Chapter Text
“Moony!” A handsome sixteen year old boy bellowed over the crowd of students and parents, moments after having walked through the magical barrier dividing Platforms Nine and Ten.
Remus’ eyes spotted his friend and he gently freed himself from his mum’s embrace. Sirius was sprinting - as much as he could in the midst of a sea of people - towards him, followed by another one of their friends and his parents - the Potters.
Remus couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of jealousy in the pit of his stomach - this had been the first summer since Sirius ran away from his family home (if you could call it that) and he had spent it living with the Potters. True, Remus was happy that Sirius was accepted by James’ parents as their own son. If anyone deserved a loving family and a welcoming home - it was him. But Remus had spent many summer days and nights fantasising about what it would have been like if his own folks would have taken Sirius in. About how he’d have had his friend to keep him company during full moon and make light hearted jokes the next morning...
Not that that was the only reason - but it certainly was a big one. Ever since his friends miraculously, finally, managed to become animagi in the beginning of the previous school year, Remus’ monthly transformations had become a hundredfold better. Sirius, James, and Peter even managed to make them sound like something to look forward to - or tried their very best, anyway.
And then there was that other reason for Remus’ jealousy - one that he could barely face even in the privacy of his own thoughts.
“Alright, Remus?” James patted him on the back and moved on to greet Mrs Lupin (Mr Lupin had gotten called to work that morning unexpectedly).
For a moment, a mini chaos broke out amongst their group as everyone was saying hello and sharing snippets of their summer stories with each other. It grew a little louder still when Peter and his mother showed up, too. And all the while, Remus was stealing glances at Sirius - his black, shiny hair had gotten longer over the past couple of months and was gracefully cascading down around his face. He’d always been the best looking out of the four of them - everyone knew, or rather agreed, with that. But seeing him now, after the summer break, everything about his handsome features seemed to be amplified. He looked a bit tanned too, somehow making his pale grey eyes shine brighter than usual. Or maybe that was to be attributed to him no longer living at 12 Grimmauld Place. Either way, Remus cursed himself for looking at his friend like that.
He couldn’t pinpoint when it happened exactly, but by the end of their fourth year, Sirius was no longer just his mate. Something had changed, and Remus felt like he was in the wrong for merely having these feelings, but he couldn’t do anything other than ignore them. And so he did.
“You okay, Moony?” Sirius nudged his shoulder with his own, some five minutes later as they followed James and Peter onto the train.
“Yeah. Are you?” Remus quickly shook off all those thoughts mulling around in his head and shot his friend a cheeky smirk.
“If you’re already thinking about classes and books and homework, I swear… We’re not even at Hogwarts yet!”
“Who cares about classes, books, and homework?” James said airily as he led the way into an empty compartment. “Let’s talk about Apparition!”
“I forgot, we qualify for Apparition classes and exam this year!” Peter clapped his hands together excitedly. “Although, I doubt I’ll pass it the first time around…”
A comical silence stretched as Peter’s three friends all exchanged politely surprised looks, as if they had rehearsed this exact moment before. They all took seats right as the train gave an excited jerk.
“Peter, you’re an animagus,” Remus finally said in a low voice, not so much for fear of being overheard as to make his point more efficiently. “A sixteen year old animagus.”
“Yeas, but apparition is diff--”
“Matter of fact, you became one at barely fifteen,” James clarified.
“Yes, but--”
“You know many fifteen year old animagi, do you?”
“Ha! But--”
“They’ve got a point, you know,” Sirius added, gazing down at his left hand, looking only mildly interested. “You know how some Muggle-born girls dye their nails different colours?”
“Y-yes?” Peter frowned, while James quickly said ‘yeah, Lily always has her’s either green or yellow!’ at the same time.
“I kind of get it,” Serious said more so to himself than to others. “Listen, Wormtail, you’ll do bloody brilliantly. We’ll all be Apparating left, right, and center halfway through the second term.”
“You can’t Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts,” Remums drawled as he opened one of his mum’s Muggle books he’d been reading for the past few days.
“You don’t always have to rub that sexy brain of yours into our faces, Moony,” Sirius smirked at him, hoisting himself up to stretch out across the seats, his back leaned against the wall and legs draped across Remus’ lap.
Remus couldn’t fight off a big grin stretching across his face as he looked adamantly down, straight through his book. “You know it’s common knowledge, don’t you? You don’t have to be that smart to remember it.”
“Ever so humble.”
The four boys fell into a comfortable silence, each one of them preoccupied with their thing, whether it was reading or fiddling with a Remus’ portable 8-Track player, as James was doing. Lupin had introduced it to his three pureblood friends the previous September, and it had become something of a staple in the days, weeks, and months spent together.
Remus couldn’t focus on the word speckled pages in front of him anymore; instead, he was thinking about how it was going to be full moon in just a week. He almost said it out loud, but then stopped himself abruptly. He decided to savour the moment when he didn’t have to see the flicker of pity in his friends’ eyes. Yes, they were always encouraging and ready to be there for him - not to mention, still excited about their new-found skill of turning into animals at will - but it was almost more so Remus’ suffering that came the following day that they all dreaded. That part, none of his friends could really help him with. No matter the amount of food smuggled in from the kitchen, or jokes made at everyone’s, but his, expense. He couldn hardly hide the pain he was in for a few days following the full moon, and he didn’t want to bring any of that up before he really had to. So he didn’t say anything, and they spent the rest of the train ride listening to Elton John, playing exploding cards, stuffing themselves full of snacks from the lunch trolley, and laughing, a lot.