Hi everyone! I know, I absolutely suck for not posting this sooner. I'm awful, really. And this is a bit shorter than usual too, so I'm really really really sorry. The next chapter should be a really nice long one though! If any of you actually read this, I've been super super busy lately. I'm in a musical that opens very soon, and I'm spending two to three hours at a theater every day that I normally could spend writing. It's also the end of the year, so I'm having more schoolwork to do, and have started on some summer acceleration stuff I'm doing. Plus I'm an absolute chorus geek, and the concert is on Tuesday(I have a solo in it! :D ), so that takes up loads of time too. Basically, I'm super super sorry, but I"m incredibly busy and there's really nothing I can do about it until school ends in a few weeks. I'm going to try to start updating every Saturday, but until it's summer I can't guarantee that that will happen. So I'm really sorry! But please enjoy the chapter despite me taking so long!
"We only have another week until Halloween! " Peter announced one morning as he tried to clean soap out of his shoes.
Sirius had deemed it necessary that everyone's shoes were given a thorough cleaning, and this had been achieved by putting everyone's shoes in the shower, filling the shoes with 'Fizzle's Extra Bubbling Soap', and putting the water on full blast. Needless to say, there wasn't anyone happy with Sirius.
"Where's Remus?" James asked, furiously scrubbing at his own shoes.
Peter saw Sirius duck into the bathroom and idly wondered if Sirius had 'washed' his own shoes as well.
"His shoes aren't here" Sirius announced, emerging with a pair of black shoes clutched in one hand.
"Then what are you holding?" James asked with a raised eyebrow.
"My own shoes. Anyone know why I would throw my own shoes into the fray?" Sirius said with a look of minor disgust. Peter personally thought that Sirius deserved having to clean his own shoes, but he didn't voice his thoughts. Instead, he trudged over to the bathroom and grabbed another towel to aid him on his shoe cleaning quest.
However, James had no qualms with speaking harshly.
"You deserve having to clean your own shoes you git. Why in Merlin's best red robes would you do this all in the first place?"
"Merlin's best red robes?" Peter said, hesitating at the bathroom door.
"For Gryffindor." Sirius said, apparently under the delusion that he was being helpful.
"Shouldn't they have gold trim though?" James said, turning around to face Sirius in a look of genuine confusion.
"Then you should have said so in the first place!" Sirius nearly shouted, throwing up his hands(and one shoe) in exasperation. Peter watched as the rouge shoe flew in a wide arch through the air, eventually tumbling to a stop, and then rolling under Remus' bed.
"Oooh, now you have to crawl under Remus' bed!" James taunted.
"Peter?" Sirius said, turning to Peter, who was still inching his way towards the bathroom. "Would you mind crawling under Remus' bed for me?"
"Yes." Peter said, trying to inch his way to the bathroom without attracting Sirius' attention.
"So you'll do it?" Sirius asked.
"No, you asked if he'd mind. That means that every answer is opposite. So he would mind crawling under his bed." James explained.
"Thanks James. I think I'm going to go and clean my shoes out before we have class and breakfast." Peter said, running the rest of the way to the bathroom in relief. He had already gotten two detentions for being late, mostly to the fault of James' and Sirius' "shortcuts". Peter was now suspicious of anything that even remotely resembled a shortcut, but he had no other choice than to take them. Remus had been avoiding them all for a couple of weeks now, and he couldn't find his way around the castle without someone's help. No matter how hard he tried to remember the twisting passageways, they were just too winding to stick in his mind successfully. That was why, even after almost two months of school, Peter was still stuck following others around to class.
When Peter came back out of the bathroom, holding the last towel to be found, he found Sirius' legs sticking out from under Remus' bed with books stacked all around him. James was laughing but still was helping Sirius stack every single book he continued to pull out.
"What are you guys doing?" Peter asked, unsure how so many books had materialized into their dorm.
"These were all under Remus' bed!" Sirius yelled, albeit somewhat muffled.
"All of them?" Peter said skeptically. There had to be at least fifty books there, and Sirius was still only half submerged under the large bed.
"Every single one of them! I'm really not sure how he fit so many under here, or how he got so many into the dorm without us noticing." James said, gesturing wildly at the stacks surrounding them.
"Well, about half that we've found so far are library books." Sirius yelled as he shoved another stack out from underneath the bed. "And I still haven't found my shoe!"
"That's because it fell on the other side of the bed." Peter said, remembering how the shoe had fallen. Sirius and James both stopped short.
"Really?" James asked as Sirius started crawling out from under the bed.
"Yeah, it fell on the side facing Sirius' bed, not against the wall." Peter answered.
"Uh.." Sirius said as James ruffled his hair.
"You guys really need to pay more attention. How do you suppose it would even get to the side against the wall?" Peter asked skeptically.
"You know, just cause Remus isn't here doesn't mean that you have to turn into the smart-alack." Sirius said with a pout.
"That wasn't smart-alacky!" Peter protested.
"Uh huh. I think I'm going to find my shoe now. The companies a bit...stifling." Sirius said, turning up his nose.
"You know, Remus is going to kill us when he sees what we've done to his books." James said, ruffling up his hair again.
"Should we start putting them back under?" Peter said tentatively. His chances of getting breakfast and to class on time were slowly shrinking.
"You'd be willing to help?" James asked.
"I'll help if we can actually go to class on time today." Peter said.
"We need Remus back! You're turning into some kind of goody-goody when he's not here to take that role!" Sirius yelled, once again under the bed.
"I am not!" Peter yelled back.
"You know Peter, I think he's on to something." James said as he started to shove books back under Remus' bed.
"Ow!" Sirius cried. "That one hit me!"
"Sorry." James said, not sounding sorry in the least. Peter looked at some of Remus' books in interest, he really had a wide variety of them. Peter caught many titles such as "How to Heal Poisonous Bites in One Spell", "The Differences of Being Schooled in America as Compared to Europe: Scholar's Edition", "How Phases of the Moon Can Cause Change in a Young Werewolf's Life", or "The Secrets Behind the Passcode". There were plenty of fiction books too though, like "Alice in Wonderland", "Tom Sawyer", and "The Secret Garden". Peter even saw a copy of the Bible peaking out from under one stack.
"How did he get so many books into the dorm without us noticing?" James wondered.
"Well, some are library books, so he must be sneaking those in." Sirius said, emerging from under the bed triumphantly holding the lost shoe.
"And maybe his trunk is really a secret library of an Arabic Salesman who trades chocolate frogs for books?" Peter suggested after giving it some thought. He was genuinely surprised when Sirius and James started laughing at it though.
"That's a good one, Peter." James said, flashing Peter a huge smile. Peter smiled a bit nervously in return, deciding that he would pass his theory off as a joke. Even though he really thought he might be on to something.
"But why Arabic?" Sirius said after a slight pause. "I've never learned anything about them."
"Arabians did lots of trading and stuff. Right?" James said, turning to Peter.
"I have no idea. I only said that cause of that book." Peter said, gesturing to the book labelled "Trends and a Brief History of Magic Carpets and Their Influence on Arabic Countries".
"I swear, Remus has the most boring books in all of history." James said sadly, shaking his head.
"I'm kinda mad at him." Sirius said mildly.
"Why?" James asked. Peter wondered what Remus had done, and was extremely curious as to what he could do to avoid Sirius becoming angered with him.
"So first he's all good friends with us and stuff, then he gets sick and tries to avoid us despite being trapped in the hospital with no where to go. Then it seems like it's all going back to normal, and boom! He starts avoiding us all again, and I've barely seen him outside of classes for two weeks. We share a dorm for Merlin's sake! I don't even see him at meal times!" Sirius ranted, getting louder with each and every word until he was shouting.
"Sirius, calm down. I'm sure he's not doing it on purpose." James said, putting a hand on Sirius' shoulder.
"Like hell he's not!" Sirius fairly snarled. Peter was frozen in place, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do when a dorm-mate went crazy and he was stuck in the middle of it.
"It's time for breakfast." James said, giving Sirius a long look.
"And we have classes today." Peter said, joining in. He understood what James was trying to do, he was trying to distract Sirius from what he was so mad about. Peter had never known one child to be so angry. He had noticed that generally Sirius was just a happy-go-lucky hyperactive kid, but his buttons exploded when they were pushed. Peter bit back a smile at the thought of all of Sirius' buttons exploding at once.
"Halloween is next week." James added.
"We get to have a great big Halloween feast." Peter said, pushing all thoughts of buttons out of his mind.
"Quidditch matches will start soon."
"You're ahead in the detention race."
Slowly, but surely, James and Peter mentioned trivial facts until Sirius was calm enough to go down to breakfast. They only had ten minutes to eat by the time they got down there, but they managed to get to class on time even. Peter thought that without Remus there, that was a pretty good start to the day.
~Cese~
"We need a prank for Halloween." James announced, setting his things down in the dorm room that day after lunch. It had been almost a full month since any of them had last talked to Remus, but he decided not to dwell on that fact. Even though Remus probably would've come up with the best prank for them all to do. But James didn't need to think about that now.
"Where do we start?" Peter asked.
"Well, who all are we pranking?" Sirius asked as he pulled a piece of paper from his trunk. James was mildly surprised to see Sirius actually wanting to write something down, but decided not to comment.
"Slytherins." James said at the same time as Sirius, who answered his own question.
"Why not the whole school?" Peter asked tentatively. James grinned immediately, he could just see how amazing it would be. The whole school covered in...well, something.
"Brilliant!" Sirius exclaimed. "Let's get everyone then!"
"Great! Just what are we doing though?" James asked, grabbing a quill and writing 'who: whole school' on Sirius' parchment.
"You have atrocious handwriting." Sirius said critically.
"You have girls' handwriting." James retorted.
"Do not."
"Do too."
"You write like a chicken."
"The phrase is chicken scratch, you dork."
"I know you are, but what am I?"
"Are you three?"
"I'll be four in two weeks. And I still have nicer handwriting as a four year old."
"Were you born a girl or something? Girly handwriting I tell you!"
"Were you born a chicken? Or is your dad just a rooster?"
"Guys!" Peter interrupted. James looked at him sheepishly, Sirius just looked indignant. "Could we focus here?"
"Focus. Right." James mumbled, dragging his hand back through his hair. "We need to have some sort of idea to start with. Any takers?"
"We should do something creepy since it's Halloween and everything." Sirius suggested.
"Let's do something at meal time." Peter contributed.
"During the feast, or during lunch or something?" James said, pausing from his writing.
"The feast would be most noticeable." Sirius pointed out.
"Ok. So something during the feast, Halloween day, and we'll do it to everyone." James said, reading off what he had on the list so far.
"What should we do then?" Peter wondered.
"Should we do something to their food or to the hall or the people or drinks or tables?" Sirius asked.
"Let's do either the food or drink." James decided.
"I've got it!" Peter suddenly yelled, jumping up.
"What?" Sirius and James both asked.
"We have spiders crawl out of everyone's drinks!" Peter said, jumping up and down in excitement. Sirius joined him after a few seconds, and eventually James joined in with jumping as well.
Sirius suddenly stopped. "How?" He said simply.
"We...um, we put it...drinks." James said stupidly, momentarily stumped. He really wished Remus was back here to figure out what spells would need to be used.
"Wow, that's pretty nice James. Very specific." Sirius said, raising one eyebrow at James.
"You try and come up with something!" James shot back.
"Peter!" Sirius whined, turning to the shorter boy. "You're the newly elected smart-alack. Please drop the alack and just be smart for a minute please? Please come up with a new thingy?"
"Uh..."
"Let's just look through some of Remus' books?" James suddenly said, his eyes landing on one called "Great Uses of Pudding in the Last Century" sitting on Remus' bedside.
"Read? Outrageous!" Sirius yelled.
"Why?" Peter asked, casting a quick strange look at Sirius that James' would have normally missed had his attention not been drawn towards Peter. Or, more specifically, the green that was suddenly growing from his hair.
"Pete?" Sirius said in a what may have been a worried tone. James couldn't be bothered to look to see how sincere Sirius was because he was fascinated by the thing growing out of Peter's hair. It almost looked like a plant.
"I'm not Pete! I'm Peter." Peter said with a huff of annoyance. "Guys, why are you staring at my hair?"
James watched as Peter lifted up a hand to touch his hair, and jumped back as the green vine-like thing made a strange sound.
"Did that thing just hiss at you, Pete?" Sirius said in amazement. James was more interested in how it had made apparent attempts to bite Peter before he had jerked his hand away.
"Guys! What in Merlin's name is in my hair?" Peter said, quite frantically at that point.
"I think it's a plant." James decided. No other green thing could have so many leaves and stuff. A plant was really the only logical explanation. Well, as logical as a plant growing out of Peter's head could be.
"You mean there's a ruddy plant growing out of my skull?" Peter yelped, his voice jumping up a few octaves.
"I think so. It's sort-of looks like a vine or something. But with veins and leaves and all that other plant anatomy stuff we learned about in herbology." James said pensively.
"Can I touch it?" Sirius said, moving in to do just that.
"Wait!" James said, jerking Sirius' hand back. "What if it bites?"
"Oh yeah. I guess I didn't think about that." Sirius said, dropping his hand in defeat. James let go of his wrist, and stopped to think for a second.
"Peter, has a plant ever spontaneously grown out of your head before?" James asked.
"Uh, no!" Peter said as he tried to crouch down, apparently trying to get away from the plant.
"So then, the plant must have come from somewhere. Right?" James tried to reason. Like that would work with a plant growing out of his roommates head.
~Cessare~
"Did you eat anything weird?" James asked Peter.
"Nothing stranger than what Sirius had." Peter answered. Sirius snorted at this, his friends found his food combinations a bit, eh, unusual at times.
"True. Ok, what about any spells in class or anything?" James said, running his hand through his hair yet again. Sirius idly wondered if James realized how messy it became when he did that.
"The only thing Pete's done differently than us today is when we looked through Remus' books today, Pete opened a few." Sirius said, after running his memories back through what had happened that day.
"You opened a book?" James said in bewilderment, still staring at the plant-like thing.
"A few maybe..." Peter admitted.
"Why would you do that?" James asked.
"Just to look at them! Remus owns really weird books." Peter said.
"He really does." Sirius said, thinking of the few he had sneaked peeks through or read.
"Wait, wait, more importantly, Remus owns cursed books?" James interrupted.
"They weren't cursed books, James." Sirius said scoffingly. Really though, who confused cursed books with just charmed books?
"Huh?" Peter said, looking every bit as confused as James.
"A cursed book would, you know, inflict a curse on you or something of the sort? It might make whatever hand that touched the book cursed, or fall off or something, or it might actually curse you. A curse implies that it will harm you. Permanently." Sirius said, remembering back to his childhood memories of his stern tutor lecturing him.
"So? What were Remus' books then?" James asked, now poking a quill at the plant on Peter's head as he talked.
"Remus just had charmed books. I mean, this plant is only charmed with a hint of transfiguration. There's no curse to that, if it was cursed it would have taken effect immediately, or gradually decreased. A charm can take longer to appear, a curse wouldn't suddenly spring up a bit of time later. Basically, something that we recently said or did acted as a trigger for that spell to start working." Sirius said as he picked up another quill and joined James in poking the plant; he was feeling far too responsible just giving out facts and needed something to do.
"That's all fine and dandy," Peter said, "but what do we do with the plant in my head?"
"Technically, I don't think it's in your head." James pointed out, dodging the hissing plant. "Plus it's loads of fun."
"Would you please stop playing with the plant growing from my skull?" Peter said as Sirius accidentally hit Peter with the quill instead of the plant.
"Oh, lighten up Pete." Sirius said as he and James began a quill duel with each other around the plant, dodging it as it hissed at the pair.
"Peter! Peter! What's so hard about adding an 'R' to my name? Peter!" Peter yelled, causing the plant to thrash around more violently.
"It takes about a fraction of a second longer, and I lose precious time to my life. I may end up losing several years of my life just saying the 'R' in your name!" Sirius said.
"I don't think that we should try to get rid of this plant." James said, his eyes wide and a huge grin on his face as the two continued to fight with the plant.
"Agreed. It is far too fun to fight with. Hey! Did you hear how nice of alliteration I put it there? Far too fun to fight!" Sirius said, making sure to stress the F's.
"Isn't that consonance?" James said with a slight wrinkle to his forehead.
"I don't even know what those words mean! But please stop playing with the plant!" Peter said, sounding as though he might cry. Sirius bit his lip, he wasn't sure if Peter was really that upset, or if he was just a really good actor. Sirius had seen some of the stuff that Peter pulled over on the teachers; he had fewer detentions because he just looked so much more innocent. So how did he know when Peter was telling the truth?
"How do we get the plant to go away then?" Sirius said, pausing the fight and willing James to do the same. To Sirius' relief, he did.
"Umm...we could try to check through Remus' books again?" James said tentatively.
"No thanks. I'm not eager to grow tentacles or lose my toes or anything." Peter said, backing away slightly.
"Well, that leaves us with one choice." James said, turning to look at Sirius. Sirius didn't like where this was going.
"We go to find Remus."
~Cesser~
Dear Remus;
I can only hope that you are keeping up with your studies; you should not waste such a rare opportunity. An opportunity like this will likely never happen again for you, so do well to fulfill it while you are able to.
I trust that you are not becoming too close to any others attending the school. You know as well as I do that that would only be putting any normal child in such unnecessary and horrific danger.
Don't let injuries of this month keep you from excelling in your studies. Perfect grades are likely to be your only chance to have any semblance of succeeding in this world.
Best wishes, and hopes that a secret can forever remain a secret;
-Father
Remus was incredibly conflicted. He had received a rare letter from his father after the October full moon, and it just made Remus feel even more guilty for being friends with such nice normal human children. But to top off his confusion, his mother had also sent a letter, sent even in the same envelope with the same owl. Her letter was the opposite end of the spectrum, confusing Remus even more.
Dearest Remus;
How is Hogwarts? Are you enjoying your studies? It feels so strange to have you living so far away. You were always such a quiet child, but it somehow feels even quieter at home now.
Have you made any new friends? I'm sure that your father will give you some speech about not getting too close to anyone, but do try to remember that not everyone in the world is cruel. Remember, you don't have to tell everything to someone just to call them a friend. You can have friends that you never share a single secret with. Just don't seclude yourself for seven years like I know you're apt to.
Your father has been trying to teach me how to deal with owl mail, and I'm pleased to say that I successfully gave the owl these letters to take without any help. I'm terribly sorry that I haven't written before now, I just haven't known how to.
I have to be sure to comment on your room though. I've seen how your bookshelves look now, and I am incredibly impressed that you managed to fit such a large portion of your collection into your trunk, at least a third of your shelves are empty now. Did you pack anything other than books?
I hope that you have healed quickly, and are feeling alright. Remember to make a slight effort in socializing, and take your nose out of your books every once in a while. But keep up with your studies! Please!
Do enjoy your time at school!
Best wishes,
Mum
Remus wasn't sure what to make of this at all. His parents were essentially telling him opposite things, and he could feel guilt creeping up on him. He really really really shouldn't endanger any normal child's life by being so close to them, he already was endangering them just by existing. Maybe he ought to stop socializing with his roommates. So he made an executive decision, that one night after the full moon after receiving the letters. He would need to stop being friendly with his friends.
October seemed to drag on slowly, and Remus was lonely. Without friends and daily amusing pranks and jokes the days refused to pick up the pace, and every day plodded on. Every day he was tempted to go back and try to become friendly again, but it felt so impossible. He had ignored his roommates far too long for a simple apology to work. He would need something bigger if he wanted to become friends again.
But did he want to become friends again? He was endangering them more and more with each passing moment he spent around them. Who could be safe from such a monster? His mum disagreed with what his father had said, but who was she to decide? Yes, his mum was great and loving and all, but she was a muggle. What did she know about magical children? His father had to know best. Anything else would just be too illogical for Remus to comprehend at the moment.
So Remus continued to remain distant, flying out of the dorm early each morning, and studying in the library until it was almost curfew. Bit by bit, his friendship with the other boys fell apart.
But Remus missed them. Every day he felt as though something was tearing at him every time he saw boys laughing together. He missed seeing James ruffle his hair, Sirius' booming laugh, Peter's quiet observations. He missed perfecting the kinks in the plans for pranks, he missed reading through Peter's essays every night. Even the annoying things, like Sirius' morning wake-up calls or the detention wall, even those things Remus began to miss.
But he pushed all of these thoughts aside. He was too dangerous to spend more time with the other boys. Instead, he met with an organized study group consisting of Lily Evans, one of her friends, and several Ravenclaw first years twice a week. Lily and Remus would often study on their own as well since few other Gryffindors seemed to take their studies seriously. Remus allowed himself to continue this socialization because it was completely harmless, it wasn't really a fun activity, it was just studying. And no one had died yet because a werewolf reading a book suddenly transformed and killed everyone in sight. Unlike the werewolves who got too close to their friends the night of a full moon and caused death and destruction to everyone within distance.
Finally, by the end of October, Remus knew that he had to do something. He was going insane with loneliness. He ate every meal in the kitchens, mostly sat by himself in classes, and avoided the gazes of almost everyone throughout the day.
Remus made a new executive decision; he would become friends with his dorm-mates once more.
How to apologize though? They were surely mad at him, a simple "I'm sorry" didn't cover ignoring three people for almost a month. He needed something to get their attention...something large, such as a Halloween prank.
Yes. That was it! Remus could plan a big Halloween prank, prank the whole school, and then the conversation and apologizes could come afterwards. Now all he needed was a prank.
Normally it was James or Sirius who came up with the ridiculous ideas for pranks, Peter added details, and Remus perfected the plan. But this time it would just have to be Remus.
He tried to think of some of the oddest spells he had seen so far, maybe he could combine a few? Such as the spell Sirius had found that caused you to be stuck to whatever you touched for an indefinite amount of time? And maybe the one that transformed any ceiling to ice with one easy spell (why anyone would want a ceiling made of ice was beyond Remus though)? If those were paired with a gravitational reversing spell...
~Cesse~
Three boys approached cautiously, one with an abnormally large plant growing from his head. The boys walked up to Remus, hoping to Merlin that he would have at least some kind of idea how to remove the ridiculous hissing plant.
"Um, Remus?" Peter said tentatively, the plant hissing at the same time. It had taken up an annoying habit of hissing every time Peter spoke, and that remained the only reason why James and Sirius agreed to find Remus.
"Oh." Remus said, a look of confusion, hurt, and finally understanding lit behind his eyes. "Right."
Remus pulled out his wand and preformed a quick spell. A minute later, a potted hissing plant was in Remus' hand, and Peter's head remained plant free.
"Here you are." Remus mumbled to Peter as he shoved the plant into his hands. "I really must be going."
And with that, Remus Lupin had fled down the hallways, leaving three very confused boys behind.