CHAPTER 14: You Are My Family

Remus didn't wake up until three days after the full moon and wasn't released from the Hospital Wing for a further two. After taping him up, Madam Pomfrey reminded him that his cover story for this week was that he had gone home to visit his mother who had fallen ill. Remus hated lying, but nodded anyway and made his way up to Gryffindor Tower.

'I'm sure he'll be back soon,' Peter said, after waking up once more to find Remus's bed still empty.

'You don't suppose his mother died, do you?' James whispered anxiously. 'He's been gone for such a long time.'

'I hope he's ok. He didn't say what his mother had, did he? What if it's contagious and he's caught it?' Sirius worried, pacing the room. 'I mean, have you seen him?! It doesn't look like his immune system is exactly up to scratch.'

'Don't say that Sirius. Remus is smart. If it was really contagious he wouldn't just go and put himself in danger,' Peter replied, trying, and failing, to sound reassuring.

'Dammit Sirius! You've got me worried now!' James fretted, joining his best friend with the pacing.

'If he's gone and got himself killed, or really ill, I'll kill him!' Sirius announced, flopping down on his bed in frustration and exhaustion.

Remus was surprised to find the Common Room so empty for a weekend, but then remembered that today was the day of the Hogsmeade trip for all of those above third year. He was happy that he could slip by the few remaining first and seconds years dotted about and head up to his dormitory unnoticed. Using one hand, Remus pushed open the door of his dorm and was greeted immediately with a loud cry of 'REMUS!' and found three young boys running at him full speed, but pulling up short just before they reached him. Sirius frowned and looked him up and down with a scrutinizing eye.

'What have you done to yourself, Remus?' he asked, concerned.

The pale boy was standing at the door, leaning heavily on the doorframe. His right arm was heavily bandaged and in a sling, whilst his left hand was littered with tiny red cuts. A piece of bandaged tape went across his cheek and a small visible portion of his neck was heavily bruised. His mysterious yellow eyes were weighed down with heavy purple shadows and he looked absolutely exhausted.

'Nice to see you too, Sirius,' Remus replied with a raised eyebrow.

'Come sit down, mate, you look exhausted,' James said, offering out his arm for support as Remus was still leaning on the doorframe for dear life.

Sirius and Peter watched as Remus refused James's arm and limped heavily to his bed, where he flung himself onto his back and hissed in pain.

'What happened?' Peter asked, watching as Remus pushed himself up into a sitting position, his face slightly contorted with the pain he was trying to hide.

'I thought you were visiting your mother?' Sirius added, sceptically, taking in all of Remus's visible wounds, and frowning as the tape on his face began to slowly turn red with fresh blood.

'Is she ok?' James continued, feeling that it was rude to not ask.

'She's, um, she's recovering well. She's out of the danger zone for now. Obviously we're not getting our hopes up but we're pretty sure she's going to be alright,' Remus said with a smile. He had rehearsed this in his head so many times that the words tumbled out of his mouth without having to think of it. The day of his transformation, Dumbledore sent him a blank letter using one of the old school owls and Remus told his friends that his mother was ill and he had to go and visit her. That was almost a week ago. Since then he has been talking with Madam Pomfrey about illnesses that his mother could have and the healing potions that she would be taking so that he was prepared for any questions that they may ask him.

'Yeah, but what happened to you?' Peter repeated, reaching forward to push back Remus's light brown hair, revealing a half healed cut down the side of his face, from the middle of his forehead down to his ear. Although he was being gentle, he felt Remus flinch at his touch.

'There was a … gang of Muggles. They attacked me,' the boy improvised, hoping that he had managed to hide the momentary look of panic that he felt cross his face as he realised he didn't have a rehearsed story for this question.

'WHAT?' Sirius yelled. 'Why did they do that?'

'I don't know. They just started chasing me and I obviously didn't run fast enough,' Remus whispered.

James stood up at that point and gently wrapped his arms around his friend. He didn't want to hug him too tightly because he could feel the edges of bandages under Remus's clothes. A sudden wave of hatred surged through James's body. How dare anyone hurt his friend this way?

'Why didn't you go to the Hospital Wing and get yourself fixed up?' Peter asked, frowning at the still reddening tape on Remus's cheek.

'My cousin took me to a Muggle hospital. They gave me some injections and stuff, and it could interfere with anything that Madam Pomfrey gives me,' Remus explained smoothly. He had been prepared for that one. He looked up at his friends and saw Sirius sitting on the edge of his bed, his head in his shaking hands. 'Sirius, I'm ok. Honestly, calm down. I'm alright.'

'Calm down? Calm down?! Are you being serious, Remmy?! Look at what they've done to you! No one is allowed to hurt you! No one is allowed to hurt any of you!' Sirius scowled, beginning in a whisper, which steadily crescendo'd into a yell and then back down into a whisper. 'You're the only family I have.'

With that he buried his head back in his hands, and fell silent. James and Peter shared confused, worried looks whilst Remus heaved himself up onto his unsteady feet and limped over to his distraught friend. Without a single spoken word, Remus wrapped his arms around his friend and was soon joined by James and Peter. For Remus this was not the first time Sirius had expressed how much Hogwarts meant to him. He had once referred to their dormitory in Gryffindor Tower as his 'home' and now his friends were his family. Remus smiled sadly. What a bunch of misfits they all were. Sirius must have a horrible family for a random group of three boys to mean more to him. In that moment, the four friends felt more connected than ever before and realised just how much they all meant to each other.

'Do you want a hand, James?' Remus asked, as he watched his bespectacled friend haul a massive pile of books into their dorm with Peter carrying a cauldron behind him and Sirius with a pile of potion ingredients bringing up the rear. His friends had resolutely refused to let him carry a single thing as his arm was out of the sling but still quite heavily bandaged.

'Remus, stop trying to be helpful,' Sirius instructed. His face was half obscured by the mountain of various plants and other ingredients.

'I'm not quite sure I understand,' Peter said. 'We're going to use a potion in a prank before we leave for Christmas, but we don't know what potion it is, what we're going to use it for or which book it's even in?'

'That's right!' James replied cheerily, tossing the books onto his bed.

Peter placed the cauldron on the floor and Sirius dropped the ingredients inside. Remus limped forward and pulled some of them out.

'I've never even seen some of these before, never mind used them in a potion,' Remus muttered, turning over an odd looking green plant with brown veins along its strange leaves. James leant over and pulled out a very colourful flower, which was soon snatched away by Sirius, who twirled it in the air and presented it back to his black haired friend with a 'Jamesy, my love, will you accept this flower?'

'Oh, Sirius!' James cooed in a high-pitched voice. He reached up and accepted the flower from Sirius, making a great deal of sniffing it, and then sneezing.

'Bless you,' Remus smiled, whilst Sirius and Peter smirked.

'What kind of flower is that?' James asked, taking another tentative sniff.

'I don't know. I can't find anything matching its description in here,' Sirius said, flicking through a large book with the title 'Plants and their Properties.'

'We're using ingredients and we don't even know what they are?' Peter asked, beginning to look worried.

'Well, if they kill us then we'll know not to use them again, won't we?' James replied, winking.

Sirius laughed at Peter confused expression and helped Remus arrange the miscellaneous ingredients into the empty cauldron so that they wouldn't fall out and hid the stash under Sirius's bed.

'Well, let's get started then,' he said, grinning with excitement.

James began to idly throw the books across to Peter and Sirius and passed them gently to Remus. The four boys excitedly skimmed through the pages, ideas for pranks filling up their heads. They couldn't very well leave for the Christmas holidays without a bang now, could they?