Chapter Text
Peter Pettigrew
New Year, New Peter!
No, actually. New Year, more anxious Peter. So not new at all, really. Things were going horribly.
“Mates!” James shouted incredibly loudly, jumping onto the train station and grinning ridiculously at Peter. His face fell immediately when he discovered it was in fact, mate and not mates. “Where’s Remus?”
Peter felt a little hurt at that, but it was understandable. “I dunno. Thought he’d be with you.”
“Why’d he be with us?” Sirius asked defensively, crude as ever. There was a little, mini-Sirius behind him who was glaring at everything in sight.
“I dunno,” Peter repeated, staring at the ground. It was taking all of his effort not to blurt out word-vomit about the wizarding war and sides and muggles and weird snake tattoos.
“Talkative, aren’t you?” the mini-Sirius guessed.
“Hullo, Regulus,” Peter said sullenly.
Sirius wheeled around to glare at his shadow. “I thought you were going to sit with your friends.”
Regulus’s eyes bored holes into Sirius’s. “They’re not here.”
“You could sit with us,” James offered hesitantly.
Regulus looked at Sirius, who was intent on not smiling ever again. Regulus looked at Peter, who was intent on never looking at Regulus.
“I’m okay,” he muttered, shoes making an awkward scuffing noise as he slowly turned around.
“Regulus-“ James started, but Regulus had already slammed the door as he left. “Oh. Alright then.”
“Where’s Remus?” Sirius reiterated at no one in particular, flopping onto the seat next to Peter and using him as a footrest. “I’m bored.”
“Remus would probably just tell you not to be bored,” Peter noted.
“Yeah, but then I’d start an argument with him and I wouldn’t be bored anymore.”
“You can start an argument with me-“
“You’re weak, Pettigrew. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“I wonder where Regulus has gone,” James mused to himself, staring at the door.
“I wonder where Remus is,” Sirius mumbled.
Desperate to start a conversation topic that wasn’t about Regulus or Remus, Peter blurted “D’you know what a snake tattoo means?”
James and Sirius stopped mid-whine and stared at him. Peter congratulated himself on saying the one thing he wasn’t supposed to say.
“Snake tattoo?” James asked cautiously. “I suppose it means someone likes snakes.”
“Or maybe they’re in Slytherin,” Sirius said wisely, “And therefore are immune to pain because they’re soulless. So they got a tattoo.”
“Mate,” James said worriedly.
“Yes?”
“You alright?”
“No.”
“Okay.” James turned to Peter and said decisively, “No, we don’t know what a snake tattoo means.”
Brilliant. Now Peter would have to go and ask Esteban, again, and hope that he said something that wasn’t confusing. “What about the wizarding war?”
“What wizarding war?” James asked obliviously. But Peter didn’t focus on that; he focused on Sirius’s face.
It had turned a pale white.
“The wizarding war?” Sirius asked quietly, looking around nervously like he thought someone would hear them. That wasn’t a good sign.
Peter opened his mouth to prod further, but just then the compartment door opened and-
“REMUS!” James shouted, lunging up and engulfing Remus into what looked like a very painful hug. Remus winced and patted him dully on the back. Peter saw that there were white scars all over his hands and winced as well.
Sirius’s face drained back into its normal color and he grinned at Remus. “Alright, mate?”
“Beginning to regret my decision to come back,” Remus said bluntly, tugging on the sleeves of his sweater and finally wriggling out of James’s grip. “But alright, yeah.”
Sirius stuck his tongue out at him and punched his shoulder as Remus sat next to James. Remus caught Peter’s eye across the aisle and grinned. “Alright?”
Peter would ask about the snake tattoos later. What mattered was that Remus was back. “Alright.”
*
Remus acted more or less like normal for the train ride back- meaning, he buried his head in a book and occasionally lifted it to make a face at Sirius. James regaled them all in tales of his and Sirius’s fights with the fake-Quidditch things that Peter had gotten them. Peter was happy enough to be mentioned that he didn’t bring up the fact that James and Sirius hadn’t gotten him anything. That wasn’t even a big deal, anyways.
There was a day before classes, and the determined look on James’s face told him that they were not going to waste it.
“We’ve got to do something, lads,” he wheedled as they were walking down the third-floor corridor.
“No,” Remus said firmly, head still buried in his book. Peter admired his dedication.
Sirius did not. He snatched the book out of Remus’s hands and said firmly, “You can read when we’re done.”
“I will read whenever I please, thank you.”
“Not when the book is in my hands.”
Remus lunged for the book, brushing past Peter on his way. Peter barely disguised his flinch with a cough.
Did he like that he was scared of his best friend? Of course not, but it was happening whether or not he thought it was pleasant.
“Lads!” James said annoyedly, sounding like an exhausted rugby coach. “We have to do something!”
“I am doing something,” Remus grunted from inside Sirius’s rather weak chokehold. “I’m getting my bloody book back.”
“He’s not,” Sirius said pityingly, carding idly through the pages as Remus grabbed at it.
Peter raided the corners of his rather small mind for ideas. He had no idea what to do. He liked planning pranks, but this was the first time they were going to plan something with the knowledge that Remus was a werewolf. It just felt… different. Was Peter allowed to admit that it felt different? It seemed like everyone else had accepted it easily enough.
You’re not special, a gruff voice in his head told him sharply. Oh, yeah!
“I forgot to tell you guys something!” Peter burst out excitedly, making Remus freeze in his effort to slap the book out of Sirius’s hands.
James raised his eyebrows. “Is this another snake tattoo conversation?”
Remus frowned. “Snake tattoo? D’you mean the-“
“Not again,” Sirius groaned. “It’s so boring!”
Peter, who did not want to be rejected as boring on their first day back, blurted out “I DISCOVERED THE SECRET PASSAGEWAY!” in the middle of a crowded hallway.
Remus flinched at the noise- just another failure in the name of Peter. James widened his eyes so that they were almost bigger than his glasses. Sirius dropped the book.
“Move it along,” a Ravenclaw muttered, shoving through their still forms to catch up with her friends.
“Sorry,” Peter said to the floor.
James nudged his shoulder, excitement brimming in his eyes. “I’ve got the cloak.”
“I’ve got Remus!” Sirius said, holding Remus in place by the collar.
Remus pulled out his wand and muttered his book to float back to him. “I’ve got the book, but I’m assuming I don’t get to read it.”
“Nope!” James said happily. “Onwards, Pete!”
Peter hesitantly led them to the fourth floor, which was even more crowded than the third. “Is this the silver mirror?” James asked, bouncing up and down with unbridled enthusiasm.
Peter nodded and instantly felt another pulse of fear. “Remus,” he said cautiously, “Are you able to-“
“Of course I’m able to go through the mirror, considering I’ve done it multiple times,” Remus said bluntly. “Silver doesn’t… er… effect me…”
“Unless you’re transformed,” Sirius finished proudly. “I did research.”
“Keep your voice down,” Remus hissed.
“It’s fine!”
“Should I bring out the cloak?” James asked, clearly hoping to stop the fighting. Peter was glad it wouldn’t have to come down to him this time.
They stopped behind a rather ugly statue of a fat goblin labelled ‘Gregory the Smarmy’ to put the cloak on. There was much muffled curses and threats (‘if you don’t stop stepping on my foot you won’t have a foot left, Sirius’) before they finally managed to find a position that covered all of them. “Does anyone think we might be getting too big for this?” Remus huffed sensibly.
James, who was very emotional about the memories made with the cloak, whispered “Tosser.”
“Git.”
“Foot-stepper.”
“That was Sirius!”
“Are we going to the mirror or not?” Peter whispered.
Stumbling across the corridor with loads of people crammed everywhere was a feat of genius that was only possible by poking and prodding and stepping on feet (so Sirius claimed). The Marauders were used to walking around at night, where the only problem was Filch’s cat and the only solution needed was a begrudging Remus.
The four finally pushed through the mirror. James yanked the cloak off and Remus sprung away from the lot of them, shooting dirty looks at Sirius. “Where does this lead to, anyways?” Remus asked Peter.
Peter grimaced at the direct question asked by a werewolf-no-Remus-it-was-Remus and tried to smile. “Hogsmeade.”
James’s whoop echoed through the empty stone corridor.
They raced to the entrance, which ended the way it usually ended- James and Sirius tackling each other for first, Peter and Remus lagging many, many feet behind. Peter anxiously clenched his fists and asked “How was winter break?”
Remus slowed to a walk, because why bother at that point. “Normal.”
“Ah.”
They walked a few more feet, the only sound being James’s screams and Sirius’s cackling.
“I debated not coming back,” Remus said quietly.
Peter did a double-take. “What?”
“It’s scary, with all of you knowing who I am.” Remus stared straight ahead and said blankly “So I didn’t want to come back. I thought you would magically turn a corner and… I don’t know, hate me. Be scared of me.”
TRAITOR! The good partPeter’s conscience screamed to him.
“We haven’t,” Peter assured, forcing himself to believe it. Because he wasn’t scared of Remus. He was scared of werewolves, and… Remus just happened to be one. But there was a difference; there had to be. Remus was his best friend, and Peter didn’t want his best friend to leave.
Remus smiled, barely. “I know. Thanks.”
“WE FOUND HOGSMEADE!” James interrupted arrogantly from the end of the dark tunnel.
“BUT I WON!” Sirius shouted.
“NO YOU DIDN’T, SHUT UP!”
“We’d better go,” Remus said with an all-suffering sigh.
It was different, walking into Hogsmeade in the evening by himself versus walking into Hogsmeade in the evening with the marauders. Peter and Remus lingered behind until Sirius grabbed Remus and James lunged for Peter and pulled them all together. The shops were closed for the evening, and they couldn’t go in them anyways- it would look too suspicious. But they still ran down the semi-crowded streets, spinning stupidly and waving their arms and chasing each other. Sirius put the cloak on and went into Honeydukes, coming back out with a handful of snacks that he in no way paid for.
But they were twelve and thirteen, and stupid, and so they raced back into the secret passageway and laughed boisterously loud as they chucked candy at each other and raced back in time for curfew.
If Peter had been paying better attention, maybe he would’ve questioned the Snape-looking hooded figure he saw for a split second, following them.
But they were twelve and thirteen and stupid, so he paid no mind.
Sirius Black
“Shhh,” Sirius hissed at Remus and Peter, who were whispering to each other and very rudely interrupting Jackson Browne. “Listen.”
“We’ve heard it plenty, Sirius,” James whined, because James apparently wasn’t as fond of muggle music as Sirius now was. Maybe it was because James didn’t have the need to hate his parents and project that hatred into rebellion. Or maybe it was because Sirius had replayed the album twenty times in the past two days.
Remus massaged his forehead and pleaded, “Can’t we listen to something else? The Beatles, perhaps?”
“’Perhaps’,” Sirius mocked for no particular reason. Remus made a face at him over his book and Sirius snickered.
Jackson Browne shouted ‘Cause I have wandered through this world-‘
“I can’t take it anymore,” Peter groaned, flopping onto his back and staring at the dorm’s ceiling.
“I’m going to break it, don’t worry,” Remus assured him with a resolute nod.
James, who was not as rude to Sirius as Sirius’s other supposed ‘friends’, turned off the cassette player and flicked Sirius’s forehead. “We’ve got to get to Quidditch practice anyway.”
“Not going,” Sirius said immediately.
James cocked an eyebrow and gave him the most unimpressed look. “That’s what you said last time.”
“And the time before that,” Peter chirped very annoyingly.
“Need I say ‘and the time before that’?” Remus asked. “I keep forgetting the rules of social etiquette.”
Sirius ignored his friends’ unhelpfullness and turned his eyes on James, whose glare was reflecting off his glasses. “I told you,” Sirius said stubbornly, “I don’t think they want me there.”
“And I told you they do.” James huffed and sat next to him, poking his shoulder violently. “Frank keeps asking where you are.”
At the mention of Frank, Sirius’s stomach curled into a painful lump and decided to travel up his chest. He couldn’t talk to Frank, not after last month. “He just wants to kick me off the team,” Sirius protested, feeling like he was speaking the truth. There was no way Frank would want him on the team after December.
“You’re the best beater we have-“ James started fiercely.
“He’ll stay here,” Remus interrupted casually, flipping a page in his book. “So he can listen to his stupid music. Leave it, James.”
James looked less than placated. Sirius watched, confused, as Peter piped up “And I can go watch you practice! I’ll try out my new cheers!”
Peter’s cheers left much to be desired, but James seemed to be satisfied at the idea of someone making a fool of themself for him. “Fine,” he muttered, then turned to Sirius with a frown. “But you have to come to next practice.”
“I will,” Sirius said, knowing full well that he wouldn’t.
James and Peter filed out of the room, leaving Sirius with his cassette player and Remus with his book. It was only when a few minutes had passed that Sirius realized he hadn’t really talked to Remus alone since the werewolf incident. It was still hard, thinking of the werewolf incident and Remus and saying ‘they’re the same thing’. It was weird being alone with a werewolf, because all of the sudden he didn’t know what to say.
Sirius inched his hand towards his cassette player and Remus said “I’ll break it, I promise you.”
“Fine,” Sirius groaned, understanding that Remus in no way would break it. He might’ve been a werewolf, but he was basically a puppy at spirit. “What else should I do?”
“Read a book,” Remus said in what Sirius hoped was irony.
“We both know that won’t happen. What should I do for real?”
Remus closed his book with an over-exaggerated sigh and stared across the room, right at Sirius. “You’re the one who decided not to go to practice. Figure it out.”
“I don’t want to go to practice,” Sirius muttered pointlessly.
“So I’ve heard.” Remus tapped his fingers impatiently against his book. Sirius stared. There was a scar on his left thumb.
“How’d you get that?”
“Fighting the Whomping Willow,” Remus said blandly, fingers tapping faster. “Can I get back to my book, or…”
Sirius pouted. Stupid Remus, not providing conversation! Sirius needed entertainment to thrive; everyone knew that! “I want to go somewhere,” he said, staring at Remus’s tapping. “I’m going crazy.”
“You already were.”
“Shaddup. I want to do something fun. Can we sneak out to Hogsmeade?”
“No.”
“Can we at least roam the corridors? You’re good with Filch’s cat, there’s no way we’ll get in trouble-“
“I’m tired of being used as a human cat toy,” Remus said bluntly.
Sirius hadn’t thought of it like that. “Does it offend you?” he asked haltingly, feeling uncomfortable to be Sirius Black talking about Feelings with a Werewolf. Something about it just seemed odd. “That we use you to get out of trouble and stuff?”
Remus seemed like he thought it was odd as well. He looked Sirius up and down like he was looking for a bluff before he said “A little. But it’s fine.”
It didn’t sound fine. “I’m… sorry,” Sirius said awkwardly. Merlin, he hated apologizing. He’d only done it two times in his life, both to Remus.
Remus snorted a little and tapped his book again. “You sound as though you’re being strangled.”
“I hate apologizing. So what can we do?”
Remus threw his head back and let out an agitated sigh that Sirius knew as the special ‘Sirius Black Won’t Leave Me Alone’ sigh. “I honestly couldn’t care less about your boredom, Sirius.”
Sirius pouted. Then he remembered that hey, he definitely should have the upper hand here!
“I’m turning the cassette player on,” he warned happily, inching his finger towards the button.
Jackson Browne barely had time to scream one line before Remus dropped his book onto the floor and said “FINE!”
*
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Remus Lupin angry,” Sirius marveled at Remus as he was led around winding corridors to who-knows-where.
“My hatred for you isn’t well hidden,” Remus grumbled, “So I’m surprised.”
“Where exactly are we going?”
Remus deftly leapt over a gap in the moving staircase and dragged Sirius with him by the sleeve. “To find better music.”
They were nearing the seventh floor now. Sirius could feel his ears crackling from the sheer height they were at. He still managed to offendedly utter “Jackson Browne is class.”
“He is,” Remus agreed moderately. They were at a standstill, on the seventh floor where hardly any students went (simply because there was nothing there. Why would Remus choose to go here??) Remus turned around to Sirius and smiled smally. “But there are other kinds of music.”
Sirius knew that, of course. But he’d never gotten the chance to hear much of the other kinds, considering if his parents found muggle records in the house they would burn the records, the house, and probably Sirius.
“Don’t get mad,” Remus told him firmly as he turned back to the wall they were apparently staring at. “You’re insufferable when you get mad.”
“Why would I be-“
Remus held up a hand and wordlessly started to pace around him. He paced once, twice, three times with a wordless look on his face before-
The wall slid open?!
Sirius’s jaw may’ve dropped. He hadn’t discovered something this interesting since the mirror on the fourth floor, and that was ages ago! Finally, a proper adventure!
Remus pulled him inside the wall-room before anyone could see, the wall turning back into a wall behind them. Sirius looked around. They were in a tiny, poor-looking living room, where the kitchen was halfway to the couch and the dining room table took up half the space. The wall-room was beginning to get a little less interesting.
Then he saw a thrashing, pissed-off plant on the wall and thought I remember that!
“That’s Dalton,” Sirius told Remus like Remus didn’t already know. “That’s your plant. The one you drew pictures of and… wait.”
“The one I got leaves from during our argument,” Remus finished for him, giving him a look. “Way back in October, yes.”
Wait a minute! “You’ve been coming here since October?” Sirius asked dumbly. “This is your… house?”
“Yes and halfway-yes,” Remus answered, scratching at the linoleum floors with his shoe. “It’s some sort of copy of my house. My parents aren’t here, and Dalton’s tame.”
Dalton lashed one of its leaves out and knocked over a vase.
So Remus had been coming to his weird wall-room-house since October… and since he’d taken Dalton-leaves with him before their argument he probably came here to… get away from them. Get away from his friends!
“You didn’t tell us,” Sirius said incredulously.
Remus rolled his eyes. “And here we go.”
“You know we like adventure!”
“I told you not to get mad.”
“You didn’t think to tell us that your house is inside Hogwarts?”
“A copy of my house, actually.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been hiding this-“
Remus shot Sirius a pointed look. “I told you you’d be insufferable. Are you going to keep whinging or are you going to shut up?”
Ha! Sirius Black never shuts up! Sirius opened his mouth to protest and probably start a fight, but just then the radio started playing some staticky, muggle-sounding song.
Here comes the sun… here comes the sun, I swear, it’s alright…
Remus’s mouth fell open, and then he let out a surprised laugh. “I thought that song only worked on Dalton!” he wheezed. “Look at your face! You essentially have the emotional capacity of a plant!”
Sirius ignored him and kept listening to the song. Remus’s wheezing laughter faded to the back of his mind. Both he and Dalton remained completely silent until the end of the song, and then Sirius finally turned to a somewhat calmed-down Remus.
“I like that song,” he said quietly.
Remus got a little gleam in his eye. “Sit down, then. I’ve got the whole record.”
Their almost-argument was immediately forgotten, and Sirius didn’t even mind. Remus unperturbedly curled up in a patchy-looking armchair with a massive book that Sirius didn’t want to even read the title of. Sirius perched on a ricked chair next to the radio and listened to the odd, somewhat-moving and somewhat-crazy music.
“The album’s called Abbey Road,” Remus told him about halfway through the third song. “It’s their second-to-last album. My mum’s always been obsessed with them, so she has the whole-“
“Shh,” Sirius said.
Remus snorted again. “Git.”
Sirius ignored him. He was in awe of this muggle music that sounded so fun, so interesting, so not his parents. It sounded like something his family would condemn as blood-traitor music and leave it at that. Maybe that added to the adrenaline pumping in Sirius’s ears, but whatever the case, he listened to the full album and felt like he could really breathe.
“That,” Remus observed, idly turning a page, “Is the longest you have ever shut up for.”
“Muggle music is good,” Sirius marveled.
“I know, mate.” Remus closed his book and looked to his right at Sirius, looking a mixture of affectionate and amused. “You found your thing.”
“I found my thing,” Sirius repeated reverently. All his other friends had their things. Peter had… failing school. James had Quidditch, and Remus had reading and plants.
And Sirius had music!
James Potter
Remus rolled out of bed in the morning wanting to start a normal day, but this time James was prepared.
He’d sat by Remus’s bed a good ten minutes before Remus usually woke up, a half-asleep Sirius and Peter at his side like they were hosting an intervention. They sort of were. They were hosting a ‘Stop going to school the day before you transform into a monster’ intervention.
So when Remus blinked his eyes open and tried to sit up, the first thing James said was “Absolutely not.”
Remus, eyes still narrowed from sleep, stared at the three of them with a dreamy expression on his face. “We’re… classes… right?” he mumbled incoherently, waving his hands around in what was supposed to make a semblance of sense.
“You’re certainly not classes,” Sirius responded immediately. He pushed Remus back down (which must not have been that hard; James estimated Remus weighed about eighty pounds soaking wet). “Go back to sleep.”
Remus struggled to sit back up again. There were bags under his eyes, and he was shivering like he wasn’t piled under twenty blankets. James started to get up to get him more, but Peter was already on it. “I can’t just skip,” he muttered deliriously.
Peter handed him the blanket. “It’s just for one day,” he said placatingly.
“More like three,” he said, adding the blanket into his pile despite his apparent want to sit up.
James decided to become his mother for a bit and put a hand on Remus’s forehead. It felt normal, but Remus most certainly was not. “Isn’t the full moon in a day?”
Remus cringed. “I don’t like talking about that.”
“It’s just a fact,” Sirius said nonchalantly. “No big deal. You turn into a murderous beast in twenty-four hours. We understand.”
Remus looked like he was going to be sick. Now James was cringing.
“Where do you even go when you transform anyways?” Peter wondered curiously.
Remus opened his mouth to answer and shot up like a rocket, swatting James’s hand away before puking all over the blankets.
“MERLIN’S UNDERPANTS!” Sirius shrieked, lurching out of the way and toppling to the floor. “JUMP-SCARE WARNING NEXT TIME!”
Peter recoiled and clamped a hand to his mouth. “I vomit when other people vomit,” he managed before gagging and turning away.
So James was the only one raised with common decency, apparently. “Alright, mate,” he sighed at Remus’s pale apologizing form. “Get up, we’ll clean the sheets.”
“I’m sorry,” Remus muttered.
“Hi sorry, I’m James. Get up, mate.”
And so James’s Monday morning was spent doing laundry. That’s right, laundry.
James decided right then and there that he hated laundry.
He ended up having to search up all the cleaning spells, and even then the sheets didn’t look all that clean to him. Who knew laundry could be that hard? He felt like a muggle when he finally hoisted all of the sheets into their bathroom sink and soaked them like it was the medieval days. Actually, muggles had new washing-thingies now, right? So James was officially worse off than a muggle.
“I’m sorry,” Remus said for the fifteenth time as James stumbled out of the bathroom, defeated. Remus had his school robes on, and Sirius and Peter were looking at James like we tried to stop him. Prats.
James shot Remus a look. “Get in bed.”
Remus stared at the floor. “But-“
“I just spent twenty minutes cleaning up your puke,” James told him matter-of-factly. “D’you think it’s wise to be arguing with me right now?”
“I’ll get in bed,” Remus conceded mopingly, scuttling over to his baren mattress.
But James wasn’t about to leave him unattended. James Potter did not do things halfway. Unfortunately, James Potter also would get a month’s worth of detention if he skived McGonagall’s class one more time, so he had to call in backup.
Five minutes later, Frank Longbottom puffed into the room, catching his breath and muttering “These stairs!”. Even then he seemed to be cheery.
Remus looked at James and mouthed ‘please don’t do this to me’.
“For your own good,” James whispered back.
Frank clapped his hands and turned to the four of them. “Right!” he wheezed, face bright red. “Who’s the unlucky chap?”
Sirius was hiding behind James. Sirius hadn’t been to practice for a good two weeks, which basically meant he was off the team. James didn’t get why Sirius wasn’t going to practice. Then again, Quidditch had always been more of James’s thing.
Remus raised his pale, slightly scarred hand before Frank could notice Sirius. “I’m unlucky,” he vouched, looking veiny and miserable.
Frank extended his hand to Remus and smiled like there wasn’t a sick person in front of him. “Hospital wing, then?”
“I don’t want to,” Remus muttered, glowering at James. “You can just leave me here. Alone is fine. I’m alright.”
Sirius whispered to James “let’s just go”. Was James the only one here with a need for his friend to make it through the full moon in one piece?!
“I can stay here,” Frank said, but he was sounding less happy than before. “I’m headboy, after all. It is my job to help sick students.”
“Perfect!” James said before Frank could even start to change his mind. “Have fun!”
As the three of them were hightailing it out of there, Frank called “Sirius! Come to practice today and we’ll talk. Alright?”
Sirius cringed. James wondered how long Sirius had thought he was going to last cowering behind him. “Alright,” he grumbled.
“What was that about?” Peter hesitantly asked Sirius as they were jogging down the stairs.
“Nunya,” Sirius responded promptly.
“What-“
“Nunya business.”
And they didn’t speak about it anymore.
*
It was weird in their Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Partly because Filch was admittedly not very good at teaching, but mostly because Remus was gone. Remus had been gone before- obviously- but this time it was different. James knew why now, and it didn’t make him feel very victorious.
Sirius poked James with a pencil as Filch started ranting about the dangers of letting students use wands in class and whispered “This is weird.”
James poked him back. “D’you reckon he’s okay?”
Sirius snorted. “No.”
Well, that helped to ease James’s mind.
By the end of the day, James was properly worried. He was beginning to feel like he was a werewolf too, and he kept staring out of windows every few seconds like the moon might’ve risen at six PM.
He asked Frank for updates on Remus at Quidditch practice, and Frank was also unhelpful. “He finally went to Pomphrey around noon,” Frank said cheerfully. “Looked awful. But he’ll be fine.”
James almost wanted to laugh at that. HA! If by ‘fine’ you mean tearing himself apart who-knows-where for twelve hours as a supernatural beast.
Instead he said “Thanks, Frank.”
Frank smiled and patted his shoulder. “You’re welcome, Pames.”
When James left Quidditch practice, the moon was beginning to rise. Sirius caught up to him after talking to Frank and he looked like he wanted to punch something.
“You off the team?” James asked him.
“Yes.”
“D’you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
They walked back to the castle in silence until Sirius broke the tension by tapping James’s nose and saying “Bop!”.
James couldn’t sleep that night, so he decided to go to the owlery. He planned to write a letter to his mum, thoroughly apologizing for all of the times he’d ever made her do laundry in her life. He had to sneak out- a prank master, sneaking out to go write a letter- and so he snuck invisibly to the dung-smelling tower.
He heard sniffles when he got there. How odd.
For a wild second he thought of Remus transforming and was like he’s in the owlery! He’s crying because he’s transforming around a bunch of nosy owls!. Yes, that was probably the product of James’s lack of sleep.
James inched towards the owlery’s door, still invisible. His mum probably wouldn’t condone him spying on people. But James was about to write a letter apologizing for making her do laundry; one rule at a time!
He poked his invisible head into the doorway that smelled like owl crap and saw a redhead huddled on the floor, knees tucked to her chest. And James thought oh, great. Evans.
She was undoubtedly crying. James wasn’t mad at her for that- his mum would require more than an apology letter to forgive him for that- but he was mad that now he’d have to comfort her. Even though he could walk away, he wouldn’t. Not when there was a girl crying on the ground. That just wasn’t the way he was raised.
He ducked behind the doorway and took the cloak off, stuffing it into his pocket. When he walked into the owlery, Lily said a few choice words and nearly jumped off the disgusting floor. “Potter,” she said dubiously.
James kindly ignored the crack in her voice and ran a hand through his hair, grinning. “The one and only. What were you doing on the floor, Evans?”
“What are you doing in the owlery late at night?” she countered.
“What are you doing in the owlery late at night?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Damn it.”
James gasped. “Language, Evans! You’re offending the owls!”
The owls were very much asleep, but Lily still shot him a dirty look and a finger.
“I’m sensing hostility,” James guessed, trying his best to get at least a smile out of her. “Is it my hair? I know, I know, bedhead doesn’t suit me. But I’d like to think you’re not crying because of my hairstyle-“
“I’m not crying!” she yelped, getting a surprised hoot from one of the owls.
James looked at the tear stains on her face and squinted. “You know what I think? I think you’re crying.”
“I am not,” she hissed.
“I’m willing to bet on crying.”
She tugged on her washed-out red hair, groaning and staring him down. “Are you really going to banter with me at twelve at night?”
Merlin, it was that late? James quickly looked out of the window and saw that the full moon was bright in the sky, meaning that somewhere Remus was experiencing some severe agony. James’s stomach flipped.
“James?”
James blinked and tried to remember what on earth they were talking about. Something about crying. “Why’re you crying?” he asked.
Personally, he was proud for just getting back on the right subject, but Lily didn’t seem to think so. She stomped her foot and snapped “None of your business.”
Now James was getting annoyed. “Look,” he said quite honestly. “I’m really just trying to send a letter to my mum, okay?”
Lily was really good at trying to blow him up with her eyes. He idly walked over to a rickety writing-desk that sat by the window as she walked behind him, eyes burning into the back of his head. “Then don’t ask about me,” she threatened.
James pulled out a piece of paper from his back pocket and said “I’m a curious soul, Lily. Also, I’m not a complete prick. ‘Course I’m going to ask why you’re crying.”
Lily was silent for a good minute, long enough for James to compose the first part of his letter. Dear mum, I love you so much. And I hate laundry. Why’d you even let me have dirty clothes, anyways? You should’ve just made me rewear them so you wouldn’t have to go through the pain of washing them. Laundry isn’t fun. I’m sorry for ever making you do laundry.
“I got a letter from my sister,” Lily blurted out.
James heard the crack in her voice an abandoned his letter, setting his quill down and awkwardly turning the rickedy chair around to face him. It screeched against the cobbly floors and got a few agitated hoots from the owls. “Okay,” he said cautiously, suddenly feeling way out of his league. “Your sister made you cry?”
Lily rubbed her eyes with her fists, hard, and still managed to glare at him afterwards. “Not everyone has a perfect family, Potter,” she whispered.
James thought about Sirius and Regulus. He wondered if Lily was talking about a family like theirs. He kind of hoped not. “I know,” he said defensively. “What’d she say?”
Lily was silent again. Tears were pooling in her green eyes, and James very much wished he could be somewhere not here.
“Not nice things,” Lily finally said, her voice all soft and terse at the same time.
James didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that information, so he turned back to his letter and finished it. He woke up an angry Richard, fed him some biscuits so James wouldn’t get murdered, and sent him out of the window.
Lily had composed herself by that time. She watched silently as James slowly started out of the owlery, hoping she’d turn around so James could pull out his cloak. Why was Lily so intent on staring at him?!
“Thanks, James,” Lily said suddenly before he could pull the door shut.
James paused, poking his head in the doorway again and smiling at her in what he hoped was a nice way. “Your sister sounds like a prick.”
James ducked out before she could say anything else and slung the cloak around his shoulders. At least he’d been productive. A lot of times James found it easier to sleep after being productive. Like his brain could finally stop thinking of all the things he wanted to do.
He heard a faint howl through a fogged-up window and that feeling was gone, as soon as it arrived.
Remus Lupin
It took Remus three days after the full moon to not feel like death itself.
Granted, that wasn’t as bad as usual. At least it hadn’t been as bad as that one time when half his left eye had been mutated and Madame Pomphrey had kept him in for a week. He still saw sparks sometimes if he squinted.
Madame Pomphrey looked over him midway through the third day and nodded, grimly. “I think you can go.”
Remus blinked. “In the middle of classes? What are the students going to think?”
Madame Pomphrey shrugged, unwrapping the makeshift cast on his newly healed right arm. “Most of them are too busy worrying about themselves, not you.”
Remus refrained from rolling his eyes- that was the advice all the grown-ups always told him- and left the hospital wing praying that no one noticed him.
He walked into the Transfiguration classroom and got trampled.
“REMUS!” James and Sirius shrieked at the same time, piling on top of him nearly two seconds after he walked through the doorway.
“That is my name,” Remus grunted, shoving Sirius’s elbow off his stomach and sitting up. The entire class was staring at them- great.
James felt his forehead and Remus felt himself going bright red as students snickered quietly. “Are you feeling better?” he asked Remus anxiously.
There were too many people watching for Remus’s liking, so he awkwardly stood up and stumbled over to his seat, James and Sirius following him like lost ducks. “I’m fine,” he hissed to them out of the corner of his mouth. “Everyone’s staring.”
“Sod off!” Sirius said helpfully to the students.
“Detention, Mr. Black!”
“I know, Minnie!”
“Another detention, Mr. Black!”
James poked Remus’s back and whispered “Sirius discovered Minerva’s real name. She’s so pissed.”
“Detention, Mr. Potter!”
“It’s not our fault your name is Minerva!”
“Another, Mr. Potter!”
“Thanks Minerva!”
Remus sat down exhaustedly next to Lily and Peter. Peter nudged his shoulder and said “I figured you wouldn’t want me adding to the attention.”
“Thanks,” Remus said, his face absolutely on fire.
As McGonagall continued her lesson, Lily tapped Remus on the shoulder and beamed. “Welcome back,” she whispered. “Mary and Marls were worried sick.”
Remus smiled nervously. He could never tell how honest people were being when they said they were worried about him. It always seemed a little fake. “Thanks,” is all he opted to say. “Study session today?”
Lily smirked. “In the library. We’ve already got it planned out, but I suppose we’ll let you in.”
Remus gasped dramatically. “Suppose?!”
Lily laughed and bumped his shoulder with hers, sending a little jolt of discomfort through him. “You’ve been gone awhile. The team has descended into anarchy.”
“How so?”
Lily’s face darkened a little then. “For one thing, Delores joined.”
No. Remus always felt so uncomfortable around her. He still remembered that horrible Halloween party, where she grabbed him and talked so loudly it hurt his ears. Everything about her was a sensory nightmare. “Are you sure we can’t kick her out?” Remus begged out of the corner of his mouth.
Lily shot him a look. “She wants help. Er, from you. She left when she realized you weren’t there, but she’ll probably be back today. Sorry, Rem.”
Peter leaned over Remus’s shoulder to join the conversation and whispered, “Delores is the annoying one that likes you, right?”
Lily nodded. “We hate her.”
“We hate her,” Peter repeated to himself.
McGonagall cleared her throat from the front of the room, and Remus realized with a jolt that she hadn’t been teaching for the past minute. “If you’re quite finished?” she prompted them.
The three of them turned red at the same time and nodded. McGonagall nodded back and continued her lesson, but not before saying crisply, “Mr. Lupin. See me after class.”
Lily looked at Remus and mouthed ‘uh oh’.
Remus shuffled over to her thirty minutes later, a thousand apologies on his tongue. “Professor,” he started, approaching her desk.
To his surprise, McGonagall was actually smiling. “I’m glad you’re making friends, Mr. Lupin,” she said in an almost maternal way.
Remus blinked. He’d never had a teacher look at him like that- like they actually cared about his well-being. All of the teachers always looked at him like he was dangerous; a threat to the class. McGonagall was the only professor who’d ever really tried to help him succeed. It was nice to hear something close to pride in her voice when she spoke to him.
McGonagall’s smile turned more grim and she added, “However, you’re still not to talk in my class. I’ll let you off with one detention this time, but next time it’ll be several. Understood?”
That was fair enough. “Yes, professor,” Remus said quickly, glad he didn’t have to apologize thirty-odd times. And at least he’d be in detention with James and Sirius.
He turned to leave. Right as he was at the door again, McGonagall said quietly “Keep your friends, Remus. They’re good for you.”
Remus nodded. He intended to.
*
“So then you swish your wand like… this,” Remus demonstrated to Delores Umbridge, trying his best not to give away any signs of frustration. He knew she was playing dumb to get him to talk to her, especially when he swished the wand in a straight line and she waved it ditzily around and murmured “Like this?”
Remus forced a polite smile. “No. That’s going to make the curse backfire onto you. And obviously that would be bad.”
Delores sniggered. “Silly me.”
Remus gagged internally. Mary caught his eyes and smiled like she was quite enjoying his suffering.
It took three more demonstrations before Delores finally ‘got it right’, and those demonstrations had much prodding and poking from her. Remus had never felt so uncomfortable. Merlin, sometimes he hated girls.
When Delores finally left the study session, grinning and waving a little princess wave as she backed away (and almost hit a wall in the process), Remus slumped down in his seat and groaned.
Marlene grinned a dung-eating grin at him. “She was… enthusiastic.”
“Lily,” Remus whined, head in his hands. “You can’t get her to go away?”
Lily patted his shoulder sympathetically and Remus hid a cringe. “No one can get her to go away. That’s the problem.”
Peter, who was quite insensitive to Remus’s plight, wailed and pushed his book across the table. “I’m a horrible wizard!” he moaned.
Remus summoned the rest of his patience- which was admittedly getting thinner and thinner. “You’re not a horrible wizard, Pete,” he coaxed, pushing the book back across the table to him. “You just need practice.”
“Yeah,” Mary chimed in, sounding unconvinced. “Practice. Totally.”
“You’re not helping,” Marlene muttered to her.
Peter stared at his transfiguration notes with horror in his eyes, and Remus heaved a sigh before getting out of his chair and walking over to him. “What do you need help with?”
“Everything,” Peter whinged.
“Be specific.”
“Every course I’m taking.”
Remus groaned and leaned over Peter’s shoulder as the girls started whispering something about the cuter boys in their year. “Let’s start with the beetle-to-button transformation,” he said patiently. “Do you know how to do that?”
Peter scoffed. “Have you met me? Of course not!”
It was going to be a long session.
Thirty minutes later, it was half-past eight and Remus was exhaustedly coaching Peter through the Goblin Revolution. Lily, Marlene, and Mary had long-since left the room, and Peter seemed like he was getting dumber and dumber by the second. Unlike Delores, his wasn’t fake. Remus was about at the end of his rope.
“What time did the Goblin Revolution start?” he asked for the umpteenth time, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth in a way that would hopefully give him the strength to continue.
Peter scrunched up his face. “17…30.”
Remus clenched his fists. “No. 1612.”
Peter let out a small ‘sorry’.
“Let’s try again,” Remus said in what he thought was a display of immense caring considering he was really about ready to leave Peter in the library. “Who led the revolution?”
Peter’s eyes lit up. “I know this one! I know… oh. No I don’t.”
UGH. Remus took another deep breath. “That’s okay. How about we try again tomorrow?”
Peter shook his head quickly. “But- but I need to know it for our test-“
“Peter!” Remus blurted out. “Leave it!”
It wasn’t an outburst, by any means. Remus hadn’t even raised his voice; just gotten sterner. But from the way Peter jumped and flinched, you’d’ve thought Remus had spat at him.
Or clawed him. Remus was a werewolf, after all. And Peter…
Remus looked at Peter, shaking and catching his breath, and felt his own breath slide away. “Are you scared of me?” he whispered.
Peter laughed nervously. “Yes! I mean no! I mean…” he avoided Remus’s eyes. “I try not to be. But, um… it’s nighttime. And… I’m more scared of you at night.”
Remus’s heart was beating faster and faster in his chest. “I didn’t even get mad,” he said in a soft voice, feeling horribly pathetic.
Peter looked awfully guilty. “I didn’t mean to jump. Sorry.”
Remus nodded, meekly, and gathered his bookbag in his hands. “S’okay. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight!” Peter called after him. “I’ll just… stay here. Until you’ve uhm… calmed down?”
That was even worse. Remus closed his eyes firmly and didn’t open them until he’d left the library.
*
When he entered the Gryffindor common room, Sirius and James were playing a game of gobstones in which whoever won got to pelt the other with stones. The common room was near-empty, but Remus still avoided their eyes and started heading up the staircase to the dorm.
“Remus!” Sirius called obliviously after him. “You know that essay on the Goblin Revolution?”
Remus made a fairly pathetic noise at the mention of it.
“Good enough! Can I borrow yours? For… research purposes?”
Remus ignored him and continued heading up the stairs.
He got to the dorm and immediately collapsed in the bathroom- because that was the only place he could get privacy in that stupid room. His books fell to the floor and he slammed the door shut behind him, closing his eyes and breathing.
Peter thought he was dangerous.
It was like December all over again. Just earlier, McGonagall had made Remus say he wouldn’t give up his friends- and there Peter was, giving up him. Essentially giving up him. Right?
Remus heard footsteps before someone knocked on the bathroom door. “Remus?” James called quietly from outside. “You alright, mate?”
Leave it to James to notice his stupid pathetic noise on the stairs. “I’m fine,” Remus whispered, but his stupid voice decided to crack in a way that made him sound like a sobbing pubescent teenager.
“Okay,” James said, sounding entirely unconvinced. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Remus sniffled, even more pathetically. “Am I scary, James?” he asked through tears.
Silence. For long enough that Remus thought welp, that’s it. It was a mistake to come back to Hogwarts. Time to go back to my parents and live alone forever, where I shall adopt eighteen plants who will be my only company until death. Then James snort-laughed and said “How on Earth are you scary?”
Remus shrugged, then remembered James couldn’t see him. “Sometimes I feel like… you guys think I’m dangerous.”
More silence, then some sort of rustling. Was James searching for the key to the bathroom? Was he finding something to throw at Remus as a substitute for actually talking things through? Was he flat-out leaving?
“I’m about to eat your chocolate,” James sang from outside the room.
Now, Remus had gotten an entire stack of chocolate frogs from his parents at Christmastime, and the marauders knew by now that it was precious. No one touched Remus’s chocolate. No one.
“James, that’s mine-“
James wrenched open the bathroom door- apparently Remus hadn’t locked it after all; good thing he was only crying- and waved Remus’s precious stack of chocolate boxes in front of his face. Remus made a pathetically weak grab for it- pathetic seemed to be his thing currently- and growled “What are you doing?!”
James busted out laughing, deftly tossing the chocolate bars from hand to hand like the stupid Quidditch player he was. Remus stood up, absolutely fuming. James tossed the chocolate bars into Remus’s hands- Remus fumbled a few of them but it’s fine- and smirked.
“And you didn’t even try to tackle me, huh?” James taunted.
Remus froze, confused. At least he had his chocolate.
James grinned. “Remus. I just bullied you for two minutes and you didn’t think of hurting me. I’m ninety-percent sure you’re physically unable to hurt anyone! Look at your noodle arms.”
Remus did indeed have noodle arms.
James smiled lopsidedly at him and finished, “So would you stop feeling sorry for Big Bad Scary Remus and just eat the chocolate? You get whiny when you don’t eat chocolate.”
That was a good point. Darn you, James Potter.
Remus looked at the chocolate, looked at James, and carefully set the chocolate onto the bathroom counter before running straight at James and tackling him, yelling “SNEAK ATTACK, GIT!”
James, who was twice Remus’s weight and much much stronger, literally picked Remus up and tossed him out of the bathroom. Remus shrieked a laugh and rolled onto his bed before he could hit the ground, and then James piled on top of him and chucked a chocolate frog onto his face. It landed right in Remus’s mouth and Remus mumbled “Right prick” through it as he glared at James’s shit-eating grin.
“See, Remus?” James mocked, rolling over so they were both staring at the ceiling in exhaustion. “You couldn’t hurt us if you tried.”