Back to the Middle
What must’ve been a week or two passed by in a haze of short encounters with those around him, James and Sirius found a renewed passion for trouble making and spent their evenings plotting creative new ways to cause chaos. Peter and Remus took a backseat to those operations mostly, although Remus couldn’t help himself but improve upon their ideas- why waste time casting individual tripping spells when they could rig a step to do it for them? He spent most of his time with his head down in a book, either taking residence in the library or wandering the grounds. He was sitting underneath a tree by the lake when James tossed a chocolate bar at his head. It smacked him with a loud crinkle and fell down to mark his place in his book.
“You missed lunch, you know?” James said as he sat down beside Remus, “Thought you might be peckish.”
“Thanks,” he looked back at him with a small smile, taking in the sight of James with his dark hair in disarray atop his head and his robes now littered with dirt as he scooted up to nuzzle against the tree, his cheek pressing into its bark. He had his tie loosened and his shirt unbuttoned at the top, his chest a deep bronze.
James looked back at him with a ‘you’re welcome’ nod of his head. He picked a dead leaf off the ground and started tearing it in two. “How are things, Remus? I mean you’re keeping to yourself a lot, skipping lunches?”
He felt a bolt of anxiety race through him at the question. James had a way of making Remus comfortable that was dangerous with such direct questioning, whereas he knew Sirius would be reactive to what he’d say, James maintained his calm during these talks. It was why he had ended up telling James more of his feelings than he had ever meant to.
Remus sighed and looked down, “I’m alright, James. I just- You know how it gets sometimes.” He found the corners of the chocolate bar with his fingers and began to fidget with the plastic wrapping.
“Yeah, I do,” he felt James’s gaze on the side of his face. “I told him that you wanted space, but Sirius really cares about you. We all do.”
Remus said nothing and kept his eyes fixed to his fingers, just gave a little hum of acknowledgement. He didn’t know how he was supposed to take any of this, he didn’t know what to do with care. He was overwhelmed with gratitude towards them as well as a sense of irritation, and it felt strange to have both mix together inside of him. Remus had a feeling almost like he was in trouble, like the performance he was giving wasn’t good enough and James was here to give him notes.
“You’d tell me if you weren’t alright though, Moons?” James said with an uncharacteristic shyness to his voice, like he was embarrassed to ask it.
“Yeah, I’d tell you,” Remus glanced up to meet James’s eyes and finally opened the chocolate, breaking off a chunk and handing it back to him.
•
With James and Sirius off at a quidditch match, Peter no doubt in the stands cheering them on, Remus wandered through the halls slowly as he made his way back from the library. He had tried to understand the words on the pages before him, but found himself re-reading the same lines over again as his bouncing leg shook the table. Another moon was coming up and he felt an ache set in with each step. A flash of blonde and red entered his periphery as Marlene and Lily swooped to his sides, each grabbing onto an arm of his and walking him down the corridor.
“Headed to the match, Remus?” Marlene questioned, forcing him to turn a corner with her grip on his arm.
“I wasn’t, actually,” Remus grinned down at her.
“Hmm, funny,” Marlene let out a small huff, narrowing her eyes, “Seems like you are now.”
Lily let out a loud laugh and co-conspired in the attempted kidnapping of Remus, guiding him out towards the quidditch pitch, “Marlene needed to get something from the room, so we’re running late ourselves, it’s fate- you must come.”
Marlene reached into her robe to flash the corner of a silver flask at Remus, assumedly the forgotten item she’d stopped to grab, and raised her eyebrows with a grin. He probably did owe it to James and Sirius to be at their game, and it was truthfully out of his hands with the two girls tugging on his arms, so he let himself be ushered into the crowded stands.
They spent the match trading the flask back and forth, carefully hiding their indiscretion from Lily and the swarming mass of students that surrounded them. Although the drink was sweeter than Remus would like, it served its purpose and he noticed an easy feeling within himself grow. He shot to his feet with a sway as Sirius hit an opposing Ravenclaw with a bludger and set him careening off course, allowing James to send his quaffle through their unguarded hoop. Remus was never one for sport but he found himself enjoying the game, cheering loudly when Gryffindor were announced the winners, Lily turning to jostle his shoulders excitedly.
As per tradition, the Gryffindor common room raged with a celebratory party the minute they returned from the match. Lily and Marlene spotted Mary and Dorcas dancing across the room and swept over to join in. It was already too bright and too loud for Remus, so he stumbled upstairs for a moment of reprieve. He tore off his robe and threw on a pair of jeans and a knitted jumper, attempting to coax himself into rejoining the festivities. He grabbed his cigarettes and shoved them in his pocket, he would no doubt be needing them soon.
As he re-emerged into the common room, he could see Sirius and James pushed towards the center of the room, still in their nasty quidditch kits, the room erupted into cheers. He smiled softly at the exhilaration dripping off them as he grabbed himself a drink and made his way towards a chair in the corner. He was intercepted by Peter, who animatedly relayed to him the details of the match which Remus felt lasted nearly as long as the match itself, requiring him to take down much of his drink.
Sirius and James appeared from behind him, cutting off his rambling by flipping the tail of his robe up over his head, booming with laughter. Remus couldn’t hold in a laugh of his own as Peter spun around to shoot the two a meaningless glare before breaking out into a smile and congratulating the boys vehemently. He chimed in with his own congratulations, and made the mistake of meeting Sirius’s eyes in the process. His grey eyes glowed with joy and his face lit up with a seemingly permanent smile.
“Was I dreaming or did I actually see our Moony up there in the stands today?” Sirius said slyly, eyes locked to Remus’s.
“It couldn’t be!” James gasped dramatically, throwing a hand to his chest before breaking into a wide smile.
“Alright, don’t get too excited, I was dragged out by Evans and Mckinnon,” Remus rolled his eyes playfully.
“Ah yes every lad’s worst nightmare, two girls begging for his company,” Sirius said feigning sympathy, before sending him a wink, “I’ll have to thank them.”
James opened his mouth to ask about Lily no doubt, but never got the chance as he and Sirius were pulled backwards by their teammates to participate in what seemed to be a competitive race to down the most butterbeer, Peter trailing behind them to shout words of encouragement.
Remus lost track of how much he drank watching James and Sirius be passed around by the crowd, but he could feel his body fall loose and the heaviness pulling at his eyelids. Mary ran up to him eventually and dragged him out towards the girls to dance, but he was never one for dancing- it made him feel like he didn’t fit right in his bones- and he was too unsteady on his feet. He looked across the floor to see Emmeline lock her hands around Sirius’s neck, his hands coming up to grab at her waist.
Remus was going to puke. He needed to clear his head, he felt like he was choking on the humidity of the room, breathing everyone else’s breath. He ducked out to the drink table, grabbed a bottle of firewhiskey, and stumbled out of the portrait hole into the empty hall. The silence made his ears ring after the constant onslaught of noise they’d been enduring all night. He needed to get somewhere cool, somewhere he could breathe. He began his climb to the astronomy tower.
____
James had been working overtime providing distractions for Sirius to keep his mind off Remus, he couldn’t say it was really working but at least it gave him something to do besides pester him. Sirius had these moments where he was sure that Remus was back, had snapped out of whatever fog overtook him sometimes, only for him to slip away again. After their third evening sneaking around the castle, this time to set tripping charms around the entrance to the Slytherin common room, Sirius couldn’t hold himself back.
“So Remus seems quiet again,” his voice echoed loud through the empty corridors, the conversation coming out of nowhere.
James shot his head towards him, looking up from where he was crouched working on enchanting the last step of a stair. “Merlin, keep your voice down!” he whisper-shouted back. Sirius watched his face soften as he added, “Yeah though, he does a bit.”
He felt annoying for how often he brought the topic up, but James had to be used to it by now. Sirius grumbled, “I’m bloody tired of it, I’m almost excited for the moon just to know he’ll spend time with us. Isn’t that sick?”
“I’ll talk to him, Pads,” James said, not letting him off the hook, “But do you ever think about why it bothers you this much?”
“What d’you mean?” he felt defensive, gave up on any pretense of keeping his voice low.
James said nothing for a while, went back to charming the step and let Sirius feel the empty quiet of the hall once more before saying, “I don’t know, you’re just different about him.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. Act like he wasn’t? If he was honest with himself he knew that he cared more about Remus’s problems than anyone else’s. It bothered him how he couldn’t think about anything else, how much he noticed when Remus was looking somewhere other than him. James stared off at Evans constantly and Sirius never gave it a second thought. He wanted Remus to be around him all the time, for them to know each other better than anyone. Maybe it was all the distance Remus put there that made Sirius so eager to be close.
•
The high of the quidditch match buzzed in Sirius’s body, it was a rush like nothing else, even better when he spotted Remus in the stands launching to his feet as Sirius assisted James to a goal. It was rare to see him out at these events, never one for a crowd, but it made Sirius’s heart feel light whenever he was there. As they burst into the Gryffindor common room, his eyes started their search for fluffy brown curls, but he didn’t see Remus. His disappointment was short lived before they were ushered in by the party-goers to a sea of cheers and congratulations. He soaked in the attention happily but his eyes were still searching for signs of Remus until he eventually spotted him standing before Peter, clearly wishing to be sat in the chair a couple feet to his left. Sirius grabbed James and pushed their way towards him.
Sirius beamed as Remus came to focus on his face, his eyes glinting with gold and crinkled in the corners, laughing at their messing with Peter. He was wearing one of the sweaters which made Sirius want to bury his head in his chest, he looked so soft. Useless words came pouring out of his mouth as he attempted to keep those eyes on him, it was working until he and James were yanked backward and demanded to gulp down drinks. Never one to be outshone, Sirius took down as much as he could before being declared the winner. His eyes flashed to Remus as he sat in the corner, head tipped back as he finished a cup of his own.
He was pulled from one conversation to the other, reveling in the feeling of excitement from his peers, but he couldn’t resist glancing towards Remus all night. Sirius should be talking with him, not these swarms of people whose names he hardly knew. When he saw Remus swaying against Mary’s shoulder on the dance floor he felt his stomach lurch, and he allowed himself to be pulled into the arms of Emmeline who’d been asking him to dance all night. He felt lonely in a way he couldn't justify with all the people gathered around and tried to enjoy the soft press of Emmeline against him.
After the dance ended he excused himself to find Remus, fighting through the crowd to see that he wasn’t there. He ran up to their room and found nothing but Peter snoring loudly, face down in his bed. He grabbed the map out of James’s bedside table and scanned the paper for Remus, his eyes catching on the astronomy tower where his name paced back and forth on the page.