Chapter Text
Now, James would never usually call himself a hypocrite. But when he found himself coaxing Sirius Orion Black away from trashing the staff room in retaliation for James receiving an ‘unfair detention’, the thought did occur to him.
The moment James had gotten back to the Gryffindor common room after his late night deer excursion, he had been met with a frantic pair of prefects and an equally frantic McGonagall. Turns out, he had been missing for over five hours, and there was a group of teachers scouring the grounds for him.
She had originally planned on giving him detention for a month and deducting two hundred points from Gryffindor, but after a long conversation about how James didn’t fully understanding the layout of the school yet and therefore getting lost, and how he was just adjusting to living away from his family and just wanted some downtime, she had relented. Eventually he was given a week’s worth of detention and a map of the school.
James actually thought he was quite well off for the punishment, so the furious indignation from his friends surprised him.
Apparently, in the words of Sirius not him, he was being unfairly targeted for daring to stray outside of the harsh boundaries that were cruelly enforced on the students. This apparently called for immediate retaliation, as James shouldn’t have to ‘suffer’ through his punishment without revenge.
The hesitant agreement from Remus and Peter had only added fuel to Sirius’s metaphorical fire. And as such, brainstorming for an appropriately damaging yet relatively harmless prank commenced.
Sirius immediately attempted to convince them that destruction and chaos was the road to take. It had taken several hours of James coaxing him down for him to relent. James had expected for the others to suggest some far more tame options.
Oh how wrong he was.
Peter said they should hex all the cutlery at the staff table to dance off the table at the beginning of each meal to the sound of ‘chirpy chirpy cheep cheep’. Apparently the insanity this would cause would be a wonderful punishment.
Remus had suggested putting raw pork into the curtain poles and under the skirting boards of the teachers lounge. The smell would drive them out and they wouldn’t be able to locate the source.
James had rejected both, much to Sirius’s dismay.
“No. Besides the obviously… questionable morality of those, how would we execute them? We’re first years with limited spell knowledge and no one knows where the staff room even is,” James had protested. Truth be told, James wasn’t entirely sure why he was protesting this so much. He had been sure that repeating the same experiences would help bind their friendship together as it had done previously.
And yet, whenever James thought of pranks, he thought of his Sirius’s wicked grin. His Remus’s cynicism and vicious planning. His Peter’s bright eyes that came alive in the execution of a scheme.
And as much as he would always love his friends, in any form they came in, these children were not quite his. And, however selfish James may be, however much he craved the connections he once had, he refused to let them turn out the same and suffer the same experiences.
He just couldn’t do it. He had to keep them safe, as after all, he was the adult.
So he said no. No matter how much Sirius’s whines made his stomach turn, how Peter’s cow eyes made him swallow back apologies. However much the sad soft loneliness in Remus’s eyes resurfaced.
James would not break.
Sirius would give up eventually.
Right?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sirius was bored.
It was nighttime, the dorm cold and quiet. Peter lay sprawled out in that weird twisted position, making rasping noises as he breathed that added to the ambiance.
Remus was curled into a ball under the sheets, legs tucked beneath him, the tips of his curls illuminated by the ribbons of moonlight that shone through the window and James was lying on his back stiff as a board, breathing slowly. His face scrunched up and smoothed out periodically, as dreams flitted by just under his eyelids.
Oh James.
Sirius wasn’t quite sure what to think of James in all honesty. He was warm, and soft, yet stubborn as a gnome infestation. Kind and generous, but self sacrificing and afraid.
So very afraid.
Sirius didn’t know why James was so scared. In fact, Sirius wasn’t sure James understood why he was so afraid. He jumped at every shadow, flinched at every sudden noise or movement, eyes glazed over when he thought no one was looking. Sirius was. He noticed things. It was one of his finer traits, the ability to perceive what others often glanced over. He had his flaws of course, as his darling mother never failed to remind him.
He was cocky, overly sensitive and aggressive, far too passionate about meagre things, obnoxious. The list of his perceived shortcomings went on. By far the worst, however, in his mothers eyes, was his inability to stay still. He was always on the hunt for intrigue, excitement, wonder. Leg tapping, mind buzzing out of his skull.
It drove her up the wall.
He could feel the itch right now, thrumming under his skin, making his brain melt, skin crawl, his spine stiffen. The urge to create excitement, something to break up the monotony of the night. Anything really.
Sirius’s eyes flicked over to James, who was lying, face scrunched up in his restless slumber.
Sirius pounced.
“James! James, Jamie, Jman, Jameroo, Jamin, Jdude!” Sirius grinned, face inches to the bleary opening eyes of his roommate.
“Sirius… what are you doing up? It’s so early?” James groaned, hands rubbing sleep from his eyes while he attempted to turn away from Sirius and go back to sleep.
Absolute bullcrap in Sirius’s opinion. Sleep was for the weak.
“Jaaaaames. Come on. Wakey wakey time. We need to go.”
“Where are we going? Can’t it wait Pad-Sirius?” James yawned, blinking up at Sirius.
“We’re going to enact revenge on your tormentors on your behalf! And spark the initial embers of rebellion that will eventually light the roaring fire! Come on James, more energy!”
James frowned, brain lagging slightly as he struggled to make sense of the word vomit that was spewing from Sirius’s mouth.
“Reven- Sirius. I thought I said to drop it?”
Sirius groaned and flopped onto the side of the bed, slowly falling off as he whined dramatically.
“Don’t be so boring Jamie! Wheres your excitement? Your intrigue? Your thirst for adventure?”
“Where I should be right now. Dreamland. Sirius, can’t we revisit this in the morning? Not only is it before the asscrack of dawn, but we don’t want to disturb the other two.”
James gestured to the beds of Peter and Remus. They both contained messy sheets and determinedly not asleep children. Remus blinked at him silently with a strange metallic glint behind his eyes before James sighed deeply and sat up.
“Guess that plan is out the window then,” he muttered.
Sirius beamed.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The library was not an odd place to be for students. At least, in normal daytime hours.
Why, Sirius had insisted on creeping through the castle in the middle of the night in freezing weather when they could just visit in the morning was beyond Peter.
Cold stone bit at his bare skin beneath his pyjamas as he brushed against a wall, candelabras eerily lit as they walked past and cold blue light shone in through the open stone windows that let the night air in.
Peter hurried along after the others with a shiver. Plastering himself to the living furnace called James Potter seemed like the best corse of action.
And well, if the sudden contact bothered James, he didn’t show it, or even attempt to shy away.
Peter sighed in contentment as they walked before almost slamming into Sirius’s back as he skidded to a halt.
Peter squeaked. He was only saved from a crash to the floor by James’s chest that pushed him back onto his feet when he fell backwards.
“Hey Pete, you alright there?” James whispered, patting Peters shoulder.
Peter nodded and smiled.
James was an unusual person, that was certain.
Far too quick to bond with and trust people, and overly conscious of others over himself.
It was usually the opposite, especially in teenagers, Peter mused.
He had seen the boy be several minutes late to class several times, knowing that he ran the risk of house point deductions or detentions, due to him helping other students get to classes on time and safely. Had been at the helping hand of James a couple times when he was wheezing too hard to walk more than a few steps.
Yet, and Peter couldn’t say for certain, he seemed almost guilty about helping. An unidentifiable emotion ran across his face every time he gave someone their dropped books back, or caught someone’s escaped cat, or hell, helped a struggling student up the stairs.
James was such a seemingly perfect young man. So what on earth could he possibly be guilty about?
Peter was shook from his thoughts as Sirius sneakily crept into the library, edging the door open with an alarmingly loud creak.
The room was pitch black and seemed to swallow him the second he crossed its threshold. Despite the moonlight bleeding onto the stone around the door, like ink on parchment, the room inside remained dark. A quick lumos from Remus created a small glow that weakly lit around him as he followed Sirius in.
James sighed and exchanged a look with Peter. Neither of them really wanted to be there. It was far too dark, cold, and risky for anything to be worth getting out of bed and traipsing around a castle in the middle of the night.
Really they should just go back to bed, sleep it off and deal with the disappointment of Sirius in the morning.
They entered regardless.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The library was cold and dark, illuminated only by the feeble light he carried. It was a weak spell, admittedly, and sustaining it for this long was tedious, however Remus would be a liar if he said he hadn’t done this before. So he had a little practice.
Sirius led on with a straight spine and a wide grin on his face, cheeks dimpling and eyes twinkling. Remus understood. The sharp tinge of excitement on your tongue, the spike of adrenaline when you hear something nearby, the thrill of finding what you hunt.
It was an addicting feeling.
The moon was high and bright in the sky, halfway to its peak and Remus’s torment. He was already beginning to feel a need for meat, for hunting, for flesh to tear away like paper beneath his claws.
It made him nauseous to think about.
Remus had long ago come to terms with his monstrous nature. He was a predator, a violent beast and a threat to all humans who stumbled into his path. There was nothing to be done about it, no use speculating over what-ifs or maybes. He was a monster, and he would forever be a monster. There was nothing to use in trying to be anything else, trying to form connections just to either hurt or be hurt.
Remus had made his choice, and was acting on it at every opportunity. Solitude and loneliness were his to deal with.
So when James Potter pulled him into his circle of sunlight and turned his attention onto his disgraceful form, Remus wasn’t quite sure what to do.
See, James was everything Remus’s father wanted him to be. He was everything Remus craved to be. He was kind, charming, funny, clever, popular, and most importantly, he was so very human. From his shaggy curls of hair on his head down to the tips of his toes, James was human.
And he was being kind to a monster like Remus.
Perhaps that was why he froze up, the sheer confusion and disbelief stopping him before he could distance himself. Perhaps it was his selfish desire to have at least one friend, who treated him like a person. Either way, he wasn’t quick enough to prevent James from practically imprinting on him, gluing himself to Remus at any given moment. By the time Remus had realised what was going on it was too late.
Not long after Remus had been practically captured and declawed by James, he had been introduced to Peter, and then Sirius.
All throughout their introductions Remus knew. He knew that this was too good for a monster like him. Knew that far too soon he would have to break the illusion and cut himself off from this group of boys, that perhaps in another life where Remus was human, and Fenrir Greyback was long gone, he could be friends with.
But the moment never came.
They shared a room, they sat together at meals, in classes they shared desks, at weekends they stayed together. Remus was bombarded with human contact and a friendship that he had only ever dreamed about before. It was too good to be true.
But Remus knew, deep in his heart, that it wouldn’t last. They would find out. He would be expelled, and Sirius would never give him that cheeky grin again. Peter would never again pass him chocolate caramels under the table so James and Sirius can’t see. James would never look at him with those soft brown eyes and that warm expression again, the happiness and companionship replaced with sharp jards of betrayal and fear.
The idea almost made Remus feel sicker than the thought of giving into his monstrous urges.
He shook himself and continued on through the library. He would deal with that another time.
Right now, they had a book to find.