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Remus Lupin was not having a very good day.
In fact, he was not having a mildly good day, or even a not-so-good day. No, Remus was currently hunched up in the corner stall of a damp, dingy little bathroom on the fifth floor, trying very hard not to cry about how absolutely terrible his day had been.
It had all started at five o’clock in the morning. An ungodly hour to be rising, if you asked Remus. Of course, James Potter had not asked Remus, nor anyone else, what he thought of being woken to the thunderous sound of leather Quidditch boots stomping across the dormitory long before any sunlight had begun peeking through red and gold curtains.
“Mornin’ Moony,” he’d called cheerfully across the room, huffing slightly as he stretched into a long lunge, “Hope I didn’t wake you up? I was just leaving for the pitch, anyway. Want to talk to McKinnon before we start - he’s got us on a fairly lax schedule at the moment, don’t know how he expects us to beat Ravenclaw next week…”
Remus blinked drowsily, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and yawned loudly enough to drown out the sounds of James’s Quidditch Talk (which was quite a feat in itself, seeing as his friend was talking about the upcoming match - something the whole school couldn’t seem to stop talking about). He glanced around the room; predictably, no-one else was awake. The bed to his left was unmade, and Remus could see a human-shaped lump in the blankets that he assumed to be Peter. To places to his right (skipping over, of course, James’s now unoccupied four-poster) the red velvet drapes were lazily shut around the bed belonging to Sirius, who, in typical style, probably wouldn’t be emerging before thirty minutes till class, then monopolising the shower for far longer than necessary until he was thoroughly late. Outside, brightly chirping birds swooped past the window, which showed the grounds to be covered in an early morning mist settling over the Forbidden Forest and giving the scene quite an eerie feel.
Remus closed his eyes with a slight sigh, and hazily assessed the merits of going back to sleep. If such a thing was possible - now he was awake, falling back into anything resembling a restful slumber would be difficult. Besides, he still had to read over Peter’s essay for charms, as he’d promised he would. But bed was so warm, and soft, and -
“Sorry! I was aiming for the door, promise, mate. Oh, ouch, that must have hurt like hell, hang on, let me just-” Remus was pulled out of his musings by a large quaffle. Specifically, said large quaffle soaring across the room and slamming straight into the side of his head.
James stood in the middle of the room, where he’d obviously been practising drills, wand in one hand. He looked as though he was torn between bursting into laughter and attempting first aid, though he was definitely leaning towards the former.
“Ok, don’t move,” He snickered, raising his wand “I’ll try this… just in case of a concussion - don’t look at me like that! I know what I’m doing, Mum uses it all the time,”. Remus watched uneasily as his friend performed a quick flick-swoop-flick motion, muttering under his breath.
“Hmm… no that’s not it, maybe more of a… aha!” James beamed proudly, and a sudden feeling of sharp clarity shot through Remus’s brain, not unlike an electric shock. Although he may not have a concussion anymore, he was certain there was no-way he was getting back to sleep.
“Cheers, Prongs,” Remus groaned as he heaved himself out of bed. Next to him, Peter snorted loudly and turned over.
“No problem!” James grinned, either missing or ignoring the sarcasm, “I - Oh, damn, I’m gonna be late, pass the quaffle would you, Moony? Ta”. On that note, the messy-haired boy bounded out of the room and down the stairs, muttering about the horrors that would befall Gryffindor House should he miss this training session.
Alone in the dormitory, Remus stumbled towards the bathroom, managing to stub his toe on every possible piece of furniture along the way. Cussing under his breath, he angrily kicked Sirius’s trunk out of his path and consequently cried out when he only succeeded in injuring himself even more. Of course, when he finally reached the shower, the door had locked itself again, and he spent a good ten minutes jiggling the handle until it opened.
No, Remus Lupin was not having a very good day at all.
“Oi! Moony, hurry up and get out! You’ve been in there for an hour!” Remus rolled his eyes, squirting out a dollop of shampoo into his palm. Despite how the others might tease him, he took personal hygiene very seriously, making sure to wash his hair and face properly every other morning. Besides, he knew for a fact Sirius spent far longer maintaining his glossy jaw length locks than he ever had. Speak of the devil…
“Mooony! Remus! Hurry. Up.” the other boy banged loudly on the bathroom door.
“Oh, leave it, Sirius. I’ll be out in a minute,” He yelled back, rubbing the shampoo through his hair. Remus shut his eyes and tried to remember which textbook they’d needed to bring for transfiguration that day. He’d never really understood why they needed more than one - it was often a topic of complaint amongst the students, he’d had a particularly interesting conversation about it with seventh year Ravenclaw Miranda Goshawk the other day…
Something was wrong. Remus’s eyes snapped open, and he carefully removed a hand from his scalp. It was still covered in the shiny shampoo, stubbornly refusing to lather properly. With a sickening sense of suspicion, he turned towards the bottle he used. Sure enough, the label was not ‘3 in 1 - Easy Haircare’ like he’d thought it was, but some fancy french brand that obviously belonged to Sirius. Remus dropped it like hot coals, and burst out of the shower towards the mirror, pausing only to wrap a towel around himself.
“Thank Merlin, you took forever … what’s wrong?” He pushed past Sirius, and stared at his reflection, aghast. His entire head was covered in a greasy, oily mixture that stank worse than rotten fish eggs now it had settled in. It took all the self-control Remus possessed not to slam his head against the wall.
“Ew… What happened?” Peter, who seemed to have just woken up, asked at the same time as Sirius loudly exclaimed: “Did you use my nourishing oil?!”
“Gosh, It looks awful. Worse than Snivellus, even,” Peter observed, crinkling his nose.
“Thanks, Peter.” Remus responded tiredly, still staring at his reflection. Sirius had gotten over the original shock of it, and was now doubled over with laughter.
“You… You used it like shampoo, didn’t you? It’s oil , you rub a little of it on the split-ends, dingbat. Oh, Merlin…” he broke off into cackles.
“I didn’t read the label! How was I supposed to know what it was, Mr Fancy French Products?!”
There was, of course, no response, as both Peter and Sirius were laughing their heads off. Remus glared at them, and stomped back to the bathroom.
It took Remus a good thirty minutes to mop all the oil out of his hair, and by then he was extremely late for his N.E.W.T class in transfiguration. Peter and Sirius had left ages ago to go down for breakfast, where they’d probably meet James. Some friends they are , he thought with a sniff, probably won’t even come back up to walk with me either .
Sure enough, he walked into class twenty minutes late to find all the seats taken. Peter glanced apologetically at him from where he sat next to Benji Fenwick, a sixth year Hufflepuff, and James mouthed something at him he was too tired to understand. Ignoring them, Remus walked briskly to McGonagall's desk, where she sat marking the fourth-year’s exams. The professor barely looked up as he approached.
“I’m sorry, professor, really, I just-”
She cut him off with a single finger, “Mr Lupin. I understand, with your... circumstances that life can be quite difficult, but you must keep up with your commitments, or else I shall have to force you to drop transfiguration! You’ve already taken on more N.E.W.T.S than the average student, a feat which shows you are certainly determined and hardworking,” she eyed Sirius, who had made a point of doing the bare minimum that term (yet still, frustratingly, passed with flying colours) disapprovingly, “But I cannot allow you to compromise your health whilst doing so! This is the third time this week!”
“I-I’m sorry, professor, It won’t happen again.” He muttered, ashamed. Her expression softened ever so slightly.
“Good. Have you seen Madame Pomfrey this month?” she asked quietly, glancing surreptitiously at the lunar calendar hanging by her desk. Sure enough, there were only three days till the full moon. He didn’t think the morning could get any worse.
“No, not yet.”
“Hm, you may want to do so. You’re not looking very well, Mr Lupin,” She said, tone mixed with finality and concern.
“Was trying to warn you, mate. Minne was in a right foul mood when you came in,” James said between mouthfuls of chicken. “Mainly ‘cause Sirius was being a bit of a git -”
“Was not! Just saying hello, and she flew right off the handle!”
“You said to her, and I quote: ‘I heard you used to play Quidditch, professor’”
“I don’t sound like that!” Sirius protested loudly.
“Then you said: ‘Not surprising, since you’re quite the keeper!’”
“Oh Merlin, you didn’t, Padfoot!” Remus groaned.
“Then McGonagall said: ‘Detention, Mr Black’” Peter finished, sniggering.
Remus didn’t feel much like laughing. He’d spent the rest of the transfiguration lesson unsuccessfully trying to change his teacup into a gerbil, replaying the professor’s words in his head over and over. Was he biting off more than he could chew? He really needed those N.E.W.T.S - although his condition prevented him from ever having a ‘good’ job, doing well in school could, at the very least, make his parents just a little bit proud, be enough to get a decent-paying job, or maybe even save enough to rent a room in Muggle London.
To make his day even worse, he’d been stopped on the way to lunch by Lily Evans, who told him she was really, really sorry, but she couldn’t make it to their study session that evening because her friend, Mary McDonald, had her birthday the next day and Lily was helping the other Gryffindor girls prepare a surprise party. He quite liked Lily - oh, not in that way, of course - but he definitely considered her a friend. The bright young witch was very empathetic (unless speaking to one James Potter, but that was usually warranted), and always seemed to know the right thing to say (once again, unless she was talking to James - but who could blame her? The boy was invariably, stubbornly optimistic). Besides, he had been looking forward to getting some help with potions too - it was the one subject he could be counted on to fail abysmally at every time.
“Alright, Moony?” Sirius asked, frowning at him. Remus realised he hadn’t said more than a sentence since they sat down.
“I’m fine.”
"Oh come off it, you've been like this all day. Really, mate, what's wrong?"
"I said, I'm-"
There was a loud crash as someone down the table knocked over a large dish, sending chicken and salad flying into the air. A couple of owls hooted angrily, flapping their wings and startling the firsties, who bumped more dishes and goblets until the whole table was in upheaval.
“Ouch, oh, I’ve got gravy in my-”
“Move out of the way, Saoirse!”
“Merlin, there goes your owl, Frank.”
"Hey! That was my plate, you little-"
“Oh for the love of Merlin-”
With a splat, someone sent a large glob of potato sailing past Remus’s ear. He ducked to miss it, only to collide face first with a giant bowl of pudding. Not the nice kind of pudding, mind you, but the kind with almonds and dates and old-person spices. It was all over his face, dripping off his nose and trickling into his mouth. There was custard in his hair, and gravy on his arms. Remus felt anger bubbling up inside him, like a volcano about to explode.
The scuffle died down, and everyone turned to face him. There were a couple of laughs disguised as awkward coughs, and one second year actually gasped. Remus just stood there while the sticky sweetness slowly slugged down his face.
He knew his fists were clenched, and he probably had a very unpleasant look on his face, but Remus didn’t care. He slammed down his fork, snatched up his bag and stormed out the door, not even bothering to look back when his friends called after him.
And so that’s how he got to the point where taking refuge in the tiny fifth floor bathroom seemed like an excellent idea, absolutely hating the world and everyone in it.
“Remus? Are you in here?” someone called out. The voice was calm and soothing, a lot like a lullaby, yet still rather stubborn-sounding. The sound of heels clicking across a tiled floor echoed around the bathroom, and he came face-to-face with Lily Evans.
“Hi,” She murmured, face full of concern.
“Hi,” He replied looking up at her, and wiping furiously to hide the silver tear tracks running down his scarred cheeks, “This is a boy’s bathroom, Lils. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you. Your friends are looking all over for you, you know. Potter's fretting about like a mother hen, and Black's still stomping through the castle trying to find you. I was the only one who thought you'd probably run off to somewhere like this.”
“Wonderful. Glad I look like the kind of person who hangs out in damp old loo’s.”
She laughed dryly, offering him her hand, “Come on. Let’s go back to the common room,”
“I thought you were busy?”
“Never too busy to help out a friend, Remus," she said softly, smiling, "Marlene's probably got the whole thing under control, anyway, she's great at that sort of thing. Now hurry up, there’s a pair of armchairs by the fire and a set of gobstones with our names on them. Potter's probably gone half mad with worry by now,”
Remus laughed, and suddenly his Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day didn’t seem so bad anymore.