- Chapter Eighty-Seven -
"Promise me that if it looks like it's getting bad, you'll leave."
"I'm so sorry."
"Stop apologising." Remus Lupin mumbled tiredly, nuzzling his head into the crook of Elladora's neck and using his arm that was draped over her stomach to pull her impossibly tighter towards him. His bare chest brushed against her clothed side as her hand ran through his hair softly, playing with it at certain points and allowing him to relax in the embrace that he so desperately needed.
It was the day of the full moon and the week had been a bad one. Elladora hadn't gotten the potion from Dumbledore's office the day she went up since she had seen the memory of her brother's death and therefore learned the truth about the supposed saviour of the wizarding world. Remus had told her it was no problem on the night when they kissed in the library, he said he would get it the next day but Dumbledore was out on business.
Then he was out the next day and the day after that, he had been away from the school all week that the marauders so desperately needed him. Due to his absence, they had not gotten the potion and Remus had been in pain the whole week, it was worse than Easter as he was at school too and had the added stress of upcoming exams adding onto his pain of the upcoming night.
Elladora felt horrible. Seeing him in pain, wincing and groaning almost every second until it got to the point where he had to stop attending lessons and stay in his room was like a blow to the heart. If she even had a heart anymore, for her it was more like salt to a fresh wound. It stung and knowing that he was in pain because of her emotions spiralling out of control just made it worse but she wasn't going to pity herself for that.
She had apologised numerous times, visited the boys dorm for the majority of evenings after school and on the actual day of the full moon since she had free period last whilst the boys were in a lesson without her, she had gotten there as quick as she could and found him lying lazily on his bed with his face scrunched up in agony. When she had rounded the bed and crouched down to face him with her eyes full of concern, his had opened slowly at the feeling of another person in the room.
He had opened his arms lazily and made a motion for her to lay next to him. After a few seconds of awkward and confused milling around and quiet stuttering, Elladora had taken her bag off of her shoulder and put it down to the ground before taking her cloak off and hesitantly climbing on top of the covers next to him. There was no time wasted in him fixing them both into a comfortable position and putting her limbs where he wanted them to go which was mainly just her arm around him and the rest was himself positioning his own body comfortably.
And he was tired. So tired. Yet he couldn't sleep because all he was thinking about was what would happen that night. The last full moon had been bad but he had been on his own, now he'd be surrounded by his friends and he could endanger one of them which is the last thing he ever wanted to do.
"I don't want you there tonight." He said, his breath fanning over her neck as his scar-covered chest rose and fell with sometimes steady and sometimes staggered breaths. "You could get hurt and-and I don't...want that."
"I need to be there to make sure the others are okay, too." She tried to comfort him, her hand stroking through his hair. "I don't want to worry you but it's likely to be bad tonight, remember the last time you didn't take a potion and you changed here. He would've killed our friends."
"He?" Remus asked.
"The wolf..." Elladora trailed off, she didn't know whether that was the wrong or the right thing to say, all she knew is that Remus would spiral at the thought of killing his friends which would make the night worse. "He's not you."
"But he is." He told her, shaking his head as best he could and the hairs on his head brushed and tickled against her neck softly. "He is me, I am him, we're both...monsters."
"Stop that." Elladora reprimanded him firmly, hearing him grumble something unintelligible under his breath before snuggling further into her but she wasn't sure if he could go much further. "You are no monster, Remus. Would a monster really dance around the kitchen to Elton John? With me?"
She added the with me to make her question more authentic because if she didn't add it, the answer would be yes. She was a monster and she had danced around the kitchen to Elton John but then again if someone dances with a monster...no. Elladora refused to think of Remus as a monster in any such way, so she just shook her head subtly to rid herself of her thoughts.
Remus hadn't responded, just decided to lay there with the question in mind. He didn't want to answer because he would upset her if he did but at the same time, he wasn't sure. Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, he was just one of the bunch.
"If you're gonna come..." He spoke slowly, her hand making a journey to rub his bare back comfortably. "Promise me that if it looks like it's getting bad, you'll leave. I don't care if you have a wand or if you know every spell that exists, I want you out if he gets overly violent."
"Okay." She whispered softly and felt him shift in their embrace, she turned her head to him as he attempted to prop himself up in a way that he could look down at her with and see her properly without having a crick in his neck at the end of it.
"Promise me." He said, using his effort to hold up a pinkie finger. Elladora smiled and linked her finger with his, watching as he grinned painlessly down at their fingers.
"I promise."
Remus stared at her for a moment, a lazy smile on his lips which she suspected was the only one he could give her with the amount of aching he was going through but it was mesmerising nonetheless. Their pinkies were still linked together as they smiled at each other, both pair of brown eyes glinting with happiness of the other just being there. Elladora had no idea what would've happened if Remus hadn't found her in the library that night and grounded her, maybe her thoughts would've got too much and she would have made her way back up to Dumbledore's office and took her revenge there and then.
But she hadn't because Remus had brought her back to reality when you couldn't just kill someone without any consequences. Dumbledore seemed to have twisted that rule and therefore twisted her mind.
"What are you thinking about?" Remus whispered and moved their hands position so they were no longer liking pinkies but he had her hand held in his, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.
"Nothing." She shrugged her shoulders. "You."
"Me?" He smiled teasingly, surprising himself with no added pain from the effort of it. His voice was a little strained but overall, he managed to add a teasing tone to it. Elladora smiled and rolled her eyes before looking away from him but he brought her attention back to him when he planted a soft kiss against the back of her hand her head snapped over to it. "Don't worry. I think about you too."
"You're supposed to be resting." She looked away from him, taking her hand away too as he laughed quietly at the sudden flush on her cheeks. It wasn't just from the heat, it seemed.
"I am resting." He argued with a small grin and reached his hand down to touch her chin and turn it so she was facing him again, her cheeks were a blazing pink and he grinned at them whilst she flushed a darker colour of it.
He leaned down towards her, lips ghosting each other and he twisted his body so he was more comfortable but before he could kiss her, thundering footsteps and voices sounded outside the door and Elladora promptly tumbled off of the bed and onto the floor when trying to move away. She had obviously overestimated the space between her and the edge of his bed. Remus winced and looked over the edge of the bed when her body hit the floor with a small thud.
"You okay?" He asked but she just scrambled up off of the floor, standing normally before she grabbed the chair that sat at the desk of the room and dragged it over to the bed, sitting in it casually as though they hadn't just almost kissed in front of their friends who came through the door just as Elladora sat down.
James was leading them, tie messy and top button of his shirt undone as he threw his bag down onto his bed and stretched his arms with a big yawn. Sirius came next, his hair tied up haphazardly and his shirt and tie the same as James'. He threw his bag down on his bed before jumping on the covers next to it and sighing as he relaxed into the soft mattress. Peter was last, almost bumping in the door as he came in wiping his eyes and yawning.
"Alright, Moony?" James asked softly after his yawn and turned to smile at the boy in bed. "Need anything?"
"No, I'm fine." Remus said, smiling slightly. "Thanks though."
James nodded and came to sit on the edge of Remus' bed, looking at him seriously as he attempted a smile. It was almost amusing to see James acting like a mother and Elladora might've laughed if they were in a different situation but the subject of the conversation being Remus in pain didn't come funnily to her.
"Need Madam Pomfrey?" He asked and Remus nodded his head, glancing out at the window and seeing the sun being further towards the West than the East, meaning it was soon to be setting and the moon would be here in just a couple of hours.
It was 4:15 in the afternoon at the moment so the moon should be up at about 6:15 which gives them all a rough night. Just under 12 hours for Remus but the other normally go just after lights out so people don't know they're missing. So for them, it's only about 7 hours compared to Remus' almost half a day.
And those 7 hours didn't quite go well.
It was a wild one that night. Elladora, James, Sirius and Peter had arrived to the Whomping Willow under the invisibility cloak and Peter had transformed into his animagus before pressing the knot that opened the passage and stopped the branches from whacking everywhere. One by one, they had walked down the hole and emptied out into the odd cave thing that then led up to the Shrieking Shack but James and Sirius transformed first, the mighty Stag nudged her playfully with its antlers as she smiled at it.
That was probably the last moment of peace, by the time they all made their way up to the familiar room, the scratching, growling and roaring of a werewolf was all they could hear. James took charge, Sirius behind him and then Peter scampering at Elladora's feet as she followed them in slow paces to see just how bad it really was.
Then she had to watch from the door whilst they were all close to tearing each other apart, James managed to keep the wolf away with his antlers and Peter tried to keep him distracted by scrambling all over him and letting the irritation of his feet on the wolf's fur make him want to find him and stop him. Peter's flaw was his tail that accidentally alerted the wolf of where he was and after a good 10 minutes of distraction, he got himself thrown against the wall and fell to the floor whilst James went back to blocking the wolf.
Elladora watched from the dark as Peter hit the wall and then fell to the ground below; she was waiting for him to get up but he didn't and just twitched there. He looked badly injured, maybe a broken bone and it wasn't long until he transformed back into himself because he couldn't keep his animal form up through the pain. Sirius barked to alert James and that gave the wolf perfect advantage to bump past him and towards the boy on the floor.
He raised his claws to swipe down at the helpless Gryffindor who had squeezed his eyes shut and curled himself into a ball, preparing himself but it never came. The growling of the wolf was still prominent but Peter could also the loud barks of Sirius and the alarmed bellowing of James. But he couldn't feel any pain, he only felt himself getting dragged out of the room and when the growling, barking and bellowing were replaced with panting, Peter opened his eyes.
He had been dragged out of the room and to the place on the corridor furthest away from the room and next to him was Elladora sat propped against the wall, her chest heaving up and down in heavy breaths with her hands clamped down onto a space on her abdomen. His eyes widened and he forced himself up, his right leg hurting with the pain of being thrown into a wall but this was something he couldn't just ignore.
"Dora," He breathed out, shaking his head as she let out a pained groan and pressed her hands against the wound to stop the bleeding. Peter helped, shedding his top quickly and replacing her hands with the material of his t-shirt before he pressed that down to the wound instead which had her crying out with pain again. "Sh, it's okay."
She grabbed one of his hands to squeeze on to and clamped her other hand down on the t-shirt whilst Peter glanced back to the room, gulping. It had definitely been a bad night.
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A/N: I'm in a good fucking mood today and idk why