James and Lily tumbled through the floo in the Lion's Den, and James hopefully looked around the dining room there, scanning for Sirius and Remus as he tossed a couple sickles into a jar for the use of the network. They ran down the street in Godric's Hollow, past what Lily now thought of as "their spot" by the fountain, and on down the street, past Bathilda Bagshot's, on to the old Dumbledore house. Every step of the way, James was hoping to see Sirius and Remus running toward them, having just realized how late they were... but of course, there came no moment of relief like that, only further building anxiety as it became clearer and clearer that there had been something terrible that had happened during the moon...

At the edge of the woods James stopped short. "Fuck," he choked, heart in his throat. "Fuck." 

Lily's face was pale. "Now what?" she asked anxiously. "Have you got your broom?"

"No." He thought a moment, "I'll have to transform. You can ride on my back."

"Alright." Lily watched as James walked anxiously in a couple circles, and then transformed into his stag form. He staggered a couple of moments, getting used to his new legs, and once he seemed steady, she raced over. The stag knelt down, lowing his antlers, and Lily climbed onto his back. The stag made a series of funny little honks as she wrapped her arms about the beasts's neck. "I do hope that you're remaining a gentleman, Mr. Potter," she said, raising an eyebrow as she straddled him.

The stag honked.

Lily stroked the stag's strong neck and rubbed a little behind his antlers in the soft fur and a shiver went down his spine. She leaned forward, wrapping her arms about him and took a deep breath as her cheek touched his fur. "Okay," she said, "I'm ready."

The stag moved - slowly a first to be sure she had her grip, but once he was sure that she was safely on him, James started running, darting, leaping over logs and low brush, trying to be careful not to let branches hit Lily, using his antlers to deflect anything that might. He moved as quickly as he could through the trees, smelling for the wolf and the dog.

He was about three-quarters of the way to the camping area when he smelled something that made him stop. He froze and peered through the trees, his ears raised, eyes searching the brush.

"What is it?" Lily asked.

James couldn't answer of course but he snuffled, hoping she would understand to be quiet. Luckily, she did. James lowered his head and moved slowly forward, taking each step gingerly, trying to avoid things that would crack beneath the weight of his steps.

There was a smell on the air of a wolf... but not Remus's wolf.

"SIRIUS?" Remus didn't know what to do. He'd struggled and though it was very painful to do he'd managed at crawling, dragging his side, slowly, desperately trying to find Sirius Black. He'd ascertained that the majority of the blood on him was not his own. He had a gash on his shoulder, and one across his thigh, but they were oozing slowly, not pumping the way a wound would need to in order to produce the amount of blood he had on his hands and drenching his clothes. Somewhere, Sirius was injured, and badly.

"SIRIUS!" Remus paused, hearing something moving through the trees. "Sirius?" His voice was a bit quieter than it had been on previous shouts, and he looked in the direction of the sound. He could smell it, and it turned his stomach.

Through the trees stepped a man - a narrow man with a mischievous grin playing on his face, with long black hair that hung in dreadlocks about his face, like thick ropes of matted hair. His eyes flashed with amusement as he chuckled, his narrow-ankles encased in harshly laced boots and black and white striped trousers that seemed more like a fashion choice of one of the punk rock bands that Sirius would have listened to than for a man taking a walk in the woods. His billowing black button-up shirt was an easy three to four sizes larger than he really needed to wear for his stature.

"Good morning," the man said as though he meant it, and he stepped over a log at the edge of the clearing.

Remus stared up at him, and as the sunlight came upon him, Remus was horrified to see that what he'd mistaken as a five o'clock shadow was actually dried blood on the man's chin. 

The man walked right over to Remus, kneeling down before him, and grabbed his chin, pulling down his lower lip with his thumb, as though to inspect Remus's teeth. "Not as impressive this morning, are they?" he chuckled. "Oh but last night, those were magnificent teeth that you had there. Ripping and tearing..."

Remus saw as the man leaned down that he had a good deal of sharp teeth hanging from a string about his neck, like pendants. They were all different sizes and shapes - some yellowed, some pure white, some sharp, some dulled. But they were all canine in nature. They clicked against one another, the strand peeking out from the opened top few buttons of the man's shirt.

"Who are you?" Remus asked around the man's thumb.

The man smiled, though he didn't let up on his grip of Remus's mouth.

When he didn't answer, Remus asked, "Are you with Greyback then?"

"Greyback," the man spat the name as though it tasted disgusting, "No, I ain't with Greyback."

"Neither am I," Remus said quickly.

"Good for you."

The man dropped Remus's chin and stood up. He studied Remus for a long moment, and reached up, wiping some of the blood off his chin and studying his palm a moment. He laughed, and said, "Well. You'll be pardoning my appearance... Looks like I had a good dinner last night, doesn't it?"

Remus felt sick.

"Then again, by the look of it, so didn't you."

Remus looked at the blood he was covered in.

The man paused, and looked over his shoulder. "Bye," he whispered, and with a CRACK he was gone.

No sooner had the man disappeared than the Stag leaped over the very log from which the man had come, jerking to a stop before he stepped on Remus. "James!" Remus burst out, "James! Lily!"

She slid off of the stag's back and ran over to him, her face paling even further as she saw the blood he was covered in, throwing herself to the ground beside him. "Oh my gods, you're hurt," she choked the words, "What can I do?"

"My hip," Remus said, "I think it's disconnected."

"Where's Sirius?" James asked, striding over.

"Dunno," Remus said, "I can't find him, I've been trying but..." he nodded at the hip.

James looked at Lily, "Take care of Remus. I'll find Sirius." And he ran into the trees.

Lily looked at Remus, "What happened?" she asked, drawing her wand.

"I don't know," Remus admitted. "Last I remember, we were by this lake... I was okay, I was me, or as me as I can be as a wolf, and we were playing around in the water, swimming - Sirius's idea - and we were having a good time of it. And then Sirius thought he heard something and next thing I know, I'm waking up here, covered in blood - most of it's not mine - and - and Sirius is gone."

Lily was using her wand to clean away the blood to see the actual damages done, and she found the gashes on him and she tore off her knee socks to use as bandages around his shoulder and thigh, tying them tight over the wound to stop the bleeding. When she moved his leg to get the sock beneath him, he winced and cried out in pain. "I'm sorry," she said, "Oh gods, I'm sorry." She touched his hip gently with her fingertips, and he whimpered as she did it, his nostrils flaring with the pain. "It does feel disconnected," she said. She hesitated, "I - there's a spell, but - it might hurt."

"It already hurts."

"Do you want me to try it?"

Remus nodded.

"Esurier," she cast and with a loud cracking pop and a shout from Remus, the ball of his hip bone inserted itself into the pelvis. He rolled over and promptly threw up from the pain and Lily, looking quite terrified said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh gods."

"It's okay," Remus coughed, wiping his mouth, "It's okay, it feels like it's maybe fixed. I - it hurt like the dickens but I think it's fixed, though." Lily still looked worried, even as Remus sat up and moved it carefully, tentatively, not wanting to be blinded by the pain again. He looked up at her, "I really do think you've fixed it. Let's go help find Sirius."

Lily stopped him from getting up, "Stop that, you're still hurt, just because I've relocated it doesn't mean you should be walking on it."

"I'm not going to sit here and not look for Sirius, Lil," he said.

"James is looking for him."

"But --"

"James isn't going to fail Sirius, Remus," Lily said sternly. "You cannot be running about the woods on that hip, you'll make it worse."

He sighed, his mind rattling through all of the things that could've happened, that could be happening. Then -- "Lily, when you and James were coming out here, did you see a man?"

"A man?"

Remus quickly described his encounter with the man with the striped trousers and the dread-locked hair and Lily looked very concerned indeed. "James acted like he heard something," Lily answered when Remus had finished, "But I don't know what. That's how we found you. I thought he might've heard you, but -- we'll have to ask him when he's back."

"He wasn't with Greyback he said," Remus recapped. "He seemed to hate Greyback. He got really short with me when I asked if he was with him."

"Everyone hates Greyback," Lily replied. "I suspect even Greyback hates Greyback."

Remus said, "No this was more intense than that. This was... like a rivalry thing or something. I dunno, really, just yet, but I don't reckon that he was at all innocent in last night. I think he may have been what Sirius heard when we were swimming. But -- Oh I don't know for sure."

Lily said, "We'll figure it out, alright? Sirius will remember, he'll tell us everything."

Remus's eyes flashed with fear, "If he can."

"Stop that," Lily snapped, "Stop that right now. Don't even suggest such a thing, alright? He's okay. We just - we have to find him is all. He's okay." Her voice shook though.

Near to an hour after having arrived, James returned to the clearing, alone.

Lily and Remus stared up at him expectantly.

"I've looked everywhere, miles around," James added, "He's not here. There's a fair bit of blood on a trail a few meters from here but then it stops." Lily looked at Remus, whose face crumbled. "I'm guessing he disapparated," James said. "The question is where he would go."

"Home," Lily said quickly. "He must've gone to your house."

"He wasn't there when I left," James said.

"Perhaps after you left."

"Mum and Dad would've come for me," James answered. "Or sent an owl or something by now."

"Hogwarts," Remus suggested, "To get Dumbledore, or help from Madam Pomfrey."

"Can't apparate IN Hogwarts, can we?" James said, "Also, he might've splinched, that's a long way to go injured."

"Mungo's," Remus said.

They all looked at one another, "But what would he tell them happened?" James asked. "He can't very well tell them it was a werewolf."

Remus shivered.

Peter Pettigrew was laying on his bed, not asleep, but not wanting to get up either, staring at the wall, hugging his knees. He was lonely, but didn't dare to try and speak to his friends, either. All he could do was sit and think about that watch on James's wrist. The thought of it was burning through every nerve in his body and when he closed his eyes, he saw it like a little video on his eyelids, and the second hands tick-tocked in unison with his heartbeat that he felt it like a thunder.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

He rubbed the raw red lashes that still seemed to shine on his wrist from when Voldemort had charged him to the task of taking the watch.

What happens if you break an unbreakable vow? he has once asked Sirius.

You die, Sirius had answered.

You die. You die. You die. You die. The words echoed in Peter's mind and he curled tighter in a knot on the bed, afraid, and sick to his stomach.

"Peter."

He shivered.

"Peter."

He closed his eyes.

"Wormtail."

The voice wasn't in his head, he realized, and he sat up and leaned over, reaching for the drawer in his nightstand, pulling it opened and there was the broken bit of mirror that Remus had given him... and framed in the glass, pale as a ghost, was the face of Sirius Black.