*****
"I'm
telling you, they take him away and give him shocks to the brain," Sirius
explained as if it were the most rational idea in the world. This was probably
one of the best things about Sirius, James decided. Sirius seemed like the
average run-of-theāmill first year at a casual glance, but every once in a
while, the kid would do or say something that really drove home the fact that
he wasn't average or really even all that normal.
"They're not shocking his brain, Black. That doesn't make any sense." James
turned at the sound of Peter's voice, and saw that the smaller boy had been
eavesdropping on their conversation and was now giving them both skeptical
glances. James frowned back in response.
Peter wasn't exactly the kind of kid to butt his nose in where it wasn't
wanted. In fact, Peter usually left them to their own devices and never really
tried to offer anything to the conversation, even when he and Sirius had
bothered to try and include him. If Lupin hadn't already been nominated as the
resident weirdo, the prize definitely would have gone to Peter instead. Which
was probably why the kid was sticking up for Lupin. The two of them probably
had a lot in common.
"It makes perfect sense," Sirius returned defensively. Normally, James would
have backed him, whether Sirius had been right or wrong. But agreeing with
Sirius' odd idea right now wouldn't get them to the bottom of what was really
going on with their nutty dormmate.
"Sirius," he tried to interrupt.
"No, really, it makes sense. Lupin's crazy so they have to take him away every
once in a while and try to fix his head."
James tried not to let that explanation boggle his mind too much. "I really
don't think-"
"He's not crazy," Peter piped in indignantly. "Sure, he's not like everyone else,
but so what? That's not why he's absent so much. And anyway, who gets shocks to
the brain for being crazy?"
"There's a whole ward for crazy people at St. Mungos," James decided to
interject before Sirius could retort. Chances were Sirius' theory was colored
by how things happened in the Muggle world. "Crazy people who can't be cured
live there, and those who are only slightly crazy have to talk to counselors.
At the most, they only cast calming charms, they don't do brain shocks or
whatever." He didn't add how he knew that. He really didn't think that they
needed to know anything about the month he'd spent at St. Mungos after his
mother's death or the year that he'd spent talking to counselors after that.
"So where the hell does the little shrimp go all the time?" Sirius demanded, a
bit put out, James assumed, at having his idea shot down. As it was, he was
looking at James as if James should somehow have the answer to the problem.
Since he had no clue what was wrong with Lupin, he just shrugged his shoulders.
To be honest, he really hadn't paid that much attention. Sure Lupin was absent
here and there, but so were other kids. There was that one Ravenclaw who'd been
out of classes for almost a whole month because he'd caught some sort of flu
from one of the potions that they'd been working on. And there was almost
always some kid or another up in the Infirmary for a day or two because of some
prank gone awry or a Quidditch accident.
He really hadn't thought that Lupin's absences were all that noteworthy until
after he'd walked in on Longbottom trying to pull the git out from under his
own bed.
"He always tells me he's visiting his mum because she's sick," Peter offered
tentatively. The three of them lapsed into silence, contemplating that bit of
information.
Personally, James didn't see how Lupin's mother being sick got Lupin out of
school and out of classes. Sure, the headmaster would send a kid home if a
relative died or something, but James didn't think that the headmaster would
send someone home just because their parent was sick. Maybe if it had only been
for one visit, it might have been a different story, but Lupin was absent way
too much for that explanation to make sense.
"He has to be lying then. The headmaster would never send him home so often
because of something like that. And besides that, if his mum were sick,
wouldn't he want to go home?" That
seemed to stump Peter for a moment.
"So if he isn't seeing his sick mum," Sirius let the question go unasked.
"Maybe she is sick," Peter returned carefully, "but not in the way we think of
her being sick."
"How else would she be sick then?" Sirius returned sarcastically.
"She could be vampire," Peter shot back in annoyance.
"A what?" James could hear the disbelief in his own voice. And he'd thought
that Sirius' guess at what was wrong with Lupin was strange, he rolled his
eyes. If left alone long enough, these two would have Lupin being held prisoner
in a veela camp outside of Austria.
"No, it makes sense, James," Sirius bounced on the bed the two of them were
sitting on excitedly. "Remember what Longbottom said last week when we went
over that chapter on vampires? He said that they prefer the blood of relatives
over anything else. He said something about it lasting longer," Sirius waved a
hand impatiently as if waiting for James to see the logic.
James still thought that it was a bit of a stretch. "So you're saying that the
headmaster makes Lupin go home all the time so his mother can suck his blood? I
don't think so."
"But think about it," Peter jumped in, "he always seems so sluggish and
depressed after he's been absent. And he has all those turtlenecks he wears all
the time. It could be to cover the fang marks."
"And sometimes he's got scratches all over his face. If his mother's
fingernails are anything like my mother's," Sirius trailed off, throwing a
knowing glance in James' direction.
"Maybe," he admitted reluctantly. He couldn't really explain what was so wrong
with their idea, but it just didn't seem right. "I still don't think the
headmaster would make him go home to get his blood sucked." Sirius and Peter
fell back into silence as they thought over that point.
"Maybe," Sirius started, "no, never mind, that doesn't work."
"I just don't think his mum's a vampire," James reiterated.
"Maybe the reason they make him go home is because it's the only way to keep
her alive," Peter offered softly.
"But we just spent last week learning how to kill vampires. If she were a
vampire, they wouldn't be trying to keep her alive," James argued back. "They'd
want her to die-"
"But she's still his mum, James," Sirius interrupted. "Would you want someone
to just kill your mum, or would you just let your mum die if you knew you could
stop that from happening?"
The question hit him harder than he'd thought it should have. Would he do
something like what they were suggesting Lupin did? Would he have done that for
his mum? Would he have saved her, despite the fact that she'd have been a dark
creature?
Could he have saved his mum?
"You really think his mum's a vampire?" He asked in a small voice.
"You have to admit, it does make sense," Peter answered as he climbed off his
bed and walked over to James' bed. "I know I wouldn't be too thrilled about
going home if I knew that my mum was going to be sucking my blood, but I would
have ended up going anyway. And Professor Longbottom would know all the ways to
kill a vampire. That might have been why Remus didn't want to go with him."
"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," Sirius nodded in agreement to Peter's words,
"but it does make sense. I wouldn't want the Defense Against the Dark Arts
professor hanging out around me if I thought he was going to kill my mum."
"Remus has been really mad at Professor Longbottom lately," Peter let the suggestion
trail off.
"It works," Sirius agreed, "he's been hacked off at Longbottom since we started
covering that chapter on vampires."
James frowned. He knew Lupin was angry at Longbottom. It didn't take a genius
to see that since Remus had taken every opportunity lately to snip at the
professor during class and make smart mouthed remarks. But it had been going on
a lot longer than a week, to James way of thinking. Lupin had been acting that
way almost since they'd started back to classes after break.
"There's only one way to know for sure," he announced, sizing up Peter as he
did so. Sirius wouldn't be a problem. He knew he could count on his friend to
agree to the idea. It was part of what made being around Sirius so fun. The kid
was always up for a bit of mischief. "We'll have to get Lupin's school
records."
"Good idea," Sirius acknowledged.
"What?" Peter yelped slightly, looking at the both of them as if they'd just
lost their minds. "We can't do that. We'll get caught."
"What, are you scared or something?" Sirius taunted lightly.
"No," Peter retorted with a fierce frown. "I just don't feel like spending the
rest of my life in detention."
"Don't worry, Peter, I'll make sure we won't get caught," James tried to
reassure. From the look on Peter's face though, it was obvious that the other
boy didn't entirely trust him or Sirius. "I promise, it'll be a quick. We'll
just grab his file, take a small peak at it to see if it says anything about
his mum, and then we'll leave," he added, trying to put on his most trustworthy
face.
"I don't know-"
"Or you could just stay here," James offered casually, "and we'll go take a
look at his file." That seemed to make up Peter's mind.
"I'm going. Knowing you two, you'd probably do something really mean. Like
change his file so that he'll get in trouble." The look of distrust was still
on the kid's features, but there was also a look of determination there too,
and that was enough for James.
"We wouldn't do something like that to the nutter," Sirius muttered under his
breath to James as they all scrambled to put their shoes on. "We may not like
him, but we aren't mean."
Well, Sirius might not do something like that to Lupin, James acknowledged. But
he wasn't too sure about himself. The little bastard irritated him beyond
belief. And damned if he'd forgive the pipsqueak for the haircut or for the
things he'd said during break. If anyone deserved to be taken down a peg or
two, it was Lupin.
Although, to be truthful, James wasn't entirely sure of how he'd feel if
Peter's theory turned out to be correct. Would it really change anything?
*****
"Oh, fuck!"
Generally, Sirius found it terribly amusing when people like Peter swore.
Goody-goods who tripped over words like 'piss' or 'twat' just failed to sound
convincing in any way, shape or form when they attempted to graduate to more
tried and true swears. And usually Peter was no exception. His face would
pucker and turn red when he attempted anything more salty than 'damn'.
Now, however, Sirius decided that Peter had just jumped a level in learning how
to effectively swear. "Don't just stand there," he hissed more than a little
desperately. "Help me."
"Okay,
okay. All right, here grab my hand." Nervous babble aside, Sirius had never
been more grateful that Peter had decided to come along on this little
adventure. If he hadn't, then Sirius wouldn't have even caught this stupid
railing when the stairwell they were standing on had swung away from the
landing so abruptly. "Damn, you're heavy."
"You're not exactly a light weight yourself," Sirius retorted in between huffs
of air as he scrambled back up onto the solid stone. He wasn't even going to
turn around to look. He'd just escaped death, he was sure. The ground floor was
only three stories down. "Where's James?"
"He stayed with the stairwell." Peter was looking just about as shaky as he
felt, Sirius noted, grinning wryly.
"No sense of adventure, that one." He shrugged, dusting his pajamas off. This
certainly was going to put a crimp in their plans. It would be ages before the
stairwell swung back over this way, and knowing his luck, if they just sat and
waited, they'd get caught. Or he'd get extremely bored, which was pretty much
as bad as getting caught.
"Yeah, I know, daft bugger. Not attempting to leap five feet across thin air
three stories up. Infinitely too cautious, that one." Peter rolled his eyes,
and Sirius found himself biting back a laugh. Well, who knew? The nerd did have
a sense of humor.
"I suppose. All right. I think we go this way," he announced as he climbed to
his feet and pointed down yet another long, dark hallway. Peter shot him a
pained glance, which in all honesty, he'd been expecting.
"Can we just sit for a minute? I think you scared about six years off my life."
"You sound like my mum." Sighing, he plopped back down. It probably couldn't
hurt. Although, if he were going to be stuck out after hours in parts of the
castle he'd never explored before, he'd rather have been with someone other
than Peter.
"Shut up." As far as comebacks were concerned, Peter had some of the lamest.
Twirling his wand idly between his fingers, he ignored the other boy and lay
back on the stone floor, looking up at the murals painted on the rather gothic
looking ceiling. The silence would have been deafening if Peter's heavy
breathing weren't there as a distraction, he noted with a small frown. "Black?"
"Yellow?" The prat had just pulled him up from certain death, after all. It was
silly really that he kept insisting on calling him Black.
"What?"
Sirius rolled his eyes and sat up. "Just call me Sirius."
"Oh." Peter seemed momentarily taken aback by that, but Sirius chalked it up to
the idea that the prat wasn't used to having friends. The only person Peter
deigned worthy of conversation was Lupin. "Um, Sirius, do you, that is, do you
really hate Remus?"
Hate Lupin? "No, not really." He shrugged almost indifferently. "I don't really
know him all that well. It's more that he just irritates me, sometimes."
"Oh."
"Look, it's not like I didn't try to be friends, okay?" he snapped defensively
before sighing in frustration. "Besides that, he's so," Sirius broke off
gesturing wildly. "He acts like the fucking world revolves around him. Which,
it doesn't. So what if he has a bad day? Who cares? Everyone has bad days, and
you don't see them streaking through the halls or casting curses and cutting
people's hair."
"Or dumping messed up potions on their partner's heads," Peter interjected
sardonically.
"Exactly!" Sirius huffed indignantly.
"Sure, everyone has bad days. Sometimes they decide to blow up every potion
they make in class, despite their partner's attempts to stop them. Or they
decide they need to flood the lav down in the dungeons and lose the house
points. Or better yet, they decide that we should attempt to break into the
Headmaster's office and steal files." Peter propped his chin on his hand lazily
as he raised an eyebrow at Sirius.
"Screw you," Sirius snapped back irritably.
"Give him a break," Peter said softly. "If his mum is a vampire-"
"So what if she is? That's not an excuse. Mine acts like a bloody harpy on
steroids, and you don't see me asking for special favors, do you?" Sirius
scowled and Peter shifted uncomfortably.
"Sorry." As far as apologies went, it probably wasn't the most sincere one
Sirius had ever heard, but he supposed he could let it slide. Peter did have a
point. A very, very small one, he assured himself, but it was still a point.
"What's so great about Lupin, anyway?"
Peter seemed to contemplate the question for a moment before shrugging. "I
dunno, he's just fun. And crazy. And completely unpredictable. And he doesn't
think I'm a nerd." Peter shot a pointed look at Sirius.
"Yeah, well okay." He shrugged off the unspoken accusation uncomfortably. "You
ready to get going now?"
"We're going back to the dorms, right?"
"What?" Sirius managed his best cheeky grin. "It's too early to go back to the
dorms. Besides, we have to find James, don't we? Buck up. It won't be that bad."
"Sirius." It sounded like a cross
between a plea and a whine, Sirius reflected with a laugh as he headed boldly
down the dark hallway, letting Peter follow behind him.
*****
