Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
The thoughts of Sirius Black and James Potter and Peter Pettigrew were blurring in his mind, and the fact that perhaps all of them could have been friends if Remus would have been sorted into Gryffindor. They definitely could have been friends. They could have been master pranksters together. And they would never care about his 'special secret'.
Rubbish.
He would never have been sorted into Gryffindor, and he definitely wouldn't have been their friends. He would never have been a prankster, ever, and even them would care about his special secret, even if they would be his best friends in the school. Why was he even dwelling on this? It was someone else's life. Remus shouldn't be invading.
To get his mind off of things, he left early from dinner to go to the library. He had finished his homework and all of his reading was done, but the library is where Remus went when he had a problem or when he simply wanted to relax. And every Ravenclaw understood that part of him, for the library was mostly riddled with Ravenclaws anyway.
Greeting some of his dormitory friends while he scanned the shelves for something remotely interesting, he found his way into the creatures department by aimless wandering and grabbed the nearest book he could find, and sat down.
He found a desk and smiled, as he had pulled out a werewolf book. He didn't even notice the polite cough across from him at the table.
"Er – ahem. I was kind of saving that seat for someone."
Remus looked ahead of him, flustered, to find Sirius sitting across from him, with multiple pages of homework sprawled out on the table before him.
"Oh–" Remus said immediately, standing up. "Sorry. Didn't see you."
"No – wait," Sirius responded, holding up a hand to stop Remus from leaving. Remus turned around, book in hand. "You're Remus, right?" Remus nodded. Sirius smiled. "The boy who didn't know chocolate?" Remus blushed, smiling slightly.
"Is that my title?" He asked, grinning broadly. Sirius laughed.
"What do you want to be known as?"
Remus sat back down again. "Remus is fine."
"Alright," Sirius answered, nodding. "What are you reading about?"
"Oh," Remus said, having forgotten about the book. He held it up. "I'm not reading it. I just was looking for something to read. Werewolves." He said, and waved the book into the air to show the cover.
Sirius leaned forward to the table. He took the book from Remus' hands.
"Why are you reading about werewolves?"
"I just blindly grabbed something from the shelf. Kind of ironic." He said, his tongue slipping slightly at the last statement.
Sirius raised his eyebrows. "Why is it ironic?"
"Er – because I have an essay to do about werewolves. And I blindly reached the right book, basically." He lied smoothly, tweaking his nose.
"That is sort of ironic."
They were both smiling towards each other when there was a noise right next to Remus – an impatient grumble.
James Potter was standing over him, holding his own homework and impatiently pursing his lips at Remus, who was in his spot.
Remus glanced at Sirius, who had stopped smiling, and stood up to give James the seat.
"Thank you," James said in an irritated voice. Remus started toward the bookshelves again, when he heard James mutter something as an after statement quietly. "For getting your snooty Ravenclaw ass out of my chair."
Remus stopped, knowing that he wasn't really supposed to hear that, but he did have super sharp ears. He heard Sirius laugh. It made his insides burn.
James laughed with him and that was a bit too much.
Turning around, he strode over to their table and glared over at James. "If I'm a Ravenclaw ass then you're a Gryffindor git." He said acidly, and swinging his bag higher onto his shoulder he walked away from their table. Nobody was laughing behind him anymore.
Smiling slightly, he walked out of the library back to the dormitories, feeling as though for the first time in his life he actually stood up to criticism.
The accomplished feeling of at least getting something done (in a way) put him in a good enough mood to not dwell on studying for the night and simply chat with the Ravenclaws in the common room.
"I saw James Potter today." Remus told the boy who he had talked to in the morning.
"Oh really?"
"And Sirius Black."
"Yeah, I heard that they were friends."
"I met Sirius on the train too." Remus explained.
"Oh really?" He replied again, not looking up from his homework chart for Astronomy. "Was James Potter the shitface I told you he was?"
Remus smiled. "Sort of."
"And Black?"
"Black was nice. Nicer than James, at least. We talked a little bit and it always got interrupted by James, who was never really excited to see me. He – er, I think dislikes me." Remus explained fairly, playing with his hands.
The boy turned a page in his Astronomy book. "Rubbish," He brushed off. "Nobody can dislike someone that quickly."
"There are some people you just don't like." Remus said.
"Yes, well," He said. "I don't think Potter is one of those see-and-hate people."
"What about that one Slytherin that he's always pranking?" Remus said, giving an example.
"Do you mean Severus? Severus Snape?"
"I don't know. All I know is that they certainly didn't get to know each other's personality before Potter started to dislike him."
"Well, he is a Slytherin. Is Potter judgmental, perhaps?"
"Perhaps. I haven't really been talking to him." Remus said, shrugging.
"But you talked to Black?"
"Yeah."
His Ravenclaw friend placed down the book and looked at Remus from his glasses a little oddly. "I heard that he's gay."
"Sirius, gay?" Remus asked disbelievingly. "I don't think so."
His friend shrugged. "It was just a rumor."
"Probably a spiteful dumped girl, who started it." Remus said firmly, folding closed his book and standing up.
"Where are you going?"
"Er – kitchens."
"Okay. Could you bring me some tea?" He asked pleadingly.
Remus nodded. "Peppermint?"
"No. Herbal Black Tea. It's in the purple box." He explained.
"Alright."
Sighing, Remus walked out of the common room and went down a couple staircases and passed the Great Hall entrances. He had only been to the kitchens once with his friend, but that was three years ago. He walked past the Hufflepuff common room and went straight into the bright hallway filled with food. That's as much as he remembered.
Walking past portrait of portrait, he realized that almost all of the portraits had some sort of person in them, except one with a bowl full of fruit.
He didn't know how to go on, really.
"Hey – Remus!" Remus heard, and twirled around to find Sirius strutting toward the portrait Remus was standing before. He smiled a slight smirk.
"Hi."
"Sneaking into the kitchens?" He asked, a grin playing on his lips. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear. "Here."
Sirius stood up on his toes and tickled the green pear, which squirmed and giggled. A green handle appeared instead of the pear.
"Voila." Sirius presented, spreading his arms apart. He held the door open for Remus, who clambered in.
"Thanks," He mumbled, seeing a large white kitchen with plenty of boxes of food around the counters. "Do you go in here often?"
"Oh, yeah," Sirius said, smiling wickedly. "Looks like the houseelves have already taken to cleaning the castle… That's good. They don't like me very much, and wouldn't like to see me sneaking around the kitchen again even though they already told me multiple times not to." He laughed.
Remus walked over to the cupboards where there was sign hanging saying 'DRINKS'. He opened it and rummaged through the boxes until he found the tea. He delved deeper until he came out with two teabags for Herbal tea, one black and one green tea.
"You came here for tea?" Sirius asked disbelievingly, who was holding three bottles of firewhiskey in his hands.
"Yeah. You came here for alcohol?" Remus asked, slightly disgusted.
"Yes. And Fire's best Whiskey." He said gently, and already uncorked the first bottle.
"So…" Remus said slightly uncomfortably. "Who are the other bottles for?"
"My friends."
"Oh. Okay." Remus said.
"We're all having a party in the common room."
"You're partying?" He asked.
"Yeah. What do you do on wonderful Friday nights like these?"
"I study."
"Does everybody study?" Sirius inquired further.
"Yeah. That's what we do."
"For fun?"
"Basically," Remus replied, shrugging. He grabbed two cups off of the counter.
"Speaking of friends…" Sirius said, slightly embarrassingly. "Sorry about James today. That was – simply inappropriate."
Remus blushed. He had, after all, insulted him back too.
"That's alright." He said, mumbling.
"There was really no reason for him to call you that when he doesn't even know you." Sirius continued.
"It's okay. Not the first time someone has ever insulted me before."
Sirius hung his head out of sorrow. "That sounds horrible."
"No, it's okay. I'm used to it." Remus said, smiling at Sirius.
Sirius looked up again, grinning. "That was a witty comeback."
"What?"
"Calling him a git." Sirius said, smiling.
Remus smiled. "Thanks."
"I guess you're one of those people who have the way with the words." Sirius complimented.
He was about to smile and compliment him back, when he heard a very high, very shrill voice come from the entrance of the kitchen. A door slammed and both of them jumped.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING???" A voice squeaked angrily, and Sirius' eyes grew wide.
"SNUFFLING WHISKEY AND CHOCOLATE FROM THE CUPBOARDS. INVADING OUR PRIVACY AS ELVES. THIS IS THE NINTH TIME I HAVE TOLD YOU TO NEVER RETURN TO THESE KITCHENS AND YOU ALWAYS DO, I WILL NOT HAVE ANY MORE OF IT!!!" The houseelf screeched, and grabbed a sweeping broom from the floor, starting to swat Sirius with it. He yelped out.
Remus tried to fight the elf away from Sirius but instead just decided to run out of the kitchen without helping anyway after a moment of trying to get the broom out of it's gray old hands.
Sirius came flying out of the door, laughing, with the broom flying out after him. The handle hit the wall with a clunk, Sirius laughing continuously on the floor.
"That was kind of funny. Do you think I could risk going back there again?"
Remus shook his head. "They know you by name, don't they?"
"All of them." Sirius said solemnly, and got up from the floor.
"You – you might want to get back to your common room. Won't your friends be worried?"
"James and Peter be worried? Nah." He brushed off, and ran his fingers through his hair.
There was an awkward silence between the two as they started walking with their goods in their hands.
"D'you play Quidditch?" Sirius asked, and Remus shook his head.
"I'm not a sporty type of person." He said, looking downwards.
"Oh." He said, reaching the stairs, and they were about to take the opposite stairs to get to their common rooms when Sirius said something.
"I should give you a lesson one time."
"What?"
"A Quidditch lesson. It'll be fun."
Not sure why he was nodding, Remus smiled and waved, walking towards the Ravenclaw common room.
What if he would still be walking with Sirius to the Gryffindor common room right now? What if they would still be talking and laughing and having an excellent time?
They would be friends.
But they weren't, so no wishful thinking.
Wait a moment – wishful thinking? Did he want to be friends with Sirius? Did he want to be friends with all of those Gryffindors? Did he want to be partying in the common room right now instead of boringly studying away something that they would never need to study anyway?
Perhaps he would.
