A/N: This chapter is a lot of angsty Remus. Word count: 2,720
Chapter 8
What's the Point?
Remus took a long draught of his butterbeer for lack of anything better to do.
He didn't begrudge Sirius his birthday party that had taken over the Gryffindor common room. Sirius lived for being the center of attention after all.
But James was thoroughly distracted by Lily, who was officially his girlfriend, and Peter was silently working up the courage to talk to a girl beside him on the sofa. Remus was far too distracted by Sirius' drunken escapades to try and strike up a conversation.
It had always been the same when Sirius got drunk. He felt the need to talk to anyone and everyone around him, and the other Marauders would hardly see him for the rest of the night. It was his birthday; he could do what he wanted, but Remus was still annoyed.
A sixth year girl giggled at something Sirius said, and Remus took another drink of butterbeer.
"How does he do it?" Peter asked.
Remus turned to find him watching Sirius too, though the way his mouth was hanging open hinted at an awe that Remus didn't feel.
"Do what?" Remus asked.
"Get girls fawning over him like that. He doesn't even do anything special, but they're all over him. How does he do it?"
Remus sighed and took another swig of butterbeer. His answer of "he's the most charismatic person I've ever met" wouldn't do Peter any good and would probably upset him. He loved Peter, but there was little use pretending that Peter could have the same effect on people that Sirius did without trying.
Sirius bounded towards them, making Remus' stomach tighten. A sixth year girl was close behind him. Remus scowled at their interlocked hands and took another drink.
"Remus! Peter!" Sirius exclaimed, dropping onto the couch next to Remus and throwing an arm around his shoulders. "This is Krista."
"We know Krista, Sirius," Remus said with a roll of his eyes. "She's been in our house for six years."
Sirius paused, looking between Remus and Krista, who had settled on the couch on Sirius' other side, cramming the four of them closely together. Remus tried to ignore Sirius' thigh pressing against his own by futilely inching closer to Peter.
"Well, sure," Sirius said, not sounding sure at all, "but did you know she likes those Thorton mystery books you love so much? Remus, I think I found you a girlfriend."
Remus flushed, and he couldn't use his butterbeer to hide his embarrassment because he felt uneasy at the thought of stomaching anything. Krista giggled into her hand and pushed at Sirius' shoulder, but her good humour about the comment didn't lessen Remus' embarrassment.
"Sirius," he hissed.
"What?"
Sirius tugged him closer, and Remus' cheeks flamed as he felt the entire length of Sirius' body against his. It would have been more intoxicating if he hadn't done the same with Krista on his other side.
"The two of you should at least give it a chance. Talk about how epic the last book was and how you never expected the killer to be the victim's child's doctor."
Remus pulled away from Sirius enough to give him a curious look, but Sirius wouldn't look in his direction.
He'd recounted the entire plot of that book to Sirius after reading it and needing to express his feelings to someone, but that had been the previous year, and he'd been sure that Sirius was only listening to humor him, letting his words in one ear and right out the other.
"Oh! That one was my favourite!" Krista exclaimed, leaning around Sirius to babble about the book to Remus.
On any other day, he would have been thrilled to have someone to discuss the book with and would have shared her excitement, but he couldn't take his attention off Sirius, who was smirking as if proud of himself but far more interested in the fire burning in the hearth than Remus or Krista.
Within minutes, he slipped out from between them to get another drink. Remus tried to listen to Krista, but his eyes kept flickering away only to land back on a gently smiling Krista several seconds later.
Everything was normal until the mail arrived. The influx of owls was treated with trepidation by most of the student body since the war had worsened, but the eerie silence that fell over the hall that morning was more than the usual trepidation.
It was with a heavily knotted stomach that Remus pulled his newspaper from the delivery owl's leg, slipping a few coins into its pouch before it flew away. The other Marauders crowded around him, needing to know what the whispers were about as much as he did. Remus pushed aside his half-eaten plate, smoothing out the newspaper on the table.
He wasn't sure if the sharp intake of breath had been him or one of his friends. The only thing he could process was the headline that took up most of the front page:
WIZARDING CHILDREN MASSACRED BY PACK OF WEREWOLVES IN NORTHUMBERLAND
Remus thought he would be sick in the Great Hall. He felt a hand on his shoulder but had no idea which of his friends it belonged to. They were whispering things either to him or each other, but he couldn't make sense of the words.
The picture beneath the headline was of three children who looked like siblings. They were laughing with each other and not paying attention to the camera that was pointed at them. The slight blurriness of the image hinted that it had been taken by a parent unskilled in photography. Remus wondered how much time had passed between the photo and the murder.
Time became irrelevant as he stared at the paper. The flashes of memory he had of his own attack flashed through his mind and blurred with imaginings of the attack the children had faced. They'd been less lucky than him. The paper made it clear that all three of them were dead. Not just dead. Remus choked on vomit. They'd been eaten. All that had remained were bones with teeth marks that confirmed the involvement of werewolves.
A particularly hard clap on his back drew him out of the dark space he'd descended into. Blinking a few times, he became aware once more of his friends. It was James who had hit him, but Remus' focus quickly shifted to Lily, who hadn't been close by when he'd opened the paper. She watched him from across the table with a deep frown lining her forehead.
Despite being pulled back to reality, his stomach sloshed uneasily, and with every second that passed, he was more certain that he wouldn't be able to hold it in.
"Do you need to go to the hospital wing?" James whispered in his ear.
Remus shook his head.
"I might need to lie down though," he admitted.
He looked around the Great Hall. No one but his friends and Lily were paying any attention to him. Everyone else was too concerned with the news to bother with how others were taking it.
"We'll tell Professor McGonagall you aren't feeling well," Peter said. "She'll understand."
In the moment, Remus didn't care that he'd miss Transfiguration anyway, but he couldn't find it in himself to voice those thoughts.
He had worked his arse off to prove he'd been worthy of the chance Dumbledore had taken on him, but it hadn't done any good. It wouldn't change what was waiting for him once he he left Hogwarts. The newspaper was proof of that. What would it matter if he missed his classes?
"Can you make it back to your dormitory?" Lily asked, making a move to stand just as Remus did.
"I'm fine," he said quickly.
She sat back down on the bench, watching him warily. The fact he'd been short with her only made him feel worse, but he didn't look back at his friends as he hurried out of the Great Hall.
Remus' eyes fluttered shut against his will, and his head slid from his hand until it plummeted towards the tabletop. He jerked awake, unable to stop himself from gasping. Sirius sniggered beside him, but most of the class didn't seem to have noticed. The scene was too common in History of Magic. Even Remus, who did his best to pay attention, couldn't always stop himself from dozing.
It was even worse after the hell that had been the previous day. He'd hidden himself in his dorm until lunch time, In the classes after that, he'd been distracted. After an unrestful night of sleep, things weren't getting any better.
History of Magic was a class that he was only taking because he felt he needed to be as opportunistic as possible when it came to future job opportunities. For some reason, at sixteen, he'd thought that historians might be enough like Binns that they'd never catch onto his lycanthropy.
He wasn't sure why Sirius was in the class, but he suspected it had something to do with him.
Sirius was leaning towards him to whisper something—probably that they should just leave—when Cory Johnson, a Ravenclaw, raised his hand and cleared his throat.
Binns paused in his lecture as quills stilled around the room.
"Yes, Mr…" Binns trailed off, unable to recall Cory's name.
The boy didn't appear upset about not being recognized. He didn't even bother to fill Binns in on his name as he began speaking.
"I understand the importance of the 1520 Goblin Rebellion and learning about the effects it had on modern society, Professor, but considering current events, I wanted to ask if you know of anything in history like the war now. Grindelwald is infamous obviously, but aside from that, I can't recall a wizarding war like this one. Why now?"
If Binns hadn't been translucent, Remus was sure his brow would have been furrowed. He peered around of the room as if he wasn't sure what to make of the students who faced him. No doubt he hadn't directly interacted with a student for a century or more. Perhaps he didn't remember how to have a conversation.
"Pardon?" he asked, glancing down at his notes as if they'd provide him with an answer. Remus didn't think they were even on the topic he'd been droning on about. "This is the final year of N.E.W.T.-level history. We have covered everything there is worth knowing of the world's magical history. If there were—"
"I don't mean to be rude, Professor," Cory said. "I know your curriculum is impeccable and something you've spent centuries evolving into something as comprehensive as possible, but there was never any way we were going to cover all of wizarding world history in seven years' worth of classes. There hasn't been, for instance, much of any talk about prejudice against Muggleborns throughout history, but we all know that You-Know-Who didn't come out of nowhere."
Whispering travelled around the room as Binns' eyes travelled over them, wide and uncertain.
"There's always tension between different factions in a society," the ghost said, sounding more unsure than Remus had ever heard him. He floated back and forth behind his desk in an uncharacteristic way. "That is a fact of history that is unlikely to change. History thrives on different factions of a population pushing and pulling on each other over time. You're right that there have always been prejudices. There will continue to be until the end of time."
"That's ridiculous."
Remus cringed and buried his face in his arms on top of the desk as Sirius spoke, eyes narrowed towards their professor.
"How can you say that nothing will change?" Sirius asked. "Sure, people like You-Know-Who are still out there spewing their shitty views, but it's already better than it used to be, right? It's stupid to say that everything's just going to stay the same forever."
Binns' returning look was blank.
"You're a Black," he stated simply.
Something about his tone hinted that it wasn't a personal recognition of Sirius that had led to his conclusion. Remus felt Sirius stiffen and raised his head, reaching out to touch Sirius' arm as a caution against doing something stupid.
"Little changes, Mr Black," Binns continued. "Almost nothing at all. I've read of countless individuals who have believed they would, but those beliefs didn't stop the 144th Goblin Rebellion of England in 1824."
Remus tightened his grip on Sirius' arm, keeping him in his seat. Binns stared blankly back without pretending to blink like most of the ghosts did when interacting with the living. When no other student said a word, he turned back to his notes and continued where he'd left off, right down to the word. If he heard the whispers, he had more than enough practice with ignoring them.
After several days, Remus was still feeling lethargic. Though he pushed himself to go to class, it was with a strong reluctance. He dressed himself slowly on Friday morning, hating that he had to make it through one more day before what little relief the weekend would bring.
He dressed slowly, unsure if he'd have time to go to breakfast before his first class. He was only in his shirt and trousers, no robes, when his friends bounded into the dormitory.
There was alarm on all three of their faces, and Remus felt his stomach sinking as he backed into his bed and collapsed onto it.
"What is it?" he asked.
The other Marauders had gathered at the foot of his bed, standing in an ominous line to look at him. They glanced between each other as they silently debated what to do. After several seconds, Sirius held out a copy of the Daily Prophet that Remus hadn't realized he was holding.
"Your paper came, and since you weren't there, we took it for you."
The knots in his stomach tightened. There was no hope anymore that this was about some inconsequential thing that only affected Hogwarts. Something much larger had happened.
With a shaking hand, Remus took the offered newspaper, immediately seeing what had shaken his friends.
The headline took up most of the first page, and Remus could hear it in his mind as if it were being screeched at him by a howler. There was no picture to go with the story, and it only served to increase attention to the words themselves.
MAGICAL BEINGS KNOWN TO BE ALIGNED WITH YOU-KNOW-WHO PLACED UNDER NEW RESTRICTIONS BY MINISTRY
Remus let the paper fall to his bed without reading the article. He had enough of an idea what the restrictions entailed, and he didn't think that knowing in greater detail would do him any good.
"Let me guess," he said, struggling to keep bile from rising in his throat, "werewolves are on the list."
"Of course," James replied, his voice sounding choked. "It's ridiculous."
"The bulk of Voldemort's supporters are witches and wizards," Peter added, "but you wouldn't know it looking at that list."
Sirius found it in himself to smirk.
"We should really just toss everyone in Azkaban and get on with it," he said.
He sat next to Remus, resting an elbow casually on Remus' shoulder. Not feeling up to physical contact, Remus moved to the side, causing Sirius' elbow to slip. Unfortunately, Sirius lost his balance in Remus' direction, and Remus' concerted effort to push him off made Sirius laugh as he sat up.
Remus glared, not seeing how Sirius could find humour in such a shitty situation. He certainly couldn't.
"You want to stay up here today?" James asked, pulling Remus' attention away from Sirius. "We can tell the professors. They were really understanding the other day."
"No," Remus said forcefully. "And disappear right after this? No thanks. I'll be fine."
They didn't buy the lie, but none of them called him out on it. Even Sirius was back to watching him with sympathy, and his cheeks burned from a mixture of embarrassment and anger.
"Let's get on with it then."
Sirius stood and spread his arms wide.
"It won't do any good being late to classes as seventh years. We're preparing to be responsible adults after all."
He was the first out the door, and Remus found himself snorting in spite of himself.
