This story is for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Beater 2- Wigtown Wanderers
Sirius/Remus - Sirius forgets the most important time of Remus' month.
Optional Prompts:
6. Warning sign
13. Dialogue: "It's not what it looks like!"
One would think, after over seven years of living in the same dorm, six years of knowing, and 2 years of running with Remus under the light of the full moon; that Sirius would have figured it out already. But apparently, Sirius was an idiot, who couldn't even remember that one of his best friends, his BOYFRIEND for crying out loud, was a werewolf.
Sirius had a very different opinion on the matter. First of all, he hadn't exactly FORGOTTEN that Remus was a werewolf, more like, just forgot when the full moon was. Secondly, that was completely not his fault; it was all James', honest.
James however, if questioned, would merely throw his hands into the air and say that he really REALLY didn't want to be involved in this, at all. So if everyone could just please leave him out of this shite and perhaps get the two of his best friends to talk to each other again, that'd be great.
In order to make Sirius and Remus talk again, we needed to look at the entire problem objectively. Only then would the true culprit come to light. Put shortly, it was the house elves' fault.
It all started on a Saturday, laundry day at Hogwarts, and due to the identity of the culprits, this did in fact matter. You see, for quite a long time, Sirius and James had been planning a prank on a certain Slytherin. The winter months were approaching, and the need of good warm socks was more present than ever. Normally of course, the house elves were happy to assist them in a prank, but for some reason this time, when Sirius asked to be given Severus Snape's socks, he had instead been given his own. Thus, Sirius had been the victim of a very carefully plotted prank.
On Sunday Sirius' feet were constantly itchy; on Monday morning he guessed that he must have spilled some spare itching powder into his trunk. The only way to relieve the itching of course was to soak his feet in a cooling elixir. He would not have warm feet that day, yet he failed to correlate his problem to the itching powder that was one of the many pranks they had pulled on what he still believed to be Snape's socks. So naturally, he pulled on a fresh pair before heading down to breakfast, and in addition to his cold toes, received an annoying static shock every few steps. This is where he SHOULD have noted the signs of a prank, but unfortunately one of the side effects of cooling elixir was "A tingling in ones toes" and Sirius mistook his symptoms.
Sirius did not realize the error of their prank until Tuesday when he was forced to skip everywhere he went, but by then it was far too late. The full moon was rising that evening, and Sirius, thanks to all his foot related problems over the previous few days, had missed every single warning sign.
On Saturday Remus had only been mildly irritable, but Sirius had been busy setting the prank. On Sunday Remus' eyes had darkened, he'd had a pounding headache, and he had eaten a rather rare steak for dinner. On Monday Remus had been pale and shaky, his temper had been disastrously volatile, he had eaten nothing but raw meat for every meal. But Sirius had noticed none of these things.
Normally Remus could rely on Sirius for a warm snuggle and a quiet voice on the days leading up to the full moon, however this month Sirius had been distracted by his own discomfort, far too distracted to pay any mind to Remus' agony. So on Tuesday night when Remus, James, and Peter were in the Shrieking Shack preparing for another moon, Sirius was desperately trying to determine which socks held what prank, so as to successfully apply the correct counter curse.
On Wednesday morning Remus was, well in a lot of pain yes, but more importantly, he was pissed off. So despite Madame Pomfrey insisting that he stay until the evening, Remus snuck out of the infirmary at only 11am. Angrily, he stomped his way to Gryffindor tower, blasted the door open and found Sirius…. Uh.
"It's not what it looks like!"
Um.
"Remus I swear, I know this looks bad but, honest, this is to get rid of the pranks and-"
What.
"Don't look at me like that, I'm serious! There was an engorging charm on one pair of socks and I didn't want to have gigantic FEET so…"
"Sirius… have you been trying to sort out your socks all night?"
"Yeah, it's been horrible, where have you been? You look mad, why are you mad? What'd Snivelly do this time?"
Remus growled, how dare Sirius find something as stupid as socks to be more important than the moon.
"Wow, calm down Moony, we'll get him baa… oh bugger."
"Exactly."
"It… It's not MY fault Remus, its James'. The prank was HIS idea, and he must have done something to annoy the elves enough for them to turn the prank back on me, and-"
"Don't you dare go blaming James, he was THERE last night, you weren't! How dare you care more about your stupid SOCKS than me!"
"I'd never! I don't care about the stupid socks, they were just horrible though, so itchy and annoying and-"
Remus wasn't hearing it, he grumbled and turned to leave the dorms. Sirius was an idiot, plain and simple.
Sirius slumped as he watched Remus storm out of the dormitory. Stupid James, stupid Snape, stupid stupid SOCKS. He opened their door and screamed down into the common room, "I HATE THE SOCKS FOR MAKING ME FORGET THAT YOU NEEDED ME!"
The portrait hole slamming shut echoed up to greet him.
Remus and Sirius hadn't been talking for a week, and James was simply fed up with their petty squabble over the damned socks. So on Tuesday he dragged Sirius aside for a chat, "Look Pads, I'm sorry that the prank backfired, but stop blaming it on me, stop blaming it on Snape, and dammit don't you dare blame it on Remus."
"I'm not… I blame it on the socks."
"Oh sod the socks! Just make this right. Merlin, I never thought I'd say this, but the dorm is too bloody quiet without you two giggling like little girls all the time. Fix it."
Sod the socks? Hmmm...
On Wednesday morning, Hogwarts was awoken by the scent of smoke, sweat, and kerosene. Upon entering the Great Hall, they were treated to the image of a man gone mad. Sirius was dancing across the Gryffindor table, his feet were bare, and he was cackling in glory, his victory over all the socks of Hogwarts. On the Slytherin table, there was a great fire. Gradually, grumpy students entered the Great Hall, their feet bare in their boots, and found their precious socks burning.
Remus lowered his head into his hands, but dutifully dragged Sirius down off of the table. Sirius was like an over eager puppy, he buried his head cheerfully into Remus' shoulder and squealed, "Do you like it?!"
Remus stared fretfully at the burning sock pile, "Are ALL of the socks in Hogwarts in there?"
"Yup!"
"Even mine?"
"Obviously."
It had never been about the socks. Sirius was an idiot, but at least he was an endearing one.
In memory of that fateful winter morning, Dumbledore's toes never quite became warm again, and all he wanted for Christmas, that year and every year after was a nice warm pair of socks.