On the Side of the Angels

Chapter Five: Threeways

“I swear, Sirius, he didn’t lay a hand on me!” Remus tried to prop himself up in the hospital wing bed but all he ended up with was a rather uncomfortable slouch. Peter leaned over and gave him a hand, slotting pillows behind his back.

Remus has woken up with a terrible headache and a throb in his writs, his ankle hurt and his ribs felt like a mallet had smashed them in. When he’d eventually ked ked an eye open the only thing he saw was the top of a silky black head laying against his side. There was a gentle snore coming from it. Sirius. James had waved at him to get his attention and explained that they’d been found, rescued and brought back to Hogwarts all in the one night with Professor Goodkind packing them up and bringing the entire camp back. Remus had thought that everyone would hate him but Peter had quickly chipped in and informed him that he was in such a state some of the girls cried.

Sirius had woken up around half an hour later (James had mentioned that he’d stayed awake for the full day and a half that he’d been in the hospital wing) and his beautiful blue eyes had clouded with tears. Remus had instantly forgiven him everything and they’d kissed until their lips were raw and their mouth was dry. Now, however, Sirius had jumped back on the ‘I HATE SNAPE!’ bandwagon. The whole school seemed to be against Severus, who was released from the hospital wing the morning after they’d returned.

“Remus we saw the state of you! We saw your wrist and it almost made me pass out, there’s no way you could have done that from a fall,” Sirius was standing next to his bed once again, hair flying around his face and hand gesturing every which way.

Remus shook his head. He was tired, wriswrist had been so badly broken that it still wasn’t healed and he had a headache. Amber eyes seemed to have a film over them, closing them off to the world, an exhausted glaze. “Severus didn’t do anything, Sirius. Please just let this thing go.”
mes,mes, who had been dozing lightly on the corner of the bed, lifted his head and made a face to Sirius, “Look, if Moony says he didn’t do anything, then he didn’t, ‘kay?”

Sirius made a rude gesture to him and turned back to Remus. He had his robes on again and they were swishing around his legs in a frenzy. He looked delicious with his long hair flowing about and his bright blue eyes and, if Remus had have been feeling up to it, he would have stopped those lips moving with a hard kiss before ravishing him. However, he wasn’t. “Siri’, sweetheart. Please?” he batted his eyelashes playfully and Sirius broke into a grin, bounding over to the bed and slotting himself in beside Remus, a hand going possessively over his waist.

“Finally,” James moaned, “I thought you were going to go on forever.”

Sirius grinned cheekily at him, “Let’s hopu cau can go on forever for Evans.”

James had met up with Lily Evans outside of the infirmary that morning. She’d asked him firstly about Remus, then about his friends and finally about himself. James had been love struck and she’d noticed but she was kind about the whole affair, knowing how much James liked her and (assuming) that he wasn’t all that bad. It had left James with an air of hope vibrating around him.

Remus was glad. The whole affair with Bellatrix Lestrange was enough to make him look around anxiously every time her little group of friends passed, waiting for the moment that she chose to open her mouth. Curiously enough, the morning that Severus had been allowed out, James had mentioned that Bellatrix had been in along with Narcissa, who was attached at the hip with Lucius Malfoy, and that they’d had a huge argument, Severus pinning her to the door and her nodding frantically.

Remus didn’t know what all of that had been about but James had also said that when Bellatrix spotted him in the corridor later she had, instead of fixing him with a hard glare and a smug grin, gone out of her way to walk in the opposite direction. This had given Remus cause for suspicion. Could Severus have overheard them that night in front of the campfire …? Was it possible that he’d taken it upon himself to shut Bellatrix up for James?

Remus was intending to find out but it would have to wait. The full moon was rapidleepieeping up on him and with only twenty-four hours to go he was more worried about his wrist healing properly before the change. It would hurt so much mor his his wrist was injured when the bones snapped and rearranged themselves during the change.

“I don’t believe you anywRemyRemy, because your just too nice to rat on Snape,” Sirius wrapped an arm around Remus’ shoulders and used one hand to stroke his hair from his face, “But I’ll let it go if you promise to go to sleep and rest some.”

Remus snuggled into Sirius. His eyes did feel sore and they nipped like hell. His eyelids felt unusually heavy as well. “Fine,” he murmured sleepily into Sirius’ shoulder, “Luv’ you.”

Sirius kissed the top of his head, “Love you, too, babe.”

* * *

And so it was done. The next week, as we all know, was a living hell for the group of youngsters who were, days earlier, blissfully happy. The very next night Severus Snape wandered into the Shrieking Shack, at Sirius Black’s instruction, and was almost torn apart by a fully transformemusemus Lupin. The argument that ensued after a short visit to Dumbledore’s office was horrendous and almost split the group of Marauders apart.

Remus spent an entire weekend in James Potter’s arms, sobbing his heart out while Sirius lived like the outcast which, unbeknownst to him, he would later become. The only contact Remus had with Severus Snape from that night on was a few discreetly passed notes via Peter Pettigrew which never earned a response. However, Sirius was quickly forgiven and, as is often the case with close friends, the incident was forgotten about. Remus went back to being happy with his boyfriend until they split on perfectly good terms at the age of twenty.

Lily Evans married James Potter and the union resulted in a beautiful baby boy named Harry who was to be the heir of the Marauders and who carried with him a future of hope and dreams. The happiness that radiated through Godric’s Hollow and the small cottage just beyond that which housed Remus and Sirius in those early years, was so thick that you could almost draw smiley faces in the air.

Theat hat happiness was shattered.

The bodies of Lily and James Potter were found charred and lifeless. A tiny baby Harry was recovered from the upstairs of the Hollow, distraught and panicked. Sirius Black was accused of the murder of Peter Pettigrew and a street full of Muggles, he was sent to Azkaban for a life sentence leaving Remus Lupin to pic the the pieces of his life and attempt to move on, alone and in pain.

During those little known years Remus lived in near poverty, drifting from job to job in both the wizarding and Muggle worlds, existing hand to mouth and twisting in the torment of betrayal. The young Harry Potter was raised by Muggles and tormented by a past which he knew little about.

Then the world took another unexpected spin. In Harry’s third year at Hogwarts, Sirius Black was discovered not to have been a traitor at all and to have spent years in Azkaban with an innocent heart. Remus Lupin was reunited with his best frien wel well as with a much older, far more cynical Severus Snape. Harry Potter was now back under the protection of people who loved him.

In Harry’s fourth year the Dark Lord Voldemort made his horrific return, butchering a Hogwarts student and throwing the entire wizarding world into torment. Fifth year rolled around with The Order of the Phoenix reinstated.

Not long after … Sirius Black was killed. He was murdered by Bellatrix Lestrange in the Department of Mysteries saving his Godson from Voldemort’s Death Eaters. He plunged through the Veil from our world and left his only chance of being a free man behind him.

Now Remusin hin has the guilt and the torment of knowing that his best friend was killed without ever having a fair trial. Harry Potter has lost the most precious thing he had; his innocence. He has lost his Godfather and the closest thing he has ever had to a family. Both men, because Harry can no longer be termed a boy, are yet again stumbling along with their lives. Both trying desperately to hold onto the memory of the love they lost.

This is where we pick up our story, here in Lupin and Harry’s inconsolable grief at the loss of their precious Padfoot and in the turmoil of a wizarding world living with the constant threat of Voldemort above their heads …