"Come on, it's true- I swear!"

"No way am I going to fall for another one of your tricks, Moony. How dumb do you think I am? An immortal wizard who's six hundred years old?" James laughed at how childish he believed Remus was being.

"No, really. It was in the restricted section," Remus huffed in frustration while James raised an eyebrow. It wasn't like him to break the rules.

"I've really been a bad influence on you, have I?" He grinned, "So how'd you get in there? You said you couldn't help Sirius and I brew a polyjuice potion because you couldn't get the book."

"Yeah, well it's not that hard to sneak in there with your cloak. You could do it yourself, Prongs," Remus replied, trying to focus back on his homework.

"Libraries are your specialty, not mine," He teased.

"Shut up, Potter,"

James snickered and tried to focus back on his Defense Against the Dark Arts homework, but he couldn't stop thinking about Nicolas Flamel.

"So how does he do it?" James finally asked.

"What?"

"How is Flamel immortal? Some kind of potion?"

Remus turned around from the desk to face James, his face obviously lit up with excitement that he was actually interested. James forced himself to contain his eye roll- at least until after he explained.

"Well, you see- there's the Philosophers Stone. Flamel created it himself and it can turn any metal into pure gold or be used to create the Elixir of Life. Technically he's not immortal, he just has an extended lifespan as long as he keeps drinking the potion. When he finally does decide to die, all he would have to do is to stop drinking the potion,"

"How do you even retain all of that information? Is there some kind of trick that you're keeping from us?" James exclaimed.

"It's called doing your homework. You should try it," Remus retorted with a grin, making a point to turn his chair so it was facing his desk and continue working on his homework.

There was a moment of laughter until James remembered that they all got their Astronomy exam grades back today.

"Moony, what did you get on the Astronomy exam? I got a C."

"I got a B."

"What, not an A? I'm so disappointed," James teased his friend.

"Astronomy isn't as practical," Remus muttered an excuse to his grades not being perfect, but James just ignored him.

"Did you see what Sirius got?"

"No, what did he get?" Remus replied, turning away from his homework to look at James.

"He got an F," James said solemnly, watching as his friend's face dropped. They both felt sorry for him.

"He was pretty great at Astronomy last year, he was the one who convinced us all to take it with him this year," Remus stated while James nodded in agreement.

"I think something's up with him, James,"

James' heart skipped a beat at how quickly the conversation turned from playful to serious. Whenever one of the four doesn't use their nicknames, they know that it's serious.

But James knew where Remus was coming from. They only saw him at one meal a day, even on weekends. He wasn't only doing bad in one class- all of his grades, that they knew of, were considerably low for Sirius.

"Maybe something happened with his parents in the summer. He almost never talks about his summer," James suggested, but Remus shook his head.

"He does that every year,"

Just then, Sirius, accompanied by Peter, came through the portrait hole in the middle of an engaged conversation. Both groups immediately stopped their conversation and awkwardly greeted each other.

"Whatchya talking about, Padfoot?" James asked his friend while he put on an innocent grin like they weren't talking about him.

Peter's cheeks turned red and he turned to Sirius with a nervous expression. Remus closely followed the pair's body language, trying to read it. He noticed how Sirius pulled on Peter's sleeve, as if silencing him, and how stressed Peter looked. Actually, Sirius looked stressed, Peter looked distressed. And all of them

knew how horrible Peter was at lying.

"Oh, nothing. You?" Sirius said with his cool tone, the one that James and Remus both recognized as the one that he used when he lied to teachers. Which was a lot.

"Us too," James replied, mocking Sirius' tone.

In the moment, Remus couldn't help but feel like something serious was going on. He didn't know how he knew, or how he figured it out, but Sirius saw it coming from a mile away. The look on Remus' face when he figures something out is too recognizable to ignore.

They all knew each other too well.

"Hey Peter, can we compare our Astronomy tests? I want to know why I got some wrong," Remus suddenly says, and Peter agrees. He muttered a quick excuse that his test was upstairs and he quietly told James to keep Sirius away from their room for a while before they left.

"So what'd you get on your test?" Peter asked as they entered their room.

"Oh, we're not comparing tests," Remus bluntly stated, whispering Colloportus and putting his wand on the doorknob so it was locked.

"Then why'd-"

"Peter I need to ask you some things, but I need you to be truthful with me," Remus said, sitting on his bed across from Peter.

"O-okay."

"Do you know what's wrong with Sirius?"

There were a few moments of silence before Peter decided that he didn't want to lie.

"Yes," He said, his voice shaking with anxiety.

"What is it, then."

"I can't say."

Remus sighed. "If it's some girl drama, I don't even want to know. But I'm positive that Sirius does not get this worked up over a girl. I'm his friend too, I just want to help."

"Okay, i-it's just that I don't want to b-break his trust, it's too serious for me to tell you," Peter said, visibly getting more stressed as the conversation continued. This was an example of why most of the friends didn't trust Peter with simple lies- if it wasn't serious enough, he would spill.

"If its that serious, then you should really tell me. We could help him," Remus convinced Peter.

Peter took a few moments for him to think it through, just like he did with Sirius. But he was less hesitant with Remus because he trusted his judgement more than Sirius'.

"He doesn't eat. And when he does, he throws it up... on purpose," Peter said.

Remus was stunned. He sat there, his head in a fixed position and he was speechless. He hadn't expected it to be that bad- he probably thought that he had gotten in trouble with his parents or maybe some teacher and didn't want to tell them. But never this- Remus would've never guessed that his own friend was starving himself.

"Why didn't you tell anyone? He needs help," Remus questioned, standing up from the bed exiting the room after muttering Alohomora on the door knob. He needed to talk to Sirius.

"He- he told me that he was fine!" Peter tried to defend himself and run to catch him, but Remus didn't have it. Friends are supposed to look out for each other. If they don't, no one else will.

Remus and Peter walked in on an almost empty Gryffindor Common Room. Only a few of the studious students were scattered in seats across the room with a book in hand since it was almost eleven p.m. And then there was James and Sirius- laughing about some stupid joke that James probably made.

Remus motioned for the pair to follow him and Peter back to their room, and they obliged. When they arrived, Sirius broke down in tears on the nearest bed- James'.

"Siri, everything's going to be alright. We're here for you no matter what," Remus assured his friend and sat on the bed next to him. Peter sat on the other side of Sirius to help Remus comfort him. James stood in front of the trio with an awkward feeling of being left out.

"I thought he didn't know his grandad that well," James said cluelessly.

Remus explained to James the seriousness of the situation, and all the confusion from his face was replaced with sorrow for his best friend. He joined them in comforting Sirius until he finally fell asleep on James' bed.