A.N. Sorry this is sooooooo late. It might have a few errors in it, but damn it, you'll just have to deal with it. So, this is a bit different to my original outline as stated in the previous chapter, but things changed. This chapter is dedicated to the lovely Amber over at dA who I am sending lots of love to. And NOT to Annie, because she went to a Pink concert and is an evil, evil person. Enjoy!
Chapter VI: Duelling For Beginners
Cake. Balloons. Fireworks. Music. Piñatas. Friends.
Remus was sitting at a table in his backyard, eating swirling colours from a bowl. He spooned some colours into his mouth; it was cold. Ice cream. He looked around. His mother and father were slow dancing on the patio, his brother, was playing a game with his friends. The sun was setting. Pink. It was warm, the middle of summer.
Remus looked back to his brother. He wanted to play too. He jumped off the chair and wandered over. Romulus was up.
'What's the time Mr. Wolf?' chanted his friends.
'Two o'clock,' Romulus replied, with his back towards everyone. His voice was different, rasping, and lower than usual. Remus ran to be in line with the rest of the friends as everyone took two steps towards Romulus.
'What's the time Mr. Wolf?'
'Four o'clock.'
One, two, three, four. Romulus looked taller too. Bigger.
'What's the time Mr. Wolf?'
'Five o'clock.'
They were close to the finish. Only a few feet away. There was a strange smell in the air. Dirt, sweat and… a metallic smell…
'What's the time Mr. Wolf?'
Romulus turned.
Yellow eyes, sharp teeth, claws, matted hair and whiskers.
'Dinner time.'
Remus screamed.
He turned and ran to his parents, who broke apart from their slow dancing.
'Remuz! What iz wrong?' His mother and father bent down to speak to him. His father pulled him into a hug.
'It- it's Romulus… he – he's not – he's scary.' He held onto the top of his father's jumper. He didn't want to look back. But he was safe now. His parents were here.
'Romuluz! Come over 'ere.' Remus could hear his brother stomping over. 'What did you do to Remuz?'
'I didn't do anything! He shouldn't have joined in. He always ruins everything anyway! Shouldn't he be in bed, or something?'
'Romulus!' his father said disbelievingly.
Remus broke contact with his father and turned towards his brother.
'I don't ruin everything! Your games are stupid anyway. I don't even want you here! I'll be glad when you've gone off to school, so I won't have to see you anymore!'
Anger. He ran. Ran down the garden path and towards his hidden cubby in the woods. He stopped on the edge of the forest.
'Romulus, go and apologise to him. Now.' His father. 'And bring him back, it's getting dark.'
Remus ran into the woods. Left, right, down four trees, over the stream and ten strides left. His fort. His brother's before him. Solitude. He only had a few minutes. His brother would find him soon. He looked upwards. The sky was almost black, and stars had started to struggle through the thick shroud of darkness.
'Look, Remus-'
Remus jumped up. He hadn't even heard his brother approach.
'Go away, Romulus!'
'Look- I didn't-'
'I don't want to talk to you!' Running again. Further into the woods. Away. Just… away.
'Remus! I'm sorry!' Romulus ran after him. He caught up. 'I didn't mean it, it's just-'
'I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU!' Remus screamed. 'You don't care! You're just leaving! You just want to go off and leave me here all alone! You don't care about me at all!'
'Remus- I don't-'
Don't want to listen. Run.
This time, Remus was quicker. Further into the forest. Away from him.
He doesn't care. He doesn't care. He doesn't care.
Stop. Lost him.
Lost himself.
Merde.
Remus looked around. It was dark, and what he could see he didn't recognise.
Snap.
'Romulus?'
'It's okay, Remus. I'm here. I'm here.'
'Romulus?' Remus could vaguely hear his own voice desperately searching for an answer.
'I'm here. It's okay. It's over.'
Everything was a little hazy. Remus could vaguely hear ragged breathing, and realised he was the one making the noise. He took a breath and slowly exhaled, then cautiously opened his eyes. He was surrounded by white. It was everywhere: in front of him, on top of him, he was even wearing it. Remus moved his right hand in front of him, half-heartedly expecting it to be white too.
It was; covered in a thick, white bandage. He let out a quiet, 'Ha,' and then winced slightly. He had an ache in his chest which felt a mile long.
'Welcome back,' said a familiar voice.
Remus turned his head slightly to his left, and noticed his brother. He was sitting behind a small desk, his left hand holding a quill, his right holding Remus', which was also covered in a thick, white bandage.
'Hi,' Remus rasped. His voice almost didn't make it out of his mouth.
Romulus put his quill down, moved the desk aside, and turned his chair to face Remus. He put his elbows on the side of the bed, and clasped his hands around Remus' bandaged one.
'You know how people say, "You're your own worst enemy"?' Remus nodded slightly. 'Well, you really are.'
Remus nodded again, this time a bit harder.
Romulus smiled. 'I have your clothes and your wand here,' he indicated to Remus' overnight bag by his leg. 'Madam Pomfrey says that you aren't as bad as she thought you were going to be. I don't know what she was expecting. For you to be just a head, I suppose.'
Remus went to a very funny place visually, gave a laugh, and winced.
'Sorry,' Romulus said hastily. 'How not to make you laugh…' He pondered for a moment. 'I know! I'll tell you a joke.'
Remus looked at Romulus, silently pleading with him not to tell one of his famously bad jokes.
'Oh, I know!' Romulus exclaimed, a devious look on his face. 'Why are werewolves better than vampires?'
Remus shook his head.
'Werewolves don't have a problem with steaks!' Romulus gave a whoop of laughter and then cackled in a way that was rather inappropriate for a prefect.
Remus let out a groan. Whether it was because the joke was so incredibly bad, or because he actually had laughed, and was in more pain, he couldn't tell.
'I'm already in enough pain without you making your horrendous jokes!' Remus managed get out, though his throat disapproved.
'My jokes are not horrendous! They are the epitome of Ravenclaw cleverness. Cutting, slick and so smart you could whack two slices of bread either side of them, and call it a brain sandwich!'
Remus laughed again and winced, he instinctively brought his hand up to put pressure on the pain, but this only made it worse, sending him into a coughing fit. Romulus stood up and put his arm around Remus, and hit him lightly on his back; the coughing eased.
Remus looked over at his brother. He had an all too familiar look on his face. One that Remus had seen once a month every holidays since he was six.
'I'm sorry,' Romulus breathed.
Remus sighed and tilted his head. 'For making me laugh, or are we back to your unfounded guilt again?'
'Remus-'
'Because I really don't have the energy to get into this all over again." Remus knew he had to cut Romulus off. He knew exactly where this argument would lead. They'd had it often enough.
'I'm sorry.' He let out a single laugh. "I'm sorry for feeling like I should be sorry.'
Remus grinned. 'Well, that's all right then.'
'I'd better get Madam Pomfrey. She asked me to tell her when you woke up. She'll probably have my guts for garters for waiting so long. I'll be back in a minute.'
Madam Pomfrey strode through the curtains, making tutting noises as Romulus was trying to apologise for not coming to see her immediately. Remus suppressed a laugh as he saw his brother roll his eyes. And then when Madam Pomfrey turned to look at Romulus and his face lit up with a dazzling smile, Remus couldn't help but laugh outright, which made him clutch his chest once more.
'Let's have a look at that,' Madam Pomfrey said in a voice that was not to be trifled with. She put a hand behind Remus' back and gently helped him sit up.
'How are you feeling?' she asked as she started to unroll the bandages around his chest. Remus suddenly realised how cold it was, and shivered. Madam Pomfrey apparently noticed, as she cast a warming charm in the middle of unwrapping.
'Thank you. Uh, I'm a little sorer than usual, I suppose. My chest hurts.'
'Yes, I'm not surprised,' Madam Pomfrey commented. She finished taking off the bandage and started to inspect a rather long, though now quite healed, set of gashes that went from the right side of his stomach, to the upper left part of his chest. 'You appear to have had rather a rough night, Mr. Lupin. On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain when I press here?' She gently pressed one of the lines on his chest.
'Uh, about a five.'
'Here.' She moved towards the middle of the gash.
'Ouch! Eight.'
'Here.' She pressed the tip of the gash on his right side.
'About a five again.'
'Well, that all seems to be in order then.' The Matron took some foul-smelling green ointment from a small pot in her pocket and dabbed it along the lines, before taking some new bandages and re-wrapping them around his torso. 'Now, let's have a look at those hands.'
She informed Remus that he'd broken three of his fingers during the night, but they were now mended, and got him to flex and clench his hands to make sure that everything was in working order. Once satisfied with that, she checked the rest of him, and said that she'd been giving him a pain suppressant, and that he'd need to take another dose before he left and one before he went to sleep.
'Now drink this, and I'll come back and check on you in about an hour.'
With that she bustled through the thick white curtains and, presumably, back to her office. Remus noted that when she left there was a flash of purple light that illuminated the gap between the curtains, and they snapped shut.
'What's the-'
'It's a binding spell. If you're not Madam Pomfrey it can only be opened from the inside.' Romulus smiled. 'Just a precaution, so that none of your friends walk in and see you here, when you're meant to be at Great Aunt Muriel's funeral.'
Remus laughed. 'Where'd you come up with that name, anyway?'
'I don't know,' Romulus pondered for a moment. 'I thought it was just a very Aunty-ish name. You don't want dinner, do you?'
'You know I don't…'
'I promised Mum I'd make you eat something.'
'You know I won't keep it down…'
'Oh well. I tried.' Romulus grinned. 'You can be so stubborn.'
Remus smiled. 'What's the time, by the way?'
Romulus looked at the unusual watch his parents had given him for being made a prefect. 'Six thirty-two and… eight seconds.'
Remus watched as nine of the twelve hands on Romulus' watch reappeared after Romulus took his finger off one of the buttons.
'Your new friends have been very busy today,' said Romulus, his eyes flicking back up to Remus'.
'Really? What did they do?'
'Got put on detention again. For duelling.'
'Duelling?'
'Yes. James and… Sirius, was it?' Remus nodded. 'Apparently started a duel in the middle of the corridor with two other boys from Slytherin. I saw Professor Flitwick attending to Bertram. His head was almost twice its normal size!'
'Oh no!' said Remus.
'Oh yes!'
'How did it start?'
'I don't know exactly. Although I did hear something about two of them just literally running into each other.'
'Do you know who the Slytherins were?'
'Well, I know Bertram Aubrey; he's a Slytherin Prefect. He tried to stop it, and got caught in the crossfire. The other one had black hair and was quite pale. I'm pretty sure he's a first-year.'
'It sounds like Severus Snape.'
'Snape! Yes, that was it. Anyway, Professor McGonagall gave James and Sirius detentions for later tonight. Two detentions in their first week,' Romulus shook his head. 'I think you may have fallen in with the wrong crowd already.'
'What about Severus, didn't he get detention too?'
'No. I think Bertram vouched for him. I'm pretty sure that James actually started it.'
'That's no reason to retaliate, though.'
'No, it's not. But unlike James and Sirius, he had a clean slate. And unlike James and Sirius, he had a prefect vouching for him. And, unlike James and Sirius, he didn't actually cause any damage.'
'Oh.'
'Not entirely fair, but that's the way things go.' Romulus shrugged and closed his Transfiguration textbook. 'I've sent a letter off to Mum and Dad, by the way,' he added after a moment. 'You know, just telling them you're okay. Not dead or disfigured or just a head or anything.'
'Thank you,' said Remus amusedly.
'Mum replied. She wants you to write to her sometime this week for an update.'
'Okay.'
Madam Pomfrey bustled back into view with a burst of purple light exactly an hour from when she'd left. She asked Remus a lot of questions about how he felt, checked his vitals, and then started inspecting his bandages.
'Excellent,' she said absentmindedly as she unwrapped his left hand. 'Excellent,' she looked up at Remus this time. 'You heal very nicely.'
'So I've been told,' Remus said, smiling. His father had said the same thing many times before.
She pointed her wand at the disguarded material, and it disappeared with a slight whipping noise. She did the same with his other hand and Remus inspected both of his hands as she checked his torso.
The wounds seemed to have completely healed. Remus thought that his father couldn't have done a better job. He looked over at Romulus and saw him smiling slightly. Apparently they were having the same thought. Romulus lent down and gave Remus the shirt that had been in his overnight bag.
'Thank you very much, Madam Pomfrey.' Remus said as he did up the buttons on his shirt. 'The pain has almost all but gone.'
'Yes, well about half of that is the pain suppressant. I expect you to take the rest of it before you go to sleep tonight,' she said in a rather formidable tone and handed him a bottle of liquid.
'Of course.'
'Well then, Mr. Lupin, if you have no more pains, I think you should be right to go and join the rest of your housemates.' She unrolled her sleeves and looked at him with a stern and piercing look. 'Just don't go duelling in the middle of the corridors over nothing like Mr. Potter and Mr. Black. If anything else, it would be detrimental to your health at this point in time.'
'Oh, I don't plan on it.'
'Yes, well, we very rarely plan to hurt ourselves. Just mind how you go. Goodnight Remus,' her gaze flicked to his brother. 'Romulus.'
Remus got dressed, and with the help of his brother, slowly eased out of the bed and walked back up to the Gryffindor tower.
When they arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady, Romulus handed Remus his overnight bag and knelt down.
'Now, where have you been?'
'Aunt Muriel's funeral.'
'Great Aunt Muriel's funeral.'
'Oh,' Remus clapped a hand to his forehead. 'Right. I should have remembered that. I've been at Great Aunt Muriel's funeral.'
'And how are you related to said Great Aunt?'
Remus did some quick thinking as to how he could have a great aunt. 'Uh… she's my… Grandmother's sister?'
'Which Grandmother?'
He'd been in France. 'My… Mums?'
'Mum's French, and Muriel isn't a French name: explain.'
'But, I've been in France…'
'Which tells you?' Romulus encouraged.
'That… she married into the family?'
'Exactly. So, she's your Grandmother's sister-in-law, okay?'
'Yes. Great Aunt Muriel married into Mum's side of the family, when she married my Great Uncle, my Grandmother's brother.'
Romulus looked up at the ceiling for a second and seemed to be going over each of the statements Remus had said one by one, checking for any discrepancies. He threw his hands in the air.
'Excellent! I'm sure they won't even give it a second thought, but just in case.'
'Better safe that sorry.'
'Precisely!' Romulus adjusted the collar of his robes. 'Now, I'm off to the Ravenclaw Tower to do some outrageously subtle flirting with Editha and then get some sleep.'
Remus remembered what Dee had said about his sister talking about Romulus all summer. 'Are you going to ask her out?'
'Hmm… not yet I don't think. Maybe. I don't know. We'll just have to see where the wind takes us. I need to build up a bit more Gryffindor courage. After all, I am just a lowly Ravenclaw.' He grinned.
'Right…'
Romulus smiled and hugged Remus. 'I'm glad you're here, you know,' he said quietly.
'I know. I'm glad you're here, too.'
'I'll see you in the morning. Take your potion and have a good rest.' He stood up and turned to leave. 'Oh, and don't got around duelling, or I'll tell Mum.'
'Understood.'
'Goodnight, Remus.'
'Goodnight.'
Remus gave the Fat Lady the password and clambered through the portrait hole, coming face to face with Frank Longbottom.
'Lupin!' he said cheerfully. 'Good to see you! Good to see you. Your brother just dropped you off I take it? I heard about the funeral. Sorry to hear about it, mate. Potter told me you weren't that close though.' He dropped his voice and leant forwards slightly. 'If you don't mind me asking… it was a, you know, natural death, wasn't it?'
Remus did some quick thinking. 'Yes,' he said. 'Why?'
'Oh, you know… bad things have been happening a bit lately. I just thought it might be connected, but, obviously not. Which is, you know, good. Well, as good as a death can be,' he added. 'Sorry.'
Remus nodded.
'So, how are things going besides that? You coping so far? I heard that Professor Prat was a bit harsh on you.'
'Oh, yeah, but I'm fine. I knew the answer anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.' Remus shrugged, and tried to make it look like he actually believed what he was saying.
'Fantastic! Okay, I'd better be off.' He clapped Remus on the shoulder as he left.
'Remus! You're back!' Sirius exclaimed the minute Remus walked in the door. He, James and Peter were sitting in the middle of the floor, playing a game of Exploding Snap. From the looks of Peter's eyebrows, he was losing. And badly at that. 'How did everything go?' Sirius asked more solemnly.
'Fine,' Remus said noncommittally. 'You know, as good as it can be.' He couldn't help but think that this was in fact not a lie. Things had gone as well as could be expected. Possibly even a little better.
'Do you want to play?' Peter asked softly.
Remus smiled slightly. 'No, but thank you for the offer.' He walked to his bed, put his overnight bag down on top of his duvet and closed the curtains so that the other boys couldn't see what he was doing. He then retuned to his bag, took out the bottle Madam Pomfrey had given him and placed it under his pillow, before putting the rest of the contents of his bag in the trunk at the end of his bed.
'Ow!' exclaimed Peter and Sirius gave a bark of laughter. 'It's not funny, Sirius! That one hurt. I've never played this before…'
'Nonsense. It builds character, right James?'
'Mmmm.'
'Oh, Remus?' Peter said, and stood up, gingerly rubbing his hand. 'Lily, I-I mean, Evans,' he corrected himself at the look on James' face, 'asked me to give these to you.' He walked over to his bag and took out some pieces of parchment and handed them to Remus. Remus recognised Lily's neat handwriting with the headings 'Herbology, Professor Violet Hibbingsworth' and 'Potions, Professor Horace Slughorn' underlined on different pages.
'Thank you, Peter,' Remus replied. 'I'll look over these now.'
'Oi! Remus!' Sirius exclaimed loudly before Remus could take a step. 'We haven't told you about our run in with Snape!' He was grinning rather manically.
James' brow was furrowed. Sirius looked at him, and then obviously decided to tell the tale himself.
'It was like this, okay? Me, and James and Peter were walking down the corridor to Potions, right? And then all of a sudden, Snape comes barrelling round the corner, and shoves James out of the way! I mean, he just came along and' he mimed being shoved with a lot of force, 'bang! Straight into him! No provocation, nothing!'
Remus raised his eyebrows. 'Really?'
'Yep! So, James says, "What's the idea?" and Snape just gets up, and scowls and shoves past him again!'
'Wait. He got up? He was on the ground?' Remus asked.
'Yeah. They both fell over,' said Sirius.
'What happened then?'
'Well, obviously, we'd had enough of him, so I tried to hex him, and then he tried, and it went on, and eventually Peter got hit by this really weird one that made yellow goop come out of his eyes!'
Remus looked at Peter. He nodded. 'It didn't hurt or anything.'
'But it looked gross!' Sirius continued. 'And that's when the Slytherin prefect stepped in, and James accidentally hit him with a swelling spell, and his head kind of… just expanded.' He again mimed, this time bringing his hands to his head and then drew them out, making it look like his head was expanding like a balloon.
'What annoys me,' interjected James, it was the first time he'd really spoken since Remus had entered the room, 'is that Snape got off without so much as a slap on the wrist! And we got detention!'
'I thought you liked detention,' Peter said, with a puzzled expression on his face.
'Well, I mean, yes!' James spluttered slightly. But he should have got one too! I'd be fine if he'd gotten one as well. Favouritism. Bloody favouritism, that's what it is!' He frowned again and huffed. Remus was about to say something, when James went on. 'And bloody Evans… don't even get me started. Acting all superior, and,' he put on a girlish voice, '"Don't Potter! You'll lose points for Gryffindor, Potter! You're so childish, Potter!" Ergh!' he growled. 'Bloody girls! Why do we need them? And why, for the love of Merlin, are they so, bloody, arrogant?'
Remus had a fleeting thought that this may be a prime example of the pot calling the cauldron black, but refrained.
James seemed to finish his tirade, and got up.
'Come on, Sirius. Better not keep Filch waiting…'
He and Sirius exited the room. Sirius smirking, and James stamping each step, as though the floor had personally offended him.
Remus looked at Peter.
'It- it wasn't really like that,' Peter said softly.
Remus wasn't surprised. 'What actually happened?'
'Snape just came around the corner and wasn't looking where he was going, and just bumped into James. James had had an argument with Evans just before, and he was a bit off put and quite rudely said, "What's the idea?" and Snape brushed him as he went past, and all hell broke loose!' Peter cast his eyes downwards. 'It was kind of scary.'
Remus remembered that Peter was a Muggleborn, and had probably never seen a duel before. He opened his trunk, took out his own pack of cards and sat down opposite Peter, shoving the exploding cards out of the way.
'How about a game of Memory?'
Peter looked up. 'Non-exploding Memory?'
'Yeah.' Remus shuffled the cards. 'See. You have to do all the work yourself.' He smiled at Peter. Peter smiled back.
They started a game, and as time progressed a little, Remus broached the subject of wizarding duels. Peter said he was strongly reminded of Muggle guns, and that his uncle had been killed on his farm by a gunshot to the chest. Remus reassured him that there was only one actual curse that could instantly kill you, and that you'd never see it at Hogwarts, especially at the hands of first-years. Peter smiled nervously. He still didn't look convinced.
About half an hour later, he bade goodnight to Peter, saying that he'd just do some homework on his bed. This was, the truth, but he also felt extremely tired. The adrenaline of being at Hogwarts had sustained him this far today, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold out.
He grabbed his Herbology and Potions textbooks, walked over to his bed and got on it, organising the notes into groups and opening his books to the relevant pages. He read all the way through the Herbology notes and was halfway through the Potions when the dull ache across his chest became more of a stinging pain, and he took the rest of the potion Madam Pomfrey had given him. He went back to the notes, but eventually, he gave into sleep, and dreamed of Romulus' 11th birthday.
Cake. Balloons. Fireworks…
Please Read & Review it makes me update faster...
Next Chapter: Chapter VII
We have another
lesson with Professor Praeiudico and other stuff happens...
Peace,
Rotae
