BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE - REMUS LUPIN

35 - "THE TWO LINES"

She was starting to think that Remus might not be the only one who felt that way about Hollis.

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She felt a soft bed under her body, one that she recognized from once before a long time ago, in her third year. The hospital wing bed, the smell of the soap the house elves used to clean finding its way into her senses. Her head felt light on top of the pillow, unpleasantly weightless. 

It was nothing compared to her back. The wound felt fresh, like it was the first of December.

She couldn't manage to force her eyes open, but as she managed to come back to her senses, Hollis could make out the muffled voices of professors anxiously whispering fading in and out.

"Previous injury..."

"... deep..."

"How... managed .... keep it hidden?"

Hollis's head went even lighter than it already was. All that secrecy for nothing.

She fell into a fitful, restless sleep again.

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"You have to let us see her!" came a furious shout, waking Hollis with a start. "You have to!"

Remus.

"Please, she's our friend," another plea rang out, this time from James.

"There are six of you," Pomfrey sighed, and Hollis could practically hear her shaking her head. "Your friend has been horribly injured, I don't think that she's up for visitors at the moment."

"Horribly injured?" questioned Peter after a brief silence.

"But she hit the pole, not that that wouldn't hurt, but is it that serious?" Marlene asked. "Isn't it just a really bad, big bruise or something like that? Right?"

Please, I don't want them to worry.

Madame Pomfrey sighed heavily again. "Miss Rosier had a preexisting injury that was worsened by the bludger.. I don't quite understand how she managed to keep it hidden for so long. We should have gotten to it much earlier."

"What kind of injury?" Remus whispered, voice thick. It sounded like he had been crying for hours.

"That's for her to explain if she chooses to, not me," Madame Pomfrey told him with a stern voice. Hollis gripped the sheets tighter in her fists. "Now, please see yourselves back to your dormitories, or I will call your head of house."

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"Six fucking people underneath the cloak," Sirius muttered with exasperation as he, Remus, James, Peter, Marlene, and Lily snuck to the east side of the castle at midnight.

Lily stepped on his foot in order to be on the opposite side as James. Part of her couldn't believe she was this close to Potter, but she was doing it for Hollis.

After what felt like hours of tripping and holding a wall sit, the six Gryffindors finally reached the hospital wing doors. With a slightly shaking hand, Marlene pushed open the towering wood by its iron hinges. They squeaked painfully loudly, making Peter cringe and Remus look behind them to make sure that no one had heard.

Sirius and James poked their heads in and scanned the rows of beds to make sure that they were alone, and gestured for the other four to follow once they were clear.

Remus's head went light.

Hollis was facing the front of the hospital wing, her back to them. The sheets were bundled up a bit above her waist, and she was wearing a bra and no shirt to sleep.  There were two lines running down her back. One was raised and white, a scar stretching from her shoulder to the middle of her back. The next was much, much worse.

It was so deep that Remus could see to places where her exposed flesh was almost black with blood, slowly getting lighter as it went up. Some of the scarlet blood was dried, while smaller amounts were still shining. It looked like it was straight from a book on healing instructions, like a dragon had dragged a singular claw down her back.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Lily whispered.

"Should we- should we go?" James asked, blinking away the blurriness in his eyes.

No one replied.

So were falling in and out of place in Remus's mind. Her tiny signs of pain and sudden exits made sense now, but how it had happened was still a mystery. He had so many thoughts on who or what could have done this to her with all of the small hints he had gathered, none of them making what had happened any better. 

The first hand experience, Charms class, the ball, he thought, those same clues rocking through his mind. But how? Who? How do we stop it?

He never wanted to let her leave his sight again.

"I-I think we should go," Peter stammered, eyes nervously darting towards the door. "Pomfrey was right, she'll be furious if she found us, and it's obviously- she needs sleep- doesn't she?"

"So we're supposed to just leave her?" Marlene asked. "We can't-"

She stopped talking as Hollis shifted, a small sob coming from the back of her throat. Lupin understood. His mother had told him of countless times when he cried in his sleep after transformations, especially when he was younger. The pain got to you when you were unconscious, no distraction to stop the ache from fully consuming your body.

His eyes moved down to her hands, slowly shaking and flexing back and forth. Remus tentatively touched them, wrapping their coldness in his grip. They all watched as he knelt down by the bed, her tears slowly coming to a stop.

And for a moment, all was quiet as the sleeping girl and heartbroken boy held hands in the candlelight.

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