wearing the clothes he had been wearing — yesterday? How long had he been a wolf?
'Sirius,' he said again, louder this time. 'What happened…?'
But Sirius was on his feet. He held out a hand to Lupin, who took it, and helped him to his feet. Then he embraced him, as he had embraced him that day three years ago in the Shrieking Shack, like a brother, although neither Sirius nor Lupin ever had a brother, or anything like one, outside of each other. Each other, and James.
'You?re all right,' said Sirius, pounding his friend on the back.
'You?re all right.'
Lupin pulled back, wincing a little. 'I am, I?m fine. I hurt all over as if I got steamrollered by a hippogriff, but I?m fine. Sirius, how long was I..?'
'Two days,' said Sirius, and his black eyes darkened further.
'Around two days.'
'Did I hurt anyone?' Lupin felt his hand tighten hard on the blanket at his side. 'Did I do — anything?'
'I brought in a doctor to see you,' said Sirius, looking somber. 'But you ate him.'
Lupin felt his eyes widen, then he laughed, his chest tightening with pain but it was worth it just to laugh. 'I suppose thats a no,' he said. 'Padfoot — how could you — how did you bring me back?'
Sirius hesitated, then reached beside him and picked up a small clear flask banded with copper. 'I didn?t. Snape did. He gave me a Will-Strengthening Potion for you.'
Lupin stared. 'Really?'
'Uh-huh.'
'And what did you have to do for him? Sirius. I?m not kidding. He wouldn?t just have done that for you for no reason.'
'Well, I had to agree to run naked through the halls of Hogwarts yelling 'Severus Snape rules!at the top of my lungs.'
'Well, its a tragedy school isn?t in session then, isn?t it? There will be no one to admire your nude form.'
'Good point.' Sirius grinned at Lupin, his eyes lighting up as they so rarely did, and for so few people. Lupin could remember a time when Sirius had smiled at everybody. But that had been a long time ago. He looked down again at the flask in Sirius? hands, and blinked
— Sirius was wearing heavy leather gloves that reached halfway up his forearms. They looked like dragonhide. His left sleeve was ripped through, and bloody. I did that, he thought, his heart sinking.
'Padfoot, how did you get me to take the Potion?'
'You were pretty far gone,' said Sirius flatly. 'It wasn?t that hard.
And I borrowed Narcissas gardening gloves — ' he raised his right hand and grinned — 'she usually uses them for trimming the Firetrap plants in the front garden.'
'But I didn?t bite you,' said Lupin, anxiously. 'Did I?'
Sirius shook his head. 'No. Which begs an interesting question. If you did, would I be a Weredog?'
Lupin sat down on the bench, more out of exhaustion that anything else, and grinned. 'Shut up, Sirius.'
Sirius smiled back. Then his smile faded. 'I have to ask you…' He cleared his throat. 'Do you remember anything?'
Lupin shut his eyes. Lightning danced across his field of vision, and pressed against the backs of his eyes. Black night, silver moonlight, forest paths; a castle rearing up out of the darkness, black against a white sky. A voice at the base of his skull. Come. Here. Now. At night, the battlements were the color of liquid mercury. Guards stood ranged along them in robes of black and silver. He saw a familiar face, turned towards him, pale hair and eyes, sensed betrayal, darkness.
His eyes flew open. 'I do remember,' he said, raising his eyes to Sirius?. 'I remember everything — the Call — everything.'
Sirius leaned forward. 'I?d better tell you whats been going on.'
The first thing Draco saw on the other side of the doorway was that they were not, in fact, outside. They were in what was probably the most enormous room he had ever seen: bigger than the Great Hall at Hogwarts or the ballroom at Malfoy Manor. The walls were green-veined marble and rose up and up and up — how far underground were they? — terminating in a ceiling so high its detail was lost in darkness, as was the far end of the room. The floor was marble, too, smooth and slippery. The center of the room curved down into a huge circular depression, not deep or large enough to be an amphitheater, although it resembled nothing else. It was empty.
Harry crossed to the edge of the circular depression and stared down into it, his face still quite blank. Draco looked at him, then turned back towards the door through which they had come. 'Fleur
— '
He paused. And stared.
Fleur wasn?t there. And the door through which they had come had vanished.
He blinked his eyes shut, then opened them again.
The wall he faced was as smooth, flat and unmarked as if there had never been a door there at all.
Dracos stomach turned over, hard. He didn?t know what was going on, but had a felling that whatever it was, he wasn?t going to like it.
He spun around and saw that Harry was still standing where he had been, motionless, staring into space. Gritting his teeth, he walked over to him and held out the Gryffindor sword. Without changing expression, Harry took it.
