Chapter 11
5 January 1977
Today was the first full moon for Remus since the marauders came back together. It was a rough day, he was restless and irritable. At a certain point he gave up on his lessons and just sat in the hospital wing for the day. Regulus went to see him for a bit, so that was nice.
Regulus was good at knowing what Remus needed, and what Remus needed was to just sit in a room quietly whilst reading or studying. So that is exactly what they did.
He wishes other people - mainly Sirius - would understand what he needed as well. After Regulus had left, half an hour before Remus needed to go to the shack, Sirius, followed by a nervous James and Peter, stormed in to the hospital wing.
“Remus?”
“Yes?” Remus was preparing himself to leave, so he sounded distracted.
“We can come with you for this one, right?”
“Uh no?” Remus said whilst putting his pillows back.
“Why not? I know you’ll get hurt if we’re not there.”
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry”
“I’ve seen you after full moons spent alone, you will not be fine”
“Sirius, I’m not ready for you to come with me yet. I told you I can’t trust you yet. I’d like you to respect that” Remus’ voice was becoming angrier, but he wasn’t yelling yet. This was just Sirius being stubborn.
“Please Remus, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Nice of you to say that now. I don’t know if you noticed, when I was alone for the past few moons, I haven’t actually suffered that much.” Remus said whilst leaving the hospital, “But I doubt you would have noticed that, you were too focused on yourself”
Remus looked back at Sirius’ face, it was hurt, he felt a stab of guilt for this, but he was running late.
When he got to the shack, the little black cat looked worried, Remus could see the question that was going unasked.
“I’ll explain in the morning” was all Remus said, before blacking out from the pain.
6 January 1977
When he woke, Regulus was knelt down next to him, healing a few of his scratches.
“Everything go ok?”
“Yeah, you seemed a bit distracted the whole time, but nothing bad happened”
“Ok, good”
“Were you alright? You looked even worse than normal last night”
“Wow, thanks Reg”
“You know what I mean”
“I just got in a bit of a fight with Sirius, that’s all”
“How did you only just realise you loved him? You act like an old married couple most the time”
“Shut up” Remus cried, “I’m a recovering werewolf, you’ve got to be nice to me.”
“I am alway nice” Regulus said, rolling his eyes.
“Now you admit it” Remus smiled lazily before falling asleep again.
When Remus woke again, he was in the hospital wing. Sirius, James and Peter were scattered in chairs around him.
“You’re awake.” Sirius said.
“Very observant, good job.” Remus retorted.
“I’m sorry that I pushed you last night, you were right, you barely got a scratch”
“It’s okay, I get it,” Remus began, “but if you want to become proper close friends again, you’ve got to start respecting my boundaries, I don’t care if you say you’re sorry, you have to show it”
Sirius looked guilty at this, he had that look a lot recently.
“I will, I promise”
“I got your homework from the classes you missed today, Remus” Peter spoke up.
“Thanks, Pete”
“And while we’re all here, I just wanna say that i’m sorry if you ever felt like you had to distance yourself from us Remus, we’ve always got your back” James cut in.
James was good at being a good person, Remus thought. He always seemed to try and be kind and understanding, it just came naturally to him.
“Nah, don’t worry James, it was my fault, it was just harder to be around anyone for a while.”
Sirius looked even more guilty, Remus was really becoming worried about him. He caught Sirius’ eye and smiled, this seemed to relax him a bit.
“I’ll meet you guys at dinner, I’ve got to speak to Pomfrey quickly.”
This was a lie, of course, but Remus needed a minute alone before dinner. He was trying, they all were, it could just be difficult holding a conversation before things got awkward. It took a lot of effort.
“Hey” A voice interrupted his thoughts, Regulus, of course.
“Gods Regulus! How do you always sneak up on me like that?”
“I was hiding under your bed as a cat, obviously,”
“You’re insane”
“Yep, so everything work out with your crew?”
“Yeah, he’s trying, we all are.”
“Good, you lot are sort of sickening”
“Don’t be jealous, Reg”
“I- I’m not jealous!” Regulus stammered.
“You’re still my best friend, don’t worry”
“I wasn’t” Regulus huffed, “But good”
At first glance, Regulus did seem stoic, like he didn’t have any emotions, but as Remus got to know him further, he could see that he had so many feeling, they had all just been stuffed down, it was sort of sad, really.
“Come on, let’s go to dinner.”
“I’ll go first, you follow” Regulus ordered.
“Yes, sir!” Remus mocked.
“Shut up, I’ll see you later”
“Alright, bye” Remus rolled his eyes.
—-
Regulus was worried about Remus. Remus was an easy person to be worried about. Whether it was about his furry little problem, or his very odd friend group, or the fact he was in love with Sirius, there were many things to be worried about.
Regulus did believe though, that he would be okay. He had been helping him on the moons, his friend group seemed to be working itself out, and he was fairly sure Sirius liked him back, no matter how oblivious they both seemed to be about it. Of course if he and Sirius ended up in a relationship there would be a whole new set of problems, but that could be dealt with at a later date.
Right now, Regulus was worried about his friends the most. They clearly cared about each other, Regulus just wasn’t sure if caring about each other was enough. Regulus and Sirius had cared about each other, and they still got ripped apart.
Part of Regulus knew that he was projecting his own problems onto Remus’, but another part of him knew to be weary of Sirius Black. He was reckless and impulsive, and those aren’t normally a good mix.
At meal times, Regulus would watch Remus, not in an obvious way, and he hadn’t been caught by anyone except for Remus yet, but he kept an eye on him. From Regulus’ perspective, Remus seemed to be getting better being normal around his friends, he was still quite quiet, but he laughed a lot more often then before.
This led way to a whole new problem though, a slightly more selfish one. Remus was Regulus’ first best friends, but he knew that he was not Remus’. And despite Remus’ reassurance, an insecure part of Regulus will always be worried that yet another person will leave him for James Potter. He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind, though. Insecurity and jealousy were weaknesses. Weaknesses were not tolerated.