Chapter 29: "There's a bad moon on the rise."

The motley crue of Shrieking Shack attendees hobbled down the tunnel leading back to Hogwarts. Sirius was helping to shoulder Ron's weight. And Harry was helping Circe, despite her protestations. She suspected her ankle was broken or fractured from the Willow's root that slammed into her, but Ron's leg wound was looking worse from Sirius's teeth. It seemed a bit redundant to be complaining about her noticeably less bloody injury, but Harry had slipped himself under her arm and shouldered a portion of her weight. She hadn't wanted to leave Snape in the Shrieking Shack, but Remus had told her that they'd leave him his wand, his head propped up with Remus's jacket, and he'd wake up soon, as if from a restful slumber.

"He needs a good rest, Circe. He's been almost psychotic these past few days. No lessons, no meals, no breaks, nothing. He's only been existing to look for you. Bad times all around, you know?" he mumbled to her as he pulled Peter Pettigrew behind him.

The light from outside touched her shoes as she looked to the floor awkwardly.

"And don't think I'm going to let your little disappearing act drop." Remus added with a stern face.

"It's complicated." she muttered as Harry pulled her out of the tunnel and into the open air.

"I realise that, but complicated things need to be discussed, not avoided. I suppose that's my lesson from this year..."

Peter grabbed at the hem of Circe's coat and wailed up at her. "My dear, PLEEEEEASSE! Don't let them take me to the Dementors, you wouldn't want that, would you?! I know you're sweet and kind. All that music and joy in your little gatherings..!"

She looked down into his face with disgust. Round and buck-teethed as he was, he looked every bit as ratty as his animagus. She felt an uncomfortable shiver pass up her spine as she recalled all the times she'd seen him in Ron's arms, or tucked away safely in his pocket. His beady little black eyes had been watching her from day one, waiting for an opportunity to garner something for himself before he went scurrying off to the Dark Lord. His fingernails were long and repulsive as they clung to her coat. She yanked it out of his hands and regarded him coldly.

"I may not have known James and Lily..." she spat at him. "But I do know that you robbed a young boy of growing up with his parents, without his mother, and I do know what that's like..."

Pettigrew snarled at her, deciding he wasn't going to get anything useful from her. He turned his attentions elsewhere, desperately looking for an ally.

Circe caught the sly glance that Lupin cast towards Sirius's back. She smirked at her friend and he rolled his eyes. The night air was crisp and cool, and as Sirius lay Ron safely on the ground, he walked over to a knot in the bark of the Whomping Willow and placed a hand over it, caressing it gently. Instantly, the agitated tree relaxed and was perfectly still and quiet. He moved, like a man in a dream, over to the crest of the hill and silently looked over the twinkling, glowing lights of Hogwarts in the distance. Harry similarly deposited Circe by a nearby rock and moved to join his Godfather's side.

"It's like seeing the ghost of James." Remus whispered to her as he watched the two of them stood side by side.

He held Pettigrew firmly under the tip of his pointed wand. The short, shabby man snivelled on the ground, crying out incessantly for mercy to the stone-faced children nearby. Circe would have kicked him if she could.

"They really were like brothers, you know…" Remus said wistfully, his eyes clouding over with tears. "Never one without the other. I think they understood each other in a way Sirius and I never did. Both from families in the Sacred Twenty-Eight, pure bloods, expectations, all that...But they both were as free as the night. They both had a knowing, an entitlement almost, that the world was theirs to mould and bend. I always just knew that there was a bond between them that I could never share in. I was content with it. That's why I told James to make Peter Secret-Keeper as well as Sirius. Peter needed that reassurance, I didn't. Despite being from much the same stock as them, he wasn't their confidant like I was. Were we really so awful to him that he'd fly to the Dark Lord's empty promises overnight? All those years of friendship abandoned, and lives snatched away? They could have been so much more if… if James hadn't died and Sirius…"

"If I was that boy…" Circe chipped in when her friend's voice faltered, pointing at Harry. "...I don't think I would have shown Pettigrew the kindness that he did."

"No?"

"I'm selfish, Remus. I would have wanted my personal revenge, even if it made you and Sirius murderers."

"Circe, you aren't selfish."

"Oh I am. I still haven't told you about how and why I disappeared." She said, touching a hand to the timeturner still in her coat pocket.

"All in good time, my friend. I just don't think I could deal with any more revelations tonight."

"I understand that." Circe replied with another bitter glance down at Pettigrew.

"After you disappeared, I prayed that I'd be able to catch your scent on the wind. But there was nothing. Not even a trace. I didn't want that awkward argument in the Broomsticks to have been our last memory. But as soon as you walked into the Shrieking Shack, I smelt you. Peonies and all."

Circe laughed as she looked into her friend's face.

He winked playfully at her and wrinkled his nose. "And something else...Can you smell bacon?"

She delved her hands into her coat pocket and her fingers brushed against the bacon buttie she still had wrapped up in foil. She drew it out and sighed heavily.

"Is that…" Remus breathed. "How the hell have you still got that?"

"How the hell can you smell it?" Circe asked.

"It's so strong. God, it's almost…"

But Remus halted in his musings as a sickly feeling of horror crept over him. The thick clouds in the sky parted to reveal the milky white moon shining down brilliantly on the highland hills. Circe gasped.

"Oh God, it's full moon…"

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, that's trouble on the way for all of you…" Pettigrew said with a sick smile.

Something passed over Remus's eyes. A darkness. A blackness. A violence. And he began to shake and convulse. Circe backed away from him instinctively. Every inch of her telling her to run as fast as she could and hide in terror from that look in Remus's eyes.

"Remus? Remus, the wolfsbane…" she muttered meekly. "Tell me Severus still made you the wolfsbane when I was gone…"

Lupin could not reply to her. Instead he turned his throat skyward and screamed into the night. A sound of rage and ruin. She heard the cracking of bones and the tearing of limbs. It made her eyes water. Sirius bounded over to him and took him into a firm hold, speaking to him softly and assuring him everything would be alright.

He is braver than I. Circe thought as she watched Black physically keeping Remus from collapsing in gut-wrenching pain.

But scream he did, long and hard. So hard it warped his voice and his throat muscles tore until there was no sound at all. His face elongated, his limbs cracked and broke, hair sprouted out of everywhere Circe could see. It wasn't like the transformation she had seen with Sirius and Peter, flowing and clean. This was painful to watch, let alone to live through...

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Peter reach for the wand that Remus had dropped.

Harry was quicker to act than she was, casting "Expelliarmus!" at him before she'd even registered what had happened.

"Don't you dare!" she shouted at Pettigrew as she reached for her own wand.

Too late. Peter had transformed into a rat once more, scurrying off as fast as his little legs could carry him in the midst of the chaos.

"No!" she screamed. Circe pointed her wand in the general direction of where she thought Peter had gone in. "Immobulus!" she screamed desperately.

A thornbush rattled and she heard a rodenty squeak.

"IMMOBULUS!" she shouted again, pointing haphazardly at the bushes.

The leaves rattled again, deeper into the thorn thicket.

"IMMOBULUS!"

Circe thought she sensed her spell strike something and a pained cry sounded out from somewhere in the dark mass of bushes. She squinted her eyes. Was that Peter? She tried to run after him, but pain shot up her right ankle and she collapsed to the ground.

When she looked up, Remus was gone. Replaced by a monster with snapping jaws and yellow eyes. She locked gazes with the beast, feeling the ice-cold grip of fear seizing her. Sirius had transformed whilst she'd been distracted with Pettigrew's escape. He too was trying to avert the attention of the terrifying monstrosity by snapping at its ankles. The werewolf fought back, grabbing the Irish wolfhound up bodily and throwing him with all its monstrous strength out over the thorn bushes. There was now nothing between the beast and her.

Until she heard footsteps at her back and a voice in fury screaming out.

"Potter! You little shit…!".

Even in it's growl of anger, she knew that voice of chocolate and thunder...

"Severus!" she called out desperately.

He had woken up much sooner than she'd anticipated. Perhaps her heart had not been one hundred percent behind her sleeping spell. Especially how awful she'd felt performing a similar charm on Hagrid. The monster howled and she looked to her back to see Severus grabbing onto Harry's shirt in a tight fist of anger. He instantly relinquished his grasp on Potter as he looked to Circe on the floor. She saw the twinge of surprise in his eyes again as he realised that he had not, in fact, dreamt of her return. But his attention was immediately drawn by the werewolf where Remus had once been and Circe watched as the surprise in his eyes was replaced by palpable fear. He wheeled around and spread his arms protectively over Harry, Ron and Hermione. It was so futile, but so movingly defensive. Despite all of his cold, austere bravado, all he thought of in that moment was to protect the children.

"Severus, take the kids and run!" She shouted to him.

Circe rose to her feet as the monster leered up on its haunches, the great toothed mouth of the beast drooling. Circe could smell the putrid scent of its breath. It's hunger for meat and blood. Perhaps there was still something of Remus in the beast, because it's attentions had now changed from Circe to Severus, and there was a hatred there, a look that screamed violence and attack. It moved towards him with a guttural snarl, a taloned hand raised.

"No!" Circe screamed.

She moved forwards, barely registering the pain in her ankle. She put herself bodily between the monster and Severus. She sucked in her breath. Spread her arms wide like Severus had done. The moon stared down in silence.

Nothing prepared her for the pain that ran through her as the monster raked three great gashes down her chest, from neck to groin. Plunging it's jaws into her shoulder with a sickening chomp.

She didn't remember screaming. In too much shock. But she remembered the blood. Her blood. Seeping into the grass beneath her as she watched a great Irish wolfhound fight off the werewolf as she slipped into blackness. In her daze, she remembered something Remus had said about "Professor Smith pulp under the Whomping Willow" and she would have laughed with the irony of it had she not been winded and breathless with shock. Her eyesight faded as her ichor stained the ground.

Then all she could hear was Severus's voice, screaming her name.

And then, nothing.

-----

Severus had been told to stay away from the Hospital wing. But there was no hell or high water that could have kept him from Circe's side. Sheer exhaustion, relief and the lingering effects of the sleeping spell had sent him into a restless slumber when he'd returned to his rooms. He'd started awake after a fretful but long overdue couple of hours of sleep in his armchair as soon as morning came. He hadn't even undressed, still fully clothed from the night before. But his dreams had been full of raking claws and screams in the night and opalescent moons in the sky. He strode down the Hogwarts corridors, a fierce look in his eye as his great black cape billowed behind him.

She was alive. She was here. She had been attacked…

In the early morning light he looked even greyer and pallid than usual. The face he'd seen in the mirror the last week or so wasn't his. It was a specter. A roaming ghost from a folk-tale who was compelled on after death looking for somebody lost to them. Now, he felt alive once more. Dragged from the grave by Circe's miraculous reappearance. Despite his rather uncomely, bedraggled appearance, he had never felt more ecstatic. Yet, it was a hollow sensation. One that had been short-lived given the transposition of last night's events.

The frantic chattering and subdued, frightened looks when Circe had been brought up to the castle would have been enough for Severus to know something was wrong. Had he not seen the awful sight for himself, of course. He remembered with sickening detail the slash of claws and the glint of teeth as the monster had attacked Circe. Bitten Circe. On a full moon. He did not need to hear Pomona's whispered prognosis to Dumbledore. The bitter weeping of Minerva at her bedside as she helped to undress and bandage her. Her meek cries of pain as Severus had applied his mostly useless lotions and potions to her wounds. The grim daylight had brought with it the grim reality of her situation: she was infected.

Severus stole inside the doors of the Hospital wing. There was a designated Staff section that was set aside exclusively for Professors and he made a beeline for Circe's bed. As he entered he looked about the room for Pomona, keen to avoid her in case he should be forcibly turned away by her. Instead he saw Potter, Weasley and Granger in their own beds, still recovering from the long night beneath the Whomping Willow. Potter was still asleep. Granger was up and talking to Ron at the end of his bed, the boy's leg in a heavy brace. Severus had heard of the Dementor attack that had ensued after Sirius's fight with Lupin. How the boy had managed to fend off every demonic, happiness-sucker on site was beyond him. But nevertheless, once Ministry officials had begun descending on the site, they had found Black and Harry together in the Forbidden Forest. He thought of Sirius, somewhere in the castle, waiting for his speedy departure back to Azkaban to await the kiss of the Dementors. A thought that may have warmed him long ago, but somehow now just didn't sit right with him. Still, Sirius was not his priority. Right now, all who he was concerned for was Circe.

She was awake now. He could hear her sputtering breaths and groans of pain from behind the curtain before he saw her. He paused for a moment, listening to the sound of her fidgeting uncomfortably in her bed. He grimaced as his own heart ached empathetically for her. It ate away at him to hear her in so much pain and there was nought he could do for her, until she eventually transformed.

"Severus, come in... " she said suddenly.

He jolted in alarm and coloured red in embarrassment.

"I can hear your heartbeat. No, wait… I can smell you!" She laughed, and Severus felt the pain that wrapped itself around the light-hearted sound as it descended into a cry.

He pulled back the curtain slowly and stepped inside.

As Circe looked up at him, she mumbled "Cinnamon. Gosh, Remus was right. Cinnamon in the air…."

She looked rather ill. That was quite the understatement. In reality, Severus knew she was dying. Or at least the human part of her was dying and being consumed by the werewolf venom seeping into her veins from the three large lesions on her chest and the puckered, sore bite marks at her shoulder. She was drenched in sweat, unable to lie still as every cell in her body screamed in pain. Her eyes were wild and afraid and he saw the desperation in them as she looked to him.

"You're changing." He answered grimly.

"Heh." She laughed dryly. "I'm so glad I have you around to tell me these things."

He sat by her side, glad that he could hide himself from the eyes of Potter's lot in the student's wing. Placing the back of his hand against her forehead, he felt her skin burning hot. He let his hand linger on her forehead for longer than he intended to. She noticed, and he pulled away sharply.

"How many hours till sun-down?" She asked, her blasé bravado momentarily slipping.

Severus looked into her eyes and saw a brief flash of panic there.

"It's six o clock…" Severus replied rather vaguely.

"Still morning then."

He thought of asking her how she was. Or perhaps where the hell she had been for the past four days. He thought of telling her how her loss had made him like a mist. The shell of a man. Fraught with sorrow and joylessness, in a waking world but just drifting through it like a poisonous miasma. He had screamed and raged and sobbed every last tear out of his body, pacing his room endlessly when Minerva forced him to rest. But he would know no rest until she was found. His bedchamber floor was coated with shattered glass now, every mirror smashed to pieces as he called out her name into the night. He cursed the feckless, cruel God that had done this to him again. Torn him from the woman he loved without being able to fight tooth and nail to let it not be so. He would have given his life, his very soul to have had her back and safe or to have at least tried to spare her from harm. And then there she was, doing the exact same thing for him by stepping in front of the werewolf.

"Why did you do that?" he asked desperately, finally breaking formality. "Why did you step in between me and the monster?"

"Because there was a werewolf-"

"And don't say "Because there was a werewolf about to attack you". You know what I mean."

They locked eyes.

Circe wanted to scream at him You know why, you dolt.

"I...I…" she faltered before a rip of pain ran through her whole body.

She clutched at the wounds on her chest and screamed. Her groans changed alarmingly into an animalistic growl and Severus jumped up from her bedside in alarm. It subsided eventually, and Circe was left panting and frightened as she stared at Severus. The last remnants of her brave-face faltered and her eyes filled with tears.

"I'm so scared, Severus…"

He sat back down instantly, his hand was on hers before he even consciously registered it.

If it had been at any other time, Circe would have revelled in the contact of skin on skin between them. Now, it was a hollow comfort.

"It'll be alright" he said softly, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.

It shocked her just how gentle he was being. Severus had never acted like this before. At least, not around her.

God, I must be dying.

"No it won't. We both know a lot of adult turnees don't survive the first transformation."

"But you're strong." his eyes were on fire. His second hand grabbed hers desperately. "And brave. You're so.. So brave Circe. And I wish with every bit of me that I could take this curse away from you like you took it away from me."

Her eyes sparked as a thought passed through her mind. "You mean, if you could go back…?"

"Yes, if I could go back I'd never of allowed you to take the hit from Remus"

"Severus, listen to me." she sat up in her bed and looked into his face. His hair hung like a dark curtain of misery around his face, but he looked up, intrigued by her sudden change of mood. He was suddenly very aware that her face was close to his, and he was touching her hand. "Is my tartan coat in that cupboard?"

She motioned towards the long, thin hospital unit next to her bed.

Severus said nothing. He raised an eyebrow and wordlessly moved to open the door of the unit.

"It is." he said quizzically.

"There's a hidden pocket on the left hand side..." she trailed off, hoping Severus had the right idea.

He took the jacket off the hanger and passed an exploratory hand along the interior lining. He got a strong whiff of her perfume as the fabric wafted towards him. That telltale peony faintly floating on the air. Severus lifted the wrapped bacon buttie out of her coat pocket. Wrapped around it was the page she had torn from Hagrid's book of Scottish Folk-Tales. Circe took the page from his hands and looked down at it cautiously.

"Brigadoon…" she said with a far off look.

Severus set the bacon buttie aside with a raised eyebrow. Circe gestured for him to look again and he delved his hand in the pocket once more. His fingers brushed over something hard and his eyes widened.

"Take it out." Circe said.

Coiled around his fingers, Severus lifted from out of the hidden pocket her timeturner.

"Where the bloody hell did you get this?" he breathed.

"You remember when those Ministry goons were dredging the lake for something a few days back?"

He nodded.

"Well, Granger was very sure that she'd lost hers to the mermaids and after I...well… stole it, you told me that Minerva had bullied the Minister into giving her another one."

"You what!?"

"I took it from her. I… I don't know why. I just wanted it, I guess. I was curious about how it worked…"

"And do you even know how to work it?"

She shook her head solemnly, looking down at her hands, deeply embarrassed. "That was for you…" she said meekly, pointing at the buttie.

Severus paused and gazed at her as understanding hit him like a slowly encroaching migraine. He looked at the bacon buttie as if it were a bomb.

"Remus said that's the last time he saw you… Rosmerta had made you a sandwich to take back... After you two left the Three Broomsticks-"

"He left to find Black before I could follow, and I thought if I used the timeturner I could… Well, I went the wrong way..." She said slowly, looking up at him.

"That's… that's where you've been?!" Severus shouted at her.

She flinched and she felt the wolf in her bristling at the assault, wanting to attack him. She screamed out again as her cry became a feral howl. Severus shrunk back from her as she gripped on to the gurney, waiting for it to pass. She realised, with growing alarm, that there would come a time soon when it wouldn't pass and she would have to let the animal take over.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" she wailed through bitter sobs. "I was just fiddling with it and the next thing I knew I'd seen four sunsets go by... I saw you all, looking for me and running around that alley and it broke my heart that I'd caused you all so much pain and worry! I'm so sorry, Severus..."

She descended into sobs and his anger at her diminished somewhat. Severus couldn't believe his ears, but it all made sense. How she'd disappeared off the face of the earth without a trace. No clue as to where she'd gone. Because she'd not gone anywhere really...

"Do you realise if you'd ever have been caught with an unregistered timeturner, you'd have been sent straight to Azkaban?" he hissed. "You might still be sent to Azkaban when all of this is said and done!"

"Well I rather think, far from being an object of doom, it's finally come in quite handy for me…"

Severus looked at Circe, and then back to the turner. He understood.

"Really? After all the mess you've created from your last foray with time travel, you want to use this thing again?"

"Severus, I may never see a bloody Azkaban prison cell if I do nothing... " she panted.

"You can't go back yourself," he said decisively. "Look at you, you can barely stand."

"Cheers, buddy." she replied curtly. "Guess I'll just lay down and wait to die then."

"No, that's not what I meant." he paused and sharply intook his breath, knowing deep within the decision he had already made. "I'll go back."

"What? No, Severus…"

"You must. You must let me…" and there he was, grasping at her hands again. "When you were gone… When I thought I'd lost you...like I lost Lily. I couldn't bear it. You've already saved me from this fate. Now let me save you."

She paused, trying to argue but sighed heavily, giving up the fight. "Please be careful…" she settled on. "If you run into trouble… Or if it's a situation where you have to put yourself back in harm's way then just leave me, Severus. Let fate play out"

Never. He thought. I'll make sure you are safe. Even if it costs me my life…

"Take this." Circe said, shoving the page from the book in Severus's hands. "I thought it might have been me who did it, and I'd somehow gone back again but… well… I guess I was wrong."

Severus slipped it into his pocket with a confused look, but did not argue with her. "Will...will you come back here and tell me what happened?" she asked after his no-reply.

"I won't need to." he said "If I'm successful, you'd never have ended up in the hospital wing anyway. And if I'm not…"

"I'll change." she finished. The dread began to descend over her again and Severus squeezed her hand in reassurance. "So...so does that mean…?" she began, her mind doing mental gymnastics.

"If I do save you from the werewolf's bite, you'll remember none of this, as it would never have happened."

"But you will."

"But I will." he echoed dreamily.

He leaned forward suddenly, and kissed her.

His heart fluttered as he sensed her stiff surprise. But almost just as surprising, he found she did not pull away. The kiss was everything he had been wanting, craving from her ever since she waltzed into the Great Hall. Yet it was quick, clumsy, opportunistic. Something he would never have done normally, giving him a bittersweet satisfaction. It was a stolen kiss. Yet he reveled in his thievery like the thief who stole the Crown Jewels from The Tower of London.

Her hand reached upwards, possibly to smack him, Severus thought. But instead she slowly cupped his face and began pulling him deeper into their kiss.

It was all too much. He expected either for her to forget this or he would die without having to suffer through the fallout of this moment. The fact that she too wanted it almost sent his world spinning. He stood up brusquely, placing the time turner about his neck.

"Severus, don't you dare…" she breathed.

"Goodbye…" he muttered.

"Severus don't you dare go now!" She shouted, trying to rise out of her bed and catch him.

But it was too late. Snape turned the time turner three times and was sent spinning into the past, watching everything reverse around him at dizzying speed. Maddeningly, the first thing he watched, before the reversal of time marched backwards, was his and Circe's lips meet again in that brief moment that had happened seconds ago.

How strange it was watching yourself snog.

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Notes:

AN: Ladies and gentlemen... we finally have a kiss.