Revenge Most Sweet

"Revenge Most Sweet"

by s1ncer1ty

~* 2: If the Foundations Be Destroyed... *~

"It's over now.

Yeah, we don't know how...

It's just over now,

There's no getting back to good."

~~ Matchbox 20

"Hey, watch where you're --"

"-- don't know where you're going in such a hurry --"

"No running in the corridors --"

"-- points from Gryffindor if you don't --"

The cries swirled around me as I bobbed and weaved through a thick mass of Hogwarts students and prefects that flooded the halls as the previous session's classes let out. I bumped into whoever got in my way, not caring whether I knocked them over, not even when I slammed almost headlong into a burly Slytherin fifth-year and had to dodge the thick stack of books that tumbled from his hands. I ignored his threats of throwing me into a permanent body bind hex, and kept running.

I thought I'd never make it to the Hospital Wing. Shaking off the tailing of a particularly dogged Hufflepuff prefect intent upon keeping "order" in her corridors, I eventually burst through the double doors leading to the Hospital Wing. Desperately, gasping for breath after my sprint across the school grounds, I tore aside each and every curtain in search of Madam Pomfrey.

I finally found her, a slender young witch with a motherly eye and a strict, overprotective nature, at the opposite end of the infirmary. She was using her wand to weave a poultice around a Ravenclaw first-year's arm, and she leapt to her feet when I nearly ripped the curtain off its hooks.

"Sirius Black," she said in an exasperated voice I knew all too well, "don't tell me you've broken another limb on the Quiddich pitch. Because if I've warned you once --"

I shook my head, breathlessly stammering, "Not me -- Remus Lupin... Potions class -- accident..."

"Accident?" she asked, eyebrows rising in immediate concern. "What sort of accident?"

"Se-Severus Snape -- broken beaker," I managed, my mind spinning. I couldn't tell her about the silver dust, couldn't let on that I knew Remus was a werewolf... not in front of the entire Hospital Wing, most of which had crept tentatively after me to the other end of the infirmary to stare.

"Yes, Sirius. What happened to Remus?" she pressed, trying to hide her impatience.

Finally, in a burst of inspiration, I spat out, "We were working on the colloidus panacea potion, and something went wrong!"

Her eyes widening in sudden understanding, Madam Pomfrey finished bandaging the Ravenclaw's arm, winding the dressing so tightly that the boy winced, and she conjured a chocolate lolly straight into his mouth as she bustled to her feet. "Come with me straight away, Sirius," she said, seizing my shoulder and practically dragging me towards the infirmary fireplace.

A pot of floo powder sat atop the mantelpiece, and she grabbed a double handful before throwing it into the flames. As she yanked me through the glowing, silvery fire, she barked, "Potions Room! Immediately!"

We landed all too swiftly, breaking through the smouldering embers in the fireplace that provided almost no heat to the drafty dungeons. Madam Pomfrey let go of me so she could wipe soot from her robes, and although I tried to rejoin my friends, she brusquely commanded me to remain at the fireplace.

"Just what is going on here, Adder?" she demanded as she strode to the front of the dungeon, where our professor sat aloofly at his desk while James, Lily, Peter, and the other Gryffindor students huddled upon the floor surrounding Remus. I couldn't see his face -- it was, instead, blocked by the sobbing figure of Lily Evans.

"And what is going on with you, Pomfrey?" Adder spat with undisguised loathing. "Severus Snape tells me that he was unable to locate you in your proper place in the Hospital Wing." He tutted and cast a glance to Snape, who sat like a self-righteous king before his cauldron. Again, the urge to beat his oversized nose to mush rose within me like a pall.

"Severus Snape came nowhere near my infirmary. Why he wasn't sent via floo powder..." Madam Pomfrey trailed off as the circle of Gryffindor students parted, leaving James alone at Remus' side to face the suddenly shocked, livid, and ultimately terrified head nurse.

"Ma-mandragorda poisoning," James mumbled weakly, unable to look her in the eye.

"Sirius Black tells me that --"

"Mandragorda poisoning, Madam Pomfrey. It wasn't silver in the beaker, it was mandragorda," James insisted.

"I see," she murmured, and, with an unexpectedly gentle strength reached out to gather Remus into her arms, where he hung limp like a boneless rag doll. As she picked him up, I could see his eyes rolled back and showing only whites. The blood that he'd choked upon streaked his chin and the front of his robes. My heart gave a lurch, and, if it weren't for the rattle of straining breath, I would have thought for all the world that he was dead...

"Headmaster Dumbledore will hear about your incompetence," Madam Pomfrey snapped angrily, sweeping past Adder towards the fireplace.

"Madam Pomfrey, may I --" I began, tagging fast at her heels.

"You may certainly not follow me, Sirius Black!" she said sharply. Then, her features softening somewhat, she glanced down at me and added, "I want you to send an owl to Remus' parents. When your classes are complete, you may come to the Hospital Wing, although I cannot guarantee that you will be permitted to see him."

"Yes, ma'am," I whispered, and watched as she tossed floo powder into the fireplace's embers. With a swirl of skirts, she and Remus disappeared.

I was numb as I finally walked towards my desk, the adrenaline rush and the urgency fading to stunned lethargy. Lily continued to weep, even as James slipped his arms around her, looking grey-faced himself. Peter, to his credit, had conjured a broom and a dustpan and had begun to clumsily sweep up the broken pieces of glass and the transfigured mandragorda root.

After staring for a while at the cooling cauldron upon my desk and the congealing concoction within, I chanced to look towards Snape. The slimy, hook-nosed Slytherin went about his business of fastidiously cleaning his workstation, having received full marks for doing little to no work. When he finally caught the glare I directed to him, he merely returned it with a coldly triumphant smirk.

But there was nothing I could do about it. Even if I'd had the strength to rise from my seat to punch his lights out, I wouldn't have been able to get past Adder, who paused beside James and me in his survey of the classroom's progress.

"Detention, Mr. Black and Mr. Potter," Adder said softly, gliding by our workstation like a balding, menacing vulture. "Starting Tuesday and continuing for the next two weeks. And also, for showing your typical disregard for direct instruction, I deduct one hundred points from House Gryffindor." As he swept away, he turned and hissed, "Each."

I buried my face in my hands, biting at my lower lip to keep myself from screaming, unable to raise my head until the end of the session when James nudged my shoulder and led me shaking from the room.

~*~

The rest of the day passed in a daze for myself, very likely for James as well. Peter, who among us had held himself together the best, quietly informed our professors of the "accident" with Remus. I don't know what he might have told them, but most professors ultimately gazed at us with an almost heartbreaking sympathy and excused us from much of the day's work. Even Professor McGonagall, the Transfiguration professor known her toughness -- yet unlike Adder her overwhelming fairness as well -- seemed shaken when she heard about what had happened to Remus, and she spent much of the class gazing mistily out the window while she provided us with busywork.

After our classes drew to an excruciatingly slow close, James dashed ahead towards the infirmary, while I scribbled a note to Remus' parents explaining what had transpired as carefully as I could manage -- Remus had never told his parents that his friends were aware he was a werewolf.

Dashing to the owlery, I attached the letter to the leg of Mundungus Fletcher's swift barn owl, promising it the fattest mice as payment in exchange for expediency. The tawny owl gave me a sharp, cold, affirmative look in the eye before lifting off in a fluttering of wings and speeding towards the Lupin abode in Nottingham.

This time, upon leaving the owlery, I didn't run as I made my way to the Hospital Wing to join James. While dreadfully concerned for Remus, something in me had grown terrified to face Madam Pomfrey and the possibility that she would look down at me with sadly sympathetic eyes and tell me she's sorry, there was nothing she could do, but Remus had passed away...

But as I entered the infirmary, Madam Pomfrey, sitting at the front desk filling out some paperwork with a bone-white quill, merely glanced up and sighed, nodding towards the private wing, where only the direst of medical cases were brought. My feet echoed hauntingly across the immaculately sterile floor.

As I pushed aside the curtain that separated Remus' bed from the rest of the wing, I saw James immediately leap to his feet from a chair at our friend's bedside.

"Sirius, thank goodness! He's asleep, finally," he said quickly. "Sleeping draught. He -- wouldn't have been able to sleep otherwise, there was so much pain."

"That bad, is it?" I said in a hushed voice, even though I knew Remus would not awaken from Madam Pomfrey's strong sleeping potion. I inched closer to my the edge of the bed, where Remus lay curled on his side, his chest shaking in rapid, shallowly panting breaths. I leaned across and pushed aside several stray strands of hair from his whey-colored face, and couldn't help but notice the beginnings of grey streaking the mass of unruly sandy brown.

"He was pretty bad, yes," James said, his voice quivering alarmingly. "Just after you left, there was -- so much blood --"

"Don't go on," I murmured hurriedly, darting a wide-eyed gaze from Remus to James. I didn't know what I'd do if James broke down -- perhaps go mad, perhaps begin to scream, perhaps worse.

"I can't believe Adder let him work with silver," James whispered. "How utterly careless! Not to mention cruel."

"You heard what he said. 'I expect the same performance from you that I expect from every other member of my class. No exceptions,'" I mimicked angrily.

"But he knows about Remus!" James hissed, his eyes meeting desperately with mine. "All the professors know!"

"Yes, but there's really nothing we can do about it. He's still a professor, after all."

"What about Snape, then? There must be something we can do about him."

I blinked at James in surprise, and it dawned on me that, while we couldn't exact our revenge upon Adder, there was still another target -- the one who'd orchestrated the entire incident in the first place.

"You're right, Jamie. What should we do about Snape? He knows about Remus."

"Do you think so?"

I rolled my eyes and sighed quietly. "He may be the second biggest prick this school has ever seen, but he's also a smart prick. I saw what he did with that beaker. It wasn't accidental that it broke. Snape pushed it to the ground." Snorting, I added, "He might as well have just thrown it into Remus' face. If it didn't kill Remus --"

"If it didn't kill Remus, it would have revealed him to be a werewolf to the class, anyway," James finished in a spill of words. "Oh, God..."

"He's dead, James. Mark my words, Snape is dead."

James fell silent, and for a time we stared at the bed, where Remus slept in a drug-induced haze. The blood had long since been cleaned from his mouth, but the memory of those crimson drops cruelly shimmering at the corners of his lips made me shudder even now. Although under the influence of a powerful sleeping draught, he twitched in the midst of an inward agony that even the strongest of painkillers could never relieve.

He looked as if he wouldn't make it through the night.

I finally broke the silence, the tension, and the dark thoughts that engulfed us both. "Mandragorda root then? Whatever gave you the idea to transfigure the silver to that?" I paused for a moment and added, "For that matter, what is mandragorda root, anyway?"

"Don't you pay attention?" James chided lightly, although it was clear that his heart wasn't into joking. "Its powdered root used in fertility potions. It doesn't normally cause so severe a reaction unless someone's allergic to it. I -- couldn't think of anything else at the time."

"Was Remus allergic?"

"Probably not. It's extremely rare." James' eyes clouded over darkly, and he added, "But he is now."

Behind us, someone cleared their throat, and James and I suddenly broke off and turned to face Madam Pomfrey, who had the curtain separating Remus' bed pulled aside. She gazed upon us sadly, displaying none of her usual strict, overbearing demeanor.

"Okay, you two, visiting hours are over," she said quietly.

"But, ma'am, visiting hours end at nine. It's only seven-thirty," James protested.

"Visiting hours for Remus Lupin are over," said Madam Pomfrey. "Unfortunately, he must be quarantined for the next four to five days, even from you. I'm sorry, but it's beyond my control."

"Will he be alright, ma'am?" asked James as he rose to his feet and spared a glance at the pale, shuddering figure of Remus huddled within starched, white sheets.

"That poor boy," Madam Pomfrey whispered, as if she hadn't even heard James. "That poor, poor boy. As if he doesn't have enough to worry about."

"Ma'am?"

Madam Pomfrey blinked before suddenly snapping out of her melancholy with a shake of her head. "Come now, out with the two of you. Your friend needs to get as much rest as he can, if he's to pull through this."

After James and I were reluctantly bustled from the medical ward by a clucking -- yet sympathetic -- Madam Pomfrey, we lingered outside the double doors. I shook with anger and fear, wanting to punch something, and I raked my hair from my eyes as I paced beside a still and shivering James, who leaned heavily against the wall.

"'If he's to live through this,'" James whispered, his lip quivering perilously once again as he repeated Madam Pomfrey's words. "If."

"Keep it together, Jamie," I muttered, as much for my sake as his own.

He looked at me, eyes wide behind his glasses, and nodded as I slung a brotherly arm about his shoulders. We spoke not a word as we walked together back to the Gryffindor common room, but we took quiet comfort in each other's mere presence.

After uttering, "Biscotto del cioccolato," to the portrait of the Fat Lady, we slid wearily into the room only to be met with the flushed and fearful face of Peter Pettigrew.

"There you are! Where were you guys?" he asked nervously, rushing towards us as we entered, a rumpled parchment clutched in his stubby fingers.

"In the infirmary. Where were you?" I demanded.

"Fending off Snape, that's where! He's been going around to all the professors, to anyone that will listen, calling for a formal inquiry! He seems to think it's another prank against him... And I think he means business this time!"

"Snape can go get stuffed," James muttered. "It's no different than any other time. At least, not now it isn't... Snape has cried wolf one too many times for the faculty to actually believe him."

"Either way, McGonagall was here, and she told me to tell you that Dumbledore wants to see the both of you in his office, immediately," babbled Peter, thrusting the wrinkled scroll into James' hand. "It -- sounded urgent."

"Will this day never end?" I groaned, but James nodded resolutely, taking the parchment and smoothing out the wrinkles as he read it over.

"I wasn't expecting an answer this quickly," he whispered. "Come on, Sirius. One more kilometer to go before we sleep."

It was only the expression on James' face and in his sparkling green eyes -- chillingly decisive, as if he knew exactly what he was doing -- that kept me going on the trip to the office of the very headmaster of our school.

~*~

The office of Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was a heaven for the sensory addict -- filled with more gadgets and artifacts behind magically locked glass than one may ever have thought existed. There were Sneakoscopes, gazing crystals, brooms of various sizes... even a great, flame-feathered phoenix sitting upon a simple perch at the side of Professor Dumbledore's mahogany desk.

At the center of it all was Professor Dumbledore himself, sitting upon a high-backed chair at his desk, his expression a mix of both calming reassurance to my jangled nerves, and also of grave seriousness. From behind the large mahogany desk, it was clear that he meant business.

"Aah. James Potter and Sirius Black," he said with a tiny smile behind his long beard. "Do sit down, please. We've much to discuss."

"Whatever Severus Snape may have told you, it's all a lie," I said quickly as I lowered my frame into one of the chairs situated before his desk.

"No, boys, we're not here to discuss Severus Snape. This isn't a meeting to cast blame upon either side in the incident involving Remus Lupin," Professor Dumbledore said evenly. "As you have likely been told by now, Madam Pomfrey wants to keep Remus quarantined for the next several days. That means no friends, no family, no risk of any outside disturbances during the upcoming cycle."

My eyes widened, and I suddenly understood the reason behind Madam Pomfrey's unexplained quarantine. "That's right! It's the full moon! Only a couple of days away..." Reaching across the space between us, James leaned over the edge of his chair and punched me hard in the shoulder.

"I am going to pretend that I didn't hear that, Sirius," the headmaster replied, although with a very small smile. "Besides, there are other matters that I wish to address, such as why, in the middle of the dinner feast, a small owl landed in my soup with this purportedly urgent message."

Professor Dumbledore passed across a parchment stained red from the clam chowder served at supper. Upon it was a hastily written scrawl, barely discernable as James' normally impeccable handwriting, requesting a meeting to discuss the recent deduction in points from House Gryffindor.

Turning, I met James' coldly serious eyes, and I understood -- James was fighting fire with fire. If Snape could run about to those in authority, as we'd suspected he would, then we would simply go to an even higher authority.

"Yes, sir, that was my owl," James said, squaring his shoulders and sitting up straighter in his chair as he looked to the headmaster. "Professor Adder deducted an inordinate amount of points from House Gryffindor, and gave myself and Sirius detention. I feel the punishment was excessive, sir, considering he took no steps to assist Remus."

Professor Dumbledore furrowed his brow in thought, fingertips stroking his long beard. "Far be it from me to question a teacher's authority," he finally stated. "Professor Adder's detention and points deducted from Gryffindor stand."

"What?" James gasped, his professional air dropping with the shock of Professor Dumbledore's announcement. "Won't you at least give us a chance to explain ourselves?"

"No, James, I'm afraid my decision is final."

I hung my head miserably, struggling unsuccessfully to contain the tears that suddenly welled up behind my eyes. It just wasn't fair! Remus nearly died at the hands of a cruel and jealous rival -- was still in critical danger -- and Severus Snape got off scot-free! James placed a hand upon my shoulder and squeezed hard, his fingertips shaking with the same raw anger and helplessness.

"However, if it weren't for your selfless actions, then your friend might not be around today," Professor Dumbledore added with a glimmer of a chuckle in his voice. "I award Gryffindor twenty points for your swift feet and your bravery, Sirius Black. And another twenty for you, James Potter, whose cunning and companionship kept Remus Lupin calm even in the face of direst peril."

"What was that?" I whispered, twin tears spilling down my cheeks as I jerked my head up to look at the headmaster. Swiftly, I scrubbed my hands against my cheeks and snuffled hard against the back of my fist.

"It doesn't matter, anyway," James mumbled quietly, his gaze fixed straight to the floor. "Snape is still a hero to the Slytherins, and to Adder. And Remus may still not survive the night."

"Is it true what Madam Pomfrey said?" I blurted suddenly on the heels of James' words. "That Remus might not live?"

Professor Dumbledore sighed heavily, his normally twinkling eyes now grave, and oddly assessing as they surveyed me with diligence. "Unfortunately, Sirius, his allergy is quite severe. He will have to be watched very closely over the next several days. I will not lie to you by telling you everything will be okay, because it might not be so."

"He can't die," James murmured numbly. "He just can't."

"I make no promises," Professor Dumbledore continued. "But I dare say that between the two of you, and Peter Pettigrew, Remus has friends well worth fighting for. Something tells me that he will not expire without a fight."

"Well, thank you, professor," said James, forcing a smile to his lips as he pushed himself to his feet in an altogether too swift movement. "I appreciate your time, truly."

"If there is anything more that you need, either of you, don't hesitate to contact me. Although, may I suggest that you not use your owl again, James Potter? I'm afraid he took quite a liking to my soup, and I had been so looking forward to eating it myself."

It was clearly the wrong thing to say. To the shock of both Professor Dumbledore and myself, James spun upon his heel and bolted from the headmaster's office.

Professor Dumbledore let out a sigh, his gaze settling upon me, and he uttered, "Do go after him, Sirius."

With a barely mumbled word of thanks to the headmaster, I followed quickly on James' heels. Slipping through the passageway, I finally managed to catch him just outside the door. Wrapping my fingers around his upper arm, I spun him quickly towards me as he struggled violently.

"Sirius, let go! Just let go!" he cried.

I tried not to break at the sight of the tears pouring down his cheeks. "Come on, Jamie! You did what you could!" I tried to loop my arms around him, to hold him, but he threw his hands up against my chest and shoved me roughly away.

"Bloody lot of good it did, too! You heard Dumbledore -- there's nothing he can do. He can't bring Remus back to us!"

"Don't talk as if he's already dead!" I exclaimed. "He'll make it through the night. He has to! Right now, all we can do is wait."

James bit his lower lip and ran the back of his arm across his eyes. "I don't want to wait. I -- I just want to be alone, okay?"

"Jamie --"

"Okay, Sirius?"

With a sigh, I nodded, turning my back to James so I wouldn't have to see him break further. So he wouldn't have to watch me. "Of course, man. Anything you want."

"Sirius..." James hesitated a moment, before letting out a faint cry and taking off in the opposite direction down the hallway.

There was nothing that I could do -- nothing to hold James together, nothing to turn back time and prevent Snape from breaking that beaker, or to keep Remus from even going to class in the first place.

All I really could do, once back in the Gryffindor dormitories, was huddle fast within myself, wrap my arms around my knees, and stare out the castle window to the stars above.

And the only thing that I could wish was that the steadily broadening face of the moon would be merciful this month.

I didn't cry myself to sleep, but instead took my aggression out upon my pillows, and with every strike and flurry of feathers, I imagined that it was Severus Snape's face I was pummeling into oblivion.