Running With Wolves

Chapter 16: The Forbidden Forest

Chapter 16: The Forbidden Forest

Remus woke up in the shrieking shack, shivering on the floor like he always did after transformations. Except for thin shards of moonlight coming in through the boarded windows, the room was dark. There was just enough light to see the outlines of the furniture. The bed, the same as always. Though tonight it looked in worse shape than usual. The sheets had been mauled. Feathers from the flattened mattress floated through the air or lay scattered across the floor. Remus curled his fingers into his palms. In the corner of the room was a chair. It was covered in gouge-marks. One leg was ripped off. The dresser by the bed had been tipped over. The walls were smeared with blood, and muddy handprints. Remus' mouth tasted like iron. He swallowed; the taste lingered.

His clothes were ragged and torn, hanging off his shoulders. As he got to his feet, he checked his body for cuts and bruises. There weren't any. Remus crept through the room and down the stairs; the floorboards creaked ominously. He followed the tunnel from the shrieking shack all the way out to the grounds of Hogwarts. The moon glittered off the lake in the distance, a crescent, like a claw hanging from the sky, casting eerie light across the grounds. Remus jumped when an owl hooted in the distance. It was answered by another, and then a third. The hairs on Remus' arms prickled. The wind whipped past, playing with Remus' hair and tugging on his clothes.

Around him pinpricks of light like stars littered the earth. Looking closer, Remus saw glinting in the grass was a trail of blood and clumps of dirt pulled up from the ground. Horror clawed its way up Remus' throat. He shoved it down, forcing himself to follow the trail. Now that he had spotted it, it seemed impossible that he had not seen it before. Every step, his eyes locked on the spray of blood. It pooled in some places, where the ground was matted and flat. The trail led him to the forbidden forest. The light was dimmer, the quiet infinitely spookier. Every sound echoed and sent a shiver down Remus' spine. Each time he snapped a twig under his feet he paused, looking around to see if he had disturbed any creature lurking in the shadows. He pulled his wand out of his pocket.

"Lumos," he murmured. The light fell across the forest floor. Remus stumbled back when he saw what the light illuminated. Lily lay slumped against a nearby tree, ominously still. Blood trickled from her mouth, her clothes were stained red and her face smeared with dirt. Her head slumped against her chest. Remus knelt beside her, to check for a pulse, to be sure. She was dead. He stood up too quickly, scrambling backwards and falling over a dead branch. He quickly recovered and ran. He didn't know where he was going, but it didn't matter, as long as he could get away from her body. It was beginning to become increasingly clear what had happened.

Remus literally tripped over the next body. His wand flew several feet from his hand as he caught himself with his hands, jarring his wrists, smashing his face into the ground. His nose filled with the scent of decaying earth and wet dirt. He grabbed his wand, turning around to see it staring glassy-eyed at him. James, neck snapped, eyes boring into nothing, empty and cold. His body was sprawled across the dirt. This time he didn't check to see if by some miracle James was still alive. He didn't need to. Remus couldn't breathe. His hands trembled. Every part of his body screamed at him to escape, to get out of the forest, somehow. But he was hopelessly lost. The path was nothing but a distant memory.

When he came across the third body, his heart stopped. Sirius was tucked in between two large roots. His body looked broken, like he had been thrown against the ground or a tree trunk. There was blood everywhere, so much blood. Remus nearly choked on the smell.

"Remus..." Sirius rasped. Merlin, he was still alive. Remus' knees gave out underneath him. He pressed a hand to his lips. His eyes stung.

"Sirius?" he croaked. Sirius smiled.

"It is you..." Each word sounded strangled and cut off by shallow breaths. Remus crawled closer.

"Yeah, Sirius, I'm here."

"'m sorry, about..." he coughed violently. "About..."

"Shhh, I know you are. I know."

"Good, I can't leave, without—,"

"No, you're not leaving. You're not leaving me, not yet. No. No, no, no, no, Sirius." But the last breath had already left his lips. It misted in the light of Remus' wand. Sirius' head fell against his shoulder. The tears fell down Remus' cheeks, unrestrained, dampening his collar, falling on Sirius' shirt.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? The little werewolf has lost his friends." Remus' eyes snapped up. Standing together was a group of several death eaters. Snape, with a snide look on his face, was the one who had spoken. Rosier stood at his shoulder, twirling his wand between his fingers. Regulus was on his other side. A faceless woman stood nearby. Around him, people he knew littered the forest, murmuring at him.

"You're a monster."

"Little werewolf, killed his friends."

"Poor thing, he's all alone."

And laughter. One by one, each death eater broke into hysteric laughter, until it filled his ears, his chest, and his entire body until he thought he might explode. He was all alone. He killed them. He was a monster.

Remus jerked awake gasping, and shaky. His classmates starred at him.

Professor Lunly paused from his lecture, something about Grindelwald's rise to power. "Mr. Lupin, are you quite alright?"

"Um, no sir, I don't feel very well, may I please go see Madam Pomfrey?" For once, Remus was banking on Lunly's strange fascination for him, hoping he would be free to go if Lunly though he was too fragile to be in class right before the full moon.

"By all means Mr. Lupin," Lunly said. Remus almost sighed out loud, standing to leave. Sirius stood up to.

"I should go with him."

"No you shouldn't," Remus hissed, gripping the desk, afraid he might fall over.

"By all means, Black, go with him." Lunly said. Remus cursed under his breath, pushed off his desk and made his way to the door, stumbling over someone's bag, disappearing out the door. Halfway down the corridor, Sirius' footsteps joined his.

"Remus, are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Remus marched through the corridors to the staircases, pointedly ignoring Sirius until he grabbed Remus by the arm.

"What were you dreaming about?"

"Who said I was dreaming about anything?"

"You kept mumbling words, sometimes it was "monster" sometimes I couldn't understand it. Sometimes... sometimes it was my name."

"What are you talking about?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Then Sirius produced those damn puppy-dog eyes. Not the ones that he used when he wanted something from James, or when he was trying to get Lily to check his potions homework, the ones he made when he was really upset. The ones that make Remus melt into his shoes, that made him want to do anything to fix it. And that made everything even worse, because no way was he giving into those eyes.

"Stop it, Sirius." Remus shook his arm out of Sirius' grasp and left him at the bottom of the stairs, gaping like a fish. Remus walked all the way to the boys' dormitory and fell against his mattress with the curtains drawn, trying to do anything but fall asleep again. He didn't leave until the rest of the school was a dinner, when it was time for him to go to the hospital wing.