Dedicated to RemusXSirius, this story's first reviewer :)
More reviews would be awesome.
"Locomotor." Sirius aimed his wand at the open saltshaker in front of him, concentration bending his eyebrows. James watched his friend with undisguised admiration.
Peter, shovelling lollies and cakes into his bag for later, was ignorant of the goings-on. Remus was vacantly staring at his plate, listening against his will to the conversations of the Slytherins behind him.
A thousand tiny white crystals gushed out of the saltshaker in a continuous stream. The salt came together to form a wobbling ball that hovered mid-air above Sirius' plate at the direction of Sirius' wand.
Sirius winked at James, oozing assurance and confidence.
Sirius flicked his wand and the ball drifted over to his empty goblet. The salt ball poured itself in, and James broke into applause at this cool show of wandmanship.
Sirius bowed, then moved to repeat a modified process with the bowl of sugar.
Sirius wanted, bitterly, for Remus to stop brooding and notice how tremendous Sirius' magic was.
The sugar was guided into the saltshaker, and the salt in turn was settled into the sugar bowl. James hollered, getting what Sirius was doing.
"That is so underhanded, you dog!" Sirius laughed and they slapped fists, Sirius basking in James' high opinion.
Remus chose that moment to break eye contact with his plate. Peter dumped his brimming bag at his feet.
"What's so underhanded?" Why had Peter asked that? Did he really want to know?
"You shall see, my apprentice!"
"Apprentice?" Remus asked Sirius, his eyes dim.
"Yes, apprentice! If you had looked up from your plate you might of seen what I just did!"
"I saw, Sirius. If you really were that 'amazing' you might have considered swapping all of the salt and all of the sugar on all of the tables."
Incredulous, Sirius and James stared at Remus.
"You are acting like a party-pooper, Remus! What Sirius just did was miraculous!"
Miraculous was the wrong word, Sirius thought. Sirius shot James a look, but James had one leg either side of the bench he was sitting on and was facing Remus, not him. James' eyes were blazing in the heat of defending his friend to Remus.
"It was not miraculous, James. It's been done before, with far bigger effect."
Remus stated this calmly and in an offhand manner. The Great Hall seemed suspended as Remus' words sank in.
The Griffindors closest to James, Sirius, Remus and Peter waited with bated breath for what would come next. The first-year Slytherins had hungry eyes.
Remus stood out from his friends; he didn't fit in. Many, especially the pure-bloods and the Slytherins figured it was about time Sirius and James realised it and took action. Peter squeaked.
"Are you okay, Remus?" James asked snidely, bridling. James pushed his glasses further up his nose with one finger. Sirius was noiseless, letting James do the talking.
"You've been walking around all sad-like ever since you came back from the library, what, five days ago?"
"Is this an intervention, James?" Remus knew it was. He knew unerringly what they were intervening.
The salt and sugar had nothing to do with any of it.
"No-"
"Yeah, it is, Remus. Are you mad at us?"
"Do you think you are above us now? Too smart for these 'jokes'?"
What? Remus felt ganged up on. It was two against one (no one really counted Peter who always sided with whoever was stronger), and Remus was hurt. He wasn't sure how they had gotten here. He wasn't sure who was in the wrong, but he did not think he was better than anyone, and he thought James was out of line and grasping at straws.
Was Remus made at them? Yeah. He was.
His 'friends' hadn't noticed the Slytherins who knocked Remus into walls.
They hadn't noticed the jeers aimed Remus' way, or the spells that tripped Remus up, or locked his legs together, or made him stutter, or made his homework disappear.
His 'friends' didn't notice when Remus' potions exploded and singed his eyebrows. His 'friends' hadn't noticed the unfriendly looks Remus was on the receiving end of from the Slytherins.
His 'friends' were so involved in their pranks that even now they didn't hear the chorus of 'Loopy Lupin' rising up from the table of Slytherins.
His 'friends' didn't notice Remus. Not when he was there with them; not when he was gone.
Remus had to wonder if his friends were in on the Slytherin's bullying. He had to wonder, for the sake of his pride and his everything.
Remus had been lingering wordless for too long. He saw the expressions of Sirius, James and Peter.
"Remus- Remus would tell us if he was mad, wouldn't you, Remus?" Things were splitting apart, and Sirius had to fix it.
"No, Sirius. I think Remus likes his secrets."
"You have no idea. You have no idea."
You have no idea how many secrets I am keeping. You have no idea how much I want to tell you everything. Remus wiped his face of emotion, his right hand wrapped around his too-thin left wrist.
Remus resorted back to his old habits of arriving at class too early.
"I'm going to Defence."
There was finality to Remus' tone. He hefted his bag onto his shoulder and strode away, his eyes too bright in his crumpling face.
The first-year Slytherins tagged along uninvited, seeing a perfect occasion for cruelty in the way only they could.
"We have to go to Defence too," twittered Peter. Grudgingly, James and Sirius got to their feet to follow Peter out of the Great Hall, averting their eyes from each other's own.
XXX
"Loopy Lupin, did you have a fight with your fri-ends?"
"Is that why you're crying, baby?"
"Did they finally tell you they were just pretending?"
They hadn't but they might as well have at the way Remus was feeling and the way Sirius and James had acted.
"Oi! Loopy! We are talking to you! Wingardium Leviosa!"
There was a bang as the spell hit Remus' back on the full.
To his dread, Remus felt himself rising uncontrollably; one foot, two feet, three feet above the ground, his legs dangling below him.
Remus' bag slid to the floor from his shoulder. He couldn't see his attacker, but Remus could see one of the Slytherins upending his bag and unstoppering his bottles of ink. Remus watched in morbid fascination as the Slytherin went about soaking all of Remus' homework and books in the black ink.
"Stop that! Put me down at once!"
"'Stop that! Stop that!'" Remus sounded nothing like how they mimicked him.
"Aw, Loopy here doesn't like being in the air, does he? Does he like being upside down better?"
Remus was turned around. He was infinitely sure that was worse and that he should have just shut his mouth.
The Slytherin who had him was one Remus had never seen before. The Slytherin was not alone. There was a crowd of people who had finished their lunch and had been heading towards class standing behind him, half of them Slytherins with their wands raised menacingly at Remus.
At the very back Sirius, James and Peter stood, each of them looking comically thunderstruck. Remus' eyes darted away and he blushed, humiliated to appear so weak and pitiable in front of them.
"Who wants to see Loopy upside down?" A cheer arose at the Slytherin's bold words.
Remus dug about in his robes for his wand.
"Does anyone want to see Loopy upside down?" Catcalls and fanatic clapping.
How much more affirmation did the guy want before he would just get the deed over and done with?
Remus closed his eyes as his stomach dropped. He was tantalisingly slowly spun upside down, the blood rushing to his face as his feet hit the ceiling.
Screams of amusement and applause had the Slytherin laughing at his achievement.
Remus hated the Professors at that moment. What good were they if they couldn't stop this?
He hated himself too, and his 'friends' who weren't doing a thing to help him.
Remus' arms swung above his head. They were too heavy to lift up and Remus swore to himself at missing his opportunity to get his wand out.
Remus blocked out the roars of laughter and giddiness, breathing in deeply.
He gritted his teeth.
"Accio wand."
Wand-less magic was near impossible for a first-year, and Remus didn't have much practise at it. He had never before needed to use it.
"Accio wand!" Remus had to keep trying.
"Accio Remus' wand!"
The Slytherins stopped laughing as Remus' eyes shot open. He was sorry an instant later when stars danced in front of them, but he had to keep them open. He had to find out what was going on.
Remus waited edgily for them to clear. When they did, he wondered if he was dreaming.
The Slytherins gasped as one when Remus' robes gaped open. His wand detached itself and flew to the charmer's hand, a black-haired boy who snatched it out of the air.
Remus wondered whose side this newcomer was on before realising, too late, that the charmer was Sirius.
"Sirius." Remus hadn't meant to say his name but it slipped out.
"Sirius?" Sirius was eye to eye with a petrified Remus whose imagination was conjuring up all sorts of things that Sirius could do to him when he was defence-less and unable to move.
Sirius was livid, but at who?
Sirius did none of these things. Sirius' hand found Remus' own, and Remus' wand passed from Sirius to Remus.
"I don't know the counter spell, Remus, I'm sorry." Sirius sounded forlorn, but it was ok, because Remus did, and Sirius had already done enough by just giving Remus his wand.
"Thank you, Sirius." Sirius didn't answer, but warmth melted some of the ice in Sirius' whipped back around, and Remus cast the counter spell at his feel amongst the mess of his books to snorts of derision, just as Sirius cried 'expelliarmus'.Remus blushed, the sticky ink now covering him too. He got quickly to work, getting his books and his satchel back to some order so he could help restrain Sirius.
"Tergeo." The ink started to fall away from Remus' things, but too slowly. Remus kept shooting looks at Sirius, who was stock-still. Remus gave up, shoving everything into his splattered satchel and hoisting it over his shoulder without doing it up.
Remus moved to stand beside Sirius, who was staring the Slytherin's down.
Or had been.
Sirius marched forwards before Remus could stop him. The Slytherins backed away from the Slytherin Sirius had his sights set on, the one to hex Remus.
A flicker of fear licked across the boy's shiny face, and Remus deliberated what the Slytherin saw in Sirius to make him look so anxious.
"You think you're so powerful, don't you? Creeping up behind someone, attacking them when their back is turned and they are alone and you are not…"
Sirius spat into the Slytherin's face, and James and Peter, who had worked their way to join Remus and Sirius, cheered.
The Slytherin wiped away the trickle of spit, disgust etching deep into his face.
"Black. You can't mean to tell me that the freak over there with his scars and second-hand robes is actually a person you're going to defend?"
"That person is my friend. Got a problem with that?"
"I would've thought that you would, with all your family's pure-blood mania, would. I would have thought a person like yourself would never lower themselves to cavorting with half-bloods like Loopy Lupin." The Slytherin sneered, and his followers chuckled.
Sirius' eyes glowered, and he stuck his wand into the Slytherin's cheek.
"Get your wand off me, are you crazy? You really are deranged Black, aren't you?"
The Slytherin rotated around, looking for all the world as though he was going to run.
Sirius put a stopper to that immediately.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
Sirius was doing exactly to the Slytherin what the Slytherin had done to Remus, and Remus hated it.
"No, Sirius. Stop! He's not worth it." Remus touched Sirius' elbow tentatively.
"Sirius, it's ok. Let him go."
"They've been attacking you, haven't they? When you came back from the library with the green cloak, that was them. The exploding potions, the leg-locker curses, all them."
Rhetorical questions. Remus gave no answer but that was answer enough for Sirius, whose expression darkened.
"You know," Sirius said lightly, flaunting his wand about,
"I never really hated Slytherin. Not my favourite house but hardly terrible, you know? I don't think I would have loathed to end up there. Loathed being the same as my family, sure. Now I have changed my mind."
Remus saw fright in the eyes of everybody gathered in the hallway.
Sirius Black was living up to the reputation his family had created for him.
The Slytherin was by now facing Sirius and Remus again. Sirius snapped his wrist and the Slytherin fell from the air and collided into his 'friends', who pushed him away.
"If you ever, if anyone ever touches Remus again I swear to God… If you call him a name behind his back, if you put a spell on him or trip him up, I swear you will wish you never had." That was enough. The Slytherins and everybody else bolted down the hallway and Sirius collapsed against Remus, enveloping him in a hug.
"I am so sorry Remus. I am so sorry."