chapter two

Remus was aching.

The weight of the moon still weighed down on him. The full moon was just the day before his year began, living him little time to recover. Of course, he could've stayed in bed down at the Hospital Wing for just one more night, skip dinner and skip his prefect duties. But he wasn't about to do that. Instead of letting this little problem consume even more of his life than it already did, Remus would push himself. He pushed himself a little too far, though.

The first week of classes had already passed and there was still this lingering pain in his limbs and this exhausting that weighed down on him, heavy on his shoulders and heavy on his eyelids. Remus was all too aware of how clearly this showed on his face, dark bags and sallow skin, bruised and cut up. Of course, he looked like that all time. Sometimes it just looked worse than others. The strares made him tired too.

It got so bad that Remus found himself losing himself in Transfiguration, eyes fluttering shut as they got too heavy to hold up. He kept forcing his eyes open wider and wider, staring at the brightest ray of sunlight pouring through the windows. Even still, his limbs ached so much that eventually his eyes just closed against his will and the only thing that could wake him up was the feeling of a very thick and very wet worm where his quill used to be.

His friends were concerned. It was obvious in the way that they kept looking at him with that worried expression, eyebrows turned downward and frowning. But Remus didn't feel the right to complain to them about it; he knew his long nights kept them from sleeping too. And even though Remus got the worse end of it, he could still see the bags forming under his friends' eyes.

His body took its time returning to normal, to heal it's bruises and its cuts and by the time he was feeling completely alive again the first week of six year had came and went. There were, somehow, many letters landing on his lap from his mother the first Saturday of the year, begging him for details on how the full moon went and how he was feeling and if he had gotten into any trouble yet. He only felt a little guilty when he tucked them away under his Charms notes. He reasoned that he'd answer them later.

It was, all things considered, a rather dull start to the year, considering who his friends were and what he was. But their courses started out heavy, heavy enough to weigh down even the naturally gifted Sirius Black, who always seemed to do well in his classes despite never even really trying.

He was sat across from Remus in the common room, the two of them studying while James and Peter were whispering and giggling with their heads together off in the corner, Charms essays forgotten and halfway finished. It was almost funny, really, watching Sirius with his eyebrow strewn together while his eyes skimmed over the same couple of lines like he was confused over what a book was. "Alright Sirius?" Remus asked, his fingers running alone the edge of the pages of his own book.

The black-haired boy shook his head, eyes wide as he looked over at his friend. "I dunno how you've been doing this all these years. It's agonizing."

"What're you even reading?" Lupin asked, leaning back in his seat, abandoning his own book. It was a rare occurrence, but Remus's mind was just other places and the words on the page weren't doing what they could to keep him grounded.

Sirius seemed grateful for the distraction, anyways. "Muggle Studies reading. Did you know that they have these things called floppy disks?"

Remus titled his head. "Floppy disk?"

And just as Sirius opened his mouth to explain, James Potter shouted over to them, "Sirius knows a thing or two about a floppy disk."

The nearest pillow was in Sirius's grasp for just a second before it was flung in the center of James's face. "Oh, shut it, would you? What are you two even gabbering on about over there?"

Peter supplied this answer. "Just trying to think of the best way to turn the Slytherin common room into a swamp. "I think it would be a more fitting atmosphere for them."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Oh, that's simple. Throw the invisibility cloak over Moony and make him stand by the door until someone opens it and when he sneaks it, boom, done. It's a swamp."

"Why are you always making me do it?" Remus mumbled, knowing he would probably end up doing it anyways. He just wouldn't admit until they had pulled it off and all the green robes were weighed down by swamp water that it was brilliant.

"It's a compliment, Moony," Peter said.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed, "you're the best in Transfiguration, and Minnie thinks I'm a baboon."

Remus rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his Astronomy book, reading the passage he left off on, completely lost. "You've left quite an impression on her."

"My bride to be," Sirius mused.

Time was going too fast for Remus. It was amazing, really, how fast time could go when he had several deadlines handing over his head. Remus felt like he would blink and he had something new he had to hand over to an expectant professor. It was maddening, and he wished he had some sort of way to turn back time to stop himself from enrolling in Astronomy. It was cruel, really, that the night sky found a way to torment him outside of the full moon.

His brain was fried.

Still, he fell into a routine easily. Remus would go to his classes and take his notes, hardly even thinking as he scribbled down whatever came out of his professors' mouths. He'd camp out at the library, trying to get his work done for as long as his friends let him before they wanted to plot some dungbombs around or plan for their new land development in the dungeons. He'd do his Prefect rounds with Lily, who seemed as distracted and overwhelmed as him. That, at least, was reassuring. If the brightest girl in their year was already drowning, he had an excuse.

With his hand pressed up against his cheek, Remus stared blankly at the plate of half-eaten food in front of him. He couldn't decide if he was just too tired to be hungry or that was genuinely big enough of a dinner. It sat uneasy in his stomach. He couldn't wait for the weekend.

"What do you think then, Moony?"

The sound of his name made him flinch. He looked around, wide-eyed and blank, at the expectant faces of his friends. "Huh?" Remus questioned, head spinning. Was he drooling? He wiped the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

James Potter gave an easy eye roll. "He wasn't listening. He's never listening. Were you listening?"

Remus shook his head. "No. Of course not."

"Sirius thinks he could get any girl in our year in a broom closet if he wanted," Peter offered as an explanation from his spot next to Remus. "Been bragging about for a while now, actually."

"I think he's wrong," James interjected. "Don't you think he's wrong?"

"No. I know he's wrong," Remus replied, and then turned to look at his grinning friend. Sirius was insatiable, in the most annoying kinds of ways sometimes. "You're not as smooth as you make yourself out to be, Padfoot."

The accusation made Sirius's face light up in shock. He didn't even have the decency to be offended. "I'm smooth! Irresistible, even. Girls love me!"

"No. Girls loved you," James explained, "but then you started snogging every girl who paid you attention, and now they all think you're gross."

Remus nodded, picking up his plate and nudging around the remaining food on his plate. He hated peas. "You've snogged all the girls you could. Now you're dry."

Sirius looked back and forth between his friends like there was something wrong with them. He snorted. "Name one girl, one girl right now and I bet I could get her in a broom closet by the end of the day. Go."

"Evans," Peter supplied, sniggering.

James's face grew dark for a moment. "Watch it."

"I'm not cruel, Wormy. I'd never do that to James."

"More like Lily would never do that to you," Remus quipped, mostly to his plate, but earned a round little pea to the forehead from Sirius anyways.

It was James's turn. "Jane Armstrong."

"Already snogged her. Fourth year, right before Christmas."

"Betty Harris," Peter went again.

"She's ugly!"

"She's not that bad," Remus mumbled, something reminiscent of guilt in his gut.

"Alright then, you go gnaw on her face."

Remus hesitated, and then gave Sirius a very straight face when he said, "Betty Harris is a very nice girl," but he knew he had lost his argument there.

"Oh, right, how could I forget the most important factor when talking about which girls you want to jump your bones? How nice they are."

James raised a hand to Sirius's forehead and gave a hard flick to the center of it. "You know you can be a bit of a pig, sometimes"

"Most people say dog ."

Remus ignored him. It was his turn. He bit down on the bottom of his lip, looking around the Great Hall for a moment. "Drummond."

This made Sirius quirk an eyebrow. "Drummond?"

Remus shrugged. "You don't stand a chance with her."

"You really don't mate," James cautioned, giving Sirius a rather skeptical look. If anyone would know, it'd be James.

But Sirius had been presented with a challenge, and it wasn't in his nature to turn a challenge down. He stood from his spot, tossing the three of them a dashing grin before he walked over to his target.

Remus never really thought about Torrance Drummond. Torrance Drummond, Remus realized as he stared, didn't really seem like Sirius's type. Sirius liked fun girls, who laughed loud at Hogsmeade trips and cheered the loudest at Quidditch games. He liked girls that were stunning. Girls that gave him a lot of competition. And it wasn't that Drummond was ugly. No, Remus thought after a long hard look, she was actually very pretty. But it was a funny sort of pretty. Like it didn't hit you straight away. Like you had to look at her twice. But that wasn't what Sirius liked. Not to mention, Remus was pretty positive he'd only heard her talk maybe three times since their second year.

Even as Sirius approached her, the three of his friends watching with bated breath, she was giving Mary MacDonald a slight and unamused smirk. She watched Sirius with bored eyes as he stood in front of her.

"Hi," he mused, voice smooth and Remus couldn't help but notice, a bit lower than it naturally was.

Torrance's eyes flicked over to Mary and then back at Sirius. "Not interested," she clipped. Peter snorted into his pumpkin juice.

Remus wished he had bet money on it, but the look on Sirius's face was payment enough in itself. "Excuse me?"

"I said I'm not interested," the girl repeated, simply and with a note of finality. But when Sirius said nothing, just looking back and forth between him and his mates, she continued, "What, do you think I'm deaf? Your mates are literally listening right now, you think I couldn't hear you lot from over here?" She paused, and tossed the group of boys a look that made Peter and Remus straighten up in their seats, blushing. James just tossed her a wave. "Potter."

"Hello Torrance." He turned towards Remus and Peter and said, "We're friends."

Sirius stumbled. He was floored; Remus could see her words turning around in his head. Sure, Sirius had been rejected before, but never so bluntly and never so quickly. The disbelief was clear in his raised brows and parted lips. He staggered, thrown off his game. "Um, so, well if it weren't for that-"

Torrance shook her head. "Go wash your hair, Sirius" she said, turning her attention away from him and back to a giggling Mary.

Sirius returned to his friends with an entirely different disposition. "Well, I think that maybe, just a little bit, I deserved that."

Remus rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the stare he felt against the side of his face. He knew where it was coming from and that it wasn't the first time, and he couldn't help but wonder why Torrance Drummond had taken a particular interest in his scars.

The wonder didn't fade away.

Remus thought about the first night back, when she was looking at him, bold and unashamed with a blank face and something unreadable in his eyes. He thought of how he looked away but she didn't. He didn't know anything about her. He knew that she was in a fair few of his classes and that she was James's potions partner and she was in the same dorm as Lily. The redheaded girl sometimes told Remus stories about her, stories that seemed largely contrasted to the girl who wore a scowl on her face in all her classes and never once opened her mouth so much as to ask a question. It made sense he never noticed her; she didn't do anything to be noticed.

But now she was staring at his scars and it made him red in the face.

And honestly, it was starting to annoy him. Remus filled his mind up with theories about what she was thinking. He imagined her morbid fascination with them, thinking of the scenarios she must have come up with in her head to explain them. He imagined her disgust and the way she would pale and scream if she ever actually knew. And every single time he caught her staring at him, he imagined himself, a bolder version of himself, storming up to her and demanding to know what it was she thought she was looking at. Like Sirius would. Like James would. But every time he tried to, something inside him froze up, and he panicked, resigning to purse his lips and think himself to death.

No matter how many times Remus caught her staring, Remus noticed, Torrance Drummond never backed down. She never blushed and she never looked away. Just tilted her head and kept something in her eyes that he couldn't decipher.


im not the biggest fan of this chapter and its pretty short but we're still early on. ive been wanting to write this for years and im excited for where this is going. let me know what you think.