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Every time he tries to think, it feels like his head has been stuffed with wool. Someone’s gone and replaced his mind with the outside of a sheep, and as the brains of the group, it’s rather disorienting. Remus sinks even farther into the cushions.
It’s a lot worse than after smoking, though, or after drinking. And it’s not a sheep, it’s a lot worse lurking in his head. The image of a wolf in sheep’s clothing flits between his ears and flies out again.
Someone flops onto the couch next to him and Remus gets his body, at least, to remember that he’s not a sheep or a wolf right now. He turns and holds out a hand as a greeting and the person next to him laughs.
“Yes, nice to meet you too, Mr. Lupin,” she says, and shakes his hand, gripping his fingers tightly. “Are you that far gone right now?”
“Sorry.”
“Let’s get you back in here. Moon’s not nearly full, you’re fine. Man up.”
“You sound like James.”
“Oh, piss off, don’t say that.”
Remus uncurls and peers out from his hiding spot below his own arms at Lily. She’s bent over, hands on knees, face in hands, staring into his face.
“Hey, there he is,” she says. “Anything going on in your head?”
“Not really.”
“A lot of wool?”
“Yeah, about.”
“Do you have to use a quill in the next twenty minutes? Or the loo?”
In his befuddled state, Remus can’t come up with any possible connection between the two of those, but he says no and Lily grins. “Perfect. This grounds me when I can’t focus.”
“What does?”
Lily takes Remus’s left hand in her right and rustles around in her pocket with her left. Her face brightens and she pulls out a bottle of red nail varnish. No, it’s not quite red.
“Is that maroon varnish?”
“Perfect for Moony of the maroon jumpers, right?”
Remus has to admit, he kind of likes the color. When Lily unscrews the cap, the paint crackles, and the brush comes out a lot redder than he’d been expecting. “It dries darker,” Lily explains. “Not as purple as the label, though. Don’t trust varnish labels.” Remus files that away in his cloudy mental space for future reference, when he can distantly see himself buying his own varnish.
“I’ve never painted my nails,” he admits.
Lily glances up at him, the brush hovering over his thumb. “Is this alright?”
“Oh, yeah, of course. Don’t worry.”
“Alright.”
The brush is cold on his finger, even through his nail. Remus wonders if nails have nerves in them, and decides he’ll look it up in the library after the moon.
The first layer is streaky, bits of red with a film between them. Quickly, all ten of his fingers are out of commission, claimed by the wet varnish. Lily screws the cap back on and sets it on the table.
“Were you reading this?” Lily asks right as Remus feels the fog in his head creeping up on him again. She holds up a copy of the school newspaper.
“Trying to.”
“Here, this article looks interesting,” she says. “Gryffindor Quidditch Players Reigning Champions As November Comes To A Close.”
“That’s not that interesting.”
“Really? What if I show you the photo?” Lily shoves the paper in his face, and the black and white photo of Sirius winks cheesily at the camera. He’s covered in mud, with his broom over his shoulders. James waves, half out of the frame.
“Not interesting.”
“You’re bright red. Want to cut out the photo? It’ll last longer. Bring it up to bed—”
“Oh, shut up.” Remus swats at the paper and Lily tuts.
“Not with those nails. Put your hands down.”
Remus groans and drops his hands down, splayed on his lap. “How long does this take?”
Lily smiles and starts to read the article. “The players touched down on the last practice before December amidst a thunderstorm, two short days after defeating both Hufflepuff and Slytherin in scrimmages. Onlookers waved as the reigning team headed off the pitch.” She snorts. “Remus, you’re in this photo.”
“Aw, what’s this, a fan club?” calls someone new, and the newspaper disappears from Lily’s hands. James drapes himself over the back of the sofa, bent in half backwards. “Remus, what’s your face doing in this photo?”
“I look normal.”
“You’re ogling someone, mate.” James drops the newspaper back down to Lily. “Oh, I wonder who it could possibly be.”
Remus wants to hide again in the deeper cushions, but he also realizes that Lily’s method is working, even if he doesn’t want it to. The wool is more like cotton, and stretched thin. He can feel his thoughts again. Even if it won’t last, he’s still grateful.
“Oh, varnish time! My turn, I’m chipping,” Sirius says, and drops right on the other side of Lily, seemingly out of nowhere. He holds out his hands, each nail with a pitiful amount of black varnish remaining on it. “Help my sad nails, Lily.”
“After Remus. This was his cheering-up session, not yours.” Lily picks one of Remus’s hands back up and starts the next layer.
Remus zones out as she paints, his friends chattering around him. At some point Peter shows up with a tin of biscuits and the sound of crunching gets added to the talking.
“There, done,” Lily says, slicing through Remus’s thoughts, or lack thereof. “This stuff’s amazing. It only takes two coats.”
“Oh, wow.” Remus gazes at his hands. “Is it dry?”
“Not yet. Well…” Lily pulls her wand out of her sleeve and waves it over the drying varnish. “Now it is.”
It’s certainly dried to a different color than the bottle had promised. His nails are a sort of dark red, just a slight bit towards purple. The color makes him uneasy for a reason he can’t, both literally and metaphorically, put a finger on. But Lily turns and starts painting Sirius’s nails, and Remus lets the feeling go. He can’t trust his gut reactions around the full moon. He’s probably a bit colorblind, anyway.
Remus joins in the conversation, and the Gryffindor seventh years discuss the hottest paintings and the flavor of the various biscuits until the early hours of the morning.
***
Remus comes to in the definite darkness that comes just before dawn. Someone stands by him and drapes a blanket across his bare back.
”Lumos.” Madam Pomfrey looks down on the boy, her face brightened and her glasses glinting. “Rough night?”
Remus tries to answer, but when his lips part, he feels a scab pull and warm liquid dribbles down his chin. The wool rushes out of his head and the pain floods in. His lips burn, all the way up a cheek. He tries to push himself up, but his wrist gives out.
Pomfrey winces. “We’ll get you fixed up soon.”
She sets his broken wrist with a spell but says she has to clean the cuts back at the hospital wing. Remus pulls on his trousers and wraps the blanket tight about himself after Pomfrey bans him from putting on his shirt, saying the fibers will dry into the cuts on his arms and just make it worse to take off. The nurse leads the way back to the castle through the underground passage with the teen stumbling behind.
***
Drowsy after so many spells and potions, Remus lounges propped up in a cot. His eyelids threaten to close again but he fights it as he stares at the high beams of the hospital wing.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Pomfrey asks, bustling past his bed with a box of bandages.
Remus lolls his head around on the pillow to be able to see her. “‘M alright,” he manages.
She sets down the box and comes back to his bed. “You banged yourself up quite a bit last night,” she says. “You’re on bed rest until tonight, at least.”
“Then I’ll just have to go to bed again.”
“But in your own bed.” She dusts off her hands. “I’ll bring you some more water.” Pomfrey picks up the empty cup and hurries off.
Remus looks down at his arms for the first time after they’d been bandaged, the weight of his head nearly making his neck sore. The bandages wrap up to his elbows, but they’ll be able to come off by tonight. His eyes wander down his arms to his hands.
“Shit!” Remus yelps. He swipes his fingers on the white bedsheets, frantic to get the masses of blood off. Each finger with its own scab, each nail a horrible mess of red. How could Pomfrey have missed it? He’d be unable to hold a quill for a week, he’d—
“I thought the red was a bold statement,” Madame Pomfrey says, setting the full water glass down. “I’ve never seen you wear varnish.”
Just as quickly as the panic had come on, it floods out of him, replaced by embarrassment. Only varnish, that’s all it is, Lily’s dark red varnish. A perfect mimic for dried blood. Remus wants to cry.
“Do you have any acetone?” he asks.
Pomfrey gets the remover and Remus goes back to staring at the ceiling, fighting back the tears welling in his eyes.
***
“I’m really sorry.”
“Really, you can stop apologizing. It’s only varnish, it comes off eventually.” Lily picks up his hand. “Do you want me to get the rest of this off for you?”
Remus sinks into the couch cushions and watches the fire, the pair replicating just a few nights ago when they’d first applied the varnish.
He’s only glanced at his nails since mistaking them for blood, and even now, with his messy removal job, they still look like blood on the edges of pulled-away nails, and the thought makes his stomach churn. Lily had been so kind, and he’d gone and gotten rid of her work.
“Look, we could even do them again. You wouldn’t believe how many colors of varnish there are. Sirius got me another one a week ago, it’s sort of silvery. I think he used it before he handed it over, though.”
Remus sits up a bit straighter, though it’s difficult to do so in the ancient sofa. James and Sirius are squeezed into an armchair together, fighting each other for what color the fire should be. Each time one of them manages to cast it to something unnatural, Peter, sitting right by the fireplace, silently casts it back to orange.
“Yeah, sure. Let’s do this again,” Remus agrees.
“What color will it be?”
He looks around at his friends, at Sirius’s sky-colored jumper, albeit stained with mud and tea.
“Do you have blue?”
Lily smiles, like she’d like to tease him about something, but she only says, “At least two shades. I’ll go get them.”
“Nail time again?” Sirius asks. He leans over the arm of the chair and stares at Remus upside down, his hair trailing nearly to the ground. “Wanna match, Moony?”
“Matching varnish?” James abandons the fire on a pale lavender that quickly changes back to orange.
Sirius leans back up. “Yeah, but it was just me and—”
“Perfect, Peter and Lily can join in too.”
“What’re we doing?” Peter asks.
“The Marauders plus honorary members are getting matching nails.”
“You can’t turn Lily’s varnish into a matching thing without her here,” Remus points out, but James shushes him.
“It’s fine, she won’t care.”
Sirius squirms out of the armchair and flops down beside Remus. “I think we should make this a tradition.”
Lily gets back with the remover and blue varnish. The five teens crowd around the couch, and Remus secretly picks the shade of blue closest to Sirius’s jumper for their nails.
***
Later, in the dark boy’s dorm, the moonlight slides over Remus’s bed and he stares at his nails bathed in the soft silver. Instead of his usual panic when faced with the moon, he holds up his hands and admires the blue—his left hand painted by Lily, the right by Sirius. Maybe next time, he’ll paint his own. He can try yellow, maybe, or the silver Lily mentioned.
Red can stay on bandages and banners. Blue varnish suits them all better anyway.