Moonage Daydream

Sirius rolled over yet again. At this rate, he’d never get the sleep he needed. He had no idea how many times he’d woken up and fallen back to sleep. James and Peter were asleep, and he couldn’t see the bed below him, which supposedly had Remus, also probably asleep.

Quietly crawling to the end of the bed, he decided to get some water. It wasn’t until he’d started descending the ladder that he saw the dim light of a cheap torch.

He froze, not wanting anyone to catch him out of bed.

“Can’t sleep?” The way Remus spoke was so quiet and gentle, dramatically contrasting what he was used to. Sirius liked Remus’s voice.

“Neither can you, from the looks of things.”

“Fair enough. Walking around won’t help though. Besides, if you get caught out of bed at four in the morning, the professors certainly won’t favour you.” Sirius gritted his teeth at the comment.

“They won’t favour me anyway. I damn hate authority figures. They’ll yell at the slightest thing. It’s insufferable.”

“You do you, I guess.” Remus calmly went back to his book. “Any particular reason you can’t sleep?” Sirius paused, standing only about a metre away from the bed.

“...Not that I can think of.”

Remus raised an eyebrow. “Either get better at lying, or don’t get out of bed next time.” Sirius must have looked disgusted judging by the way Remus’s lips curled up slightly.

“I’m not lying!”

“Then why are you getting so defensive?” Sirius didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. “It’s fine, I’m not going to pry it out of you, but you should really get some rest. Classes start tomorrow and you’ll need energy to locate the departments.”

“I’m trying. I can’t just fall asleep on command.”

Sirius padded over to the bathroom door in the corner of the room, quietly locking the door once inside. Unlocking his phone, he opened his messages with his sister.

September 7 2021

04:16

Aqua? You awake?

Go to sleep Sirius.

You ok?

Anything happened?

I’m fine. You?

Fine. My roommates are nice

We got yelled at by the girls dorm for being too loud 🤣

Oh god, they’re not like you, are they?

Calm down, qui

Two of them are calmer than me

And the other?

I thought there was four to a dorm.

Oh qui

Oh Aquila

Oh baby sister

He’s worse 😌

That’s impressive.

Hats off to him.

Rude.

Go to sleep.

>:[

Fine

Sirius drank from the tap before leaving the bathroom and going back to bed for the final time that night, nodding at Remus on the way.

~*~

James shot out of bed as his alarm buzzed violently from under his pillow, he’d always liked to wake up early. He grabbed his phone to switch off the alarm and jumped down from the ladder, landing on the soft red and gold rug in the centre of the dorm. He stepped past Sirius and Remus, the two boys having barely noticed him, as they were clearly too focused on their own conversations. He didn’t want to disturb them too much, so he tried to keep as quiet as he could while going about his morning.

He headed over to the bathroom, humming Abba’s “Money, Money, Money” as he went. He had always liked mornings, they were his time for peace and quiet without it feeling forced. This school would be nice, although he missed mornings with his parents already. His mum would always be up early, she’d spend her mornings baking or cleaning, so when James and his dad came downstairs, there’d be freshly baked cake all ready for them. His dad never really liked mornings but he’d get up early every day to taste whatever his wife had made.

James missed them, and it was only the first day, so he wasn’t sure how he was going to cope. At least he had Peter, and two other roommates who he could tell he was going to be great friends with.

Once he was done with his morning shower, he threw on his new uniform and went to see how his roommates were doing. Remus and Sirius were still talking about who knows what and Peter was fast asleep on his bed. James considered waking him up, but then he remembered Peter telling him that “If you wake me up any earlier than 8, I will personally rip all of your posters off the walls.”

James made sure to check the time before waking Peter up every day after that threat. He really didn’t want to have to print out more posters.

Maybe he could have Remus and Sirius in whatever they were talking about, but he didn’t want to disturb the conversation they were having.

Marlene, he thought, I’ll go talk to her. She was usually up around the same time as James, they had gone on early morning runs together most summers, and only stopped when it was too cold or icy.

He slipped out of the door and looked at the corridor, then the realisation hit him that he had absolutely no clue where Marlene’s dorm was. Ok, he knew it was next door, so there were only two options. Maybe he’d see Lily when he went to the dorm.

He knocked on one of the two doors “14-a”, and heard a voice yell “COMING!!!”

A boy opened the door, dark-toned, looking like he just woke up and started thinking about classes. “Who are you and what do you want at this time of the day?”

“The names Potter. James Potter. And I was looking for Marlene Mckinnon, I assume this isn’t her dorm?” James asked “And who might you be?”

“If you let me speak, I’d tell you. I’m Kingsley Shacklebolt if you must know. No this isn’t Marlene’s dorm, frankly I’ve never heard of a Marlene, so if you’d leave me alone, that’d be appreciated.” Kingsley slammed the door in James’s face.

James quickly headed over to the dorm on the other side of his “13-b” and knocked. Lily came to the door and, within a second of her opening it, shut it again. “Go away, James. No-one here wants to see you.”

He heard Marlene scrambling to the door, and , he saw a scruffy-haired Marlene, still in her pyjamas swing the door open.

“Should we go to the common room, I don’t think my roommates like you that much.” She said, already hopping down the stairs, grabbing James’s arm.

“I don’t really think I have much choice here, do I?” James asked as he was dragged down the stairs and practically thrown onto the common room sofa.

“What should we do?” Marlene asked, looking at the bookshelves in the common room, to see if there are any games to play.

“Uno?” James suggested, already getting up off the sofa to grab it off the shelves. “Dibs not shuffling!”

“Fuck you,” Marlene said, grabbing the cards and beginning to shuffle. She dealt the cards out and they began to play.

They continued to play for about an hour until James had to go wake Peter and the others up. Marlene won all the games and James was sure the entire dorm building had heard her aggressively screaming at James.

~*~

“Remus, whatcha readin’?”

“Well I was reading the diamond of Drury Lane. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to that.” From what Remus had seen, Sirius got very... proactive when he was bored. As annoying as him and James were, Remus thought it nicely contrasted the calm that was Peter and Remus. While Remus was quiet and tended to push people away, Sirius was talkative and impulsive and loud and brave. James was cheery and Pete was kind, but Remus liked Sirius the best.

Remus tried to continue reading, but after being interrupted, he was finding it difficult to concentrate. Putting his book to one side, he stood up to stretch, hearing a couple cracks as he did so. Upon turning around, he saw the horrified expression on Sirius’ face.

“What?”

“Was that your back?!”

“Oh. Yeah, it does that sometimes.”

“And... You’re fine with that?”

“Well, there’s not much I can do either way, so might as well live with it” With that, Remus walked to his bag, taking out the most important thing he had packed.

“...You brought a kettle?”

“Obviously.”

“Why?”

“If you thought I’d go an entire term without my herbal tea you were very fucking mistaken.”

“How did you even fit that in your bag?”

“No comment.”

Sirius left him alone after that, kicking his legs as Remus plugged the kettle in on the floor. Walking back over to the bag, Remus took out box after box of different varieties of tea, along with three jars of instant coffee. He placed them next to the kettle before filling it up with the bathroom tap. He placed the kettle back on its base and flipped the switch.

After a couple minutes he’d successfully prepared a peppermint tea and downed it within 30 seconds.

“How fast do you need to drink it?”

“I hate sipping things slowly, it’s insufferable.”

“You do you, I suppose...”

After a few minutes, both set off to find the main hall for the first year gathering.

~*~

Peter had absolutely no idea how to get into the assembly hall, all he knew was that James was being absolutely useless. He was still a bit mad at James for waking him up.

“Is this it?” James pointed to a door that said ‘Chemistry office.’

“James no, I don’t think it is. Unless we’re having our first assembly in the flipping chemistry office.”

“I mean we could be?” He shrugged, continuing to search the hallway, which clearly was just chemistry classrooms.

“I swear if they don’t let us have breakfast in the assembly, I might actually riot.” Pete said, he had always valued a good breakfast. For the past few years, his mum had made him a full English breakfast every morning before school. He couldn’t do without it; regular breakfast just wasn’t filling enough.

“Why can’t there be some gosh-darn signs in here?” James looked around the corridor, somehow missing the giant sign above his head reading ‘Main Hall.’

“James, I think you might need to ask for a stronger prescription, look behind you.” Peter looked judgingly at James, who was adjusting his glasses for about the 50th time today.

He pulled the door open, hoping it wouldn’t be too long until they’d get to go to their first class.

“Welcome, Welcome to Hogwarts School of Science and Mathematics. I hope you enjoy your time here.” a man with long grey hair and an extremely wizard-like beard that reached down to his feet. He assumed this was the headmaster, Dumbledore? He hadn’t really bothered to learn the name.

“So, this is your first year at the school, and I think it’s time you learn how this school works, the rules, and our expectations. I’m Professor Dumbledore, and I’m your headmaster.” A mix of clapping for the man and laughter at his name interrupted his speech. This was going to be a long hour.

“If you have bothered to read the rules, which I assume most of you haven’t, you would know that we have some quite high expectations for you all. I expect no rule-breaking from any of you for at least the first week. I’m sure you can do that. Now, I don’t really want to go and describe every single rule, so I’ll put them up on the presentation right behind me. Have a minute or so to look at that before I continue.”

Peter had a quick glance at the rules, knowing he, James, Marlene and his entire dorm would be breaking most of them very soon. Pranks were always their thing, and now they had new people to help them.

“Bit boring, isn’t he?” James turned to Peter, who was looking hungrily at the breakfast across the hall. He missed his mums cooking a lot, and it’d only been about a day since he’d waved goodbye to her before getting on the train with James and Marlene.

“I think you’ve all had plenty of time to consider which rules you’re breaking first” Dumbledore picked his speech back up “Now, it’s time to introduce your heads of houses. Head of Gryffindor house is Professor McGonagall here; she teaches English and is also my deputy head. Busy woman.” Peter could hear cheers from Gryffindor house as McGonagall stood up and waved to them. “This is Mrs Sprout; she teaches Biology and will be head of Hufflepuff house. Hopefully you guys like gardening, she won’t shut up about it. And here is Mr Flitwick, head of Ravenclaw house and also head of History, prepare to be bored to death! Only joking of course, history's a very interesting subject,” the man gave a casual wink at the pupils in Ravenclaw. “And, last but not least, Dr Slughorn, head of Slytherin and chemistry teacher. Trust me, don’t call him Mister.” Dr Slughorn glared at him for that remark. “And, I’m sure we all want to stop and eat our breakfast, so I’m going to stop the assembly now and get everyone to bring the food out.”

Peter watched in awe as food was brought out, searching around for the plates of English breakfasts, finally seeing everything he needed brought out on a trolley. Him and James searched for Remus and Sirius, seeing they’d already grabbed them a table and were both waving violently at them, hoping James would notice them. They both sat down with them and talked about the day ahead.

Then the bell rang and sent them off to class with a dreadful headache.

~*~

Remus hadn’t the faintest idea what happened in the assembly.

Maybe he’d have been paying attention if his stupid fucking back wasn’t a 25-year-old Christmas tree that cats had gotten to. It was always his back these days, but no one believed him, they always just said he was ‘too young to have a bad back’. Bullshit. If he were too young his spine wouldn’t feel like crumbling plaster after just 20 minutes of sitting on the floor.

Luckily, it had worn off (for the most part) by the time he got to his first lesson (of course it’d be bloody English) and sat down. Luckily for him, people weren’t staring. The joy didn’t last for long, though, as the teacher, Professor McGonagall, decided to make a seating plan.

He got off lightly though, sitting in the corner next to a girl named Lily. James was on the other side of the classroom, close to Sirius but not next to him, and Peter was at the front, next to a boy called Gilderoy – Remus was seriously considering starting a weird names club – and in front of Remus were two girls called Mary and Marlene. The girls nearby him seemed nice enough, and didn’t mind how little he talked, unlike some. There were various other people in the room, none particularly notable.

Once in their seats, everyone was given their books and talked through what English lessons would involve in the future. Remus, like the girl next to him, made a couple notes as the lesson went on. He wasn’t paying to go, so he was going to do everything in his power to stay.

The lesson drifted by smoothly, followed by the next few, with break and lunch in-between, but then came chemistry.

Their chemistry teacher, Doctor Slughorn (who was very particular about being called doctor as opposed to mister), decided to sit him next to a gloomy boy called Severus – at this point the weird names club was ineffable – who clearly hated Remus for seemingly no reason. He was always rolling his eyes and speaking down to him. From the looks of things, he must’ve been a rich little twat. After the insufferable hour had passed, Remus left the first chance he got. Severus would not be in his weird names club, no matter how outlandish his name.

~*~

Leaving the shared bathroom, Sirius pocketed his phone after being reassured by his sister that everything was fine at home. When he walked in, James smiled and waved from where he’d been yapping to Pete, and Remus looked up at him before going back to his book.

Sirius decided to go asleep, he was exhausted after the night before. It was technically past lights out anyway, but that was irrelevant. Sirius rolled over yet again. At this rate, he’d never get the sleep he needed. He had no idea how many times he’d woken up and fallen back to sleep. James and Peter were asleep, and he couldn’t see the bed below him, which supposedly had Remus, also probably asleep.

Quietly crawling to the end of the bed, he decided to get some water. It wasn’t until he’d started descending the ladder that he saw the dim light of a cheap torch.

He froze, not wanting anyone to catch him out of bed.

“Can’t sleep?” The way Remus spoke was so quiet and gentle, dramatically contrasting what he was used to. Sirius liked Remus’s voice.

“Neither can you, from the looks of things.”

“Fair enough. Walking around won’t help though. Besides, if you get caught out of bed at four in the morning, the professors certainly won’t favour you.” Sirius gritted his teeth at the comment.

“They won’t favour me anyway. I damn hate authority figures. They’ll yell at the slightest thing. It’s insufferable.”

“You do you, I guess.” Remus calmly went back to his book. “Any particular reason you can’t sleep?” Sirius paused, standing only about a metre away from the bed.

“...Not that I can think of.”

Remus raised an eyebrow. “Either get better at lying, or don’t get out of bed next time.” Sirius must have looked disgusted judging by the way Remus’s lips curled up slightly.

“I’m not lying!”

“Then why are you getting so defensive?” Sirius didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. “It’s fine, I’m not going to pry it out of you, but you should really get some rest. Classes start tomorrow and you’ll need energy to locate the departments.”

“I’m trying. I can’t just fall asleep on command.”

Sirius padded over to the bathroom door in the corner of the room, quietly locking the door once inside. Unlocking his phone, he opened his messages with his sister.

September 7 2021

04:16

Aqua? You awake?

Go to sleep Sirius.

You ok?

Anything happened?

I’m fine. You?

Fine. My roommates are nice

We got yelled at by the girls dorm for being too loud 🤣

Oh god, they’re not like you, are they?

Calm down, qui

Two of them are calmer than me

And the other?

I thought there was four to a dorm.

Oh qui

Oh Aquila

Oh baby sister

He’s worse 😌

That’s impressive.

Hats off to him.

Rude.

Go to sleep.

>:[

Fine

Sirius drank from the tap before leaving the bathroom and going back to bed for the final time that night, nodding at Remus on the way.

~*~

James shot out of bed as his alarm buzzed violently from under his pillow, he’d always liked to wake up early. He grabbed his phone to switch off the alarm and jumped down from the ladder, landing on the soft red and gold rug in the centre of the dorm. He stepped past Sirius and Remus, the two boys having barely noticed him, as they were clearly too focused on their own conversations. He didn’t want to disturb them too much, so he tried to keep as quiet as he could while going about his morning.

He headed over to the bathroom, humming Abba’s “Money, Money, Money” as he went. He had always liked mornings, they were his time for peace and quiet without it feeling forced. This school would be nice, although he missed mornings with his parents already. His mum would always be up early, she’d spend her mornings baking or cleaning, so when James and his dad came downstairs, there’d be freshly baked cake all ready for them. His dad never really liked mornings but he’d get up early every day to taste whatever his wife had made.

James missed them, and it was only the first day, so he wasn’t sure how he was going to cope. At least he had Peter, and two other roommates who he could tell he was going to be great friends with.

Once he was done with his morning shower, he threw on his new uniform and went to see how his roommates were doing. Remus and Sirius were still talking about who knows what and Peter was fast asleep on his bed. James considered waking him up, but then he remembered Peter telling him that “If you wake me up any earlier than 8, I will personally rip all of your posters off the walls.”

James made sure to check the time before waking Peter up every day after that threat. He really didn’t want to have to print out more posters.

Maybe he could have Remus and Sirius in whatever they were talking about, but he didn’t want to disturb the conversation they were having.

Marlene, he thought, I’ll go talk to her. She was usually up around the same time as James, they had gone on early morning runs together most summers, and only stopped when it was too cold or icy.

He slipped out of the door and looked at the corridor, then the realisation hit him that he had absolutely no clue where Marlene’s dorm was. Ok, he knew it was next door, so there were only two options. Maybe he’d see Lily when he went to the dorm.

He knocked on one of the two doors “14-a”, and heard a voice yell “COMING!!!”

A boy opened the door, dark-toned, looking like he just woke up and started thinking about classes. “Who are you and what do you want at this time of the day?”

“The names Potter. James Potter. And I was looking for Marlene Mckinnon, I assume this isn’t her dorm?” James asked “And who might you be?”

“If you let me speak, I’d tell you. I’m Kingsley Shacklebolt if you must know. No this isn’t Marlene’s dorm, frankly I’ve never heard of a Marlene, so if you’d leave me alone, that’d be appreciated.” Kingsley slammed the door in James’s face.

James quickly headed over to the dorm on the other side of his “13-b” and knocked. Lily came to the door and, within a second of her opening it, shut it again. “Go away, James. No-one here wants to see you.”

He heard Marlene scrambling to the door, and , he saw a scruffy-haired Marlene, still in her pyjamas swing the door open.

“Should we go to the common room, I don’t think my roommates like you that much.” She said, already hopping down the stairs, grabbing James’s arm.

“I don’t really think I have much choice here, do I?” James asked as he was dragged down the stairs and practically thrown onto the common room sofa.

“What should we do?” Marlene asked, looking at the bookshelves in the common room, to see if there are any games to play.

“Uno?” James suggested, already getting up off the sofa to grab it off the shelves. “Dibs not shuffling!”

“Fuck you,” Marlene said, grabbing the cards and beginning to shuffle. She dealt the cards out and they began to play.

They continued to play for about an hour until James had to go wake Peter and the others up. Marlene won all the games and James was sure the entire dorm building had heard her aggressively screaming at James.

~*~

“Remus, whatcha readin’?”

“Well I was reading the diamond of Drury Lane. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to that.” From what Remus had seen, Sirius got very... proactive when he was bored. As annoying as him and James were, Remus thought it nicely contrasted the calm that was Peter and Remus. While Remus was quiet and tended to push people away, Sirius was talkative and impulsive and loud and brave. James was cheery and Pete was kind, but Remus liked Sirius the best.

Remus tried to continue reading, but after being interrupted, he was finding it difficult to concentrate. Putting his book to one side, he stood up to stretch, hearing a couple cracks as he did so. Upon turning around, he saw the horrified expression on Sirius’ face.

“What?”

“Was that your back?!”

“Oh. Yeah, it does that sometimes.”

“And... You’re fine with that?”

“Well, there’s not much I can do either way, so might as well live with it” With that, Remus walked to his bag, taking out the most important thing he had packed.

“...You brought a kettle?”

“Obviously.”

“Why?”

“If you thought I’d go an entire term without my herbal tea you were very fucking mistaken.”

“How did you even fit that in your bag?”

“No comment.”

Sirius left him alone after that, kicking his legs as Remus plugged the kettle in on the floor. Walking back over to the bag, Remus took out box after box of different varieties of tea, along with three jars of instant coffee. He placed them next to the kettle before filling it up with the bathroom tap. He placed the kettle back on its base and flipped the switch.

After a couple minutes he’d successfully prepared a peppermint tea and downed it within 30 seconds.

“How fast do you need to drink it?”

“I hate sipping things slowly, it’s insufferable.”

“You do you, I suppose...”

After a few minutes, both set off to find the main hall for the first year gathering.

~*~

Peter had absolutely no idea how to get into the assembly hall, all he knew was that James was being absolutely useless. He was still a bit mad at James for waking him up.

“Is this it?” James pointed to a door that said ‘Chemistry office.’

“James no, I don’t think it is. Unless we’re having our first assembly in the flipping chemistry office.”

“I mean we could be?” He shrugged, continuing to search the hallway, which clearly was just chemistry classrooms.

“I swear if they don’t let us have breakfast in the assembly, I might actually riot.” Pete said, he had always valued a good breakfast. For the past few years, his mum had made him a full English breakfast every morning before school. He couldn’t do without it; regular breakfast just wasn’t filling enough.

“Why can’t there be some gosh-darn signs in here?” James looked around the corridor, somehow missing the giant sign above his head reading ‘Main Hall.’

“James, I think you might need to ask for a stronger prescription, look behind you.” Peter looked judgingly at James, who was adjusting his glasses for about the 50th time today.

He pulled the door open, hoping it wouldn’t be too long until they’d get to go to their first class.

“Welcome, Welcome to Hogwarts School of Science and Mathematics. I hope you enjoy your time here.” a man with long grey hair and an extremely wizard-like beard that reached down to his feet. He assumed this was the headmaster, Dumbledore? He hadn’t really bothered to learn the name.

“So, this is your first year at the school, and I think it’s time you learn how this school works, the rules, and our expectations. I’m Professor Dumbledore, and I’m your headmaster.” A mix of clapping for the man and laughter at his name interrupted his speech. This was going to be a long hour.

“If you have bothered to read the rules, which I assume most of you haven’t, you would know that we have some quite high expectations for you all. I expect no rule-breaking from any of you for at least the first week. I’m sure you can do that. Now, I don’t really want to go and describe every single rule, so I’ll put them up on the presentation right behind me. Have a minute or so to look at that before I continue.”

Peter had a quick glance at the rules, knowing he, James, Marlene and his entire dorm would be breaking most of them very soon. Pranks were always their thing, and now they had new people to help them.

“Bit boring, isn’t he?” James turned to Peter, who was looking hungrily at the breakfast across the hall. He missed his mums cooking a lot, and it’d only been about a day since he’d waved goodbye to her before getting on the train with James and Marlene.

“I think you’ve all had plenty of time to consider which rules you’re breaking first” Dumbledore picked his speech back up “Now, it’s time to introduce your heads of houses. Head of Gryffindor house is Professor McGonagall here; she teaches English and is also my deputy head. Busy woman.” Peter could hear cheers from Gryffindor house as McGonagall stood up and waved to them. “This is Mrs Sprout; she teaches Biology and will be head of Hufflepuff house. Hopefully you guys like gardening, she won’t shut up about it. And here is Mr Flitwick, head of Ravenclaw house and also head of History, prepare to be bored to death! Only joking of course, history's a very interesting subject,” the man gave a casual wink at the pupils in Ravenclaw. “And, last but not least, Dr Slughorn, head of Slytherin and chemistry teacher. Trust me, don’t call him Mister.” Dr Slughorn glared at him for that remark. “And, I’m sure we all want to stop and eat our breakfast, so I’m going to stop the assembly now and get everyone to bring the food out.”

Peter watched in awe as food was brought out, searching around for the plates of English breakfasts, finally seeing everything he needed brought out on a trolley. Him and James searched for Remus and Sirius, seeing they’d already grabbed them a table and were both waving violently at them, hoping James would notice them. They both sat down with them and talked about the day ahead.

Then the bell rang and sent them off to class with a dreadful headache.

~*~

Remus hadn’t the faintest idea what happened in the assembly.

Maybe he’d have been paying attention if his stupid fucking back wasn’t a 25-year-old Christmas tree that cats had gotten to. It was always his back these days, but no one believed him, they always just said he was ‘too young to have a bad back’. Bullshit. If he were too young his spine wouldn’t feel like crumbling plaster after just 20 minutes of sitting on the floor.

Luckily, it had worn off (for the most part) by the time he got to his first lesson (of course it’d be bloody English) and sat down. Luckily for him, people weren’t staring. The joy didn’t last for long, though, as the teacher, Professor McGonagall, decided to make a seating plan.

He got off lightly though, sitting in the corner next to a girl named Lily. James was on the other side of the classroom, close to Sirius but not next to him, and Peter was at the front, next to a boy called Gilderoy – Remus was seriously considering starting a weird names club – and in front of Remus were two girls called Mary and Marlene. The girls nearby him seemed nice enough, and didn’t mind how little he talked, unlike some. There were various other people in the room, none particularly notable.

Once in their seats, everyone was given their books and talked through what English lessons would involve in the future. Remus, like the girl next to him, made a couple notes as the lesson went on. He wasn’t paying to go, so he was going to do everything in his power to stay.

The lesson drifted by smoothly, followed by the next few, with break and lunch in-between, but then came chemistry.

Their chemistry teacher, Doctor Slughorn (who was very particular about being called doctor as opposed to mister), decided to sit him next to a gloomy boy called Severus – at this point the weird names club was ineffable – who clearly hated Remus for seemingly no reason. He was always rolling his eyes and speaking down to him. From the looks of things, he must’ve been a rich little twat. After the insufferable hour had passed, Remus left the first chance he got. Severus would not be in his weird names club, no matter how outlandish his name.

~*~

Leaving the shared bathroom, Sirius pocketed his phone after being reassured by his sister that everything was fine at home. When he walked in, James smiled and waved from where he’d been yapping to Pete, and Remus looked up at him before going back to his book.

Sirius decided to go asleep, he was exhausted after the night before. It was technically past lights out anyway, but that was irrelevant.