Revenge Most Sweet

"Revenge Most Sweet"

by s1ncer1ty

~ * 1: A Breath of Silver * ~

"But you don't believe that I'm a party to the pain.

How can you believe that I'm the innocent one?"

~~ Michael Penn

Sure, Remus Lupin was a werewolf. So what of it?

We'd known it since second year -- James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and myself -- when James had finally confronted him about his regular monthly absences from school and about the scars that he used unstable magic to conceal afterwards. At the time, certainly, we'd been scared. There had been some distant words, some hesitant touches and strained smiles, but in the end, we swore to stand by Remus' side for better or for worse.

Besides, as our fourth year at Hogwarts began, a more exciting prospect opened up for us. Our labors since that second year at learning the animagus transformation were finally beginning to pay off. Soon, we would be able to join Remus each month for his transformation, opening up yet another new and exciting door in our time at Hogwarts. I had already managed to transfigure my ears roughly into the shape of a German shepherd's, while one day James came into the Quidditch shower rooms sporting a bushy stag's tail at the small of his back.

We were at the top of the world, it seemed. Although acing our classes (all but Peter, who, while not a poor student by nature, seemed to lack the innately strong sense of magic the rest of us possessed), the four of us were also rampant pranksters, dousing the halls with whipped cream or turning the crotchety caretaker's nasty cat fluorescent pink. At some point, in one of our many extended visits to Professor McGonagall's office after replacing Professor Capelli's hairpiece with a sleeping badger, she declared our disheveled, snickering group of friends, "Naught but a bunch of mad, unruly marauders!" That was it -- the name stuck.

Of course, we all disliked Potions, especially on Thursdays when we had double Potions with the Slytherins. No one despised and loathed the class more than Remus, who found himself nearly every session at the mercy of our relentless professor, a potions master and former Slytherin by the name of Edgar Adder. He was almost exaggeratedly tall, with long limbs, thick hands, and a face and head devoid of all hair. The man was your typical Slytherin -- cold and calculatingly cruel to all but his own house. He was a nasty man, strict beyond necessity, yet at the same time a brilliant master of Potions.

Unfortunately, his ire often fell upon those less fortunate in the realm of Potions. Remus in particular seemed to draw his wrath, and although he wasn't terrible at Potions, the persistent ridicule and snarky comments from Adder unnerved him, made him accident prone and overly analytical. Later, after classes, we would theorize that Adder held a particular dislike for Remus due to his lycanthropy, which Remus had told us years ago that every Hogwarts professor was well aware of. Perhaps, I hypothesized, Adder was simply a product of a hateful wizarding community that was taught to fear werewolves. James, on the other hand, felt that Remus was merely a symbol of his failure and his inability to brew a potion that would cure anything, including lycanthropy.

Whatever the reason, Adder's hate for him became all too apparent one day when, in a fourth-year double Potions session, a cruel trick brought about by one of his precious Slytherin students nearly cost Remus Lupin his life.

That day, as always, Adder swept through the back entryway of the cold dungeon, his mere presence serving to break apart any and all conversation -- none of which was ever cheery among the Gryffindors, to say the least. His black robes billowed behind him, and, although large, his feet made no sound as he practically glided across the stone floor. Upon reaching the front of the classroom, he steepled his thick fingers in front of him and gave a cold survey of the class before ultimately settling his gaze upon Remus.

"Today, we will be concocting a potion known as Collodius Panacea," Adder intoned in his soft, sinister voice. "It is a complicated one, as are all potions that cleanse the body of ingested poisons. The main ingredients we will be working with today will be buckthorn seed, leech secretion, and silver dust."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Remus stiffen at the mention of silver. For him -- with the lycanthropic condition he tried so hard to hide -- even the smallest contact with silver was a dangerous prospect. If Remus managed to make it through class without falling to pieces, it would be a miracle.

"Don't worry, Remy," I whispered as softly as I could. "You can pair with me. I'll do the dirty work, okay?"

Remus nodded to me with a look of relief, although bright fear still shimmered in his eyes.

"Mr. Lupin, I'm sure what you have to say to Mr. Black is much more important than learning the proper means to handle silver dust," interrupted Adder with a dark glare in Remus' direction. "I would think that you of all people would want to pay complete attention, given the ... delicate nature of this potion."

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," Remus said softly. Despite his innate fear of Potions class and of balding, sinister Professor Adder, he held his head high, as always, and tried to keep his visible terror to a minimum.

"Since you obviously cannot be trusted to pay attention, you will no longer partner with Mr. Black," said Adder smoothly. "Perhaps you can learn a thing or two from Severus Snape."

Remus' grey face paled even further. Snape was a haughty, backbiting Slytherin with greasy hair and a large, hooked nose. Along with his cohorts, he had dedicated his school career to causing trouble for our group of Marauders, and we, in turn, pranked him at every turn. The most recent escapade involved enchanting his drink during one of our great suppers with a limerick hex, which made him speak in lewd rhyme for the rest of the day. Needless to say, we were not favorites in each other's books...

"Get the fire started," Snape hissed to Remus once he had brought his equipment to the opposite table. "I'll go to the storeroom. Try not to muck up the base infusion, like you always do."

I shifted a seat over, quickly claiming James as my double-session experiment partner before Peter or someone else did. There was a single row of desks separating our work station from Remus and Snape's, but it was the closest, in the event Snape tried something sneaky.

As the class set to work on their colloidus potions, and Snape busied himself with raiding the potions storeroom for the best ingredients, Remus stood from his seat and quietly, hesitantly approached Adder's desk.

"Excuse me, professor?"

"What is it now, Mr. Lupin?" Adder asked with a roll of his eyes towards Remus.

"I don't believe I can do this experiment today, sir," Remus said, his voice no more than a hushed murmur. "It's just -- the ingredients --"

"I expect the same performance from you that I expect from every other member of my class, Mr. Lupin. No exceptions." Adder's bald head ducked dismissively down once again, and he wrapped his thickly callused fingers around a black quill upon his desk. "Unless you'd like detention. My detention. Maybe even points taken away from your house."

"No, sir. Of course not, sir," Remus murmured, defeated, and he crept back to his seat, looking for all the world like a prisoner doomed to life in Azkaban.

As James and I concentrated on simmering the complicated potion in the cauldron before us, I snuck periodic glances in the direction of Remus and Snape. It didn't escape my attention that, as he left the storeroom, Snape's inky black eyes remained trained on Remus the entire time he'd been at Adder's desk.

He may have been a git and a bastard, but he -- like his mentor Adder -- was an intelligent bastard, the worst kind of bastard there was. And as he stared at Remus, I knew that the gears were turning in his head. He was up to something. He was always up to something.

It took until halfway through the class for Snape to make his move, when most of us were busy straining the lumps in our potion through cheesecloth. He'd allowed Remus the "honor" of handling this task, smirking as Remus handled the cauldron as if it would detonate at any given second. Once Remus had settled the cauldron back onto its tripod over the fire, Snape glanced around the room, as if in search of anyone who might be watching him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his elbow deliberately edge towards the beaker of silver dust.

My eyes widened as I realized what the Slytherin was up to, but before I could give James a sharp nudge to the shoulder to get his attention -- or to shout out a warning to Remus -- the beaker slid from the edge of the table, hit the stone floor of the dungeon, and shattered at Remus' feet, sending a fine cloud of millions of silver filaments -- like minuscule daggers -- into the air.

Remus staggered backwards with a stunned gasp, but not before the cloud of silver dust billowed straight into his eyes, pulled down into his lungs. His hands weakly fanned at the air as a choked, strangled noise broke from his chest, eyes already spilling over with tears of pain.

James reached him first, his sharp Seeker's reflexes allowing him to deftly circle the desks that separated our workstation from Remus', and he looped an arm firmly across his shoulders. Remus doubled over, fingers hooking into the collar of his robes and tugging in an attempt to loosen them, barely managing to fall into the chair James pulled aside for him. My heart nearly stopped beating entirely as his strangled wheezes caught in his throat -- chest hitching silently -- before a sudden gasp and a violent fit of coughing overcame him.

By then, the class had gone silent, the Gryffindors sitting in wide-eyed dread, while the Slytherin students rolled their eyes at the interruption. And at the center of it all, I realized as I gazed about the classroom, was Severus Snape.

Snape. That smug, smirking mass of bubotuber pus. His arms crossed atop his chest, his permanent sneer quirked into a bemused leer, as he watched Remus struggling to breathe. Just watching the slimeball laughing -- laughing -- at what he'd done to a fellow Marauder made me want to break his oversized nose in as many places as possible.

He knew it. He knew about Remus. This was more than just revenge for the limerick hex several nights before, and more than a prank upon day-one rivals. This was a distinct attempt to snuff out Remus' life.

I was going to kill him.

Vaulting over the desktop that stood between us, I pulled my arm back to determine exactly how many breaks I could land on that hooked nose in a single blow, when a large black-clad form materialized between us.

"And just why have you left your workstation, Mr. Black?" the voice of Adder intoned above me.

"Professor, you don't understand!" I gasped, dropping my raised fist immediately. "Remus is --"

"Sorely testing my patience with his clumsiness. Five points from Gryffindor for breaking yet another beaker, Mr. Lupin."

But Remus didn't hear him -- couldn't hear him -- as he struggled violently against James' grasp, one hand still tugging at the swiftly tearing collar of his robes, the other cupped firmly over his mouth as he fought to contain his painful coughing. James met my eye frantically, pulling his wand out of his robes with a free hand and nodding to Adder, who was raising a hairless brow in my direction, his back to the two.

Distract him, James silently mouthed around Adder's figure, his eyes frightfully wide behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

I snapped my gaze immediately back to Adder and sputtered in protest, "But -- but Professor, it wasn't Remus --"

Out of the corner of my eye, I perceived the subtle flick of James' wand for one of his infamous transfiguration spells.

"Or are you too much of a jerk to realize that your precious Snape was the one who broke your beaker?" I suddenly blurted out in a voice loud enough to drown out James' hurriedly whispered incantation.

"Another five points from Gryffindor for your backtalk," Adder said, without even raising his voice. "Don't test me, Mr. Black."

"Remus needs to see Madam Pomfrey!" James cried in sudden alarm, still firmly holding fast to Remus as his breath came in hitching wheezes and strangled coughs. James' wand was already hidden fast within the folds of his robes. "Professor, I don't know what was in that beaker, but it wasn't silver dust!"

"What?" Adder spun in a swirl of black robes and knelt beside the shattered beaker. His fingers trailed through the grey-colored dust upon the floor before he brought them to the tip of his tongue.

"Mandragora root," he whispered, glaring accusingly first at James, then at myself. "Severus, fetch Madam Pomfrey at your leisure. And when you reach her, do have her bring Mr. Lupin's medical records as well."

"As you wish," Snape said in a dull, shocked murmur, his surprised black eyes betraying the façade of calm that masked the rest of his face. "But, professor, my potion..." He trailed off dramatically, affecting an expression of dismay.

"No demerits will be taken from you, Severus, for your partner's incompetence," Adder said. "The rest of you, back to your work!"

Snape slipped out the door with a sly smile and a triumphant look in his eyes. And as the remainder of the class returned to their experiments -- the Slytherins with impatient relief, and the Gryffindors with great reluctance -- I joined James at Remus' side, placing a hand upon his shaking back and rubbing it carefully.

"Mr. Black and Mr. Potter, I suggest, if you do not wish for failure, that you return to your cauldrons immediately," said Adder above us.

"Not until you tell us what you're planning on doing for Remus," James replied, his green eyes hard behind his thick glasses.

"If Mr. Lupin's records show an allergy to mandragorda root, he will, of course, have to be hospitalized immediately. But if not..." He trailed off, and continued to glare darkly between James and me.

"I think we'd prefer to stay with Remus until Madam Pomfrey gets here," said James softly.

Wordlessly, Adder conjured his quill and a roll of parchment from his desk and placed several scratches on the yellowing paper -- likely our failing grades for the class -- before turning his back to the three of us and gliding across the cold classroom to where the Slytherin students were working diligently on their potions. I didn't give a damn -- Adder could choke on his precious colloidus for all I cared.

"Good thinking, James," I uttered softly, over Remus' shaking back. "But what do we do now?"

"Sirius, Jamie," Remus managed to whisper past the crimson blood bubbling alarmingly at the corners his lips, "I'm going to die, aren't I...?"

"You're not going to die, Remus," James murmured, giving the other boy's shoulder a squeeze. "Marauders don't let each other die. Not without a fight."

"I -- f-feel like I'm going to die, at any rate."

"Don't talk like that, Remy," I said, wanting nothing more than to burst into tears. "Try not to talk at all. You'll only hurt yourself more."

"I can't believe Adder... Remus needs help now," a voice hissed in my ear, and I turned to behold Lily Evans, another fourth-year Gryffindor, staring down at me with wide eyes. "If that's a mandragorda allergy, he might not have the time to spare. Muggles call it 'anaphylactic shock.' Everything will just shut down -- his lungs, his heart, everything."

I looked up at the Muggle-born witch, into her warm brown eyes, and met only with unwavering concern, even though she knew nothing of Remus' true condition. "I know, Lily. But what can we --"

"Get Madam Pomfrey. You'll be faster than Snape. I'll stay with Remus, okay?" She knelt at my side and took Remus' hand into both her own and forced a brave, comforting smile to her lips. "Hang in there, Remy. Nothing's going to happen to you."

Nodding to Lily, I gave Remus' shoulder a squeeze and rose to my feet. I looked about for Adder and found him strolling the aisles of the Slytherin side of the room, inspecting their simmering potions and marking notes on a piece of parchment as he went along, oblivious to the fact that one of his students was on the floor in severe pain, if not dying.

"Why aren't you using floo powder to call Madam Pomfrey?" I accused, narrowing my eyes at Adder.

Adder glanced up from the colloidus potion that he'd been carefully appraising in a Slytherin pair's cauldron. "Why am I not calling for Pomfrey myself?" he repeated, setting aside his parchment and quill and inclining his head towards me. "Because, Mr. Black, somehow I don't believe that Mr. Lupin's malady is quite believable."

"How -- how can you not believe it?" I gasped, stiffening with shock, with steadily mounting anger, at what I was hearing.

"I also find it inconceivable that the top student in this class could mistake silver dust for mandragorda root in the supply cabinet. If you ask me," he continued, sliding across the floor and looming down at me, "you, Mr. Lupin, and Mr. Potter are up to something. I don't like it."

"Well, if you're not going to go find Madam Pomfrey, then I will! I'll certainly be a lot faster than your 'leisurely, top student,'" I snapped, roughly pushing past my own professor as I moved towards the door. It was grounds for demerits -- maybe even expulsion -- but I didn't care.

"I'm warning you, Mr. Black," Adder drawled in his softly malicious, unruffled voice, "if you so much as step one foot outside this classroom, I'll make certain to take enough points from Gryffindor to ensure that your chances for winning House Cup are nothing."

Hands clenching in twin fists at my sides, I stared with all incredulousness at the dark Potions master, and he met my gaze with towering aloofness. My breath came in stunted gasps, and I tore my eyes away and looked to my classmates, as if searching for the answer. James and Lily, each on either side of Remus, nodded at me in assent, as did Peter Pettigrew and Arabella Figg from their shared cauldron. Even Mundungus Fletcher, one of the most competitive students when it came to House Cup points, looked at me hard and nodded -- all of Gryffindor was enamored with quiet, gentle Remus, and none wanted to see him come to harm, even at the risk of the House Cup.

But it was Remus himself -- the fear that shimmered in his grey eyes, the hitching of his chest as he struggled to catch his breath, and my own realization that minuscule filaments of silver still circulated through his lungs, tearing at delicate tissues with every rasping breath -- that decided it all for me.

"No," I exclaimed. "No! He needs help now, not when your lapdog Snape decides it's convenient!"

And even as Adder shouted after me with threats and more point demerits than Gryffindor could withstand, I tore from the dungeons and ran straight to the Hospital Wing, as if the very fires of Hades were licking fast at my heels.