So that happened.
Remus is alone on his bed, appreciating the coziness of his down bedcovers and grateful that the other boys are generally too hopped up with excitement or whatever it is to spend much time in the dull surroundings of the dorm room. Hogwarts has proven difficult for him in that it's so very nearly impossible to be alone, at least not in the places unforbidden.
Being around people is exhausting, he thinks. He's not sure why he feels that way, though. He's happy when he gets the opportunity to chat, to help another student with homework. Truly. But, their presence wears on him, like the drip of a leaking pipe into a small cup. It doesn't matter how much the sound of it soothes him, pretty soon he'll find there's no more room in the cup and the water spills over.
The quiet scratch of a quill on parchment is his solace, he finds, scribbling down a thought in his planner before switching back to his homework
~Become proficient in both magical and muggle healing~
finds it's place on the list just after
~Choose a few large isolated areas you could reasonably get to, study the vegetation and fauna~
His planner, or more like a journal, is something he recently started—to collect ideas for his future; he's begun to come to terms with the fact that he'll never be a part of wizarding society. So it's up to him to prepare himself, for a life of independence.
The other students don't seem to mind much, this constant presence of people, and Remus finds this strange. Maybe he finds it more wearing than the rest, because he never feels quite safe, being watched by other people. Perhaps he is that much more exhausted by the masses because he is so aware of them; he is constantly adjusting his behavior to prevent them from noticing anything off about him or from paying him much notice at all. It feels impossible for him to be at ease when others are around.
A drop of ink splatters onto his bedding and he is momentarily sidetracked in his attempt to remove the stain, searching his memory for the rarely used household spell that would vanish the spot.
Remus doesn't get to keep his comfortable solitude for long. He hears the arrival of one of the boys, and the scent more than the sound of the boy tells him that it is James Potter, with whom Remus is still feeling quite a bit sore. Happily, Potter seems to still be terrified of him; both Potter and Black will go to great lengths not to irritate him these days. The boy's presence at this moment is not unexpected. James Potter recently made a reading request through Remus—it had gone without saying that Potter and Black were no longer permitted in the library after last week's debacle. Ever since their near-death experience (they considered Remus's fury more deadly than an entire library of toppling bookcases), if James or Sirius actually needed to go to the library for something, all reading requests went through Remus Lupin.
James enters the silent dormitory and Remus ignores him, continuing to stare down at his parchment. James makes a quiet, nearly inaudible murmur from the other side of the room as he asks politely for the book he needed for his Defense report, his voice cracking in the middle. This pleases Remus to no end. He is sure to conceal that fact.
"If I see you so much as dog-ear a page, Potter, I'll cut your toes off," Remus says tonelessly as he hands off the book to Potter. He's keen to maintain his menacing aura for the time being.
Potter gives a squeak and darts back out of the room. Remus grins.
This pattern of behavior continues for several weeks.
For the life of them, the other students cannot figure out how James Potter and Sirius Black, notorious troublemakers and defyers of authority, came to be under the thumb of Remus Lupin. All anyone can say is that for some inexplicable reason, one look from Remus Lupin has the dastardly duo quaking in their boots.
James and Sirius are a little shocked by it too, the fact that a boy who had seemed so inconsequential was suddenly so thoroughly terrifying. They wonder why this thirteen year-old boy can scare them more than Dumbledore and McGonagall put together. Perhaps it is because it's clear Remus can meet them on the same level. Remus Lupin does not have to defer to humane methods of punishment like some authority figure for children would.
Or, perhaps, it's because they had watched him as he held up a thousand pound bookcase for six seconds, a feat which no second-year should be able to do.
Remus, in the meantime, wonders if he'll have to at some point make good on his threats to keep the idiots in line.
Even the professors take notice of the troublemakers' newfound respect for Remus and begin to manipulate this new dynamic to their advantage. In transfiguration on Tuesday, Sirius's not-so-subtle attempt to turn Judas Camry's hair into dried seaweed is easily foiled by one deadly look by Remus, and from then on McGonagall pairs Sirius with Remus in class.
Remus continues to address the boys as Mr. Potter and Mr. Black, switching to just plain Potter and Black when they are behaving particularly annoyingly. He trains them to the point that the use of their unadorned surnames will send a shiver down their spines.
To the other students, it's beginning to look like Remus Lupin will be the end of the Potter-Black reign of terror at the school, and several students have approached him with words of thanks, which he shrugs off. Personally, he doubts it will last.
Of course, Black and Potter quickly turn this into a joke.
"Remus Lupin, our Lord and Master!" he hears them call when he enters the common room, jumping to attention and giving him a salute.
"My liege," Potter bows, exiting backwards from their bathroom when Remus enters to shower.
"Lord Lupin! Give me your blessing on my raisin pie!" Black asks, shoving a pie under his nose after Charms class.
"Get that monstrosity out of my face," Remus rumbles dangerously, and they back away from him slowly. Up to this point, their antics have inspired little reaction from him, but having Black's once-again silver cufflinks near his face is not something he is okay with. Also, the existence of a raisin pie offends his being to its very core.
The next Monday Remus realizes that the two have been trying to surreptitiously test his strength. He doesn't noticed immediately, but several of his items are mysteriously heavy when he goes to gather them into his book bag. Two pairs of eyes are watching him with undue nonchalance, and he takes the spells off the rest of his things before placing them in his bag. He catches their eyes and raises an eyebrow, and goes on his way. He's not sure what they had been thinking, making his quill weigh as much as a dragon's egg. It was not subtle. Throughout the week they continue their attempts, trying their best to catch him off his guard while handing him inappropriately large objects.
When Potter and Black try to shove an actual anvil in his arms, an anvil they barely hold between the two of them, before dropping it on the floor and cracking the marble, Remus finds that he's getting a little fed up with this.
Rolling his eyes, Remus reaches down and picks it up with one arm and hands it back to them.
"My mother was a professional strongwoman," he tells them. They gawk. He leaves them to it.