"Remus?"
"Eh?" Remus grunted back.
"Remus? You're—well, you're drooling all over your astronomy homework." Sirius said, sounding concerned.
Remus opened his eyes to see Sirius Black standing next to him, looking worried.
"Are you alright, mate? You look a bit peaky."
Remus took a moment to get his bearings, then realized he had fallen asleep at his desk in their dormitory while checking his moon chart. "I'm fine," he replied while sitting up and stretching in an attempt to cover the charts on the desktop in front of him. "Homework can put you right to sleep. Kind of like Binns class." He added with a chuckle.
"Right…" Sirius looked at Remus quizzically and studied him for a few moments. "Remus, maybe you better go see Madam Pomfrey." He said this, noting his friend's exhausted expression.
"Because I fell asleep doing homework?" He asked, sounding very amused, while shuffling his charts and papers together and tucking them inside his bag. "I'm alright, just a bit stressed out with exams coming up, that's all." He glanced up at Sirius, hoping he hadn't noticed the lunar charts, and was grateful that they seemed to escape his notice.
"No, because you look awful," Sirius said pointedly. "And I don't see why you're worried about exams; you always pass anyway." Sirius quipped as he flopped backward onto his bed.
Remus looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. "Thank you, Sirius. Remind me to come to you if I ever need a confidence boost." He said it clearly, amused. "And I ALWAYS pass because I ALWAYS study," Remus added, emphasizing the word always.
"Boring!" Sirius barked. "Besides, you know what I mean; you also missed dinner. Don't worry, though Peter ate enough for both of you, so nothing went to waste."
"That was considerate of him." He laughed.
Just then, the dormitory door burst open, and James and Peter came in. Peter was holding up the end of his sweater to make an impromptu pocket. "Anything from the trolley, dears?" He said in a squeaky voice, trying to do his best impression of the Hogwarts Express's Trolley Witch as he dumped the contents onto the desk.
"We raided the kitchen and figured we'd bring dinner to you." James added with a grin.
"Dinner?" Remus laughed. "It looks more like you raided Honeydukes."
"Healthy. Smealthy. Food is food." Peter grinned as he held up a chocolate biscuit for Remus.
"How could anyone argue with that logic?" Remus beamed as he accepted the biscuit. "Thanks Pete."
"Oi! I'm here too, you know?" James blurted out.
"Aw poor, James. You've wounded his ego, Remus." Sirius said with his signature bark-like laugh.
"His ego? You mean there was some left after Lily got done with it in potions class?" Remus grinned mischievously.
"My ego is fine, thank you." James said a little too defensively. "Besides, she was just… testing the air."
Sirius rolled his eyes again. "Mate, the only thing she's testing is your IQ. Stop being an idiot and forget her."
"Ah, Sirius, so young, so foolish. To gain anything worthwhile, you must work for it." James lectured in an unusually mature tone for him.
"Get that off a fortune cookie, did you?" Sirius scoffed, which caused Remus and Peter to laugh.
James frowned at him. "I'm being serious."
"But I'm Sirius!" He quipped with a huge smirk.
James picked up the pillow off his bed and swung it at Sirius.
"Oof!" The pillow hits Sirius in the face and knocks him back. "Not the face! It's too pretty for your abuse." Sirius joked as he tossed the pillow back at James.
Peter laughed and joined in by grabbing his own pillow and taking a swing at Remus. Remus narrowly dodged the pillow and quickly snatched up his own to defend himself. The dormitory was soon filled with the sound of laughter and the muffled thumps of successfully landed pillow attacks. Remus was the first one to stop as he sat back on his bed, winded from all the activity. He laughed as James's pillow flew across the room and hit him in the chest.
"You win. You win!" He managed to wheeze out while laughing.
Sirius smiled as he threw his pillow back on his bed. "I actually think I won."
Whack! James's pillow hit Sirius in the face for a second time.
"I think that makes James the winner." Peter laughed.
Sirius takes the pillow, throws it on top of his, and lays back on it. "I don't actually think you can have a winner in a pillow fight."
"Of course you can." James argued. "If you can lose a pillow fight, then that means someone can win one."
Remus smiled as he pulled the curtains shut around his bed and laid down.
"Night Remus." Sirius said, realizing he was done for the evening.
"Night Sirius." Remus replied with a yawn.
"Night losers." James added, causing them all to laugh once more.
It wasn't until Remus's head hit the pillow that he realized just how tired and sore he was. Every joint ached, and there was a dull throbbing in his head. However, none of this came as a surprise to Remus, since it was the evening before the full moon. Just another perk of being a lycanthrope, he thought bitterly as his exhaustion claimed him, and he fell into a deep sleep.