The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

The Circle Game

"Remus, honey," Lily said quietly, and she raised her palm to his forehead.

"Sirius?" Remus croaked, his voice was thin and weak.

"No honey, it's me, Lily."

His forehead was hot to the touch, so much so that it nearly seemed to burn Lily's hand. She drew back in surprise. "He's - he's burning up!"

"I know," James said, worried expression on his face.

"Get me a cool damp cloth," Lily commanded.

James drew his hand kerchief from his nightstand drawer and aimed his wand at it, "Aguamenti," he said, and held it out to Lily.

She pressed the kerchief to Remus's head, staring down into his face, "Oh you poor, poor boy," she whispered, "It's alright, I'm here now, Remus, and I'm going to take care of you."

His eyes cracked ever so slightly, and staring up at her blearily through the slits, he breathed, "Lil..."

"Yes, Remus, it's me," she ran the cloth 'round his cheeks, feeling the heat from his skin seep into the cloth, draining the coolness from it. She half expected the thing to steam as though being ironed for how hot his face was. Werewolves, she thought, clearly had a much higher tolerance for fever - any human would be dead long before their skin reached these kinds of temperatures. Even as she thought the words, her heart raced. She looked at the other two. "Does he always get a bad temperature before the moon like this?" She couldn't recall it herself, but of course James and Peter had much more experience with Remus's transformation than she had ever been privvy to.

James shrugged, "A few times, I s'pose... I dunno how hot he usually gets or anything..." When Lilly looked at him imploringly, James added, "Sirius usually takes care of him."

Lily glanced at Sirius's empty bed. "He never came back from Transfiguration?"

James shook his head.

"Sirius?" Remus murmured, having heard the name. "Is... is he here? I - I need - him."

Lily sighed and smoothed Remus's hair back from his face, "I know, baby," she whispered softly, "I know. We're trying to find him, but I'm here in the meantime... I'm here."

Remus whimpered.

Lily held out the cloth and blasted it with some fresh water from her wand. She looked at James as she wrung the cloth out a bit so it wasn't dripping. "You two go and find Sirius."

James nodded and scrambled to the night stand to see if, by some miracle, Sirius had left the map there, but he hadn't, and James looked at Peter, "C'mon, Wormtail. It's the old fashioned way for us, then."

Peter nodded, stealing nervous looks back at Remus and Lily, and followed as James led the way out the dormitory door and down the steps to the common room.

Lily stayed with Remus, running the cloth over his face, and, because it was fresh in her mind from having been singing in her dream, she started the refrain up again: "So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty, though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true.. There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams, and plenty... Before the last revolving year is through... And the seasons they go 'round and 'round... and the painted ponies go up and down..."

It seemed like hours later when James and Peter returned, Sirius in tow. They'd found him finally in the Shrieking Shack, asleep in the room upstairs, an empty bottle of firewhiskey on the mattress beside him. He was dirty and smelled like the woods, he'd been out running about as a dog since leaving McGonagall, and had knicked the bottle from the Hog's Head storeroom before going and collapsing in the Shack. Now, he was stumbling, barely upright, but worried about Remus so that he came the moment James and Peter had stammered out what was happening.