Another point of view

Chapter 11

Remus POV

The next few days were long and frustrating for Remus. At first he tried to count them, to know how much time left until the end of the week, but everything mixed in his head and he couldn't concentrate on anything.

During classes he sat next to Peter. He didn't bother listening to the professors, nothing they said was important enough to dedicate his attention to. All he did was staring at nothing and thinking about James.

Many students approached him in order to find out what had happened to poor Remus Lupin who'd been lying in the hospital wing for nearly a week, but he never knew how to answer.

Eventually Professor McGonagall announced one morning at breakfast that Remus was very sick and that was why no one was allowed to enter the infirmary and visit him, for no one to catch his illness.

Remus himself didn't return to the infirmary again. He couldn't see his friend in that state, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that it was the right thing to do. The sight of the face full with cuts and the torn stomach were too much for him. Moreover, Sirius settled himself in there in every opportunity he got, and Remus knew Sirius didn't want to see him.

To say that Sirius ignored him would be a disruption of the truth. Sirius ignored the whole world, focusing only on James who lay unconscious in the infirmary without any improvement in his state.

Just like Remus, he stared at the board during every lesson, and at the moment the bell rang he would run from the room straight to sit by James' bed.

Remus didn't hear him breathing even a word out of his mouth since their conversation in the grounds after the full moon. He wanted to talk with him, but didn't know what to say. After all, the person Sirius loved could die at any moment, and he blamed it on himself. Not only on himself, thought Remus, on me as well.

When he didn't think about James, his and Sirius' last conversation played itself again and again in his head. The way Sirius had looked at him that morning, when he raised his eyes which were full of tears, and made a hole in Remus' brain, tearing him from the inside. Sirius' gaze had been cold, leaking with hatred. Remus had never seen that look in his friend's eyes, not even towards Snape. Damn, even not towards his family! And Sirius hated his family.

Did Sirius really hate him that much? That thought didn't leave him in peace. Sirius was a loving and caring person, as much as he tried to hide it in his sarcastic tone and his jokes. So how come all he showed now was hostility and hatred? Remus was James, and James was Sirius best friend. What could have made him act that way?

The answer was clear; Moony was dying. Or at least, that's what Sirius was thinking.

That behavior frightened Remus. He knew that under the coldness mask Sirius was suffering, and his suffer was only getting stronger when he pushed everyone out.

If Sirius was acting like that when 'Moony's' condition was only bad, and it wasn't even Remus, what will happen when he'll die for real?

Remus didn't develop expectations. He knew what would happen if the potion will be ready on time; James will get back to his body and will be fine, and Remus will be the one lying in the infirmary in the bad state of his body. Even though Madam Pomfrey had said he will start to heal, Remus doubted it. Ever since what Sirius had said he could not but agree with the reasonable logic. The wolf had been used to the company of the three animals that prevented it from hurting itself. Even in vacations they would join him to ease the pain. With them out of the picture the wolf had turned wilder and hurt itself more than in the past. Remus couldn't ignore the connection between the two.