Lesson Ten: The Daily Prophet
Remus returned a few days later. Slowly but surely the weeks went on to blend, as often they do, into a basic assortment of dull colors. He caught up quickly enough in the majority of his classes and, though all his teachers knew of his ailment, they treated him no differently than the other students. Meaning mainly that, with every absence, they only allowed him one day extra for every assignment he had missed.
This, though, was not really the part that bothered him. He knew that if he wanted to take advantage of his situation he could, and no one would think the less of him if he did. And that the only reason his teachers stuck to this regimen was due to his own request that they did so, when he had first entered the school. Remus didn't want to attract any 'special' attention to himself by earning the unwanted title of "teacher's pet." Such things were not exactly appealing among his fellow class of twelve-year-olds.
So, Remus continued to do his work, struggling all the way, but eventually managed to catch up with his classmates. Although, Potions continued to be more of a plague of endless doom compared to anything else he had to do for the week he had missed. For Professor Lamia had been kind enough to assign a major essay during his temporary leave from his daily routine. It was hardly fair, but his friends only needed to remind him once, their soulless professor never really bothered much with "fair." And as Sirius had said the first day Remus had returned to school, she probably couldn't even define the word.
Aside from the endless vats of homework and T's in Potions everything else was in order. The four boys had gotten back into the habit of using their lair in the hospital wing as a study room after they had found that their common room was too full for their purposes of devious planning or quite simply copying down notes for History. Whatever the case happened to be.
Though they enjoyed spending time together in the old general common room, on most nights, come the end of September, two of their numbers had adapted Remus' style and were often absent from the homework festivities. Quite simply, Quidditch had started and both James and Sirius had made the team... which would have been more brilliant if the two hadn't continued to gloat about it until the second week of October.
Remus smiled to himself as he sat sleepy-eyed on the comfortable couch copying down James' Transfiguration notes from that day's lessons. Granted he had many of the notes but it was always nice to see James' just to get any extras he may have missed while the stupor of the lecture had set in.
The room was quiet except for a few of the house founder's portraits that occasionally bickered back and forth. Remus could feel Peter next to him moving awkwardly in his seat as he fidgeted with scroll after scroll of various notes. Every once and a while he'd let out a deep sigh of either confusion or exhaustion or most possibly both. These were the only natural sounds of music that passed between the two of them for the last week or so of their new routine.
Remus looked up from the second scroll of notes he had to check over, let out a quick yawn, and examined the mostly empty room. James and Sirius were missing once again due to their need to practice for the first big game at the beginning of next month. Slytherin verses Gryffindor. Needless to say that even though it was merely a little more than a week away both sides were beginning to make cheap shots at the others dignity and pride whenever they got the chance.
With these snide comments somehow it had leaked out of the confines of the Slytherin common room that Severus Snape had tried out for the team and had failed miserably at any attempt he had made to catch or throw the Quaffle to another player. According to the Slytherin team captain, a blundering first year would have been easily preferred over him.
When this information had reached the four boys, Sirius threw a fit laughing and James took it upon himself to take advantage of Malvitz's seating chart and casually tortured him until Snape finally, at the beginning of that week, blew a gasket and outright hexed James in so many ways no member of their elite group was laughing anymore. James had to spend the remainder of that day, well into the night, in the hospital wing recovering from the mildest of Snapes' rage (a babbling curse) to the worst which despite countless searching through their Charms textbook and Sirius' "Jabberwocky Jinxes" book he had received for Christmas the year before from Remus, only to find that they were unable to locate the hexes that Snape had used, which ultimately convinced them that whatever he had done to their friend had most certainly been 'dark' magic at its weakest.
Remus smirked a bit to himself as he flipped over to the next scrawl of notes. They'd spent the majority of that month trying to come up with a clever way to prank Snape after that incident but unfortunately were unable to come up with, and agree on, anything better than setting a dungbomb off in the back of his robes during Charms. Which, they did end up doing, but it was more like dumb fun rather than anything truly revengeful. So, in the end, they settled on simply hexing him whenever they could, making good use of Sirius' jinx book.
Though, Remus did aid in the torturing of Snape, and despite himself did deep down enjoy seeing their foe in pain, it hurt him just the same. He felt bad for Snape. And humiliating him daily was never his intent. He had tried to stand up to his friends, but every time they convinced him that it was nothing, that he was taking it too seriously. So he continued to go with it, and, at some level he knew, he continued to enjoy Snape's pain. A feat he was anything but proud of but continued to ignore for the good of the group.
Remus let out a huge yawn as he rubbed his sore eyes. He looked into the dancing flames of the fireplace and watched the yellow flicker elegantly before he carefully rolled up James notes and placed them on the end table beside him. He then took his own notes and placed them in his rucksack. As he bent over he felt a slight pang of pain spread through his back. He rubbed it slightly and then cursed his fate knowing that it was simply his body getting ready for another battle with itself. Remus groaned slightly as he looked over at Peter who was lying beside him with his History book open wide on his lap but his eyes were closed and soft humming noises were coming from him signaling that he had fallen asleep. Remus chuckled a bit to himself before he stood up and stretched out his back and legs. Each motion caused a dull discomfort for him. He groaned slightly as he took a step closer to the fire.
"Oh my, he does not look well, does he?" Helga muttered to Rowena who was located across from her own portrait.
Remus just looked up to the portly woman depicted in yellow and black robes of her time, and grinned as pleasantly as he could. He could hear Rowena tutting slightly from her own portrait as she prepared to answer, but before she could she could Salazar Slytherin managed a retort. "Yes well, he would wouldn't he?" He stated as if he were bored. "If I were still in charge I would have never let a half-breed in this school."
Remus felt his whole body tense up as the comment filled the empty void of the room. He then turned to the portrait and smirked as kindly as he could. "Yes, well, you are no longer in charge and you should not take it upon yourself to judge me because I have an ailment, Sir."
"Now, no one is judging you dear." Helga piped in. "Salazar is merely," she glared at the portrait, "being himself."
"Quite right, pay no attention to him. You are where you are supposed to be." Remus turned to Gryffindor and smiled feeling some of the edge ebb away. He nodded and sat down once again.
"Thank you." Was all Remus could manage.
He hated having to defend himself to these portraits. Mere illusions of what the people had once been when their bodies had occupied the earth. It was the only reason he much preferred the non-sarcastic, stable forms that muggle science had provided. At least he didn't have to defend himself to the ancient beings of muggle history. He groaned as he finally came up with a suitable reply for Salazar when his friends quickly piled into the room.
A blur of crimson and gold came towards him in a hurried rush. Remus smiled at them as they plopped themselves down on the couch causing Salazar to look down his pointed nose to the inferior children in his midst. Sirius noticed the portrait and stuck his tongue out at him and muttered that he'd take his quill to him if he didn't shape up. Slytherin merely glared at the young Black made a comment about how they used to be a respectable family and then exited his portrait. Sirius smiled contently to himself before he turned his attention to James who was still stretching out his legs.
"Slytherin has no chance of winning next week. I mean no chance." Sirius said proudly into the void of the room just to avoid the silence.
Remus smiled. "Well, that's good." He smiled weakly.
"You'll be okay by then. Won't you?"
Remus nodded. "I should be. It really depends on how much damage I do to myself, maybe, with any luck, I'll just pass out straight away."
James nodded slightly in a distracted manner as he looked at the rows of bookshelves lining the room. Remus just looked at him in a confused manner before he turned his attention back to Sirius.
"But if I'm not able to make it you are going to give me a run down no matter what the turn-out is."
"Of course we will, mate." James replied. "But I'm with Sirius. We're going to win."
Remus smiled at him and then he turned around to look at Peter. He was still sound -asleep. At least one of them could sleep pleasantly no matter where they were. He then turned his attention back to James, who once again had gone into a slight look of meditation. Remus just raised an eyebrow and looked at Sirius who merely shrugged. He stared at Sirius for a while until he was certain that both of them knew something that he didn't. Once again he was out of the loop that was Sirius and James.
"What's up?" He asked after a moment of silence. He realized that no one would speak until he said something. Or until they felt the need to tell him what was going on, which often lasted a good week or three before they felt that particular need.
James jumped slightly at the sound of his unexpected voice. "Nothing."
Remus just shook his head. "'Nothing,' doesn't make you go quiet."
James smirked a bit and then nodded.
"Fine."
He then pulled out a copy of the Daily Prophet and opened it to the front page where a picture of five men, all smiling in a jovial manner, was displayed beside the headline "Men Found Mysteriously Slain." Remus felt his stomach churn at the sight.
"I didn't want to say anything just yet. It's interesting, or at least I think it is, but not exactly a good thing to whip out at a time like this. I mean with Quidditch and your full moon escapades. I just didn't think you'd want to think about death."
Remus just scanned the title. "These are the same men you were talking about last month?"
James nodded. "Yeah, my dad finally let out the news publicly because they were unable to find out anything and he figured it was better not to cover it up. Dangerous for his career you know."
"Yeah." Remus muttered as he carefully took the paper from James and quickly scanned the article only stopping if something popped out at him.
"Five male victims found in Glenrothes, Scotland... all bodies were found in the same state. After further investigation the Aurors were unable to locate any point at which a weapon was used... no signs of a spell being used... bodies were in perfect condition... all organs were in working order and no toxins were traced within the bodies to signal a cause of death... The few family members that were located have been informed of the tragedy... Aurors investigating the crime continue to be baffled by its intricateness."
Remus looked up at James once he had finished reading the article, as a feeling of numb shock slowly settling over him. James hadn't made it up. Part of him had honestly thought that his ramblings on the train about the incident were just James' outlandish imagination at work. Not that Remus thought James to be a liar, but he often wanted to make things more romantic than they were just for a good story. Anything to make life more interesting. But here, in front of him, was solid proof that everything that he had said was true. There was a madman out there just killing people in a very 'mysterious' fashion, and no one knew how he was doing it, so they obviously couldn't stop him.
He handed the paper back to James and ran his hand through his hair in thought. James took the paper back and placed it on his lap.
"I just wish they had of mentioned that it's only happened once before." He smirked slightly in a morbid manner. "That would have made it more interesting."
"Maybe you were mistaken." Sirius piped in for the first time. James just looked at him slightly taken aback. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time you made a mistake in eavesdropping."
Remus laughed despite himself. Making all eyes focus on him once more. He looked away from their glances, when they first fell back on him.
"Sorry, I'm just tired." He yawned slightly to prove his point and then continued. "Maybe they just wanted to respect the family it happened to first. You know keep them out of it so they don't have to relive the past."
Sirius just shrugged his shoulders. "Possibly, but I doubt that, looking at that as the front page would hash up any old memories."
"I agree. It was probably just bad journalism. They missed the cool facts." James added.
They fell into silence once more as they all silently mulled over the article.
"Your dad could have not mentioned that fact." Remus said finally after much thought on the subject.
James sat back in his seat and ran his hand through his hair. "Now that I can see my dad doing." He smirked a bit to himself. "Ah, it doesn't matter anyway. This was probably just a hoax. Odds are that it won't happen again. Or the bloke'll wait another seven years before he has another go."
Remus just nodded his head hoping that James was right. The last thing the wizarding community needed was a madman with a brain. Remus ran his hand through his hair once more before he stood up and gently shook Peter awake. The boy just looked confused and claimed that he wasn't sleeping before he fully registered where he was. The three boys laughed at him as they slowly collected their stuff and exited their den.
They walked slowly up to Gryffindor Tower in silence too tired to speak anymore. They were too deep in their own thoughts to say anything even if they had wanted to. Once they had reached their room they each slowly undressed themselves and put on their pajamas and climbed into bed. They then bid goodnight to one another and fell into the soft symphony of the night.
Remus lay on his back listening to Peter's soft snores and Sirius tossing in bed, searching for the perfect position to fall asleep in. The only voice that did not make an appearance, aside from his own, was James' and he knew that his friend was contemplating the news he had gathered from the paper. Remus sighed as he stared at the designs in his bed's canopy as he slowly thought of the people that were left behind... the tears that had been shed, those that hadn't, and he slowly felt his own eyes well up. How could someone be so cruel? To rip families apart! What if they had enough heartache already? Did they ever think of that? No, because that would involve thinking about someone else. And that was always a difficult task for the human race to consider.
Remus rolled over in his bed and wiped the tears away from his eyes before he shut them in preparation for a reluctant sleep. And the image of the news headline surface boldly within his mind, as Sirius' words echoed triumphantly in the dark, "Possibly, but I doubt that, looking at that as the front page would hash up any old memories."