And There Were Always Two... - oc x r. lupin & oc x s. black

- 28 -

Mavis was the only one who heard the faint knocking. She, for some reason, drew herself up and off of James to see who it was. In the back of her mind there were thoughts of telling the adults to get it, or at least James, but her sleepy self didn't listen.

She stumbled down the stairs in the dark, and paused when she realised she'd left her wand upstairs. She decided it didn't matter and continued down. The knock sounded again as she crossed the foyer, much more audible this time.

Rising onto her toes, she peeped through the hole but nothing could be seen through the darkness and the rain. So she unlocked the door and was met with an assault of rain and wind. She almost closed the door, but she spied a figure teetering on the doorstep, his hand tightly gripping the wall. In his other hand he carried a bag.

"Curron?" he asked and then started stumbling inside.

The wet black curls and empty grey eyes, he looked almost unrecognisable. Mavis let Sirius in, cringing at how he dripped on the floor.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I couldn't take it anymore," he told her, his voice as flat as the heart monitor of someone who's died. "I just... couldn't."

Mavis hesitated and then stepped closer to him. Her hand slowly pushed the wet hair of his face to reveal bruises and cuts. The breath was knocked out of her and she felt like she couldn't breathe. Who had done this to his face? His nose was broken, there was a cut across stretching from his jaw down his neck that hadn't clotted because of the rain, and his cheek was bruised along with her forehead and the other side of his jaw. There was blood leaking out from his nose and most of it was swelling. Somehow, there were a multitude of small cuts all around his face and going down his neck. A spell maybe?

Mavis took his hand, which she noticed was also bruised and cut up, and led him up the stairs. Sirius was wet but she didn't mind it. At the moment, she just wanted to make sure he was okay.

"No," he said when she tried to lead him into James' room. "The Potters let me have my own room when I'm over here. I'll go there."

Mavis hesitated but nodded.

She watched Sirius slip his hand out of hers and walk off in the opposite direction. Was he just tired? Or was he treating her this way because of what she'd said to him? Mavis knew it was self-centred of her to think about it now, when he was hurt and cold, but she couldn't resist.

A voice in the back of her mind whispered for her to follow him and she did.

Quickly moving after him, she caught a flicker of his black silhouette disappearing into a room at the end of the hall. She followed him in.

Sirius had laid his bag on the floor and started unbuttoning his overcoat. His shoes squeaked against the cold as he started turning around.

Mavis panicked.

"I'm not leaving until I make sure you're not going to bleed out in the night or catch hyperthermia," she told him, her voice venomous in her usual fashion.

His eyes flickered up to meet hers.

"Fine."

She crossed the room towards him then paused. There was a door which she assumed led to the bathroom. She walked into a dark-tiled floor towards the shower, and turned it on so the water could warm up.

Walking back out she found Sirius staring at her.

"You're going to shower whether you like it or not," she told him. "You're filthy. Now, sit down and I'm going to deal with your face. Is that the only place you're injured or did whoever did this to you managed to get you elsewhere?"

Sirius pulled off his jumper. He was wearing a black t-shirt underneath which revealed his battered arms.

"Shit..." Mavis breathed out.

She got a wet towel from the bathroom and started cleaning up all the blood, from his face to his knuckles. Often glancing at his eyes, she found them glazed over and in deep thought.

As she'd left her own wand in James' room, but grabbed Sirius'. He looked surprised. She muttered "episkey" over and over as she healed his broken nose and the bruises and cuts all over him.

"I thought wands only work for one person," Sirius asked.

"I guess it does mind me using it to make sure you don't look like you've been run over by a thestral."

"Thestral?"

"Nevermind."

She reached the back of his neck and lifted his hair. A long cut going deep into his skin travelled down his spine beyond the neck of his t-shirt.

"Take off your shirt."

"That's a little blunt," he told her, a smirk dancing across the edges of his mouth.

"Fuck you."

"I wouldn't mind."

Those words took her straight back to the conversation on the Astronomy tower, when she found out he did like her. It had changed everything and then... everything had changed again.

Were those words he said up on the tower still true?

Mavis was ripped out of her thoughts by the fact that Sirius was still sitting there. He should have jumped at the chance, but he was sitting there with his shirt still on.

"Take it off," she told him.

He didn't move.

"Come on, I'm trying to help you here."

"I didn't ask for your help."

It hurt.

She couldn't even mask the blow. She sucked in a breath and took a step back. Her hand put his wand on the bed and she walked out, feeling her eyes prickled. Merlin, she hated emotions.

"I'm sorry! Come back!" he called after her.

She stopped in her tracks.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."

Mavis looked back at him.

"I just... You don't... ugh. Whatever."

He took off his shirt to reveal scars of every size and measure. Calculated scars that were done in places it wouldn't show. Mavis walked back to see line after line after line criss-crossing his back.

Someone had whipped him.

"Who?" she asked.

Beneath the open wounds there were scars where he had been whipped before. It was all layered.

"Some of it was my mum, some of it was my dad. I don't remember who did what."

"Shit."

Sirius looked at her with steel eyes that didn't want pity, so she started cleaning his wounds and stitching them back up with magic. It took ages and they worked well into the early morning.

"Go shower," she told him finally. "Do you have dry clothes in your bag or did they all get wet?"

"There's probably something dry in there."

"Good."

Sirius stood up, without wincing this time, but didn't leave the room.

"Aren't you going to leave?"

"I'm staying here until I make sure that you don't pass out in the shower."

"That's easier to do from inside the shower."

"You paedophile."

Sirius shrugged and walked away.

Mavis was glad he was in a mood to joke. She sat on his bed, inspecting his wand.

He walked out of the shower fifteen minutes later to find her snoring softly. After changing into the pyjamas he brought with him, he pulled a blanket over her and fell asleep on the couch. He wasn't about to risk being called a paedophile again.