A/N – So today is Friday the thirteenth, and I don't really believe in it being an unlucky day. The idea for this fic came to me because of that, as I feel that Remus wouldn't believe that kind of thing either. It's a bit random, but hopefully people will enjoy it.
Please read and review, I do so love getting reviews.
Disclaimer – I am not JK Rowling and I do not own anything, though I wouldn't mind having some of the characters. Every time I have to write that it tears out a little part of my soul. I hope you're happy.
A Werewolf's Luck
Friday the thirteenth Remus thought as he looked at small calendar by his bedside.
Complete load of rubbish. There was no evidence to suggest that Friday the thirteenth was any different from other days of the year.
Stupid superstitions. Remus asserted as he got up out of bed – and promptly fell flat on his face.
"You alright there Moony?" James called from his bed
"Did you have a nice trip?" Sirius asked, clearly holding back laughter.
"Yeah, it was fantastic." Remus muttered grumpily. "Sorry I forgot to send a postcard." Remus picked himself up off the floor and made his way to the bathroom. He grabbed the door handle and turned it to the left, pushing forward with his chest – and walked straight into the door, smacking his forehead off the wood.
"What the hell?" he said, confused. "The door won't open."
"Really?" Sirius walked over to the door, murmuring under his breath as turned the handle and it swung open easily.
"Are you sure you did it right?" he asked, laughter sparkling in his eyes. Remus wanted to punch him.
"Of course I did it right." He retorted angrily. Mornings weren't the best time of the day for Remus.
"I've been opening doors my whole life. I've been opening this one for six years, and it's never been a problem before."
"Maybe it's because you always open doors by falling on them with your whole body." Peter suggested. "Most people turn the handle and push it open with their hand. Perhaps the door is getting tired of being mistreated."
"Very philosophical Peter." Remus scorned and stormed out of the room, slamming the offending door behind him.
After three bathroom related mishaps, a curious loss of the majority of his socks, and another tripping incident in which he would have careered down the stairs into the Gryffindor common room had it not been for Sirius' quick Quidditch reflexes, Remus was beginning to wonder if he had been a bit quick to judge the superstition that centred around Friday the thirteenth.
"No, of course I was right." He muttered to himself as he made his way down to the Great Hall for breakfast. "There is no factual basis to suggest Friday the thirteenth is anything more than a regular day with no surplus powers, supernatural or otherwise, which affect people in a negative way."
"You know, some people are going to think you're crazy if you keep talking to yourself like that." A voice breathed in his ear, and Remus jumped about a foot in the air, almost falling over the side of one of the moving staircases in the process.
"Bloody hell Padfoot!" he exclaimed. "Are you trying to murder me?"
"Jumpy today, aren't we?" Sirius observed, grinning at Remus as if he was in on some private joke Remus was not privy to.
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not doing so well on the quo-ordination front this morning." Remus retorted.
"Hmm, I wonder why that is." Sirius pondered. "You don't think it could have anything to do with the fact that today is Friday the thirteenth, do you?"
"Of course not." Remus countered. "I told you last night, it's absolute tosh, the whole sigma about Friday the thirteenth."
"No one uses words like tosh anymore Moony."
"Well I do. Come on. Peter and James have already left us for breakfast. If we don't hurry there won't be anything left."
The two boys made it to the hall with, to Remus' relief, no problems.
"What took you two so long?" Peter asked as he shovelled food onto his plate.
"Moony decided to take a little jump over the banister." Sirius explained, sitting down next to James and shooting him a significant look.
"What was that?" Remus cried, pointing at the two boys with an accusing finger.
"Whatever are you talking about Remus?" Sirius asked, his face a picture of innocence.
"That…that look. I know that look and it always means something bad is about to happen."
"Now, now Moony," James chided "you've become so cynical in your old age. I'm sure you were imagining whatever you thought you saw."
Remus sighed, knowing he would never get a sensible answer out of either of them, and reached for one of the goblets in the centre of the table. He misjudged the distance, however, and knocked the cup over. It then proceeded to hit into another glass, which in turn fell on another and another in what was henceforth known as The Great Domino Flood of nineteen seventy-seven, where every cup on the Gryffindor table was upturned.
"I just don't understand how every cup fell over." Remus declared. "It must go against some law of physics, or just some law of possibility."
"It was fantastic." James said, a dreamy look in his eye as he recalled the way the pumpkin juice and water had merged together and flooded over the sides of the table, covering everyone.
"Pity it wasn't at the Slytherin table." Sirius commented as the three friends walked down to potions, Peter having quit after OWLs.
As Remus set up his cauldron and ingredients he realised that, what with his bad luck today, being in potions might be more dangerous than usual. Remus, though excellent at the theoretical side of potions, was lacking in the practical department. Things tended to explode around him.
The first half of the lesson was fine. The students were making a simple sleeping draught and Remus was paired with Sirius, who was rather good at potions. However it was just as he was adding the salamander scales that Remus sensed something was very wrong. Looking down at his cauldron he noticed that the liquid inside was turning, not the light cobalt colour the textbook suggested, but a rather violent orange. It was also bubbling with increasing vigour. Remus had the good sense to shout "EVERYBODY SHIELD YOURSELF!" and follow his own advice, quickly conjuring a magical protection around Sirius and himself as his potion exploded violently.
"I just don't understand what went wrong." Remus declared. "I did exactly what the instructions said."
"I just don't understand how an exploded potion was able to reassemble itself into a solid mass and tap-dance across Snape's desk. Especially when it didn't have any legs." Sirius commented.
James looked at Remus in awe. "Yeah, even Slughorn looked impressed."
"What do we have next?" Remus sighed. The stressful events of the morning had caused a momentary brain malfunction and he found himself unable to remember certain things. Like how to cross a flat surface without tripping over it seemed, if the way he was sprawled on the ground was any evidence.
"Transfiguration." James replied, stepping over Remus as if he was merely a floor accessory.
"Is there a particular reason as to why you are on the floor Moony?" Sirius enquired politely. "It's just that you seem to have spent a rather large portion of the day down there."
"I hate you both." Remus said without much malice.
"Is that any way to speak to your friends?" Sirius asked, hurt lacing his voice.
"Perhaps you could stop feeling sorry for yourself and assist me in getting up." Remus suggested.
"Certainly!" James and Sirius cried as they grabbed an arm each and hauled him up, then dragged him along the corridor behind them.
"Today is not my day." Remus muttered to himself.
And Remus was entirely correct.
In Transfiguration his spell, intended to change a quill into a bird, somehow backfired and Remus found himself in a state of half human, half hawk, and all bird brained terror. He had to be taken to the hospital wing as even professor McGonagall couldn't reverse the spell.
In Herbology he was attacked by a large plant with vicious looking tentacles which had wrapped themselves round him and had only let go when Sirius had hexed the tentacles off.
"It was trying to take me to its lair!" Remus declared, still in shock.
"Don't be so overdramatic Remus."
"I'm not! I swear it was touching me inappropriately." Remus shuddered. "I will never feel safe around a plant again.
By the end of the day Remus was completely exhausted and was glad to escape to his bed straight after tea. It was as he was opening the door, cautiously after his entrance relating mishap that morning, that he heard Sirius' low voice, muttering what seemed to be a rather complicated spell under his breath. Remus burst into the room in time to see Sirius jumping away from his bed guiltily, a bag of feathers in one hand and a jar of custard in the other.
"It was you!" Remus cried, staring in astonishment at his friend and tormentor for the past day.
"You've been jinxing me all day!" he deduced. "What on earth did I do to deserve all that?"
"Do you not remember a little conversation we had yesterday Remus?" Sirius asked silkily, smiling a predatory smile.
About 24 hours earlier
"What are you up to Padfoot?" Remus asked as he walked into the dorm room to find Sirius carefully stowing away his lucky Quidditch gloves, an antique pocket watch he had been given by James' parents on his seventeenth birthday and the Marauder's Map.
"I'm locking these up for safety." He explained.
"What's going to happen to them?" Remus asked curiously.
"It's Friday the thirteenth tomorrow. You can never be too careful." Sirius replied darkly.
"You know that's just a silly superstition." Remus informed him, amused that his friend would take something so ridiculous so seriously.
"It is not!" Sirius retorted "Every Friday thirteenth of my life has ended in some sort of disaster. I am merely taking necessary precautions to prevent certain items falling victim to its curse."
Remus had only laughed, and teased Sirius mercilessly for the rest of the evening for believing the superstition. Sirius did not like being made fun of, and had vowed to get revenge.
"So," Sirius told an astonished Remus, "I had James help me set things up so your whole day would go wrong, and you'd be forced to believe in the bad luck."
"You could hardly make me fall out of bed." Remus exclaimed.
"Confundus charm." Sirius said smugly.
Remus thought back to all the things which had happened to him over the course of the day."The door?" he asked.
"I locked it then cast Alohomora when I opened it for you."
"The switching shower temperature?"
"It's a pretty simple charm Moony."
"The dancing razor? Which, by the way, almost cut off my left ear. I rather like my left ear."
"That one was James' idea."
"All my socks going missing."
"You'll find them safe in your sock drawer, still colour co-ordinated an only slightly psychologically damaged."
"The stairs?"
"Which ones? You almost fell down two."
"I could have died!"
"I caught you didn't I?"
"What about the flood at breakfast?"
"That one took both me and James to work it out. I have to say the way it all spilt off the tables in such an artistic way was a bonus."
"I have detention for a week because of that! McGonagall didn't even care that it was an accident."
"I'll get detention and keep you company." Sirius offered with a smile.
"What about potions?" Remus demanded. "That could have seriously hurt someone."
Sirius shot Remus an extremely amused look "That one was all you Moony. You're so bad at potions I didn't think I'd have to do anything, and I was right."
Remus looked furious. "How the hell did you manage the bird? That certainly wasn't my fault."
"Oh, that one was just me hexing you with an amazing spell James and I found in the library whi-"
"You went to the library?" Remus interrupted, astonished.
"All in the name of a good prank." Sirius grinned. "I have to say this ranks up there with the best of them."
"Ok, how did you do the plant?" Remus asked, curiosity overcoming his anger.
"That was complete genius on my part." Sirius boasted.
"I found out that those sorts of plants are carnivorous and are partial to birds, hawks in particular. Of course, you had just been transfigured into half a hawk, so you still smelt like one. The plant sensed this and pounced, though how a plant can smell anything is beyond me."
"You made a plant violate me because I laughed at you a little?"
"Now, Moony, I think we should look on this as a bit of harmless fun." Sirius reasoned, backing away from the look of anger in the other boy's amber eyes.
Remus was just about to jump and attack Sirius, with the intention of paying him back for the various bruises he had acquired over the day, when James burst into the room, a look of panic and guilt on his face.
"Padfoot, don't be angry with me ok?" he started as he slowly approached the other boy. "See, I was in the broomshed putting away my broom, and I kind of tripped and fell on yours and it broke and Iamreallyreallysorry!"
Sirius slapped his hand to his forehead and groaned. "I knew there was something I forgot to lock up." He said, voice full of anguish, and his face looked so funny Remus couldn't help it. He burst out laughing, collapsing in a heap on his bed and choking as he tried to get air into his lungs.
"I may not believe in Friday the thirteenth," he spluttered "however I do believe in karma."
"I'll get you back for this Potter!" Sirius exclaimed as he chased James round the room and Remus looked on, still laughing.