking any questions, I'm just letting you know." What she wasn't saying with her words, she said with her eyes.

He stared at her. "Thank you," he said quietly.

She nodded, and gave him a sad smile before leaving the room quickly. He jumped up as soon as she was gone, and rushed to get dressed and run down to the Hospital Wing, not bothering to wake the others up. He didn't want Remus to read this in the paper. He knew Moony, he'd find a way to blame himself.

When he burst in, Remus wasn't asleep, but sitting there, awake and anxious. His eyes fixed on Sirius immediately.

"Sirius?" he said. "What's happened? Poppy wouldn't tell me, but I can tell something's wrong, she had to leave as soon as she got me back here. She never leaves, and she looked scared."

Sirius walked over slowly, taking a seat next to Remus' bed. "I'm sorry, Moony."

"Why? Just tell me, Sirius."

"There were attacks last night."

Remus' jaw clenched, but he nodded stoically. "Werewolves?"

"Yeah. They've joined Voldemort officially, it seems."