I Saw His Eyes

"I Saw His Eyes"

Sirius Black had been having a very vivid and enjoyable dream (nine little words: "stranded in a tropical paradise with fifty anxious veelas") when the scream awakened him. He bolted up in bed, sleep abandoning him immediately, and opened his eyes to a dim room. Around him, the rest of Gryffindor's male population slumbered peacefully in their beds, no doubt partaking in dreams similar to his own. No one else had woken up.

What in God's name was that? Ugh, what time is it?

Glancing at one of the stained-glass windows, Sirius noted the amount of light streaming through, and judged the hour by that - early in the morning. Too early in the morning. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, then flopped down on his pillow again.

That came from outside, so it's probably just some monster of untold brutality that Hagrid's got hidden in his hut, he thought, snuggling back down beneath his quilt, No problem. Now, let's see if I can reclaim that dream. Fear not, gentle maidens - Sirius is coming...

He was just about getting there when a second scream came. Again he sat up, startled by the volume and pitch of it, and he noticed that a few of the others stirred a little, but still didn't wake. That wasn't so surprising - the average male Gryffindor teen could sleep through a hurricane, in addition to drowning it out with his snores.

But that was worse than the one that woke me up. Sirius looked toward the window again. And it was most definitely not one of Hagrid's beasts. It sounded really human, actually - in fact, it sounded a lot like...Remus. But why would...?

The shriek that next split the air was unlike anything that Sirius had ever heard, even in his most terrible nightmares. It was like a potion that included elements of shock, revulsion, terror, pain, and misery, all mixed in together and magicked into pure, intense sound. It rattled Sirius to the core - but worse than the scream itself was the realisation that it was indeed in Remus' voice...

Around him, the Gryffindor boys finally awoke, jolted from sleep by this last unearthly cry. They all wore fearful expressions as they came back to awareness, and murmured the usual questions of, "What was that?" and "What's going on?"

It was Remus' scream, Sirius answered mentally, that's what it was. But I have no idea what's going on...

"Hey, Black!" said a voice next to him, "What's happening?"

Sirius turned to see a wide-eyed Gerald Finnegan peering out at him from beneath a weighty overabundance of blankets. He looked frightened.

"I don't know," replied Sirius softly, watching the others as they roused, "It...it sounds like Remus, though..."

"Lupin?" Finnigan cocked an eyebrow. "Why would he yell like that? I've never heard such a sound, especially coming from a person..."

Sirius shrugged absently. He found himself breathing heavily, and his skin was damp with perspiration as apprehension crept through him like a malignant weed through a garden. After years of friendship, he ought to have known the sound of Remus Lupin's voice...and he did, and that had been his voice. But why the screams? Remus was going through his...change, but that wasn't usually so painful as to induce such cries...

Suddenly, there was the frantic pounding of footsteps in the common room outside, and a moment later, Peter Pettigrew appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a rumpled yellow bathrobe and an expression of ashen horror. Only then did Sirius notice that Peter's bed was empty, as so was James Potter's. James had only one real reason to creep out of bed at night, and as Lily Evans' father was a tall, well-built man with no magic potential but a Muggle firearm under his bed to make up for it, it was unlikely that James would act on any such urges...

"Peter?" Sirius slid out of bed and grabbed his own bathrobe. "What happened? Why are you shaking like that?"

"Come quick!" Peter breathed, sagging against the doorframe in an effort to keep from falling flat on his face, "Something's happened to Remus!"

* * * * *

The journey from the school to the Forbidden Forest was lengthy, despite the efforts of two young men whose desperation lent them impressive speed. It was also silent - Sirius had nothing to say, concentrating only on coming to his friend's aid, and Peter was apparently too shocked by what he had discovered to form a single word, even if he'd wished to.

At any rate, the explanation had been given on the way from the bedroom down to the outer doors. Apparently, James had been wakened early by terrible screams - Sirius knew what that was like - that had seemed to be coming from the Forbidden Forest. Being James (the Potter men had always been noted more for bravery than for common sense), he had slipped out and made his way in the direction from which the frightening sounds were issuing, rather than taking pains to avoid them. He had suspected that someone was in trouble in that forest, as the cries sounded like those of a young human rather than a frenzied animal, and he wasn't going to just let that go. For once, he had substituted the customary "run to Dumbledore" tactic for a more direct one: go right to the source of the problem yourself. Dangerous, sure...careless, certainly...stupid, absolutely...but it was the Potter thing to do, so off he'd gone, bathrobe and all.

That was about as far as Peter had gotten in the summary before he began to break down, taking deep breaths to stop himself from passing out right then and there. All that Sirius knew from there was that James had stumbled upon something hidden in those trees - something that involved Remus.

Something bad.

As they reached the edge of the Forbidden Forest the sun was coming up, a bright fiery ball against a garnet-red sky. It was a real wizard's sky, all flaming colours and drama...and Sirius didn't like it. It was a sky that was neither thrilling nor beautiful - this morning, it seemed like a premonition. Today, it was a sky awash in blood...

They stopped running for a moment, pausing to catch their breath and rest their aching muscles. Sirius waited patiently for Peter to regain his composure (which suffered more from emotion than from exertion, he knew) before speaking.

"Where?" he asked. "You said it wasn't far into the forest."

"No, it isn't," Peter replied quietly, bending down and bracing his hands against his bent knees as he drew gulping breaths, "James is...keeping him from...wandering around - he's...having some trouble...walking steadily, see. Wonder if...if he's been crying so much...since I left them..."

Sirius felt a pang in his heart at the notion of his friend being so upset. Remus Lupin was one of the few people in the world who were inherently good, and who were liked by nearly everyone that they met. He had many friends, few enemies, and Sirius would trust him with his life - except, perhaps, for that brief period of time when, once a month, Remus went a little bit...wild.

Once Peter was ready to start again, they jogged into the Forbidden Forest. Lit by the morning light, it wasn't nearly as dark and chilly as it might have been, but Sirius still considered the brightness of the ruby sky as ominous as the blackest, coldest night. The trees stretched towards the heavens like fervent skeletal hands, as if their claw-like branches had ripped the wounds in the sky that now made it bleed so red...

Sirius soon caught sight of a huddled figure, wearing only striped pyjamas, and quickly recognised it as James. He wasn't alone - someone else was folded up on the ground beside him, holding onto James and sobbing with some force. This person had his back turned to Sirius, but he knew from the body shape and hair colour that it could be no one but Remus.

James looked up as they approached, and Sirius was unpleasantly surprised by what he saw. There was no sign of the usual pleasant James Potter - his face was pale, with a strained expression, and his eyes were sombre. They were eyes that had just seen something that no passage of time could ever erase.

"What happened?" demanded Sirius, "What happened to him?"

There was no reply. James lowered his eyes to regard the trembling boy in his arms, whose slim frame was concealed beneath an ugly goldenrod-coloured robe similar to the one that Peter wore (James' mother had sent all four of them matching yellow bathrobes, and except for an appalled Sirius, they all dutifully wore them). Sirius surmised that James had given Remus that robe to cover up, since the werewolf could perform the transformation with only a minimum of clothing, and from what Peter had told him, Remus was in no shape to pop back to the Shack to fetch the set of clothes that he kept stashed there for the occasion.

What was he doing outside of the Shack anyway? Even as a wolf, he's inclined to be a bit shy...

Sirius became aware of a low moaning, and he looked down to find Remus rocking back and forth, muttering brokenly. Only then did Sirius see that the hair on one side of Remus' head was matted with blood...

"Remus!" he said, breathless with concern, and knelt down at his friend's side. He reached out and moved the robe away from the unresisting boy's hunched shoulder, letting it fall away to reveal a shivering body wearing nothing but a torn pair of trousers. The rest of Remus' skin was laid bare, and Sirius gasped at what he saw.

From head to toe, Remus Lupin was smeared with blood - practically bathed in it. It was everywhere...between his fingers, smeared over his chest, even around his mouth...

"Who did this?" breathed Sirius, his eyes suddenly alight with rage. "Remus, tell me...Remus? Come on, tell me - who did this, Remus?"

He laid a hand gently on his friend's bare back, and Remus twitched at his touch as though Sirius' fingers were white-hot. He made no actual response, and he did not look him in the face, but Sirius could hear Remus continue to murmur under his breath as he swayed back and forth. Tears streamed freely from his hollow red eyes, and his voice was as weak as a whisper of wind.

"Staring at me - staring!" he groaned, "Black eyes...angry first, afraid, but afterwards, pleading. Begging me. Begging me not to do it. But I do not hear his cries, do not feel pity for any living thing...rip, tear, kill - that is all I know! Black eyes begging me! Runs...I chase. Small creature, for I am so big...falls easily, once caught. Hits me in nose...it hurts, makes me howl. I hurt him back...rip and tear! Begs me with eyes, chokes on blood...white throat bared! Black eyes begging me! I lunge...teeth find flesh...muscle...sinew...floods of red...screams once before teeth close on bone... does not scream. Will not scream again. I pounce with teeth again, teeth and claws...more red, soaking everything...glint of bone...strong smell reaches nose...a smell that wolf knows well...I feel the Remus body coming...the Remus body takes me...I see for the first time what I have done...and I scream. I scream. Black eyes still beg me, even through death! Black eyes still begging me!"

Remus slumped down, a wailing heap, huddling against James and clapping both hands over his ears as if trying to block out his own words. James held his friend close, unashamed, speaking comfort to him in a voice that rasped with emotion. Peter leaned back against one of the trees, struggling to quiet his insides as they rebelled in disgust at Remus' account of this thing that had happened.

Sirius slowly got to his feet, and turned to face him. The harshness had left his eyes, replaced now by compassion, uncertainty, and apprehension. He and Peter exchanged a glance, both reeling from Remus' manic speech. Sirius did not have to voice the question - Peter knew what he wanted to ask. He pointed to a rough patch of brambles surrounding the base of a tree, and looked away quickly.

With a deep, bracing inhalation of brisk morning air, Sirius squared his shoulders and made his way over to the spot that Peter had indicated. As he approached, a fold of ragged black fabric appeared, and as he drew nearer, it went on to form complete, albeit tattered, robes.

"Oh," said Sirius, "Oh..."

He stopped and stood in place, studying the midnight-dark robes with an increasing knowledge that what he now feared would be so. Leaning to one side so that he could see a little farther beyond the brambles, he saw the pale hand that still clutched the earth in a grip that whitened the knuckles. Sirius followed the hand to the wrist, forearm, upper arm, shoulder, neck...

Oh, God! Oh, GOD! GOD!

Sirius fell to his knees as a wave of nausea struck him with all the force of a brick wall. The owner of the hand, lying there on the ground as still as stone, was dead...and the cause of death was obviously due to the throat being torn out. Pale flesh had been ripped away in the characteristically brutal fashion of a wolf, tearing the jugular, and above the monstrous wound...the face...

It was a face that wasn't a face anymore. It wasn't recognisable - not even as the face of a human being. Whoever this unfortunate person had been, the wolf had destroyed him utterly.

"Who is it?" demanded Sirius thickly, choking back the urge to retch, "Who would have been so stupid as to follow a...?"

"Oh, come on, you idiot!" snapped James suddenly, snarling in a way that made Sirius jump, "Don't you know? Don't you have any clue? Didn't it all turn out exactly as you'd planned it?"

"What do you mean?" Sirius turned slowly, bewildered at his friend's outburst. "What do you mean about me planning it? I didn't plan anything, especially not something like this!"

"It was your idea of a joke, wasn't it?" said James bitterly, his eyes flashing, "Your sick idea of a joke! Oh, certainly! Let's kill everyone that we don't like, hmm? No one who gets up Sirius Black's nose has any right to live, does he?!"

"What are you talking about?" Sirius' voice rose a little, a twinge of anger momentarily replacing his revulsion, "How in God's name could I have predicted..."

He stopped, his words grinding to a halt as a sudden memory seized him in a stranglehold - a memory that dragged him back to the previous day...

Yesterday morning, when we were in Potions...we had to dissect a toad and add its organs to the mixture in a certain order...I never did find out what that potion was supposed to do...

He recalled being partnered, against his will, with who was perhaps his least favourite person in the world: Severus Snape, a nasty little Slytherin with a definite grudge against him and a very definite problem with jealousy. Sirius and Severus had violently disliked one another from the beginning - so, naturally, they were constantly running into one another. Also, since teachers were irritating nitwits at heart who liked to interfere in other people's business, they were always getting paired up with each other whenever the time came for partner-work. So, Sirius had the misfortune of being stuck with that spiteful Slytherin twerp for the entire class...

He was keen on doing that dissection, Sirius remembered, so I just let him do it. I mean, hacking up a toad isn't exactly my idea of a good time. Now that one, he's got some sort of repressed axe-murderer complex with the way he was slashing away at that thing. I just sat there pretending to be interested in the list of ingredients.

Then...I jumped up. Why did I do that? Oh, right...he "accidentally" flicked some of those toad guts at me while he was cutting. Very mature. I jumped up, I shoved him a little...and he said something like, "Bloody hell!" Why was that...?

Sirius shook his head to clear it, aware of the strange and frustrating cloud that had been cast over his memory of the previous morning. He couldn't seem to think right.

I...I...I just remember that it was something that annoyed him. We got into an argument, and the teacher asked us why we were fighting, and I said why...and then the class laughed at me. Something like, "Watch out for Black! He's deathly scared of dead toads! Look out, look out!" I stormed out after that...and that little git was just grinning at me. Agh...why did he say, "Bloody hell!" when I shoved him?

Suddenly, it hit him. He remembered.

It was because when I shoved him, the scalpel he was using slipped. I think it cut him across the hand...that's why he got so angry. That's why we started to fight. That's why they all laughed. That's why I wanted to...

Oh, no.

Still battling the urge to be sick, Sirius stumbled closer to the ruined corpse and reached out for the nearest hand, which remained tightened into a claw-like grip in the dirt. Ignoring the violent cries within that begged him not to touch it, Sirius placed his fingers tentatively on that dead hand.

It was cold, and Sirius felt the familiar, foul-tasting acid that preceded vomiting creep up into the back of his mouth. But he kept a hold of the hand, and slowly, carefully, he turned it over...

God...

Across the palm, which was as dry as bone and nearly as white, there streaked a long, livid wound. It was ragged at the edges, but it had clearly been inflicted with a straight, keen blade rather than the teeth of a wolf. Black recognised it, and he found that now, in other ways, he could recognise the corpse as that of Severus Snape. The height and build, the bloodstained hair, the tattered robes...it all made sense.

And so did the reason that Severus had been out here with Remus...with the werewolf in the first place. Sirius had told him to go out, given him directions that would lead him to something that he would never forget.

He would never have a chance to forget...and neither would Remus. He still lay there, moaning and soaked in red, while James murmured words of comfort and Peter cradled his own head in his hands. Surrounded by such horror and misery, Sirius released his trembling hold on the hand and surrendered at last to his desire to retch.

His thoughts were clouded, shut out by the violent rebellion of his own body, but Sirius still managed to understand the enormity of what had happened. Severus Snape was dead...and Remus was the killer.

But, even so...Sirius thought grimly, feeling a stab of fear through his sickness, I'm the one responsible...