Chapter 13: Birthdays and Fights
Sirius' fifteenth birthday fell on a Sunday in the boys' fourth year. This was rather unfortunate for Remus, given that he liked to sleep late on Sundays, but Sirius' birthday was the only day that Sirius ever woke up early on.
Remus was awoken the morning of November 3rd by a pillow being thrown at him, which flew neatly through the gap in his hangings and hit him in the stomach. Groaning and rubbing his eyes, Remus pushed himself onto his elbows just in time for the light to hit him in the face as his curtains were pulled back, revealing the grinning face of Sirius Black.
"Up and at 'em, Remus," Sirius said, grinning and pulling Remus' cover back. Remus shivered slightly in the cold air. It was early November after all, and he only slept in a t-shirt and pants.
He rolled his eyes and swung his legs out of bed, running a hand through his wavy, bed hair as he did so. "Happy birthday," he said, leaning over to look at the clock on his bedside table. "It's fucking seven AM."
"Charming as ever," Sirius said, beaming at Remus. Remus knew that Sirius liked to hear him swear, given he always made jokes about it. The way Sirius told it, it was proof that he was corrupting Remus, which was probably true, if Remus was honest with himself. "Needed to get an early start to my fifteenth year, didn't I?"
"If you say so," Remus said, yawning. "Let me wake up a bit, then I swear I'll be more excited about your birthday."
"Oh, don't worry, I'm not offended," Sirius said, grinning. "You're a lot more cheery than you usually are in the mornings. James actually refused to be in the dorm when I woke you up, as he said that if you decided to commit murder, he could claim plausible deniability."
"Nice to know that James would defend me if I murdered you," Remus said, standing and stretching. His body had become rather lanky over the past two summers, and though he and James still stood at the same height, and were both growing slowly and steadily, Remus felt as if his body was all elbows and knees, awkward and ungraceful. Sometimes he thought he looked like a puppy with paws too big for the rest of its body, bumping into things.
"Well, he also said that you might be less likely to kill me than him," Sirius said, his voice mild. "But perhaps that's just because it's my birthday."
Remus snorted, casting a sarcastic look at Sirius, behind him, as he rummaged around in his wardrobe for clothes to throw on. "Don't go around with the impression that I have a soft spot for you, Sirius," he said. "I would be just as likely to murder you as James any other day of the year if you woke me up this early."
Sirius let out a bark of a laugh. "Don't worry, I wasn't getting presumptuous," he said, a teasing note in his voice. Remus rolled his eyes, grabbed his clothes, and headed to the bathroom, Sirius moving over to prod Peter awake in the same abrupt fashion as he had woken Remus.
In the bathroom, Remus pulled on his clothes: an oversized sweater, pants, trousers, and wool socks—his usual—then brushed his teeth and used the loo. He splashed some water on his face for good measure, and when he reappeared, he felt slightly more awake. Peter was now awake, too, dressing blearily as Sirius bounced on the balls of his feet.
"What are we doing today?" Remus asked, smiling slightly at Sirius' obvious excitement.
"I want to go for a fly around the grounds first," Sirius said, grinning. "Then, I dunno. Make it up as we go, I guess?"
"We could go into Hogsmeade," Peter suggested, his head emerging from the neck of his sweatshirt. "Since we found that one-eyed witch passageway last week."
"Good idea, Pete!" Sirius said, clapping him on the back. "Let's go meet James in the common room. Marley might be up, too, we can ask her to join."
When they went down the common room, they did indeed find Marlene McKinnon sitting beside James next to the fire, the room deserted but for them. They both rose when they heard them coming, and turning to greet them. Marlene smiled and moved to give Sirius a hug, slapping him on the back affectionately.
"Happy birthday, arsehole!" She exclaimed cheerfully, and he grinned back at her.
"Fifteen," James said, grinning, as they all turned to walk out of the portrait hole. "How does it feel?"
"Mature," Sirius said, concealing a smile. "I am now wise beyond my years, don't you forget that. When I was your age—"
"Oi, can it, you do this every year," Remus said, rolling his eyes. Sirius shot him a smile and promptly shut up.
They had a very enjoyable morning, taking turns flying on Marlene's, James', and Emmeline's brooms, the latter of which Marlene assured them would be fine to borrow. Remus mostly watched, as he wasn't much of a flier, but he liked seeing the look of pure joy on Sirius' face as he rocketed around with James, Marlene, and Peter.
After the others were thoroughly flied-out, they put the brooms back into the locker rooms and headed up to breakfast, all a bit sweaty.
The other Gryffindor girls wished Sirius a happy birthday at breakfast, even Lily, who said it a bit stiffly. After they had eaten, the boys said goodbye to Dorcas and Marlene, who were planning to go out and hang around the grounds for the day. They were purposefully vague about what their plans were, as they considered their trip into Hogsmeade almost a sacred mission just for the four of them.
At the beginning of the semester, they had begun the rather ambitious project of mapping out the school. Given the amount of time they had all spent sneaking around the castle both before and after dark in their more than three years there, they knew it quite well, but the project had spurred them to get to know it even better, leading them to find several new secret passages such as the one to Honeydukes cellar.
Now, they made sure the coast was clear before James pulled out his wand and whispered "Dissendium," tapping the one-eyed witch's hump. It opened at once, and, one by one, they climbed into it. Sirius went last, and Remus had to scramble away from the slide quickly so that Sirius would not hit him in the back as he slid down it.
As soon as they were all in the passageway, the light disappeared from the one-eyed witch's hump, indicating that it had closed by itself, and they set off. It took a good thirty minutes for them to reach Honeydukes, and after Sirius looked through the crack of the trapdoor and confirmed no one was in the cellar, they climbed out. There was a scuffle when James threw the cloak over them so they could sneak past the shopkeepers, as it was much harder for them all to fit than it had been when they were eleven.
"Remus, bend your knees, you're too tall!" Sirius hissed, nudging him. Remus prodded him back in the ribs.
"I am, it's James who's not doing it."
"I was just getting my bearings, come on," James said, amusement in his voice, and they set off up the stairs.
On a Sunday morning, the shop was relatively busy with witches and wizards, so their feet went unnoticed, and, soon enough, they exited the crowded store and pulled off the cloak in the sunlight outside.
"So, lads, what shall we do?" James asked, straightening up and rumpling his hair, light glinting off his glasses as he grinned around at them.
"What do you want to do?" Remus said, turning to Sirius and raising his eyebrows.
Sirius grinned brilliantly back at him. "Let's go to the Hog's Head. See if I can get the barman to give me some firewhiskey."
"Oh, come on," Peter said, rolling his eyes. "It's like nine AM and you're fifteen. He's never going to—"
"Don't know until we've tried, Pete!" Sirius said, grinning and clapping the smaller boy on the back before racing off in the other direction.
Peter was right in the end; the barman took one look at them and told them to leave his bar, which Sirius did with a pout on his face. Still, they settled in the Three Broomsticks with little fuss, and sat happily around with their butterbeers for an hour, laughing and talking. Sirius and James even tried to charm Rosmerta, too, into give them some kind of alcoholic drink, to which she laughed so hard she almost fell off her stool behind the bar. She consented to talk with them for several more minutes, however, and they joked back and forth with grins on their faces.
When they left the Three Broomsticks, they went to Zonko's Joke Shop. When they got bored of the village, Sirius suggested that they explore the hillside past the stile at the end of the road, so they climbed up the boulders there. They stopped at the mouth of a cave, and Remus clutched at a stitch in his side as James and Sirius peered inside curiously. Looking up across the village, Remus caught sight of the far away shack, lonely on the opposite hill, and his muscles tensed slightly.
A hand on his back startled him, and he turned to see Sirius standing there, looking at him with his piercing grey eyes. "Soon we'll be there with you, you know," he said steadily.
Remus smiled slightly, trying to brush off the moment of dread as he thought about the next full moon. "I know you will," he said. Truthfully, he wasn't as confident as he pretended. After all, it had been two years and the three boys had made almost no progress on becoming Animagi thus far.
"We will do it," Sirius said, as though he was reading Remus' mind. "Or die trying," he added, a note of slight amusement in his voice, but Remus wondered how serious he really was.
"I believe you," Remus said, smiling back at him. "I'd never doubt the power of your will, Sirius."
"Good, you'd better not," Sirius said. "Now, let's get back to the castle. I'm feeling like going and getting Dorcas to convince the other girls to hang out in our dorm this evening. Maybe we can play games or something."
"Sounds good."
"Who knows, maybe Evans will be busy with Snivellus, even," Sirius remarked as they began to descend the hill. "It is my birthday, after all. Miracles can happen."
James and Peter laughed, while Remus only rolled his eyes. It was Sirius' birthday, after all. He was not in the mood to rebuke him for his jibe at Lily at the moment. As they crept back down into the Honeydukes cellar, Remus saw Sirius slip some candies into his pocket from the storeroom. He raised his eyebrows, and Sirius grinned.
"It's a special occasion."
"You could have just bought them upstairs."
"Oh, hush, you two," James broke in, rummaging in his pockets and setting down a galleon on the top of one of the boxes, which Remus knew would pay for what Sirius had taken many times over. "Look, there, no stealing necessary. Let's go."
They talked the whole time as they walked back through the tunnel to Hogwarts, wondering what the girls would have been up to, speculating at what kind of games they should play, and talking about the map. "There must be tons of other secret passageways to find," James said. "I mean, we know about this one and the one under the Whomping Willow, obviously, but there have to be more."
"We have three more years to find them," Remus pointed out. "I'm sure we will."
"And we'll leave the map for future mischief makers!" Sirius exclaimed, his brilliant white smile visible even in the darkness.
When they finally reached the slide and climbed out, one my one, closing the hump behind them, they were greeted with the sound of footsteps, and in a second, Professor McGonagall rounded the corner and stopped dead, staring at them suspiciously.
They shuffled their feet slightly, trying to wipe the looks of guilt off of their faces as they stood in a suspicious line with their backs to the statue.
"What are you marauders doing around here?" McGonagall asked in her sharp, Scottish accent. "You aren't trying to blow up this statue, I hope? Or charm it to say foul words, like you did with all the portraits on the sixth floor in September?"
"Allegedly," Sirius broke in, a winning smile on his face. "You can't prove that was us, Professor."
She stared down at him over the tops of her square spectacles, and exasperated look on her face. "Well, you'd better get off to dinner. I shall wait to see if you have planned some trouble, and punish you then."
"Thanks, Professor," James said, smiling at her cheekily. They walked past her towards the Great Hall, but turned when she said over her shoulder:
"Oh, and Mr. Black, happy birthday."
"Thank you, Professor," Sirius said, flashing her a wide smile, which she returned with a small one, then walked off.
"Told you she loves me," Sirius said, and James shoved him.
"I'm better at Transfiguration, she loves me more."
"Not a chance, Potter!"
"What's a marauder, anyway?" Peter asked, confused.
"Someone who steals or plunders a place, like a pirate," Sirius responded promptly, and when Remus stared at him in surprise, he shrugged. "What? I read!"
"It has a nice ring to it," James said, grinning. "The marauders."
"Oh, don't tell me we're giving ourselves a group name, now," Remus joked. "I'm already embarrassed enough to be your guys' friend, I'm not sure if I can handle much more."
They all laughed, and Sirius ruffled Remus' hair affectionately, causing him to duck out of his reach. Sirius chased him all the way to dinner, and when they got there, they were all panting and laughing.
Miraculously, that evening, Sirius got his wish, as Lily was nowhere to be found. Remus suspected that she had had no desire to celebrate Sirius' birthday with him and made herself scarce, and he was very grateful, especially after Hestia cheerfully produced the game of Monopoly which she had brought from home. Remus had never played before, but he soon realized that it was a very good thing that Lily was not present, as he suspected if she had been, she and Sirius would have turned the board over in a row at some point.
James and Peter lost spectacularly, as neither could quite get the hang of the fake Muggle money, but Sirius caught on rather quickly, and ended the game in a heated battle between him and Dorcas. Dorcas won, and she let out a loud cheer and got up to do a little victory dance when he finally landed on her Boardwalk hotel, while Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Fifteen must feel old," Mary said, unwrapping a candy that they had brought back from Honeydukes and popping it into her mouth while looking at Sirius. "It's crazy, I only just turned fourteen in August."
"Oh, don't get him started," Remus joked, giving Sirius a pointed look as he grinned at Mary. Sirius ignored him.
"For some reason, it does feel a lot older than fourteen," he told her. "But I guess that's true with every year."
"Some years just feel older than others," Hestia broke in, nodding. "Like, thirteen was a big deal, because then you're a teenager instead of a preteen. And seventeen is obviously a huge deal because then we can use magic outside of school."
"What's fifteen, then? Just the midpoint between those," Marlene said, smirking at Sirius. He threw an empty candy wrapper at her, which lost any sense of its destination midway through the air and floated to the ground. Marlene laughed at his poor attempt.
"You just wait until you turn fifteen, McKinnon," he said, his voice dripping with satisfaction as he smirked at her. "In five whole months."
"Oh, shut up," Marlene retorted, still grinning.
"Your birthday's in March, isn't it, Remus?" Mary asked.
"Yeah, it is," Remus said, smiling at her.
"You're the next one to turn fifteen after me," Sirius said. "Merlin, you're all so much younger than me. Why on earth do I hang around you?"
"No," Dorcas broke in. "It's Lily who's next. Her birthday is at the end of January."
Sirius rolled his eyes, as if to say that he wasn't counting Lily, but didn't respond.
...
The work that professors assigned increased steadily the further they got into November, and Remus began to spend longer hours working in the library with Mary, as Lily had been absent from their study sessions more than usual. Remus didn't really mind, but he worried about her sometimes, spending so much time with Severus Snape.
Mary, Remus began to notice, seemed to have developed a crush on him. Granted, he knew he wasn't the best at judging these kind of things, but the longer they spent together the more convinced he was that he was right. She was subtle, but he occasionally looked up to find her eyes on him for a little too long before she looked away, blushing, and she had begun to seek him out more and more to spend time together even when they were not studying.
Remus felt very awkward about the whole thing. He really liked Mary as a friend—in fact, he had begun to like her more and more the longer they spent together, as she became less shy around him—but as something more? He couldn't picture it.
Mary was nice-looking, sure. She was short, with a heart-shaped face and pretty, light brown eyes, her curves beginning to be more pronounced than they had in previous years. Still, none of those observations made him feel anything for her. He could easily see someone else liking her, but not him. Even if he did, at some point, develop feelings for her or anyone, what was the point?
Remus had given this subject a great deal of thought the previous year, when all of his classmates seemed to become obsessed with dating, and James had gotten his first girlfriend. He came to the conclusion that it was all well and good for them to have fun with it, but that he would likely never date. It was too dangerous, what with trying to keep his secret from people. What if the girl he dated found out, and told everyone? No, he thought to himself, it's better not to risk it.
But then what should he do about Mary? Out of desperation, even knowing that they would tease him, he went to the rest of his roommates one afternoon after classes for advice.
"I think Mary fancies me," he admitted. James almost got whiplash as he turned his head so quickly to look at him, then laughed, while Remus saw Sirius, out of the corner of his eye, bump his head on his bed frame as he straightened up too quickly.
"Macdonald? So that's why you've been spending so much time with her in the library." James guffawed. "Remus, you've been holding out on us!"
"No, I—" Remus flushed, shaking his head vigorously. "I don't fancy her, we've just been studying a lot together lately, and I get the feeling she likes me."
"Oh," James said, looking a little disappointed. "Well, do you really not fancy her, like you wouldn't want to date her, or do you just sorta not fancy her, like you would say yes if she asked you out?"
"The former, I guess," Remus admitted. "I mean, Mary's nice, she's cool, and all of that, but I just wouldn't….I wouldn't go there, you know? We're friends, isn't that enough?"
"Obviously not for her if she fancies you," Sirius muttered. Remus looked at him, but Sirius was not looking at him, as he appeared to be searching his trunk for something.
"Well, just tell her you don't have feelings for her, or something," James suggested. "I mean, can't be that hard? Mind you, I've only ever been dumped, I've never had to let someone down or whatever."
"Maybe I should just leave it alone, let her get over it on her own?" Remus asked anxiously.
"Oh, no," Sirius said, looking up finally, his voice rather sharp. "Don't do the Remus disappearing thing. You always do that, it's way worse for people than if you just talked to them."
There was a bit of silence where Remus stared at Sirius in surprise and a little hurt, then James broke it. "Come on, Sirius, don't be an arsehole."
"You agree with me, though, don't you?" Sirius shot back. "He should just talk to her." He addressed his next words to Remus. "If you don't, she's just gonna ask you to Hogsmeade or something, and you'll have to say no then, so—"
"Okay, okay, I get the point," Remus said, still feeling a bit hurt by Sirius' words. Sirius shrugged, then went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. James shot a glare towards the closed door before turning back to Remus.
"Sorry," he said. "He's an arse."
"I guess," Remus said. "It's true, though, isn't it? That I disappear when I don't want to talk about things."
"I mean, you did in second year when we found out you were a werewolf," James said, shrugging. "I don't know if you've done it since. Don't worry, though, he'll get over whatever mood he's in. Maybe he'll take it out on Evans."
"That'll be fun," Peter said, rolling his eyes slightly from his bed. "Sometimes I think Sirius could do with being a little less direct about his feelings." Remus sighed, slumping back on his own bed and ignoring Sirius when he came out of the bathroom.
The mysterious ice between the two boys lasted longer than Remus would have expected. Though he tried to act naturally with Sirius at breakfast on Wednesday morning, in Charms, Remus still made a point to sit next to Peter instead of Sirius, as he wasn't sure if he wanted to deal with any remaining temper tantrums the other boy had left in him. It was useless, though, as upon entering the classroom, Professor Flitwick asked them to stand up and get out their wands, clearing the desks away to the sides of the room, as they were to practice banishing.
It was an enjoyable lesson, as they practiced with large, square cushions which they tried to banish neatly into the cupboard. However, James lost control of his cushion completely at one point, knocking it into Lily and causing her to fall over, then rise to her feet and send her cushion back at him. He was knocked back, as well, but didn't fall. Instead, he stumbled into Sirius' back, who fell over onto Remus, the two of them going down in a jumble of limbs. Sirius' forehead bumped into Remus' cheek, and for a moment, Remus felt Sirius' warm breath on his neck as his back hit the ground, knocking the wind out of him.
For a split-second, Remus' blue eyes locked on Sirius' grey ones, Sirius staring right back at him. As Remus looked up at him, he realized that he had never been so close to his friend's face before, and his eyes traced along Sirius' sharp jawline, noting slightly bitterly how smooth his skin was, as he alone among the boys had escaped the curse of pimples. It was only a moment, but for some reason, it felt like an eternity. In another second, however, the bubble around them broke, and Sirius began to laugh, while Remus lay, still stunned, underneath him, looking at Sirius' silky black hair, which was currently in his eyes. Soon, the other boy was already getting off of him, laughing and offering him a hand up.
"Thanks for that, Evans," he shot as he turned away, Remus brushing off his robes, feeling a bit shaken. Lily crossed her arms over her chest and quirked an eyebrow at him threateningly.
"Sorry about that, Remus," she said, smiling challenging at Sirius as she said it. Remus gave her a smile that he hoped looked genuine, though he worried it looked like more of a pained grimace.
"No problem." He went back to trying to banish his cushion, pushing the incident to the back of his mind. In the corridor after class, he walked away absentmindedly, not truly paying attention to where he was going until Mary caught up to him, clutching her books to her chest.
"Hey, Remus," she said brightly. "Do you want to come study in the library?"
"Oh, I dunno," Remus said, glancing at her sideways, feeling uncomfortable. "I'm not sure, I might go back to the dormitory. I'm kind of tired."
"Oh," Mary said, looking a bit disappointed. "That's fine. No worries."
"Sorry," he said, feeling quite sorry, indeed, not just for her, but for himself. Why was his life so complicated at the moment? And why couldn't he muster up the courage to just tell her straight out that he didn't like her, instead of, in Sirius' words, doing the "Remus disappearing thing?"
The other boys had disappeared in the time it took for him to talk to Mary, so he headed up to the Gryffindor common room on his own while she departed for the library. When he reached the safety of his dormitory, he collapsed back on his bed with a sigh, his head full of churning thoughts. The door of the bathroom opened, and Sirius walked out, stopping dead when he saw Remus. Remus didn't sit up, but locked eyes with Sirius, a moment of awkwardness falling between them, like a delayed reaction from what had happened in class, or perhaps it was just the residual tension about the Mary thing.
"We went ahead of you because we saw you talking to Macdonald," Sirius said, breaking the eye contact and going over to his bed, grabbing a glass of water on the bedside table and taking a sip, looking away from Remus. "Thought you might be figuring stuff out."
"Oh, yeah…" Remus said, feeling guilt wash over him again. Sirius turned and fixed him with a suspicious look.
"You didn't talk to her, did you?" He accused Remus. "You just brushed her off."
"It's none of your business, Sirius," Remus muttered, glaring at him, feeling defensive under Sirius' accusatory glare. "I don't know why you're being like this."
"I just think you shouldn't jerk people around," Sirius said, his jaw clenched as he set the glass of water down on the bedside table a bit harder than he had intended.
"I'm going to talk to her," Remus said. "I just haven't yet, okay?"
"Okay, then," Sirius said, snorting incredulously. "You do that, Remus." He turned on his heel and walked towards the door.
"Fuck you, Sirius!" Remus shouted, sitting up, his defensiveness melting away to pure rage. "Maybe you're always ready to be direct or for a confrontation, but it's not always that easy for me. Just lay off, okay? For fuck's sake!"
Sirius turned, his grey eyes steel. "If you think it's easy for me to talk about my fucking feelings, you obviously don't know me as well as you think you do," he shot back. "Did you forget where I come from?"
"No, I didn't," Remus said, leaping up from his bed and striding across the room, closer to Sirius. "Did you fucking forget what I had to deal with growing up? Did you even stop to think about the fact that I had it drilled into me from the age of four that I had to keep my whole fucking life a secret?"
"You didn't have to keep your whole life a secret, just the fact that you're a werewolf," Sirius snorted, his eyes meeting Remus'. "You added the rest on yourself, and so you've become the most bloody secretive berk in the world."
In that moment, staring at Sirius, Remus wanted to shove him, to punch him, to somehow make him shut his frustratingly perfect lips and wipe the smirk off his face. "Fuck you, Black," he retorted, glowering down at the slightly shorter boy.
"Fuck you right back, Lupin," Sirius retorted, matching his tone. They glowered at each other for a second, and then Remus heard a smashing sound behind him, and turned in surprise to find that the water glass that Sirius had been drinking out of only a minute before had shattered into a thousand tiny shards which now lay on the floor around his bed like sparkling drops of water on the floor. He swore, and turned back to Sirius, only to find the door to the dormitory swinging shut behind him. He was gone.
"That fucking bastard," Remus muttered to himself as he tiptoed around the broken glass to grab his wand from his bag, waving it to clean up the mess. Glancing up at the calendar next to his bed, he noted that the full moon was only a couple of days away. Perhaps that was why his feelings were so on edge the past two days. Still, Sirius had no such excuse. Remus collapsed back onto his bed, fuming and thinking of more cutting remarks he should have said to Sirius.
...
That month's full moon was worse than usual, Remus thought, as he woke up in the Shrieking Shack with a long, deep slash across his chest. He winced, looking down on it oozing blood. It would definitely scar.
"Remus, may I come in?" Madam Pomfrey said from the door, and Remus inched his to the bed, grabbing the threadbare blanked to cover his lower half, before saying:
"Yes, come in."
Madam Pomfrey entered the room, tutting as she caught sight of the wound on his chest. "Oh dear, that looks nasty," she said, making her way towards him and crouching down. She pulled out a vial of potion from her bag and dabbed it onto the cut, which stung and smoked as it cleaned the wound. Then she jabbed at it with her wand, and the cut scabbed over immediately, new skin stretching across it so that it was tender, but not open.
"I expect that will scar a bit," Madam Pomfrey said. "But it should be fine, healing wise. Now, drink this." She handed him a green potion, which Remus knew was a blood-replenishing potion, and he drank it down without complaint, though it tasted awful. "Let's get you back to the castle."
She turned her back while he put his clothes back on, then they walked, side by side, back across the grounds as the sun just started to peek over the horizon.
"Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing?" Madam Pomfrey asked as they reached the entrance hall, surveying him up and down.
"No, I'm okay now," Remus insisted. "I haven't got class until 11:30, anyway."
Madam Pomfrey tutted under her breath, giving him a motherly look. "Okay, dear, but try and get some rest, and if you are not feeling well, do not even think about attending class, you hear me?"
Remus smiled tiredly at her. "I won't, thanks, Madam Pomfrey."
She bustled off, and he made his slow progression up the staircase. When he reached the Gryffindor common room, he was out of breath, but relieved to find it empty. Early risers like Marlene and James were the bane of his existence on full moon days, as he hated having to act natural walking past them in the mornings.
When he reached his dormitory, he collapsed on his bed face first, but rolled over when a twinge of pain went through his chest, and fell fast asleep.
He woke a few hours later abruptly. When he opened his eyes, he thought it was the sunlight that woke him, until he saw the figure beside his bed. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that it was Sirius. He tried to sit up, and the other boy looked to him, noticing that he was awake for the first time, and leaned forward to put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently back down.
"Hey, Remus," Sirius said, looking at him with a tentative, apologetic look on his face. "Rough night?"
Remus sighed. The two hadn't spoken for the past few days before the full moon, but he didn't have the energy to be mad at Sirius right now. "It was a bit," he admitted. "I'm going to have another big scar."
Sirius nodded, then held something out to Remus, which he realized was a freshly rolled spliff. "Thought you might want this, you know, for the pain?"
"Where'd you learn to roll this?" Remus asked, looking at Sirius in surprise, but taking it nevertheless. Sirius shrugged.
"I've watched you do it the last couple of times," he said, obviously trying to sound nonchalant. "It took a couple of tries, but I thought it might be helpful not to have to do it yourself."
"Well, thanks…." Remus said, feeling at a loss. He grabbed his wand from the bedside table, and lit the end deftly, putting it to his lips and inhaling. They sat in silence for a few minutes as Remus smoked and Sirius watched him. Remus thought it should feel weird, being observed like this, but for some reason, it didn't.
When Remus was done, he felt pleasantly fuzzy-headed, the pain receding slightly from his chest, and the aches and pains ebbing. Sirius was still looking at him, fascinatedly. "Does it really help?" He asked curiously.
"Yeah, it does a bit," Remus said. "It doesn't make the pain go away, but it's better. I haven't told Madam Pomfrey about it, though, I'm not sure she would approve. But my parents were the ones who suggested it, so it's not like she could really forbid me from doing it."
"Hmm," Sirius said. Remus looked up to meet his eyes again, and they looked at each other for a moment before both attempting to speak. "Sorry," Sirius said. "You go."
"What are you doing here, Sirius?" Remus asked, raising his eyebrows at his friend.
"James told me to pull my head out of my arse and say I'm sorry, because he's sick of us not speaking to one another" Sirius said, looking down at his hands, which were clasped in his lap before looking back up to meet Remus' eyes. "So here I am, saying I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me, Remus. I was a complete arse."
"You were," Remus said, looking at Sirius steadily. "Are you going to be that way again anytime soon?"
"I wasn't planning on it," Sirius said, laughing slightly. "Look, your business is your business. I shouldn't have gone off on you like I did."
"Well, I asked for your advice," Remus said, smiling slightly. "I just hoped you would give it in a bit more understanding way."
"I'll work on that, in future," Sirius said, smiling. "I also brought you this, hoping it might make you more likely to forgive me," he said, pulling out a bar of Honeydukes chocolate from the pocket of his jacket and holding it out to Remus. Remus grinned at him and took it, breaking off a piece and putting it in his mouth. Sirius grinned back at him. "Forgiven, then?"
"You're forgiven," Remus conceded. "But only because you brought me chocolate."
That day, after Ancient Runes, Mary fell into step beside Remus as they walked to lunch, beginning to chat with him about the class. Remus steeled himself internally, then stopped.
"Mary, can I talk to you for a minute?" He asked, looking down at her. She paused as well, looking at him curiously, but followed him away from the crowd, letting Lily, Emmeline, and Hestia go on ahead of them.
"What is it, Remus?" She asked when they were in a little alcove by a window. Remus ran his hand through his hair nervously.
"Mary, I—" he broke off, sighing slightly. He met her light brown eyes, which looked apprehensive. "You know I really like being your friend, right?"
Mary looked up at him, a small, sad expression coming onto her heart-shaped face. "It's okay, Remus," she broke in before he could continue his awkward progress. She wore a slight, melancholy, half-smile, and looked up at him in understanding. "You don't need to say anything, really. I understand, and it's okay. I'll be okay."
"Really?" Remus asked, feeling lost for words as he gazed down at her. She laughed, slightly.
"Of course I will," she said, then nodded back to the corridor, indicating that they should still walk together to lunch. "Come on."