The Tomb Of Our Forlorn Love

Ellary backed up into the corner of the room in fear as Remus stalked closer and closer toward her looking extremely irritated. She stepped protectively in front of Peter, in rat form, who was whimpering. ‘No Remus… no Remus, don’t do this,’ she thought to herself, hoping that by some sort of miracle he could hear and understand her, but she knew that was foolish. ‘Alright, what do I do?’ she thought, her dark cat eyes glancing back and forth across the room, looking for anything that could help. But she knew she had only one hope of calming Remus down.

Slowly and bravely she walked toward the growling werewolf, while her heart pounded a mile a minute. Peter’s squeaking grew louder as she left his side, but she ignored his cries. A small, friendly meow left her mouth as she approached him cautiously. Usually Remus calmed down in the presence of other animals, but tonight was a completely different story. As soon as the meow came out he lunged at her with astonishing speed. With the amazing reflexes of a cat, Ellary managed to bound away just in time onto a nearby coffee table. Remus had lunged so hard that momentum caused him to smack into the wall in front of him.

“Aaahwoooh…” the loud, howling sound echoed terrifyingly off the walls of the Shrieking Shack, making Ellary’s heart nearly stop in her chest.

His yellow eyes focused on her as he bared his long, razor-sharp fangs at her letting her clearly know what was on his mind. Frantically Ellary looked toward Peter for help, but he had disappeared; she prayed he had gone to get help…

Peter sprinted down the Hogwarts hallway once more in his human form. His heart was beating so fast that he could hear the rapid thumping sound radiating from his chest. He breathed heavily as his cheeks burned crimson red with physical exertion and he suddenly found himself wishing that he had been practicing Quidditch during the past years rather than seeing how many chocolate frogs he could eat in one sitting. “Sirius! James!” he burst through the door of Professor McGonagall’s office. James leapt up from his chair at the sight, Sirius let out a bark-like yelp, and Professor McGonagall nearly collapsed in surprise.

“Mr. Pettigrew! What is the meaning of this!” she scolded, grabbing on to her desk for support.

“I- I need James and Sirius, it’s very important Professor!” Peter responded on the verge of hysterics.

“I am sorry Mr. Pettigrew, but they are serving detention at the moment-” but she was cut off before she could finish.

“Actually Professor, we’re supposed to get out now,” Sirius pointed to the clock on the wall that showed it was ten o’clock.

Professor McGonagall sighed a little in exasperation, “Well when you’re right you’re right Mr. Black. Go on then, but please try to refrain from bursting into my office again Mr. Pettigrew,” but at this point none of the boys were listening to their teach anymore. James and Sirius bolted out the room with Peter at their side, both of them new something had gone wrong.

“Is Ellary okay?” it was the first question that came from Sirius’ lips as the three stopped at the end of the hallway.

“No!” Peter panted, clutching a stitch in his side. “Remus- Remus got really angry and he- he- he went-”

“SPIT IT OUT PETE!” James exclaimed impatiently.

“He attacked her!” Peter blurted, before collapsing down on the floor.

“Bloody hell,” James and Sirius said in unison, without a second more of hesitation they both left Peter and ran toward the door at the end of the hallway en route to the Shrieking Shack.

‘Don’t panic, Ellary… just don’t panic,’ she thought, trying to figure out anyway to get out of the Shack alive, but as Remus drew closer to her the whole not-panicking plan disintegrated. With another ferocious growl he bounded at her once again. She sprung from the table to the top of the dusty, old piano by one of the window. Remus crashed roughly into the table and once more hit one of the walls hard, which only succeeded in making him angrier. With fire in his yellow eyes he bared his fangs and sprinted forward straight at her. In a split second decision Ellary eyed the filthy, somewhat cracked window beside of her and decided crashing through glass would hurt a hell of a lot less than be mauled by a werewolf. Just as the werewolf sprung at her for the third time that evening, she desperately threw herself into the dusty glass.

She felt one of Remus’ long claws graze her side, but the pain she felt due to that was nothing compared to the feeling of breaking through the window. Small shards of glass pierced her delicate feline body, sending burst of white-hot pain searing throughout her entire body. With a painful landing, she found herself on the hard ground outside the Shack. Her body was convulsing violently as she mustered up all the strength she had left to transform herself back into her human form.

Sirius crashed through the door of the Shrieking Shack in his dog form. He heard the sound of glass shattering on the other side of the room and immediately found himself galloping in that direction. Remus was hunched on top of the old piano looking out a broken window. Drool was falling from his mouth and his fangs were still bared viciously, but where was Ellary? Had she jumped out the window? Would she do something that crazy? Just as Remus began to move toward the window, Sirius let out a warning bark making the werewolf snap around to see who was there. ‘Oh shit,’ Sirius thought, when he saw the anger in the monster’s eyes.

James entered the room as well and noticed the destroyed window on the far wall immediately putting together what happened. He watched as Remus flung himself on top of Sirius, who responded by pushing him roughly off with his strong hind legs. Though his heart was torn, James prayed that Sirius would be able to handle himself alone. He broke through the door and out into the backyard of the Shack where he immediately spotted Ellary trembling on the ground. He transformed back into his human form and leaned over his best friend. Little pieces of glass were sticking out from all over her body, blood was trickling down her forehead, and her arm seemed to be sticking out at an odd angle. These weren’t the worst of her injuries, however. The thing that caught James’ eye first was the long, thin gash running down the right side of her waist. Blood was pouring rapidly from the cut, much too quickly than normal. ‘She is loosing way too much blood,’ he thought in fear. Ellary let a low, dull moan escape her lips that was riddled with pain and misery.

“Shh Ella, you’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay,” he whispered, picking her up in his arms.

“James? Where’s Sirius? Remus, what about Remus?” Ellary murmured, her eyes starting to droop.

“Just relax, Ella… just go to sleep,” he responded, resting her head against his chest and dashing back toward the school.

“I am feeling fine Madame Pomfrey! Please just let me go!” Ellary begged, giving her the best puppy dog eyes she could manage, but the nurse would not budge no matter how hard she tried.

“Look how cut up you are! It looks like you jumped through a bloody window or something,” Ellary let out a little laugh at this comment, “I don’t know what in Merlin’s name you did to get like this Miss Snape nor do I want to know, but the fact of the matter is that you and your friends will be spending the rest of the day in my care. You should really learn to be more careful, my dear, this is your second time in that bed in twenty-four hours,” she added curtly.
Ellary sighed and gave in, collapsing down onto the comfortable pillow behind her.

“Don’t try to fight her Ella, you’re going to lose,” James informed her, with a small grin on his face. He was the only one of the Marauders, other than Peter who was asleep in his dormitory, not in a bed.

Sirius was pretty bruised up, but had managed to subdue Remus before receiving any truly serious wounds. Remus was in the bed on the other side of her looking considerably better than he had the night before. Beside a few pretty bad scratches on his arms and face, some of the color had actually been restored to his face with the passing of the full moon.

“I do know how you got this little cut here though,” Madame Pomfrey whispered in her ear, pointing the gash down her side that had been wrapped with about ten pounds of bandages, but had yet to stop bleeding completely.

Ellary’s eyes widened and she could hear her heart beating in her chest because that was the cut Remus had given her. Could she know about Remus? Then suddenly it struck her… of course she knew about Remus. How could she not? He always spent the day after his transformations in the hospital wing, Dumbledore must have told her.

“It was my fault Madame! I got in the way and it- it wasn’t his fault,” Ellary protested immediately.

“Relax, Miss Snape, I know,” she silenced her. “I just wanted to let you know is that you’ll have that scar forever, I’m afraid. Scars caused by the claws of werewolves will never fully heal, it may still cause you pain every now and then,” she said sadly.

Ellary bit her lip and James’ head dropped at the announcement; they both knew that Remus was going to take this news even worse than Ellary.