Lesson Nine: What are Friends For?
The sun filtered in through the one window in the little room, and softly grazed over the pale cheeks of the battered boy lying peacefully within the comfort of the white hospital bed. Remus slowly opened his eyes as the light from the sun temporarily blinded him. He lay there staring at the ceiling of the lonely room, enjoying the silence. He moved a bit, twitching his hands, just a little, and found that, for the most part, they just tingled and left an irritating itching feeling in its wake. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the strength to move his other hand to relieve the new annoyance. So instead he simply let the hand lay at his side and made a mental note not to move it again.
He sighed deeply to himself and decided to concentrate on nothing but the ceiling for lack of anything better to do. As he was staring at the crack in the wall that resembled his swinging tree at home he heard someone beside him move a chair across the floor and suddenly the crack-tree was forgotten and the numbness in his body came back to his mind.
"I can't feel my toes."
There was more shuffling to his left so he took a chance and turned his head to face whoever was in the room with him. As he turned his head his eyes blacked out a bit from the effort. When it cleared everything was blurry. So this is what it feels like to be James. Remus thought to himself as his vision cleared a bit more and he felt a smile play on his lips from the thought.
"You probably can't feel more than just your toes."
The smile faded a bit as the voice came to his ears and the image of his cousin became clear and he could make out her green eyes and soft brown hair. He ignored his impulse to argue with her and just managed a small polite smile for her. "You're right. I can't feel my hands either."
She chuckled a bit and shrugged her shoulders. "Well, you look good. All things considered."
Remus just smirked. "I don't feel like I've been ripped to shreds." He said after he looked down at his bandaged right hand.
"You shouldn't."
He thought for a bit and then picked up his other arm only to have the itching return. There were four large gashes dug into his pale arms that had been stitched together with a magical fiber that, once in the skin, became invisible, and was only used for severe cases after potions and charms proved to be helpless. He smiled morbidly at the site before it began to tingle more vividly, and then put his arm back down at his side as he turned his attention back to Kara. "Numbing Potion?" She nodded slightly, her eyes dimmed slightly as she looked at him. "Good stuff... aside from the itching." He said as he smiled at her and was glad when she returned the gesture sincerely.
Kara then shuffled a bit in her chair uncomfortably before she grabbed something off of the end table beside him. He watched her as she carefully opened a chocolate frog and ate it, first taking off the legs and then finally once it had no limbs, she bit off the head. Once she had successfully "killed" and eaten the chocolate amphibian she made a quick hand gesture towards the table, that he now noticed was filled with other assorted trinkets of candy, and asked if he wanted any. Remus kindly shook his head to decline. He wasn't really hungry and on top of that the mere idea of food made him mildly sick at that particular moment. Kara just shook her head in understanding and continued with whatever thought floated to the top of her head, as she stared at the newly decapitated frog she had just opened.
"James, Sirius, and Peter brought them in earlier today during there free period. I think they asked Madam Pomfrey to go into Hogsmeade for them. Because I'm pretty sure I saw James give her a bag full of galleons. They've been in here, at least twice, everyday waiting for you to wake up."
The last sentence caught him off guard. Everyday. How long had he been out? Remus looked up to her eyes and from the solemn expression that seemed to dim them heavily he assumed it had been a few days. Despite the look in her eyes and the dread of what they were giving off he asked just to be sure.
"Four days. Madam Pomfrey said that she found you beside the bed. She was shocked by that because, apparently, you're normally at the bottom of the steps like you'd thrown yourself down them before you passed out for the night."
Remus grimaced at the thought of freefalling down a flight of twenty steps, which then flashed instantly to the idea of the white bed sheets stained with crimson and said bitterly. "I asked you how many days I was out. Not a background story of how I abused myself this time around."
"Sorry."
He shrugged his shoulders not wanting to chase her away just because he didn't want to think about his full moon rampages. Being alone was worse, so he didn't want to chase away his only tap, at this moment in time, to the outside world.
"Don't be." He looked out of the window over the forest and down at the grounds as a few students walked down the beaten paths heading to whatever class they happened to have next. "Anything interesting happen while I was out?" Suddenly a smile began to play at the corner of his cousin's lips forming her infamous smirk. "What? What happened?" She continued to smirk as if she were reliving something extremely interesting. "Come on, out with it!" He said with a slight chuckle, wanting every detail of what he had missed while he'd been unconscious. Kara just smirked a bit longer and then, reluctantly at first, went into her story.
"Snape saw you faint and he took it upon himself to tell the entire school how weak you were, and all you four are, as a group, a bunch of organized bullies. Apparently, he doesn't approve of the pedestal you and your mates put yourselves on. So he was going to knock you off it to prove that you are not nearly as cool as you seem to think you are."
Remus made a face at the proclaimed accusation. Snape thought he was pompous? That was ludicrous. He never put himself above anyone, at least not that he noticed anyway. He always tried to treat people fairly. At the sour look on Remus' face Kara laughed and continued with her tale.
"Yeah well, he's a stupid prat anyway. I myself wanted to do something horrid to him but your friends beat me to it." She sounded almost angry at the thought of missing her chance to defend his honor. Remus pushed himself up in the white hospital bed using up the little bit of energy he had left but still managed to keep his attention on his cousin as she went on. "I don't really know how they did it but it has to be them." She started more to herself than anything else. "Anyway, as Snape was eating his soup at lunch, well, he managed to take two or three spoonfuls of it but by the fourth he put the spoon in his mouth only to find the handle but no soup." She laughed a bit before she regained composure enough to tell the rest. "The spoon part had melted in his soup. He was so white once he realized what had just happened. Whiter than usual, which is definitely saying something. I think what was going through his head was something like 'what's going to happen to my insides?' but either way it was a sight for anyone to see." She laughed a bit more. "He left shortly after that to come here but Madam Pomfrey said he would live and that whatever was in his soup was harmless once in the body. And that it was just some kids having good fun at his expense." She chuckled a bit more and then added. "I heard Sirius say as Snape past him on their way to potions today 'Those house elves must really hate you.' So I'm almost positive that it was them."
Remus laughed loudly at the thought of Snape turning even whiter than he was on a daily basis. "God, I wish I could have seen that."
Kara nodded. "It was something. I don't know what Snape'll come up with, but I'm sure Sirius is going to pay for what he did."
He shook his head slightly. "Nah, I think we'll all pay. Snape's not really picky when it comes to payback. Any of us would do, I'm sure of that."
His cousin just shrugged her shoulders in a 'glad it's you and not me' sort of way before she picked up a striped box and offered him some Bertie Bott's which he, despite his better judgment, accepted and was ultimately happy to find that it was only strawberry. At least the stars weren't against him at this moment in time. He smiled as he chanced another one. It was white in color and when he bit into it he couldn't quite place the taste but also didn't find it repulsive. Rather than risking another jelly bean and his run of good luck thus far he picked up a chocolate frog and ate it instead. The two spent a good while just sitting in a comfortable silence eating the sweets that his friends had bought him before he grew bored and selected any topic out of the air to discuss.
"So, how do you like school?"
"It's great." Kara stated joyfully and then, without any further pressing, went onto tell him everything she had been through since the term had begun. He smiled as she told him about her 'best friend' Alexial Mune, who had been quiet at first until they had gotten into talking about a book series both were completely obsessed with. Once Kara had said that Alex was in his year he nodded stating that he knew and that the two were in the same Astronomy class. This slightly popped her bubble but she quickly recovered and went on to talk about how well she did in both Defense and Potions, which ultimately lead to her disbelief in how Remus was so terrible at it.
"It's easy!"
Remus shook his head violently despite the dizziness it caused. He ignored the whirling feeling within his brain as he retorted in defense. "No, it's not. It's difficult, just because you-"
"Oh shut it, Remmy, it's just as easy as cooking. And don't say you can't cook because I know you can!"
Remus grimaced at the use of the terrible nickname she had accidentally given him when she was little and couldn't pronounce his full name properly, but ignored it to continue the comment she had cut off. "I know I can cook." Remus stated indignantly.
"Then you should be able to do potions. All you have to do is follow the 'recipe.'"
Remus glared at her, knowing that she was right, yet, at the same time realized that he was and always would be horrid at potions. "Yes, well, things can't blow up while cooking if you do mess it up."
"That's bull and you know it." Kara said with a slight chuckle at Remus' stubbornness.
Just as Remus was about to retort, he heard the loud happy voices of James and Sirius reach his ears. He looked over at Kara and from the disgusted look on her face he knew that she had heard them too. He laughed slightly as he heard Sirius ask Madam Pomfrey's permission to give Remus his homework. "You really don't like them do you?" He asked as he heard Madam Pomfrey give the two trouble-makers her okay to enter the room. But as the door started to open he heard the medi-witch give one last warning for them remain quiet and not to bother Remus if he didn't want any more company.
"I don't like Sirius. The other two I don't know so I can't judge them." She said quickly as Sirius and James finally managed to enter the room after all the warnings had been passed. They smiled widely upon entering once they had noticed that Remus was sitting up in the bed. Kara frowned as soon as she spotted them standing in the secret doorway but quickly faked a smile. "I should go. I have a Herbology project to do."
"Oh, okay." Remus said even though he knew she just didn't want to be around Sirius. He smiled a bit to himself as he watched her go. She was a lot like Sirius in many ways, actually, one of which being stubbornness. He knew that she didn't 'hate' Sirius, but she had at first and since that had been her first judgment of him she would never go back on it verbally.
"How you been?" James asked once Kara had shut the passage door behind her and they could no longer hear her retreating footsteps.
Remus stared at him for a while, inwardly comparing his cousin to Sirius before he finally took the time to answer James' question. "Good, I guess. I can't really feel my body." He said simply with a small smile playing at the edge of his lips.
"It's probably better that way." Sirius replied dryly as he pulled up a chair and sat down at Remus' bedside. James followed suit with a nod of agreement and a sad smile. He didn't understand how Sirius could be so casual about this. Granted, he didn't want to treat Remus any differently than anyone else but it'd also be nice if Sirius showed their friend at least some form of sympathy. Not baby him, by any means, but at least show him some form of a feeling on the matter, good or bad. James couldn't just ignore it like Sirius. It was probably one of the only areas where the two of them were completely night and day from one another. James felt bad for Remus and he would show it. He knew Sirius did too, but he also knew that 'it's probably better that way.' was the closest they would ever get to 'I'm sorry this has to happen. I wish it wouldn't, and I hope you recover soon so we can get back to having fun.' It was unfortunate but eventually he knew he would have to let it go and except it as the only way Sirius ever dealt with a problem. No matter what form it came in.
"You're probably right." Remus replied still smiling at his friends, popping James out of his thoughts with a shocked look on his face. Remus chuckled a bit to himself knowing exactly what his friend had been thinking. He himself felt the same way but as with James had to simply accept it. But he also knew better now, from his summer with Sirius, that going with whatever Sirius did, or saying a quick joke in reply to it, was the best way to put some joy back into the set back life had dealt their little group. Ultimately, this meant they would have to get used to Sirius' inward need to hold things back.
Remus stretched a bit in his bed causing his whole body to tingle uncomfortably from the after effects of the potion that was beginning to wear off. He then looked back at his two friends and suddenly realized that they were missing a member. "Where's Peter?"
"Missing in action." Sirius said with a quick smirk, which faded quickly when James punched him on the shoulder for being slightly rude.
"Lamia gave him detention." James said quickly.
Remus stared at him in shock. Peter never got detention unless it was with the whole group. Otherwise he just sort of shied away from trouble, not entirely enjoying it like the other three seemed too. "How?" was all Remus could manage to say after he had tried and failed to figure out a way Peter could get detention in the only class he was good at.
James only frowned some more at the simple question before he answered. "Sirius threw an 'ickle bomber in his cauldron and blew it up."
Remus then turned his attention to Sirius who was busy staring at the ground as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. Remus didn't know what to say. What in the world had Peter done to deserve that? Under the pressure of Remus' confused gaze Sirius finally looked up from the stone floor and locked eyes with his friend. "It was an accident, okay?" He said defensively with a hint of disappointment in his voice. "I was aiming for Snape's and it fell a table short." He sighed deeply and then went on with the woeful tale. "She said that Peter had done it on purpose, despite his protests, which only seemed to upset her more, and eventually she knocked off 70 points from Gryffindor and gave him detention for the next three days." Sirius fell silent for a second. "He even cried; that made me feel even worse about the whole thing." He looked back down at the ground. "Why'd he have to cry? It wouldn't have been as bad if he hadn't of cried."
"Yet you never apologized."
Sirius made a sour face at James. "Apologies never do anything. You know the person's either being forced to do it or they're simply doing it as a way to gloat. I'd be doing neither so why even bother? Peter knows I feel bad about what happened."
Remus noticed that James made a slight face that suggested that Peter might not fully understand the way Sirius' mind worked, and because of that may have actually thought that Sirius wasn't sorry. After thinking on that, even Remus himself had to admit that that was probably the case, but neither of Sirius' friends would dare say call him on it.
"Probably." Remus said finally.
"What do you mean probably? He knows. How can't he? He's my friend I wouldn't do that to him on purpose."
James smirked slightly. "No, you wouldn't do that to us at all."
"Shut it." Sirius said as he caught the sarcastic tone in his best friend's voice. The three laughed slightly as Remus grabbed his side slightly from the vague feeling of pain it caused, until they finally fell into silence.
They stayed quiet for a long while before Sirius began to fidget out of habit and Remus watched him intently as his hand gradually found its way over to the slightly smaller pile of sweets. He gathered a small handful of Bertie Bott's, which he daringly placed into his mouth. Remus stared at him as if he had grown another head, as he chewed the beans and swallowed them without even a hint of a flinch. When he had finished that bout of jelly bean fun, he went for another handful.
"Do you have any taste buds?" Remus asked which earned a fit of laughter from James, who was used to Sirius' eating habits. James nearly choked on the jawbreaker in his mouth and had to spit it out.
"Yeah, actually I do. It's good." Sirius said after he had swallowed the second handful. Remus' face scrunched up in slight disgust. "Hmm... I think there was lacquer somewhere in that one."
Both Remus and James felt a little sick after that revelation but laughed at the utter disgustingness of it anyway. James sighed and replaced the jawbreaker once he had stopped laughing, then he handed a chocolate frog to Remus without a word. Remus took it and quickly began dissecting it as his cousin had earlier. After they had finished stuffing their faces James smiled at Sirius and Remus knew they were going to get to the real reason the two had visited him.
"What?" Remus asked once the two had been smirking at each other for far too long and had started to become a little unnerving for him.
"We took out a bunch of Animagus books from the library to study." Sirius started which caught Remus' undying attention.
He had honestly thought that all that talk had been a show and hadn't thought much on it since the train-ride home last year. They weren't going to do it? They wouldn't. After all James' dad was Minister of Magic, why would he want to break the law? But from the mad grins on their faces they were seriously considering doing something illegal to aid him in his living nightmare.
A slight wave of panic hit Remus as he thought of all they were willing to risk for him. He couldn't let them do it. But then he heard the traitorous voice in the back of his head say 'sure you could.' After all it'd be good fun, and no one would have to know. As he tossed the idea over in his head, the more he liked it. The more he wanted to risk his friends' lives to help his own. It was reckless, sure, but overall, he assumed they could handle it and eventually he found the little voice in the back of his head win and become verbal as he stated. "And?"
James' smile grew even larger at the apparent okay and went on. "The books were terrible. The most they did was give definitions on what an Animagus is. Only one out of the seventeen we checked out gave us anything to go on."
"Yeah, and what did it say?"
"It listed personality traits and then gave an assessment of what you might be if you did happen to try it. Though it then went on about the legal ramifications." Sirius said quickly before James could answer the question. He rolled his eyes slightly at the last bit, speaking in a 'blah blah' sort of tone.
Remus felt his bubble burst under the words. They had nothing. Nothing. He was going to have to go through his whole school career missing a week or two every month to recover from his one night of torture. He looked away from them for a second trying to build his wall of hope back up without letting them see his disappointment.
"It's not that bad really." He heard James offer and knew that his attempts to hide his dissatisfaction in their proclamation were futile. So he turned his head back to them and noticed a pain in his neck and knew that the numbing potion really was wearing off.
"How's that?" Remus said a little ruder than he had intended do to the added pain in his neck that had shot down his back in a slight pulsing manner.
James ignored him, guessing at what was going on, and continued. "Peter came up with a plan."
Remus didn't mean to laugh, but it came out in a quick jibe-like tone, before he could stop it. He stopped quickly when he saw his friend's serious faces and knew that this was no joke. He blushed slightly from his uncharacteristic outburst and nodded for them to continue. They did and instantly went on to explain Peter's simple yet possibly affective plan to get Malvitz's permission. When they had finished they just looked at Remus for his approval for the second time that evening. He smiled slightly. It could work, but before he could answer Madam Pomfrey bustled into the room and started fussing over the fact that Remus was sitting up in bed.
Remus just slouched back down and winced in pain and was unhappy when he found that Madam Pomfrey had seen. She fussed over that some more stating that: "If you were in pain you should have said something." Then she tutted a bit before she walked out of the room to gather up another numbing potion. Remus sighed and quickly turned to his friends knowing all too well that when Madam Pomfrey returned she would thank them for being kind enough to give him his homework and then usher them out so he could have some 'peace and quiet.' "I like the idea. When I get out of here we should give it a go." He said quickly but then added once his conscious kicked in. "But if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Okay. I don't want you breaking the law if he says no. It just wasn't meant to be, okay?"
Madam Pomfrey came back into the room with a light yellow potion in her right hand and quickly administered it to her patient. Remus grimaced at the acidic taste and then ignored the bit of fussing he both loved and hated to ask: "Okay?"
His friends nodded as the medi-witch turned to them and told them to leave as Remus had expected she would. They did as they were told and as their backs disappeared behind the hidden passage door. Remus was drawn away from the closed door as Madam Pomfrey began to fluff his pillow. "Don't worry. They'll be back." The medi-witch said as she took out some healing lotions and started rubbing them in his wounds to speed up the healing process the magical stitches couldn't do all on their own.
"I know." Remus said with a smile.
"They're good kids." She then looked Remus in the eyes. "Good friends, you are very lucky to have them."
Remus only nodded. He knew more than most people just how lucky he was to have them as friends. Not many friends would risk their lives to better their mates life, granted most said that they would, but his were not only risking their lives in a very literal sense, but if caught they would indefinitely end up in Azkaban no matter who they were related to. And for that he loved them.
He smiled to himself as the bits of pain he had been feeling for the last few minutes began to disappear completely. He talked with Madam Pomfrey as she finished re-dressing his wounds and continued to do so long after she had finished until finally, his eyes began to betray him and he shut them slightly for a bit of rest as he talked. Eventually, his words became less, and he fell asleep in the loving comfort of the makeshift hospital wing for extreme cases.