A thin beam of sunlight was shining directly in his eyes when Remus awoke. His head was pounding. It felt as if an army of goblins were digging another Gringotts tunnel inside his skull. His mouth tasted awful and he wondered vaguely if something had lodged itself in his oesophagus and died there.
Remus groaned.
Instantly a dark shape appeared in his line of vision, blocking the sunlight from falling on his face. Remus blinked his bleary eyes, trying to make them focus. After a moment they did, and he could see Sirius leaning over him, holding a goblet containing a foul-smelling substance.
"Hi," said Sirius, smiling brightly. "Hangover potion?"
"Where did you get it?" Remus croaked. His stomach churned uneasily.
Sirius shrugged. "Nipped down to the dungeons earlier and made a batch. I figured you'd need it. Come on, drink up. Cheers."
Remus forced the potion down and, after a few moments of discomfort during which it seemed as if his eyes would shoot out of his head and his brain would ooze through his nose, he felt much improved. "Thanks," he said, smiling gratefully as he set aside the empty goblet.
Sirius shrugged again, but looked pleased nonetheless. "Feeling better?"
"Much," Remus replied. He rubbed at his eyes and glanced around the empty dormitory. "Where are the others?"
"At breakfast. Don't worry, you're not late. I wasn't going to wake you for another ten minutes." He perched on the edge of Remus' bed and looked at him expectantly.
"Sorry for causing so much trouble last night," Remus said. His memories were still a little fuzzy, but he remembered the long, stumbling walk from the kitchens and how he had needed Sirius' help to keep from falling to the floor once he'd reached the dormitory. "I'll never accept food or drink from Dumbledore again, not even a lemon sherbet. Or from Topsy, for that matter."
Sirius grinned. "I didn't mind. Prongs and Peter are furious though, for missing all the fun." His smiled faded slightly, and he inched closer to Remus. "Moony. Do you want to go to Hogsmeade tomorrow? Together?"
Remus' forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Don't the four of us always go together?"
The smile slipped off Sirius' face entirely. "Right. Yeah. Of course we do." He looked away suddenly, and Remus noticed a bit of bruising on Sirius' chin that he was certain had not been there yesterday.
"What happened to your chin?" he asked, squinting at the bruise.
Sirius stared at him for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he spoke. "Nothing. It's not important." He stood quickly, shoving his hands in his pockets with an air of forced indifference. "There's some more of the hangover potion in the cauldron, if you need it. I'll see you downstairs." Without waiting for a response, he bolted from the room.
It wasn't until long after the door had slammed behind him and the sound of Sirius' feet thundering down the stairs had faded away that Remus remembered what else had happened last night – namely, his failed attempt to kiss Sirius. Gingerly, he touched his forehead and felt the tiny, tender bump that had formed there, matching the bruise on Sirius' chin. Remus recalled the odd, unreadable look in Sirius' eyes just before he left the dormitory and now realised that it had been a look of betrayal.
Remus groaned.
This, he thought, falling back against the pillows and pulling the blanket over his head, is a catastrophe.
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Breakfast was an awkward affair. Sirius glared moodily at his toast, radiating anger and refusing to meet Remus' eyes. James seemed to realise that something had happened and kept glancing between Sirius and Remus in concern. Remus, still reeling from the effects of his hangover and the disastrous state of things with Sirius, hardly touched his food. It fell to Peter to keep up the conversation, which he struggled to do before at last turning to a topic that was sure to interest everyone.
"Wormtail took a look around Flitwick's office last night," he said in a hushed voice.
The others instantly perked up. "And?" James prompted eagerly.
"Found this," Peter said, withdrawing a small, battered volume on advanced plotting and tracking charms from his bag. "It might help with the… you know."
James and Sirius immediately began flipping through the pages, as Remus leaned across the table and tilted his head to the side in an attempt to read the book upside down. Sirius glanced up and met Remus' eyes for a brief, tense moment before looking away, his expression stony.
Suddenly James pounded the table with his fist in glee. The plates and silverware rattled, and Lily shot him a look of disgust from further down the table, but for once James paid her no attention.
"This is it! This is exactly what we needed!" he hissed triumphantly, finger jabbing at a particular spell. Four heads bent over the book, their excitement growing as they quickly read through the instructions.
"It looks right," Remus said, taking the book from James to examine the incantations more closely. "A little complicated, but it shouldn't be too much trouble. It'll work well with the charms we already have in place, too. Nice work, Wormtail."
"Thanks, Moony," Peter said, grinning a little at his praise.
"We can take it in turns," Sirius suggested, his bad mood vanishing for the moment. "There are four main steps, yeah? We can focus on one part each."
They agreed to meet in the dormitory that afternoon after James' Quidditch practice to work on the map. Breakfast soon ended and the students reluctantly filed out of the Great Hall and headed to their first lessons of the day. Remus tried to pull Sirius aside to explain and apologise for what had happened in the dormitory, but Sirius pointedly ignored him and disappeared into the crowd as they passed through the door.
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The day passed slowly for the four boys eager to work on their map. Morning lessons dragged on, and the afternoon slowed to a crawl. Remus was even more distracted and agitated than the others. Throughout the day he tried to get Sirius alone, but Sirius stubbornly stuck to James like glue in an obvious effort to avoid him. Remus supposed he deserved it for avoiding Sirius all week, but that didn't make it hurt any less.
But he was determined that they would have their much-needed discussion before the day was over, despite Sirius' attempts to avoid him. Remus could be just as stubborn as Sirius, and just as sneaky. He wasn't a Marauder for nothing, after all.
When their final class of the day ended, Remus saw his chance. He briefly remarked to Peter about the difficulty of the spell that had been the topic of that day's lesson, and casually mentioned that James had seemed to master it immediately. In an instant Peter was at James' side, peppering the other boy with questions and asking him for assistance.
James rarely let a chance to show off pass him by, and as Remus had expected, immediately took the bait and launched into a detailed explanation of the theory behind the spell. He and Peter disappeared through the door and down the corridor, talking all the while, but when Sirius went to follow, Remus grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back into the now-empty classroom. A quick flick of his wand closed and locked the door against the muffled shouts and laughter of the students in the corridor celebrating the start of the weekend.
Sirius wrenched his arm from Remus' grasp and stood with his arms folded against his chest, glaring. "What?" he snapped.
Remus calmly replaced his wand in the pocket of his robes.
"We need to talk," he said.