Wednesday, September First, 1976 10:39 A.M
Sirius stares over the table at the small, pale man whose shoulders hunch in a familiar way as he sips his tea and reads a book. He thinks that Mr. Lupin was probably very handsome before he lost his wife to the same creature that condemned his only son to a cursed life. Now he is simply a shell of that man, wearing a threadbare cardigan with an argyle pattern on its torn pocket and khakis that are much too short on him.
James comes into the café with an armload of preariously stacked chocolates. Sirius stands and claps his best friend on the shoulder a little too enthusiastically. "Looking smashing as usual, Potter, and I see that you've spent all of your allowance on sweets again."
Mr. Lupin looks up and smiles as if he quite understands the importance of spending seventeen galleons on sweets. "James, please tell me that you didn't let my son spend all of his money on books. I dare say the boy needs a taste for adventure that no amount of words can fulfil in him."
"Oh, don't worry. He gets plenty of adventure running around with the lot of us. Unfortunately he's designated himself as damage control and usually fusses a lot over the condition of our clothes."
"He has always had his mother's sense of adventure; that is to say that he has absolutely none at all."
"We'll get him in loads of trouble this term, sir, with your permission," James says as he unwraps a chocolate with his teeth.
"Well, nothing to jeopardize his becoming Head Boy, if you don't mind. He so has his heart set on that title."
"No, nothing too drastic, sir. A few hapless pranks on unsuspecting bystanders and perhaps another smashing Halloween party," Sirius grins as he says this, recalling with delight the past few Halloweens at Hogwarts.
"Very well, but do take care of him as best you can. I sometimes think his mother's death was a bit too much for him to handle, and you boys have really made him a home at Hogwarts. Frightful bad luck he's got such an old drone as a father, you know?"
Sirius knows that Mr. Lupin is not fishing for compliments. He honestly believes he is a bad father. Sirius had visited Remus' house once, and he remembers with an abysmal lack of affection how quiet life in the Lupin household was.
"I mean, I raised him well enough, taught him to be polite and academic, but I can't give him the good memories he needs. I'm not the fun father I used to be, so I'm glad when he comes home from Hogwarts and tells me about the little shenanigans you lot have planned in between all that eating and studying."
James begins working on his third bar of chocolate. Mr. Lupin excuses himself from the table and goes to the lavatory. Sirius frowns.
"You know, I think that is the most we've ever heard about Moony before," he says.
"You've read my mind," James concurs after he's swallowed another half of his chocolate bar.
"Well, you heard the man, James. We have special permission from his father to get him into unmitigated mischief. Operation Viva El Moony to commence in T-Minus ten, seven, three, two, one…."
At that moment, the bells on the door jingle and Moony walks in carrying an armful of tattered books. It seems that he has indeed spent all of his Sickles on books again, none of which look at all interesting to either James or Sirius. Remus looks up in time to see Sirius' smile spread in some insane, devious way. He looks left, then right, contemplating a dive headfirst out of the window of the café.
Mr. Lupin comes out of the lavatory in time to save his horrified son.
"Ah, Remus, you're back then. Here, drop your books in the satchel, and I'll put them in your room when I get home."
Remus approaches his father with caution as if he's in on some conspiracy with the maniacal Mr. Black. When it is apparent that neither of them plans on doing anything horrible to him, he puts his books into the canvas book bag that belonged to his mother and sits down at the table.
"We were just talking about you, Moony," Sirius says, gauging Remus' reaction. Remus, as a rule, does not talk of personal things with James and Sirius unless it involves his condition. If given his way, Remus wouldn't have even told them about his condition, but after they figured it out, it was not much use trying to keep it from them.
Remus looks up at his father who is pointedly looking at anyone but his son. Remus wants to say something to break the uncomfortable silence that he knows he is responsible for, but he can think of no words to follow a confession like that.
"You never mentioned that you wanted to be Head Boy," James says so that Sirius is not basking so dreadfully alone in Remus' dangerous look. The look eventually withers into nothing but a memory.
Remus turns to look at his father with a smile glued to his features. "We should head over to the platform, Father. Will you be all right to get this stuff to the car, or shall I help?"
"You three run along, then. I'm sure Peter is looking for you by now, and this old man has to get on to his gardening."
"Gardening is for women, sir," Sirius says out of habit, and Remus shoots him a look that utterly murders him where he stands.
"Well, yes, but I owe my wife at least that, to keep up her garden. She put a lot of effort into it before her death."
"Do they like that, sir, when you do all that romantic hodgepodge like tend to their roses?" James is always grabbing at free relationship advice since he has been banned from writing to the love expert at The Daily Prophet because of a nasty incident last fall. Remus half expects to see James pull a memo pad out of his jumper pocket and write down any notes. He can't imagine that he remembers anything he's told because he's still no closer to having at it with Lily than he was in first year.
"Well, I don't pretend to be an expert on the matter, James," Mr. Lupin says as he fusses over Remus' collar and tie. "It's been twenty years or so since I've properly courted a woman, but I learned early on that they tend to like men better than they like boys—something about maturing earlier than our kind, you know?" James nods eagerly as he collects his trunk.
Sirius is watching as Mr. Lupin shellacs the cowlicks in Remus' hair back with spit on his thumb. Sirius has always imagined a plump woman with graying hair performing this grooming, but he had just discovered that morning that Mrs. Lupin was killed when Remus was six. He has had his suspicions that she is no longer physically present in the family because Remus never mentions her, not even casually to say, "Oh, Mother hates it when I do this," but he never imagined that she is dead.
The three of them leave Mr. Lupin to his tea as they walk in silence to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. Sirius means to say something, but he knows that he's just made angry a boy that never gets angry. Perhaps it is not anger, he thinks idly. He's seen this look before in fourth year when Remus came back after three days absence with his face scarred. But, what has he got to feel ashamed about?
They find Peter in the compartment that they usually share, and Remus sits down without so much as looking at Sirius. James is on the brink of saying something, and Remus waits for it, not admittedly fond of the tension between them.
"Your father looked about ready to blow a fuse when we asked him where your mum was off at. We didn't know she was dead. You never told us."
Remus should have expected this. Peter suddenly realizes that something is not right and looks embarrassed to find out that Remus' mother is deceased. Sirius is skulking in his seat by the window with his arms crossed and his head pressed against the glass.
"You never bothered to—"
"Oh, I dare you to finish that bloody sentence, Moony," Sirius barks, looking dangerous.
Remus blinks and straightens his posture. "Are you threatening me?"
"No, but if you pull that whiny, you-never-bothered-to-ask shit on us, I swear I am going to punch your hideous face in."
"Tell me it's not true, then, Padfoot."
James tenses. He is not used to people arguing with Sirius. Conversations such as these are usually one-sided, with Sirius victorious in a heartbeat. It takes a suicidal man to engage in verbal disputes with Mr. Sirius Black. He and Peter suddenly 'remember' that there is someone they need to ask about homework and fumble over an explanation as they leave the compartment.
"The last time we "bothered" to ask you something you never gave us an answer. And you spent the whole weekend reading horrible Muggle literature with your bed curtains drawn."
"That still doesn't justify weaseling the answers from my father."
"Weaseling? Is it considered weaseling to try and get to know your best—"
"James is your best friend. I'm only second best." He knows exactly how ridiculously bitter and immature he sounds.
"—friend? We tell you everything, and you sit here with your secrets and your literature acting like it's a bloody crime to tell your mates anything personal."
"Perhaps it is because you insult my lifestyle at every turn possible. Oh, the perfect prefect, blah blah bloody blah! All he does is read. Doesn't ever go after the girls. Oh, look at shy little Remus, can't even ask a girl for a study date without blushing his scarred little head off. Is there anything you can't find to insult about me?"
It is a euphoric experience to get a rise out of Remus, bonus points if Sirius can get him to curse. He is very angry with Remus right now, but he takes a few moments to savor his perfect prefect cursing.
"When you're acting like this, you pretty much open yourself up to insult, Moony. Stuff as important as your mother being murdered by the same thing that got you should be shared with the lot of us, if only so that we don't make complete fools of ourselves in front of your father."
The word murder makes Remus cringe. He realizes that people are prone to viewing werewolves as murderers, but he would not like himself classified as one, not after the lengths he endures just so that he tears himself to shreds and no one else.
Perhaps he feels that admitting that werewolves are capable of murder opens up the plausibility that he cannot always be so careful, that one day he might kill a woman and bite her son and run off without so much as a second glance. He is angry now, too, because he hates thinking about this.
"Should we really bring mothers into this, Sirius? When is the last time you didn't go completely barking when your mother sent you a letter or an allowance? How about we discuss your lecherous cousins while we're at it and how insane you get when one of them so much as crosses your path?"
"Moony, you're walking on very thin ice."
"Well, then you can appreciate things from my point of view, can't you?"
The both of them are like granite where they sit, cold and taut with energy. He can feel that familiar creature prowling on the outskirts of his subconscious, and it makes him quietly snarl as he clenches his fists at his sides. He feels on the brink of tears—he hates fighting with his best mate—but it really cannot be helped. The two of them are similar creatures, hounds at heart. He is sure that the hair on Sirius' neck is standing up, not unlike the hair on his own.
"If you get to sit here and accuse me of holding things back, then it's only fair I get to bring in evidence against you."
"Evidence? Am I a goddamned criminal, now?"
Remus knows that he is about to say a very wrong thing, but he reasons that it will act as a valve on the tension between them so that they don't kill each other later on. Remus knows that this wrong thing will alienate him from all three of his friends for some time, how long he is not sure. He says it anyway, though, because he is tired of being the common little milquetoast too scared to stand up to his own best friend. This doesn't mean that he doesn't regret what he's about to say.
"Christ, Sirius, you're acting just like that Slytherin cousin of yours."
Sirius lunges out of his seat and grabs Remus around the shoulders. Minutes pass around them, but the both of them are frozen where they stand. Sirius snarls, and Remus punches him in the face. They growl and punch and bite and kick. The fight becomes very vague after Sirius hits him in the face—he just cannot concentrate. Moments later James and Peter scramble into the compartment and catch Sirius by the arms.
Sirius lip is swollen, and Remus is sure that he is only partially responsible for the blood staining Sirius' lips. He touches his own face where he feels the blood trickling down his jaw.
He hates that they seem to rewrite the laws of gravity whenever they are together. One minute they are the universe. One minute the whole world revolves around the four of them. The next Remus is Pluto, the cold, barren planet at the very end of their universe, and Sirius is never anything less than the sun. This amazes him greatly; it hurts him just as much.
"Remus, why don't you go clean up and cool off," James says kindly. "Peter will bring your trunk up to the dormitory for you."
Remus whispers thank you and leaves the compartment. He pushes past Lily, ignoring her startled look. He has no time for conversation. He holes himself in the lavatory and kneels in front of the toilet, his shoulders hunched and shuddering in rhythm with the tears that fall down his face.