Hem of Your Garment

Author's Note: I am writing this as a birthday present for the insanely talented cathartic. You are the Remus to my Sirius, and I hope you had a wonderful birthday! Mmwuah!

This work is titled after the song by Cake.

- Chapter One -

Fingers drummed one after the other, methodically, the not quite chasing thuds seemingly not reaching the ears of the surrounding students, their attention focused wholly instead on not attracting the hopefully expectant but falling gaze at the front.

"No one? No one knows?"

Fingers stopped for a moment, hesitating in their proclivities as one, before starting up again.

"No one?"

A cringing silence regretfully filled the sixth-year Potions class in reply. Students of both red and green diverting their gazes down to their texts, some even flipping the pages in an effort to appear searching for the answer that was not to be found - all to avoid the disappointed stare of the potions master.

A begrudging sigh escaped barely parted lips, fingers stopping with a finality to rest heavily, splayed on the cool wooden surface. "I do, Professor." The spoken words enunciated and in a silky, smooth tone.

"Oh?" Horace Slughorn turned to his right, wide-eyed, his expression muddying for a long second before brightening, and an all-too-familiar smile made itself known on thin lips. "Tom, when did you get here, I didn't see you enter?"

Tom cleared his throat. "The answer is there isn't. Not yet at any rate. There are a few potions masters in Switzerland who have claimed to be able to ease the suffering of one infected with lycanthropy, but to able to prevent them completely from being overtaken by-" he paused, tilting his head, his sharp gaze seeming to cut through the professor. "The madness," he hedged. "It's not been done."

"Very good, Tom," the professor said exuberantly, a chuckle escaping as he shook his head. "I'm not sure how you know about the Switzerland research though, its work has been highly guarded."

A smile curled up the corners of the sixth-year Slytherin's lips. "I follow all potions work closely, Professor. I find it quite fascinating."

The professor nodded agreeably. "That it is. That it is," he said as he walked over to his desk, looking down in a distracted state to shuffle through a sizable pile of paperwork. "That's it for today. Next class we will begin brewing, I expect you all to be prepared well ahead of time, read the material and don't expect your partner to be able to make up for your lack of preparation."

Grey eyes narrowed. Tom ignored the furtive glances in his direction. Partner? That wasn't going to happen. "Sir, if I might ask..."

The professor looked up, chewing a piece of crystallized pineapple the Slytherin had gifted him as a birthday present their first day back. "Yes Tom?"

"There is an uneven number of students this year," he paused, allowing the older wizard to look around the room, resisting rolling his eyes as he double-checked. He spoke up over the potions master's incoherent mumbling, "And so, I was wondering if it wouldn't be better if I were to work independently for the term." He waited.

"Well..." The professor appeared to count the group again, his eyebrows furrowing. "Uh. Very well. You will be fine on your own?"

The wizard dipped his chin in a slight nod. "Of course, Professor."

"Right. Yes. Yes, very well, Tom." He looked back down at his papers, muttered under his breath again and then said, "Class dismissed."

The classroom livened immediately, a collective sigh from both the Slytherin and Gryffindor students resounding throughout the small room as if they had all been waiting on baited breath for the two words.

Tom stood up slowly as the sound of chairs excitedly scraping the stone floor filled the the area around him. Would he be fine? He held in the seething. What kind of question was that? He rolled up the parchment on which he had barely written anything - the potions professor, his Head of House, bumbling for most of the class in lieu of actually teaching - stuffing it into his bag and then his quill and ink well.

"Tom, don't let him get to you." A hand landed on the wizard's shoulder.

Tom shrugged the familiar hand off as he lifted the strap to his bag over his head and across his chest. He made his way towards the door. "I'm not, I just don't know how he ever managed to complete his studies," the wizard said in a clipped tone as soon as he and Avery had walked out of the class. He continued on with a scowl as his only friend chuckled by his side.

"We can't all be geniuses, you know," the blond wizard said as they walked along the dungeon hallways side-by-side.

Tom pressed lips together tightly, his gaze straight ahead. "I never said that's what I wanted. It'd just be nice not to have an imbecile for a professor."

"Have you found a date for the ball yet?"

Lips twitched in a vaguely upward fashion before being forced back down. "You say that as if it will happen."

His friend laughed, but the sound cut off abruptly. "Heads up, Abraxas is waiting for us, and he doesn't look happy."

Tom's gaze shot to the left, instantly narrowing on the tall platinum-haired wizard, standing casually by the statue in front of their common room. He reached for his wand, pausing halfway to the opening of his left sleeve when the Malfoy heir's wand lifted immediately in response.

"A little jumpy today... Tom?" the seventh-year wizard drawled, his smile taunting as he lifted his chin, his wand pointed halfway between them. "Tell me, did you enjoy your stay at the orphanage this summer?"

Tom stopped cold, Avery following suit. His gaze flicked down - finding the wizard with his wand out but its only target the stone floor, not having gotten to it quickly enough - and then back up. He smiled serenely as a familiar hissing filled his thoughts. "You know, I have to say I'm surprised... I never took you for a fool, Malfoy, but it seems you can't help but turn into one at the slightest sign of a fight."

The tall wizard sneered, his expression darkening as his wand shifted more directly on him, "What are you talking about? I am the one with the wand, Riddle."

Tom nodded readily. "True." He paused. "But do you know where Nagini is right now?"

Harry woke with a gasp. The sixth-year's gaze darted around the moonlit room, his chest rising and falling too quickly as he took in the night muted Gryffindor colors surrounding him. What had that been? He clenched green eyes close as the memory of a smaller Nagini, mouth open and fangs displayed, burned into his mind. And then a smiling raven-haired wizard replaced it, and it all made sense. "Shit, not again."

"Harry, you okay, Mate?"

Harry blinked, trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain, and he looked over to see Ron rubbing his eyes and sitting up, mirroring his position.

"Yeah," Harry said in a rough voice as he leaned over and grabbed his glasses from the bedside table, putting them on as his brain unhelpfully continued to replay the dream he had just woken up from. "Yeah, I'm fine, Ron. I'm just going to get some fresh air," he said, pushing himself up and walking over to his trunk.

He leaned over as Ron mumbled his assent, pulling out his practice Quidditch robes and quickly putting them on over his pajamas. He grabbed his broom and turned to find Ron already fast asleep again. He shook his head, a grin playing at his lips as he shoved his feet into his shoes and then walked quietly to the door, pulling it open and slipping out. He jogged down the winding staircase and into an empty common room.

"Harry Potter."

Harry gasped and spun around at the hissed words, his wand already out. Sharp green eyes scoured the dark room, finding nothing that could have spoken the words. He glanced up at a sleeping portrait of Godric Gryffindor, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, as his free hand rubbed at the jagged scar on his forehead. One of the paintings was probably just having fun with him.

Harry placed his wand back in his pocket to carefully push open the door to the common room and stepped out into the abandoned hallway. He glanced left then right before he began to make his way quickly towards the nearest secret passageway, not wanting to run into the new staff. Sneaking out to fly in the middle of the night might not have been his best plan.

He was halfway down the hallway when a voice sounded around the corner, and Harry whipped out his invisibility cloak, quickly covering himself and his broom with it and stepping back against the wall.

"What do we do when we find him?"

"What we were told, you useless fool!"

"But it's no fun. Why can't we hex him a few times. Cut off his fingers or—Ow!"

"Shut up! The Dark Lord would kill you for saying much less. Now come on. Umbridge said he would be out here, so help me find him."

Harry reached into his robes and pulled his wand back out as he pressed himself as flat as he could against the wall, the Carrow wizard twins having just turned the corner.

"I don't see him," one of the brothers said, holding a lantern out in front of him, his eyes squinting at the seemingly empty hallway.

"Shut up!" The other twin looked around carefully. "Mr. Potter, where are you?" he asked, drawing out the words in a sing-songy voice, an eery smile on his lips as he scanned the hallway with a cautiously-sweeping gaze.

Harry breathed in slowly and then held his breath as the two sadistic wizards slowly approached where he was hidden. He really should have stayed in his room. He shifted his leg to scoot away as the wizards drew closer, and accidentally knocked his broom, causing the handle to scrape the floor, making a small scraping noise.

"Did you hear that?" asked the one with the lantern.

The one closest to him nodded. "I did, brother," he said and then reached out his hand suddenly, grabbing Harry's cloak and pulling it off. "Gotcha."

Harry lifted his wand, the disarming charm on his tongue when he froze. He couldn't move.

"There. Now who's useless," the wizard said smugly as he walked over to Harry, grinning maliciously down at the immobilized Gryffindor, the lantern in his hand casting shadows on his curled face. He tutted. "Students shouldn't be out after curfew, Mr. Potter. You will have to be punished."

His brother let out a harsh laugh. "I don't know if this qualifies as punishment," he said as he pulled out something that looked like a modified time-turner and began to spin it lazily. "Although, I suppose Snape said there was the possibility it wouldn't work and would kill us all."

The other wizard scoffed, "The hell with that. I'm not going to die tonight." He grabbed the time-turner like object from his twin and placed it around Harry's neck, tucking it under his robes, his ugly smile returning as he looked into frozen startled eyes. "Safe travels, Mr. Potter." He took a step back. "Let's get out of here before it goes off. The spell will take care of it."

Harry watched helplessly as the two wizards made a mad dash for the corner, and then he felt the chained object around his neck suddenly begin to burn against his chest. He tried to break free of the hex that was holding his body completely frozen. He felt his pinky on his right hand start to twitch, and then his other fingers began to shake under the effort and-

A bright blue light flashed before his eyes, blinding him, and he lost his footing when the ground below him felt like it shifted. He stumbled a few steps sideways and then fell, his head hitting something very hard. He groaned, his outstretched fingers resting on something smooth, something smooth that was moving, and then someone spoke in a wispy voice.

"Who are you?"

"I'm, I'm..." Harry tried to respond, his tongue heavy as something warm and wet trickled down over his eyebrow and onto his cheek, and then his mind was enveloped by darkness.

Hello, this story has been moved to AO3, and my penname there is adventitiious.

Please do check out the rest if you're interested, thanks!