Monsters and Men

Monsters and Men

"Sectumsempra!"

He hadn't been prepared for this. Not from Snivellous, not now, not after what had been a relatively brief round of teasing. Even Bellatrix would normally have taken longer to snap, and she had a fuse shorter than a Horntail's.

Shock left him rooted to the ground for a precious half-second, and his hand hadn't even reached his wand before the spell slashed across him. Pain exploded through his arm, across his chest, and he yowled, reaching vocally the animagus form he had so recently unlocked physically.

"Protego!" Peter's voice, though there was a buzzing in his ears that made it almost impossible for Sirius to make out the spell.

"Langlo--"

"Stupefy." Good old Moony, voice calm and collected, stepping into the unexpected fight without a moment's hesitation.

"Levi--"

"Expelliarmus!"

The last was in James's clear voice, clipped so rough with anger it was amazing the spell had still worked. Sirius blinked dizzily, not quite certain how he had ended up on the floor. Agony burned its way down his arm, across his chest, licked at the right side of his head, and blood was dripping onto the floor.

Blood. His blood, dripping from a handful of deep, painful lacerations, down his head and down his arm and down his chest, and all because Severus Snape couldn't take a few jokes.

Lunging back to his feet, Sirius Black finally succeeded in drawing his wand. Teeth pulled back in a feral snarl, he shoved his way through the protective shield the other Marauders had made for him.

"--just leave me alone, you filthy, flea-bitten bastards--" Snape wiped wildly at a blood nose, sporting a snarl of his own as he shimmied backwards over the cobbles, right hand grasping for his wand.

"Merlin's balls, Sirius, we need to get you to the hospital wing." There was concern in James's voice, in the hand that was placed tentatively on his left shoulder, but Sirius merely shook it off with a growl.

Blood was still flowing in bright red trails down his hand, trickling, tickling across his chest, down his cheek, the scent of it iron-heavy in the air. Pain throbbed through the wounds with every beat of his heart, deep, pervasive, seeming to ring to his very bones.

He hurt. He hurt because of the greasy little weasel crawling across the floor, hurt like he hadn't hurt in years... and he wanted to hurt him back.

Wanted to take him by surprise, do something he wasn't expecting... make him bleed, make him hurt...

The laugh was soft, barely audible, and it certainly didn't sound like him. He'd heard laughter like that before, oh yes, from his mother, as she burned his cousin off the family tree; from friends of the family, when they were speaking with his mother, too softly for him to hear, and he didn't want to know about what; from Bella, before she showed him something interesting... but it had never before come from him.

Snape's hand closed with a snake's swiftness on his wand, hatred and hope replacing the frustrated despondency on his face as he made to swing it around.

Sirius's hand moved faster, the few brief motions needed for the spell flinging red droplets to the side.

"Crucio."

The blow caught him high on the cheek, knocking his head around, breaking his concentration, sending fresh bursts of pain through his injuries. For a moment he thought he was going to faint or throw up, his hand clutching desperately at the robes of the one who had struck him.

James. Clutching desperately at James, because Peter and Remus were simply staring at him, too much shock still on their faces for the horror in their eyes to show plainly.

"I..." Swallowing had never been so difficult before.

Stepping back, removing the gripping hands with a single, painful sweep, James just continued to gaze at him.

Confused. Lost. Disappointed.

Horrified.

Spinning around, ignoring the rest of the onlookers, because other than the Marauders none of them mattered, Sirius stalked off down the corridor, leaving a trail of red droplets in his wake.

He didn't look back at Severus Snape.

Didn't dare, because he knew a part of him, the part still crying out that he hurt, he hurt, he hurt and someone needed to pay, would gladly try the spell again.

* * *

"Episky. Episky." Tapping his wand against the deepest gash served only to bloody the infernal thing. The wound, which danced jaggedly up his forearm, continued to bleed, sluggish and stubborn.

Snarling in frustration, he dropped the useless instrument atop his discarded robes and opened his trunk. Rifling through with his left hand, trying to keep as much of his bloody right side away from his possessions as he could, he eventually pulled out a gray T-shirt that had seen better days.

"Scourgify."

There was little change in the appearance of the material, but it should be clean enough to serve as bandages for the time being. Hopefully it would be enough to stop the bleeding, at least. He really didn't want to go down to the hospital wing right now.

He really didn't want to go anywhere right now, actually. Or do anything, except maybe crawl into bed and hope no one came looking for him.

(Though that wouldn't work, as the other Marauders would almost certainly be there any minute now, so he had to get out quickly if he wanted to avoid them.)

An Unforgivable Curse. He'd let Snivellous get him riled enough to use an Unforgivable Curse.

(Bellatrix, far, far older than he, though still not old enough to attend Hogwarts, but her parents had permitted her a wand, anyway.

"Did the kitty hurt you, Sirius?" She laughed, running her fingers along his scratched arms, ignoring the tears on his face. Placing her fingers in her mouth, she giggled before spinning around, spotting the frightened alley-cat under a bush. "I'll show you what we're supposed to do to things that hurt us, Siri."

He'd screamed with the cat, but she'd just laughed more.)

Shaking his head to clear the unwanted memories, he tore the shirt into strips, all the while eyeing his arm in an attempt to see the best way to wrap it. His chest would prove more difficult, but one problem at a time was all he could handle at the moment... which was pretty sad.

By the time his arm was wrapped, the bleeding at least slowed to a crawl if not stopped, his left hand was coated in blood and he was shaking, from pain or frustration or some other portion of the jumbled mess that currently comprised his mind he didn't know. For a moment he simply stared at the blood, bright and red over most of his fingers, starting to darken and form black clots in his palm.

He wasn't sure what impulse moved his fingers to his mouth, caused his tongue to run over the bright red fluid. The scent and taste of metal, copper and iron but really not either; salt, sharp and simple; those were the most clear, but there were others, subtle, permeating... good.

Bellatrix was right. It tasted good.

The laugh was better this time, more his and less hers, but there was a hint of desperation and confusion in it that he didn't like.

Of all the things for his psychotic cousin to be right about...

"Padfoot?" Remus's voice was calm, not that there was anything surprising about that; it was also cautious, still, and that hurt a bit. Moony had been past caution with them for the last three years, at least.

"Here."

The prefect strode boldly into the room, hesitating just long enough to ensure that Sirius was crouched on the floor beside his own bed before strolling over. "How are you--"

"I'm fine. Bleeding all over everything, waiting for McPointyHat to come and tell me I'm facing expulsion or at least a ruddy long detention, but I'm fine." The grin he turned on his friend felt too vicious, too easy; it should have been hard to joke, but it wasn't.

"You won't be. We've... taken care of it, more or less. We're not turning Snape in, he's not turning you in."

"Oh really? And our fantastic audience? They're not the least bit worried?" He didn't meet Lupin's eyes as he spoke, instead starting to work at bandaging his chest.

"Most of them couldn't hear you. Those who did... don't worry about it, all right? We're taking care of things. You're going to be fine." Remus sat down on the edge of Sirius's bed, not looking the least bit awkward. "Assuming you don't bleed to death or die of systemic infection. Are you sure you don't want to head down to the hospital wing?"

"And say what? That you mauled me?"

It was cruel. It was cruel, and utterly the wrong thing to say, and Moony paled immediately, though he didn't hunch down (a sign that he'd grown stronger, more sure of himself).

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I just--"

"Sit still, shut up, and hold that to your head." The werewolf didn't say anything else as he shoved the remaining bit of shirt into Sirius's right hand, ripped the strip he had been awkwardly trying to tie around his chest from his left hand, lengthened it with a tap of his wand, and set about tying it properly.

Sirius had just finished shimmying awkwardly back into his robes when their other two roommates appeared. Peter looked terrified, darting into the room (it was amazing how much their Animagi forms were rubbing off on their human ones), roaming from bed to bed before finally settling down at the foot of his own, across from Sirius's. His eyes were wide, pleading (for things to be all right now, for Sirius to make them all right), but they didn't stay locked on Sirius's for very long.

James was the last to enter, stalking into the room with a regal majesty, robes swirling about him with a practiced air, and it would have been much easier to imagine him as a Prefect than it was to imagine Moony as one.

"Well, despite your best efforts, Padfoot, you're not going to be facing expulsion." Prongs stared down at him disdainfully, fury and something more like fear clouding his face, keeping his cool tone from being too calm. "So far as most people are concerned this never happened. Snivellous is content enough if we leave him be for a bit and don't go turning him in for the mess he made of you. Others who figured out what happened have been bought off in various ways. Now, care to tell us just what the hell happened?"

Rage of his own began to build again, and Sirius hauled himself back to his feet, refusing to sway despite the fact that his vision grayed out from the rapid change in altitude. They had been there. They had seen what happened.

(He'd lost his bloody damn mind, would have made his family proud...)

"You were there. You know what happened."

"He cut you." Moony's voice was again preternaturally calm, ice to James's fire, but his face was kind, open. "But using the cruciatus curse... don't you think that was a bit of overkill?"

"Do you really believe Snape doesn't know it? Slytherin-house Dark Arts lover--"

"I'm not sure he does, actually." Wormtail spoke tentatively, but not so quietly he wouldn't be heard. "Those spells he was hollering... I've never heard most of them before."

"All right, so he's an inventive Dark Arts loving Slytherin-house snake." Sirius flexed his right hand, still coated in a now-dry sanguine sheath.

"And you're a Gryffindor. More than that, you're a Marauder. We don't stoop to that level."

There was a primness in James's voice that struck Sirius as intensely funny, and he laughed, splitting open the gash on his forehead again. From the glower he was giving, Prongs didn't quite seem to get the joke.

"No, we'll break every other rule, but not that one, eh, mates?"

"Sirius, I don't think you're taking this... I don't think you're really listening to us." Moony reached out to touch his arm, and Sirius whirled on him, snarling again.

"Go ahead and say it. I'm not being serious. 'Be serious, Sirius.' 'I'm serious, Sirius.' 'Blood is a serious business, Sirius.'" His imitation of his mother broke on another bark of laughter (though he sounded desperate even to his own ears), and he clenched his (bloody) fist, nails that were becoming hard as claws digging into his own flesh.

"Is that what this is about? He made you bleed, so you try something outrageous--"

"It's not about that. It's not about anything. I didn't mean to... I mean, I did, but it wasn't..." Sirius broke off, turning to look at his companions. Wormtail, huddled on the floor, watching, looking like he wanted to speak but didn't know how to; Prongs, haughty and good and Gryffindor, standing in the middle of the room; Moony, who could end life as you knew it with a simple nip, sitting easily beside him on the bed.

There was no way he would be able to explain to these people what had happened. There was no way James, with his perfect family and perfect life, could possibly understand what he had been taught from a young age. Strike back. Hurt them before they can hurt you. Win through, no matter what the cost.

Never look back.

Fight 'til you win, and never look back, because the past usually hurt if you were a Black.

"It doesn't matter. I'm grateful for the help. It won't happen again." He mumbled the last words, feeling his face flush slightly.

"And that's all we get?" James looked as though he were about to erupt, simmering anger boiling to a head. "We save your ass from death and Azkaban, and all we get is a 'sorry, won't happen again'? Maybe your brother's right. Maybe you did end up in the wrong house."

The words stung, far more than they were intended to. He could see that it showed, see by the cooling of the bitter emotions on James's face, by the way Wormtail first shrunk back and then reached out.

"He didn't mean that, Padfoot." Sympathy and a plea for reconciliation were both buried in the too-quick words. "You didn't, did you, Prongs?"

"I--"

"It's all right, Prongs." Sirius nodded slowly, not looking directly at any of his friends, studying his right hand, watching the blood begin to flake off. "You meant it, and it's all right."

He dodged Remus's hand with ease, slipped forward over the blood-spatters he had left on the floor, maneuvered carefully around James and toward the door. "The real monsters belong to Slytherin, and a snake that sheds its skin is still the same snake."

"Impedimenta!"

Wormtail's shout could probably have been heard down in the Slytherin dungeons, and it immediately became almost impossible to breathe. All thoughts of actually moving quickly evaporated from Sirius's mind as his injuries began to ache again.

"Finite!" The counter-charm was squeaked out with some difficulty, and everyone in the room staggered slightly. Wormtail hung his head sheepishly, wand hand unconsciously moving behind his back. "Sorry. I was trying to keep you from moving to the door, but that's not how the charm usually works, and... but that's not important. You're not leaving."

"No?" The humor of the situation struck him again, and Sirius laughed, though it was a tired sound now, and it caused his chest to ache more. "You're going to stop me, Wormtail?"

"We all would." Remus stood slowly, exhaustion evident in every move, and Sirius remembered with a pang of regret that it had only been a few days since the full moon.

"Why?" The question was meant to be light, suspicious, to sound as though he were humoring them; it came out too high-pitched, almost broken, more apprehensive than he had ever wanted to sound.

"Because there's four Marauders, and it would take a hell of a lot of work to get you off the map. More hassle than it's worth, really." Prong's hand was gentle on his shoulder, steering him back toward the bed, urging him to sit. "Please, just tell us why you..."

"I can't." A sigh, a laugh, a half-shrug, none of them quite seemed to get the feeling across properly. "I can't because I'm not sure why I did. I mean, I know... but... I was furious. I was furious, and hurt, and I wanted to make him hurt. And I knew how. There wasn't any thinking beyond that. I could make him hurt, just by wishing it. Do you know what that's like?"

"Yes." Moony's reply was prompt. "I do, actually. You don't think I've thought how easy it would be to set someone up to be bitten? Just tell them to be at the wrong place at the wrong time... and I would either kill them or make their lives hell until they died. Dead or cursed, and all it would take was a few words, a few loosened restraints on myself..."

Prongs and Wormtail were staring at Moony, not quite open-mouthed but close enough.

The werewolf shrugged, scratching idly at his ear and looking away. "Not that I would, of course. It would be completely out of line, unfor..."

"I did." His grin was self-deprecating now.

"That still doesn't make you a monster. Or a Slytherin." Wormtail spoke with conviction, tentatively brushing his hand against Sirius's shoulder.

"So what does it make me?"

"A guy who's had a pretty messed-up life." Prongs shrugged, studying the floor. "I mean, the fact that you know the Cruciatus Curse and how to use it... we definitely weren't taught that in DADA. You're not a bad guy, Sirius. I mean, how long have the four of us been running around together, and nothing like this's happened before. I think you're a good guy... a good guy that's seen some bad things, had some of them rub off on him."

"Oh, great. So I'm just part-Slytherin, not mostly." Sirius rolled his eyes, because shrugging was starting to become a very painful process, and he definitely sure as hell wasn't going to even think about the suspicion of moisture lurking in his eyes.

"We're all part-Slytherin, Padfoot. Like I said, the occasional dream about taking a nibble out of a few people." Moony didn't look quite so sheepish this time, even going so far as to smile.

"Heck, even the Slytherins aren't always bad." Wormtail smiled, the expression bright and hopeful. "None of us are just good or bad... it's just what we choose to act on."

"And given those sage words of wisdom..." James stepped away from the bed and pulled his wand out with a flourish. "Take off your robes."

Sirius simply stared at his friend. "No. I am not stripping for you, Prongs."

James let out a long-suffering sigh which was accompanied by a slackening of his dramatic pose. "Really, Padfoot, that's not what I was going for. Snape says you'll probably keep bleeding unless we magically heal the wounds, and that would be awkward as hell."

"I tried it already. It doesn't work." Sirius remained stubbornly in place. Movement hurt like the devil, now the adrenaline was finally fading from his system.

"That's because you didn't use the right one. Don't you trust me?"

"You, yes. Snape, no." Standing gingerly, Sirius slipped out of his robes for the second time in the last half hour. Blood had dyed most of the gray fabric he'd been using as bandages a dark red. "Though on second thought, having Moony do the spell might not be a bad--"

The magic washed over the gashes like cold fire, but the discomfort seemed disconnected from him, the siren-like music that also accompanied the spell serving its purpose well.

"How's that?" James was grinning before he even saw his handiwork, obviously certain of his success.

"Tergeo." Lupin whispered the word in a clear voice, concentrating hard on the blood staining the area surrounding the injury.

"Hey! That tickles!" Indignation gave way to pleased surprise as Sirius looked at the combined results of his friend's work. He would still need to shower, and probably soon, but the gashes had started to heal nicely, and didn't seem keen to open and bleed at the slightly provocation anymore.

Looking around at his friends, he found himself at a loss for words. "Thank you. For--"

"No problem." Peter was grinning again, practically dancing on the spot. "Now, if you don't want to go to hospital wing, get a bit of blood, you're going to need to--"

Moony's hands were steadying, comforting, helping him slip back into his robes, and his eyes spoke volumes though his voice was quiet. Wormtail and Prongs were trying to out-compete each other in the vocal section, one telling him what he needed to eat if he didn't want to end up fainting and thus in the hospital wing anyway, the other already planning (gentle) revenge on Snape.

Standing in the midst of them as though nothing had happened, flakes of dried blood peeling from his right hand and falling to the floor, Sirius Black felt more at home than he had in years.