"Would you stop doing that?" Remus demanded and Romi's head shot up at the anger in his tone. James stopped his pacing and turned to look at him as well.

"What?" James demanded. He turned to face Remus fully, his arms crossed over his chest. "Being concerned for my friend who's in the hospital because who's own family tortured him?"

Remus started toward the boy but Romi was quick to stand up and crossed the room to her brother, stepping between James and Remus. "You need to calm down," she ordered.

He growled, his eyes flashing a golden yellow, "Don't tell me what to do."

She growled in return, "Calm. Down."

He snarled as he stared the girl down. James watched, stanced so that he was ready to fight if necessary. Not that he would have been much of a challenge against an angry werewolf.

Remus closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, the yellow in his eyes faded. He took a step back and she crossed her arms over his chest, "Better?"

He nodded, running a hand over his face. He turned to look at James who relaxed slightly, "I'm sorry."

James's jaw was clenched but he nodded, "It's fine. We're all...we're all worried."

Romi let out a sigh before she crossed the room, taking a seat on the couch again, "This is already difficult enough without us all turning on each other."

"I know," Remus huffed. "I'm sorry."

"Maybe you guys should try to get some slip?"

He snorted, "Yeah, right."

"It was worth a shot."

It was now the morning following Christmas Day and all they had heard of Sirius's condition is that he was alive. No word on what exactly happened, nothing on how he was actually doing. Just one stupid not that said, 'He's alive.'

They were all on edge. No one wanted to really talk about what had happened. Romi couldn't stop thinking about what Sirius had looked like when she first saw him yesterday. She had never seen him look so...well, damaged. Of course, she had seen enough of his internal wounds from the number of times he had come to her in a fit of anger, ranting about his family and then burst into tears.

James was beside himself. He was so shocked when he saw Sirius lying on the ground, so helpless that he couldn't even move until Romi yelled at him. His best friend had been tortured by his family. Tortured.

Remus was still shocked. He wasn't entirely convinced that it had actually happened. He couldn't wrap his head around it. All that kept flashing through his head was when he first re-entered the sitting room and saw Sirius laying on the floor covered in blood, bruises and dirt.

"He'll be okay, right?" Remus spoke up after some time. "I mean...he'll still be, well, you know...Sirius?"

Romi squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, pushing the worst case scenario to the back of her mind. "He'll be fine," she announced. "He's Sirius. He's always fine." Remus nodded before he rested his head in his hands. Her gaze flickered over James, who sent a tight lipped smile. He had to be fine.

It wasn't until much later, after Romi forced the boys to shower and forced them to eat a poorly made soup that another letter came.

The envelope read, 'To: Romulus' in Euphemia's handwriting. She opened it quickly, ignoring the boys who were hastily asking what it said.

'Dear Romulus,

Sirius is doing fine and recovering quickly. The doctors say that he's allowed visitors in the morning. There will be three Auror's there for you to side-apparate with.

Tell the boys not to worry too much and make sure they make some effort to get to sleep. There's no point in them coming to see Sirius if they end up falling asleep on the chair in the room.

Thank you for taking care of them for me. Thank you for everything.

With Love, Mia'

James and Remus were both looking at her expectantly and she rolled her eyes. "We'll be allowed to see him tomorrow. He's recovering just fine."

They both beamed at this. "Really?" he asked. "So he's still there?"

"She didn't say anything to indicate otherwise."

"Great," he nodded, "That's great."

"She also said I should make sure you two get some sleep," she informed them before standing up. "So off to bed you two, there will be Auror's here to take us in the morning."

"Auror's?" Remus asked as he stood up alongside James. "Why are they sending Auror's?"

Romi nibbled slightly on her inner cheek. She could lie to them. Make up some excuse about how Euphemia and Fleamont wanted to stay with Sirius so they asked some friends for a favor. But that's not what they needed right now. Right now they need full transparency so that's what she would give them.

"Why do you think?" she inquired, though her voice hadn't come out angry as she had expected. She frowned slightly, "They used dark magic on him. Illegal magic. They aren't going to let just anyone near him until they get the information they need out of him so they'll have someone there watching over us."

"But why-" Remus began but Romi shook her head.

"We can talk about it later, okay?" Romi suggested. "Right now we need to rest and figure out what the hell we're going to say to him to make this better."

The boys nodded before they made their way up the stairs. James stopped, however, allowing Remus to go the remainder of the way up without him. He went back down the stairs and went to the kitchen where Romi had started cleaning up.

James gathered the dishes from the table and Romi turned to look at him, "You don't have to do that. I've got it."

"You're the guest," he pointed out as he joined her at the sink. "I should be the one doing this. Not the other way around."

She rolled her eyes, "Really, it's fine. I've got it."

"There's no way you're talking me out of this," he informed her and he started washing the dishes.

She watched him with a raised eyebrow, "You have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

He shook his head slightly. "Absolutely no clue," he admitted, "My mom usually does the dishes with magic."

She laughed a little at this and reached over into his sink. "Here, use the sponge," she suggested before placing it in his hand. She placed her hand over his and moved it in circles to show the motion. "Like that," she said and she looked up to find him watching her. "You aren't going to learn anything if you don't watch, Potter."

He cleared his throat, quickly looking back at his hand that was covered by hers. She showed him again and he nodded before she pulled her hand away. "Think you can manage?" she inquired and he agreed. "Good, I'm going to go clean up the sitting room."

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "We haven't been in the sitting room."

"Not since last night," she agreed. "Which means the floor is covered in his blood. I can smell it from here."

"I got it," James said but she was quick to step in front of him.

She shook her head, "No, you don't."

"At least let me help."

"You can help by staying in here," she replied. "And telling me where you keep the bleach."

"Er, I'm not sure what bleach is but there's cleaning potions under the sink," he informed her.

"Right, sometimes I forget you're a pureblood," she shook her head slightly before crouching down to look inside the cabinet.

James frowned slightly at the comment, something about the way she had said it rubbed him the wrong way but he let it go. She had been bottling up her emotions the whole day and was no doubt she would explode soon enough.

"I'll be back," she stated before she left the kitchen.

Romi entered the sitting room with caution. The stench of blood grew stronger the closer she got and she wasn't sure she could handle it up close. She crouched down next to the pool of dried up blood in the carpet and set to work.

She had been scrubbing for what felt like hours but it was doing little to nothing. The blood stain had faded slightly but it was still there and the smell was still as pungent as ever. Sirius's blood.

"Come on!" she exclaimed in exasperation. She scrubbed the carpet harder hoping it would help. The potion bubbled up slightly, tainted a light red color but it made no difference. "Agh!"

"Romi?" James inquired as he walked out of the kitchen. "Ro, what's wrong?"

"It's not coming out," she explained as she scrubbed harder.

"Then stop," he suggested. She listened, stopping the cleaning for a moment, looking down at her hands.

Her hands were stained with Sirius's blood again just as they had been the night before. She shook her head as she dropped them into her lap, "I can't...it's not...It won't come out."

"It's okay," James informed her. "I'm sure my parents will just replace it. They've been meaning to redo the sitting room anyway."

She shook her head before returning to scrubbing, "They shouldn't have to."

"Ro," he tried, crouching down next to her. He tried to grab her hand but she brushed him off. "Hey, come on. Look at me."

She shook her head again as she continued, "No, I - I need to fix this. I have to fix this."

"Romulus," he said, grabbing both of her wrists before she could stop him, this time his voice more stern. She stopped at this and turned to look at him, "You've done enough."

"I-" she began but her voice broke and her eyes welled with tears. "I'm sorry, I-"

"Hey," he whispered, pulling her closer, "There's nothing to apologize for."

"I told him to go," she pointed out. "I told him that he- I made him go."

"You didn't make him do anything," James countered. "He doesn't blame you."

"It's my fault," she replied, her once guarded demeanor breaking completely. "It's all my fault." She fell against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," he said in response, holding her closer to him. "It's going to be okay."

They both knew that was a lie.