All in the Family

Chapter 57: Hermione's Secret

Waking up was the worst part of it all. He'd grown up with this disease that took over every aspect of his life, so he knew with painful clarity each step, all the way up to the black-out inducing painful transformation. The blur of memories the next morning often took days to sort through, the strong feelings much easier to recognize of what had been done. If he'd eaten anything, it was even more clear for some reason.

His stomach was empty, his mind lingered in a state of despair, and he was in fact ten times more sore than usual, so he knew something must have happened. Even with his friends there the past few times though, that moment of consciousness where he first opened his eyes into the unknown haunted him. Who had he hurt this time?

His eyes slowly flickered open, taking a shorter amount of time to adjust than others, but not understanding what he was seeing any better at first. There was no roof over his head, the Shrieking Shack could have been a million miles away, but that he was still on the Hogwarts grounds he knew without a second glance. He tried to sit up and groaned in protest, so instead let his head flop to the side miserably, and with growing worry as he found himself on the edge of the lake.

Like all corners of these grounds, it was a spot the Marauders knew well. They'd spent countless hours under the shade of that tree, hid many a things in that bush just over there. The waters were calm, and mirrored back without disturbance his blood-soaked visage, and Peter standing over him.

"You're bleeding," Remus slurred in concern, rolling his head gingerly to the other side as he saw his hand pressed to the side of his head, even though there was a thick stream going all the way down to his neck.

"And you need these," Peter had to use one hand to toss a pile of clothes onto his feet from the school bags that had still managed to follow them along all this time.

"When did you- how-?" He tried to string together while also quickly trying to dress and not fall back down from exhaustion all at the same time.

"Since we were in the dorms," Peter shrugged without really looking at him, and it wasn't to spare his decency Remus knew. "When Regulus' shoes didn't spontaneously come back I thought, well you lot were all worried about the werewolf part which, you know made sense, but I figured you'd appreciate-"

Remus' eyes were still tracking faster than his brain could keep up, he saw Sirius jogging towards them but didn't recognize the look on his face until he'd plowed into Peter, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

"You stay the bloody hell away from him!" He snarled, voice so contorted it wouldn't surprise him if he still had a few of Padfoot's other traits.

"Sirius, wait," Remus tried to get to his feet, to cobble together what had happened while he tried to kill them all. He still remembered the confession, the sting of betrayal fueling Sirius was not alone, but unlike the hothead standing between them drawing his wand, he was trying to keep the two firmly separated in his head just like he had for Sirius this entire time. "It's not him, look at him-"

"Sirius, Remus, I couldn't, you know I couldn't have-"

Sirius wasn't listening, he shot a jet of blue light that made Peter squeal while he spat out a mouthful of dirt. "You left us for dead while you ran and saved your own stinking skin, again!"

Remus caught Sirius' wrist and finally stumbled to his own feet, but Sirius jerked his arm away easily, Remus' hand coming away still slick with blood. He fell back to his knees as much for his own instability as the disgust in himself.

He didn't know what Sirius would have done next, only escalation he was sure, until the only person who could have stopped this stepped in.

"Enough Sirius," James spoke quietly and calmly, he didn't have to do anything more than get Sirius' attention and Padfoot lowered his wand.