Scars and Bruises

St. Mungo's

REMUS.

St. Mungo's was full of wizards and witches; they all rushed around to find their loved ones. Healers run through the corridors and disappeared in rooms where patients were. There was chaos all around. You could almost taste tragedy in the air.

Remus together with James and Sirius rushed through the halls, ignoring crying people around them. Finally, they spotted Lily on the one of the benches in the hospital's hall.

When she noticed them, Lily stood up and rushed to James hugging him tightly. "Thank Merlin, you all are alright," she released him and then hugged Remus. "I was worried sick," and then she walked to Sirius and gave him especially tight and long hug.

"Is Alex alright?" Sirius asked in a grave voice, his face was white. Remus thought that Sirius was close to the breaking point.

"She will be alright," Lily replied calmly, "but she is injured." Lily took Sirius's hand; she looked like a mother who was going to tell something very bad to a little child. "The curse wasn't supposed to do that kind of damage to her, but her back..." she paused with tears in her eyes. "She has already so much magic in her back, they cannot heal her at once, it will take at least couple of months for her to recover," Lily squeezed his hand. "The fact that she is a werewolf doesn't help either," she added.

"Will she need to stay at the hospital for months?" Sirius asked quietly without taking his eyes off Lily.

"No," she said a little more optimistically. "She will be released after a couple of days, but she will need our help to get better." Lily looked at Remus and James, asking without words for them to agree to help Alex for Sirius's sake. They both nodded.

"Can I see her?" Sirius asked, his eyes fixed on the doors by which Lily had sat earlier. "I need to see her."

"They let people in for just five minutes," Lily explained. "But she is sleeping now, I don't know..."

"Is this the room, Lily?" Sirius interrupted her pointing at the door.

"Yes," she confirmed.

Sirius disappeared behind the hospital room doors. The rest of them sat on the bench. Remus tried to process what had happened that evening. He put his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands. He felt tired and empty.

Last hours seemed pressed inside a couple of seconds, feeling of time had lost for him that evening. Remus remembered the fragments from this evening, how he and Sirius watched everyone leave, how they played wizard's chess, how Lily rushed into the kitchen yelling about the attack and Moody's orders, how she was told to go to the hospital because Alex was injured, and how they were ordered to go to the Ministry and help the Order and aurors.

Memories from the Ministry ran through his mind, everything ruined, people laying on the floor dead or injured, Death Eaters blasting curses to everyone, complete chaos on the battlefield.

Remus stood up and started to pace around the corridor. He just could not sit still now, he heard how Lily asked James about what had happened at the Ministry, James said something but Remus was not listening.

Sirius walked out of the room, completely heartbroken, he fell down on the bench next to James.

"Padfoot..." James said with sympathy.

"She looks terrible," Sirius said quietly and shook his head. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the wall behind his back. It was clear that Sirius did not wanted to talk. Only after couple of moments, Remus realized that sad and quiet tears fell down over Sirius's cheeks.

Remus had started to pace around once again, almost like in distance he heard Lily's and James's conversation that maybe they needed to head home, but Remus knew his friends – nobody would leave until they would hear from Alex herself that she was okay.