CW: Homophobia
By the time we entered May, Sirius and I had started to go out again, James had asked Lily out six more times, and everyone was beginning to stress about the end-of-year exams.
"It's going to be even more stressful next year," Peter complained, as we all sat in the courtyards on the first weekend of the month, "with the O.W.L.s and everything..."
"You know what's before the exams?" said James. When none of us responded, he said, "The game against Ravenclaw. It's on the thirty-first of May, so that means we have exactly four weeks to train, and I've got an entire training schedule planned out. You see, we need to be beating them by at least fifty points before we catch the snitch, which I've told to Marlene, so she won't catch it before we're fifty points ahead..."
I found myself zoning out and looked back down at my Potions textbook. I really was awful at the class, and if I didn't study, I could fail. This year, then in my O.W.L.s, then in my N.E.W.T.s.
On the first Tuesday of May, I got sick. When I woke up that morning, I was sweating like crazy and felt like absolute crap. I stood up after James had turned the alarm off, but my vision blackened and I fell to the floor, vomiting.
"You should go see Madam Pomfrey," said James, and I shook my head.
"She hates me, and I can't miss class," I said. My voice sounded raspy. "There's only a month before exams."
"There's a month and a half, isn't there?" said Peter nervously.
"Moony, there's no point going to class if you're too sick," said Sirius. "It's worse than missing a day."
"It's fine," I said, standing up and clutching the side of the four-poster, feeling my head spin. I then grabbed my school uniform and walked into the bathroom to get changed.
I took off my pyjama shirt, and then caught a glimpse of my chest in the mirror. On the last full moon, the Friday before last, I'd gotten a particularly deep gash, and hadn't applied a bandage or a plaster or anything after it had stopped bleeding. I'd thought it would've been fine at the time, but now the long gash had gone a strange shade of something between red and yellow, and thick pus was seeping out of it.
Swearing softly to myself, I tore a huge chunk of toilet paper from the roll and pressed it against my chest, feeling my own fear in my throat. I knew if wounds were infected the person could get quite sick, and pus would come out of the wound, and both things had already happened to me this morning. But I'd also read that if magically inflicted wounds got infected, it got so much worse.
Shaking my head, I slipped on my shirt and buttoned it all up to my neck, did up my tie, changed my pants, put on my jumper and robes, then walked back out into the dormitory. Sirius, James, and Peter all appeared blurry to me.
"Are you sure you're alright?" James asked. "You're very pale..."
"I'm fine," I said, walking down to the common room so we could go down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Once we were seated at the Gryffindor table, the cereal in front of me seemed to be spinning.
I was sent to the Hospital Wing during the first lesson of the day, Charms, where I accidentally vomited all over Professor Flitwick as he was speaking to me about my essay, and he immediately told me to go see Madam Pomfrey and nominated Lily to walk me to the Hospital Wing.
"It's such a shame you're sick in the weeks leading up to the exams," said Lily, walking. "Did you get poorly cooked steak or something last night? I thought mine was quite pink..."
"Nah, just sick," I said, shrugging as we walked into the Hospital Wing.
"Oh, well, I hope you get better soon!" said Lily, and she waved, then left to go back to Charms.
"What's the problem?" asked Madam Pomfrey when she saw me.
"I threw up on Professor Flitwick and he sent me here," I said. She sighed.
"Alright, you can take a bed, and I'll be with you soon," she said. I made my way to one of the beds, and she went to help another patient.
By the time she came over to see me, I'd decided I had to tell her about the infection. She was a healer, so hopefully, she'd be able to heal me.
"So, you've been vomiting?" she asked. "Do you er, need a sick bag or something?"
"Um... there's a problem with... with one of my cuts, I think it's infected, it's all yellow, there's pus coming from it..."
Her face suddenly turned very serious, and then she drew the curtains of the four-poster and sat on my bed. "Let me see."
Feeling awkward, I took off my robes and jumper, then unbuttoned my shirt. Madam Pomfrey's eyes widened at the sight of it.
"That's infected, alright," she said. "How did this happen? Did you not apply a bandage?"
I shook my head. Her eyes widened ever wider.
"Not even a plaster?"
I shook my head again.
"Remus, that's a standard procedure... even a muggle could do that," said Madam Pomfrey.
"Well, I'm not a healer," I said.
"It's common sense!" she cried. "What do you think the purpose of bandages and plasters is?"
"I'm sorry..." I said.
"That's a magically inflicted wound, Remus!" she cried.
"I know..." I said. She placed her face in her palms.
"I can't believe you would be so foolish."
"I'm sorry."
"I can't believe you."
"I'm sorry!"
She sighed, then walked away. She came back a minute later with her wand, a couple of liquids, a bandage, and a box of tissues.
"Use these to wipe away the pus," she said, handing me the tissues. I took them and wiped the scratch. It was disgusting. Madam Pomfrey then handed me one of the liquids: some sort of lotion. "Apply a handful of this to the wound."
I took it, then began to rub it on my chest. Madam Pomfrey then instructed me to sit up, and she wrapped the thick bandage around my chest.
"Alright, do up your shirt, take this potion, then lie down," she said, handing me a potion, which I downed after buttoning up my shirt. She then handed me another potion. "Here's a sleeping draught. Goodnight. Or morning, whatever."
"Thank you," I said, taking the sleeping draught. I was asleep before I had another thought.
I awoke mid-afternoon feeling so much better than when I'd woken up that morning. I wanted to look at the cut to see if it was better, but I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take the bandage off.
I stood up and walked over to where Madam Pomfrey was mending another student's broken bone. I waited until she was done before I spoke to her.
"Can I go?"
"Yes," she said. "Don't take the bandage off until tomorrow morning, though. And Professor McGonagall was here before. I will be taking you to and from the place every month."
"You don't have to..."
"After seeing how poorly you've helped yourself, I do," said Madam Pomfrey. "If you keep going on like that, not treating your wounds, you're going to kill yourself. You may be a..." she mouthed the word 'werewolf' so none of the other patients could hear, "but I can't let you die. You are to come here at five-thirty every evening of the event. I will escort you there, and the next morning I will collect you."
"OK," I said. "Thank you."
She dismissed me, and then I left. It was dinner time now, but I wasn't hungry, so I went straight to the common room to get through some study. I went quickly to the dormitory to grab a few textbooks and half-completed essays, then sat in the very corner of the empty common room.
Soon enough, the common room began filling up with people, all chatting loudly, which made it a lot harder to concentrate. I was about to go up to the dormitory when the other marauders came bounding over to me.
"Are you OK now?"
"Are you feeling any better?"
"Did you find out why you were throwing up?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," I responded. I didn't want to explain to them what had happened. I was too tired, even though I'd slept all day. "I'm going to go to the dormitory."
"We'll come too," said Sirius, and the four of us walked into the dormitory. It smelt like soap.
"The house elves were in this morning," said James.
To clean up the mess I didn't clean up after myself, I thought, suddenly feeling guilty.
"OK," I said, and then I climbed into bed and slept yet again.
"Remus! Have you read this, have you read this!?"
"Read what?" I asked groggily. It was eight in the morning that Friday, in the Great Hall for breakfast, and Amy Stebbins was waving a piece of parchment around in my face.
"There are lesbians in the school!" Amy cried, handing me the parchment. "Someone wrote this letter about it, then they must have made a million copies of it with their wand because it's everywhere. Posted on the noticeboards, all over the floor..."
I looked at the parchment. It read:
At precisely seven thirty-two P.M on Thursday, the eighth of May 1975, I went to the Astronomy tower to collect my tie that I realised I'd left there the previous night during my lesson, but when I got there, I saw two girls kissing. It was Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadowes, both fifth-years in Gryffindor. I immediately left the Astronomy tower as I didn't want to have to look at that disgusting deed any longer. It's completely unacceptable and I believe they should both be expelled. There are eleven-year-olds at this school, for god's sake.
-Anonymous
I didn't know how to react. This was horrible. Were they really going to be expelled?
I scanned the Great Hall, trying to find Marlene and Dorcas, but they were nowhere to be seen.
I felt sick. Everyone in the Great Hall was arguing over the situation, and parchment was being thrown around everywhere. I locked eyes with Sirius, who was across the room. We both seemed to be thinking the same thing.
That could have easily been us.