Whumptober Prompt 23: What's a Whump Gotta Do to Get Some Sleep Around Here?
Exhaustion / Sleep Deprivation - Harry Potter

A/N: I'll admit this one made me very nervous. I don't think it's possible to get the characters to suit everyone, and it's a much-loved group. But it's also mostly fluff, because I can do that with this prompt!

And no, I didn't post yesterday. There's a lot of uncertainties coming up in the next few months that are making me quite restless, I'm afraid, and that makes it much harder to write.

OOOOO

Remus stood staring at the staircase. It was going the wrong way.

Normally, this would have been a great story to tell James, Peter, and Sirius later. Normally, he would have viewed it as the start of a possible adventure, the seed of an idea James and Sirius would turn into something impossible and quite probably detention-worthy. Normally he would be with friends, which made everything okay. Normally this would be part of the delight of Hogwarts.

The day after the full moon didn't fit in "normally." He hadn't slept in three nights, too busy biting and ripping into his own fur and skin. Remus looked at the staircase and felt his breathing hitch. He would not cry. He would not. He was not a lost first-year. He could get around this.

If only he remembered how. But his brain ached (thank you, Professor McGonagall, Animagi were fascinating but how was he supposed to remember the Wizarding law for them when he couldn't remember the way upstairs?), and memory was just not there at the moment, and he was a breath away from sitting down on the stairs and letting them move where they wanted to when a halting voice spoke from somewhere near his elbow.

"Are you all right, Remus?" A feminine voice—and red hair. A pity Remus wasn't James. "Remus?"

Remus Lupin blinked, realising he hadn't answered, and pulled himself together. He could do this. He was just so tired. "I'm fine."

"Then why aren't you headed to Charms?"

"I am."

"No, you're not, that's the way to the dungeons now."

Was it? Remus looked back at the staircase. And Lily would know, she went to the dungeons to talk to that friend of hers. Lily sighed, swinging her bookbag over her shoulder and grabbing Remus's arm. "I think you need to go to see the nurse."

As if the nurse could do anything. No matter how tired he was, that was a fact Remus would always remember, that nothing could be done. He was not going to the hospital wing.

"No thank you. I think I'll just go to Charms." He slid his arm out of Lily's hold—gently, but firmly, and walked the opposite way from the staircase that made him want to cry. From the corner of his eye he could see Lily standing there, frowning after him. He took the last bit of energy he had and confidently strode down the hallway and out of sight.

And a few minutes later he was lost again. Sirius would be reduced to curse words by this point, and Remus wouldn't care, if only his friends were with him. But there was a suit of armour Remus didn't remember, and empty classrooms, and the buzz of older-voices up ahead. He could hear Lucius Malfoy, so it was the seventh-year Slytherins, and Remus could not handle them. He slipped into an empty classroom and fell back against the wall, burying his head in his knees.

He was so tired. Normally the other three took care of days like this, acting up when the teachers asked him questions, pulling him along to his classes, but for some reason they weren't here. They weren't here. Mum and Da weren't here. No one was here, and Remus, worn to a thread, began crying.

He cried till the robes on his knees had circles of damp, till his nose was running and his head ached, and he couldn't stop crying.

"Oi, mate, you in here?" That was Sirius. Remus choked back the next tears and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Peter, James, he's here!" Running steps, and then he heard that panting that was so Sirius after he'd run. Remus joked his friend was half-dog at times. Loyal, friendly, and prone to bark at people. And extremely foolish, and Remus was so glad he was here.

"Remus, what are you doing here?" asked James, spilling into the classroom with Peter, who was making worried sounds, and offering the white handkerchief he carried for his runny nose. Remus wiped his eyes, his nose, and his sleeve, and muttered a spell at the handkerchief, to make it clean again, before handing it back to Peter.

"Thanks." He looked up at James. "I got lost. Where were you all?"

"Detention, remember?" Sirius scolded, a hand on his friend's arm. "The nasty new janitor, Filch, caught the three of sneaking out to find you near the Whomping Willow this morning, and set us to cleaning the Trophy Room. We weren't doing a good job, till Lily Evans came to find us—and James tripped over nothing—and told us you looked like you were going to fall over, and so we set the rags to cleaning while we came to find you."

"And we need to get back right now, because if Filch finds out-"

"We'll be in detention forever," James finished scornfully. "Relax, Peter, it'll be fine! Remus, can you stand?" he asked more gently.

Remus clenched his fists. It was the second time his friends were going to get into trouble for trying to help him. He could at least stand up and walk. He shoved himself to his feet, James catching him even as Sirius scrambled to his feet to help.

"Easy!" came from both sides at once.

"I'm fine." He hated the time after the Full Moon, when he was the weakest one.

"No, you're not, but thanks for trying." Remus glared at Sirius, who shrugged. "You look like our house-elf after Mum's been in a fit and had him clean the house top to bottom."

"Speaking of cleaning!" Peter squeaked.

"Right, right, let's go," James said, but his hand was firm on Remus's elbow, pulling him forward, and Sirius's on the other, and they wouldn't let him get lost, and Remus found himself smiling.

Until the walked into the hallway, where the Headmaster of Hogwarts stood there with his eyebrow raised. He looked from one boy to the other, taking in the hands on elbows and Peter crowding in at the back. Remus gulped; if he wasn't so tired he'd come up with an excuse for why his friends weren't in detention, but his brain was blank, and-

"I do believe, if the three of you jump three times by that suit of armour, you'll find a secret passageway leading you near the trophy room, coming out under a tapestry. It should get you there in time to beat Filch." With that, Albus Dumbledore swept past and disappeared around the corner.

"Cool!" Peter whispered, eyes glowing.

"I'll say! Another secret passageway!" Sirius whispered exultingly. "Think we can use it to prank Snivellus?"

"Come on, if Filch is hurrying back, we'd best use it!" James said impatiently, but his eyes were gleaming too, and the three of them hustled Remus along at a run, nearly lifting him off his feet as they jumped three times.

Nothing happened.

"Do you think the Headmaster was having one on us?" Peter asked nervously, darting a glance down the corridor where the voices had gotten louder.

Remus thought of the kind twinkle he'd seen in Dumbledore's eyes when the Headmaster had shown up at his parents, offering a hope they hadn't dreamed of. "No," he said exhaustedly. "He wouldn't. Come on, one more time, and I'll jump this time."

"Right, then," James said, moving closer till he had an arm hooked on Remus's armpit. "You on the other side, Sirius-"

"Don't tell me what to do, mate-"
"I only tell you when you were going to do it anyway-"

"Jump!" begged Peter, still flicking nervous glances down the hall.

"One," James began.

"Two," Sirius joined him,

"Three," Peter and Remus whispered, and together the four said, "Jump, jump, jump!"

Remus bent his knees, pushing up from the ground, feeling James and Sirius lift him up at the same time, falling to push up and jump again, and again. Behind them the wall creaked inward, and the four shared a victorious grin.

"Inside!" hissed Sirius suddenly, pushing forward, and Remus caught the sound of books being shoved into bags, and hurried after them. The passageway looked like a normal one, as best as Remus's fuzzy eyes could tell, but when it ended they were a few passages away from the Trophy Room, and the other three hurried him along, half-carrying him as he began stumbling. Their hands pulled and pushed and caught, and finally pushed him down, onto the floor, and he closed his eyes and sat, breathing deeply. He heard the muttered words that caused spells to cease, and the three sorting out which rags were which, and Sirius fuming that his oily rag had tried polishing the glass case on one, and that would take forever to fix, and James impatiently sending soap and water out of his wand and accidentally hitting Peter, and in the resulting furor and accusations Remus smiled.

He was exhausted, but he was with friends, and that was more than enough.