Chapter 8
Remus didn’t sleep that night, he couldn’t sleep; the images of piercing blue eyes stabbing daggers into his soul resurfaced each time he tried to rest his eyes. Instead, he laid awake, atop crumpled sheets that were unusually itchy, and he waited.
He waited through the brewing storm, the howls of the wind strikingly similar to his own during the time of the Full. He waited with crossed legs as he pulled himself into a sitting position, ears pricking in anxiety at each creak of the old floorboards outside the wooden door. He waited with a constricted chest, unsure, unprepared, too prepared, for the Headmaster to knock his way in with a letter of expulsion.
He waited, and he waited, and he waited; and morning came. Remus skipped out of classes that day, unwilling to set a single foot out of the door. He didn’t want to face his professors, he didn’t want to face his schoolmates, he didn’t want to face Barty. Barty was bidding his time. Barty was going to expose him in front of everyone. They might have reached a stalemate, but Barty was still Barty; Barty hated him, always did, and probably always will.
He told Peter that he wasn’t feeling well when the boy stuck his head through the curtains to check on him when he didn’t wake for classes. He told James that he’d be alright by himself, and for them to head on out for classes. He ignored Sirius’ grumbles that they were late, and he flopped back down onto his bed. If Barty didn’t see him, he wouldn’t say anything, would he?
Sometime along his second attempt at counting the ticks of the sweep hand - he had gotten up to 15 thousand seconds, surpassing his first attempt where he barely managed to count up till 13 thousand - Peter poked his head through the curtains, brows furrowed in concern, breaking Remus out of his trance.
Peter gave him a once-over, eyes finally settling back on Remus’, “What’s wrong?” He asked, and before Remus could come back with the same excuse, Peter shook his head. “No, not all that shite about being sick, what’s really wrong?”
“I think I’ve been found out.”
Peter pulled back, brows falling back into place as he blinked his eyes in procession. “You mean, like the gay thing?” He tilted his head in confusion, and even the world collapsing in onto himself couldn’t stop the laughter that burst from Remus’ lips at the unexpected question.
“The gay thi—, No!” Remus choked out between laughter, as the confusion deepened onto Peter’s expression; Merlin, have mercy on that boy. “No, Pete, the furry thing!” He watched as realisation dawned onto Peter, his lips taking the shape of an ‘O’ as the new revelation sunk in. “Just,” Remus smiled weakly, running a palm across his face, “just let me know if you hear something, alright?”
Peter nodded his head in quick succession, and Remus let himself slump back against his propped pillows as silence filled the room. It was oddly comforting to admit it out loud, like a step away from denial, and a step towards acceptance. His time left in Hogwarts might have been limited, but at least he had his friends, at least he had Peter.
The second day of his absence was met with a whirlwind of fiery red and stacks, and stacks of parchment. Their friendship may have just begun shortly after Christmas break, but Lily had since made quick work of chiselling a spot for herself in his heart. Upon notice of his absence from class on just the second day, she had duplicated every single note that she had taken inside and outside of classes, and delivered it directly to Remus, up in the boy’s dormitory.
She ran through what was taught in each of the classes with him, wavy red hair flinging wildly as she twisted and turned to find the correct set of notes that corresponded to the subject in hand. Remus adored her; he loved her intensity, he loved how much she loved learning, he loved how much she cared, until, of course, she found out that he wasn’t really sick, and he was met with a firm smack against his head for abandoning her to study alone. Remus adored her a little less after that.
Remus should have expected it, or he should at least have learnt to expect it after knowing her for six years, but on the third and final day of his absence, he was visited by none other than Madam Pomfrey. “I heard you’ve been missing classes because you were sick,” she stood by his bed post, toes tapping against the floorboard as she regarded Remus with a raised brow. Well, that was the quickest anyone had ever caught on to his lie.
Remus nodded anyhow, and Madam Pomfrey rolled her eyes as she cast a diagnostic spell over him, which came up clean. She gave him a pointed look, and Remus bit his lip to suppress a grin. “Out with it now, Mr. Lupin, we both know that you wouldn’t miss classes if you were simply sick.” She was, unfortunately, right about that.
“Someone found out about the werewolf thing,” he sighed, looking back up from his twiddling thumbs to match Madam Pomfrey’s gaze.
She matched him with a sigh of her own, before sitting herself down by the edge of the mattress, scooping his hands up into her own. “And that’s why you’ve been hiding out?” Her toned softened, and remus nodded, gripping her calloused hands. She was warm, and comforting, and she hadn’t held his hand like that since he was in his second year at Hogwarts; Remus hadn’t realised how much he missed her comfort.
“It doesn’t matter who finds out Remus,” she pulled her hand from his grip, giving a soft stroke to his head, her eyes soft as she looked at him. “Nothing will happen to you, not on my watch.”
If there were anyone other than Madam Pomfrey around, he would have held it in, he would have sucked it up like an almost legal man would have done. But in front of her, in front of the one who had shed tears for him after his Fulls, in front of the one who cared for him like he was her own son, Remus cried. He would later come to deny any of such allegations, but in that moment, he was just an eleven year old boy crying in the arms of the healer, who patched him back up with tears streaming down her own face.
─── ⚔︎⋅☾⋅⚔︎ ───
Out of his own conviction - though in actuality, he was blackmailed into returning back to classes or word would begin to spread that he cried in her arms by the evilest witch herself - Remus returned to classes the next day. His senses were heightened, eyes darting about the corridor in search of the man who held his secret, startling like a baby deer every time an unexpected sound or voice was raised in his direction.
Maybe it was from the paranoia settling in, or maybe it was from how intensely he was looking for him, but Barty Crouch Jr. was everywhere. He was by the entrance of the Great Hall where Remus was headed for breakfast; he was coming out of the loo when Remus was walking to classes; he was striding down the hallways towards Remus when he was talking to James; and each time, Remus escaped.
He made a detour stating that he needed the loo when he saw him by the Great hall. He abruptly turned around and walked off in the opposite direction, much to his friends’ confusion, when his eyes met Barty’s when the latter came out of the toilet. He quite literally bolted when Barty approached him in the hallways, resulting in a less-than-subtle chase across the castle with Barty shouting for him from behind, that only ended when Remus made his way safely back into the Gryffindor common room. Or so he thought.
It was not ten minutes later before the sound of a commotion flitted up into his room. Brushing it off as normal Gryffindor occurrences - there was at least a fight a day in the common room, though they were usually initiated by his dear roommates’ love for pranks, and Remus was sure they weren’t back just yet - Remus took the bathroom, splashing cold water over his face in an attempt to cool himself off. That, was when he heard it.
“Remus Lupin!”
He paused, hands hovering above the sink as water leaked through the crevices of his fingers that were held together, his mind reeling with the possibilities of who that voice could have belonged to.
“Remus fucking Lupin, come down and get these pillocks to fuck off, or I swear by Merlin’s hanging ballsack—,”
Remus shut the tap just as a crash rang out from below, and he stared, wide-eyed, at his reflection in the mirror. Another crash sounded out, accompanied by a string of swear words, and was that a squeak? By the time he broke out of his stupor, the common room below sounded like it had erupted into a full-fledge war, and thinking better than to get involved, Remus made hesitant steps back towards his bed, where he sat tensely by the edge.
He ought to help his housemates with whatever was going on down there, what with house loyalty and a lion heart and such, but with the full moon just a week away, Remus honestly just didn’t want to. So he sat, upright and tersely at the edge of his bed, waiting for an indication that it was time for him to jump in, when the commotion abruptly dimmed into nothing. The crashing of what must have been furnitures stopped, the shouts and curses he heard from before were gone, the tower had gone silent except for a pair of footsteps that thudded up the staircase in a run.
Before he could make sense of the ever-changing situation, the door to his room flung open, and a manic grin that dropped into a frown greeted him. Intense brown eyes fell upon him beneath furrowed brows, and Barty, panting, stalked his way over to him, all whilst Remus was still processing the situation in confusion.
Barty was in his dorm. Barty was in his dorm, and Barty was approaching him. Barty was probably the one who caused the commotion down in the common room. Barty was likely the one that trashed his common room. Barty. The Barty who found out about his lycanthropy. The Barty that he had been avoiding. He was in his dorm room!
Realisation sunk in just as Barty made his way over to Remus, where he stood with parted legs, locking Remus’ own between his thighs. His knees were locked, muscles flexing, and Remus was stuck as he glanced up at the other who had an indiscernible expression plastered across his face in place of the manic grin he had first appeared with.
A strangled noise between panic and confusion tore out of his throat, much to his chagrin, and Barty regarded him with a frown. Hundreds, thousands, and million of thoughts ran through his mind, but in that moment, with matching brown orbs staring into his own, Remus was speechless. Even then, even in panic, Barty could render him dumbstruck.
Remus watched as the furrow of the brows deepened, he heard the gruff groan that left his lips at the lack of a reaction, and his heart genuinely leaped when Barty reached out to weave his fingers through the back of his hair. It felt like ice against his skin, like the low hum of electricity through his veins, like a thousand moths taking flight from beneath his skin; and fuck it to Azkaban, Barty gave his hair a firm tug.
The breath caught in his throat as his head fell back, tilting up just enough that he was facing Barty straight on, dark eyes boring into his own. Barty bent over, his face looming over Remus’, and suddenly, the capabilities to breathe was lost on him as their lips stood barely a centimetre apart. “I don’t give a flying fuck about your lycanthropy, you idiotic wolf,” he whispered, soft lips brushing against Remus’ lips as he spoke.
Remus shuddered at the feather-like brush of warmth against his lips, his mind all but listening to the whispers of the man before him. A shaky breath left his lips, and as if on cue, Barty crashed his lips against his own, and Remus was utterly done for.
He’d heard about the jolt of electricity, he’d heard of the fireworks behind the lips, he remembered tales of pure ecstasy, but no, Remus had to disagree. Barty’s lips on him, it was a crashing wave in the deep open ocean. It was a hand pulling him underwater, and Remus wanted to succumb to it, he wanted to fall deeper, and deeper, and deeper into the kiss, into Barty. Remus was drowning, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
The grip on his hair tightened just as Barty’s other hand crept its way up to cup against his cheek, and Remus’ breath hitched in his throat as he pressed himself further into Barty’s hold. It was all Barty — the roughness of being tugged around, the softness of his touch; Remus couldn’t get enough of it, he wanted more, he needed more.
He wanted to reach out and wrap his arms around his neck, to feel the taut muscles beneath the messy mop of black that fell to his nape. He wanted to pull him down, to have him press closer to himself, to feel more of his lips, to feel more of him. He wanted to run his hands through the mullet, to brush the tip of his fingers against the platinum piercing across his helix, to run his tongue over the lips. He wanted so much, he needed so much, but alas, stupid fucking Barty pulled away, and Remus was left with nothing but the sensation of soft heavy breaths against his lips.
Stupid fucking Barty pulled away to breathe. Stupid. Fucking. Barty.
“Don’t fucking avoid me next time,” he levelled at him, the grip on his hair loosening as Barty straightened himself up. The hand against his cheek fell, and though Remus finally found it in himself to reach out for him, he was grasping at air as Barty backtracked towards the door, eyes still fixed on him.
His eyes momentarily flicked down towards his lips before raising to catch Remus’ gaze, and with that, Barty slipped around the corner of the doorway without another word. Remus jolted up from his bed, and with quick strides, he chased after Barty who had already disappeared down the stairwell. He took the stairs three at a time, the rare advantage of his gangly limbs, and just as he caught side of the familiar mullet, he was stopped short in his track by the absolute commotion on the ground.
Rats.
Real fucking rats squeaking and squealing as they milled across the common room floor, amidst the chaos of flung furnitures and splintered wood. Rats. Fucking rats, everywhere.
He raised his gaze at the sound of a chuckle, and the mullet-head from before had since turned around, replaced by the manic grin that he’d come to love. “Right, recognise any of them?” He asked, and with realisation sinking in, Remus returned his attention to the rats, and only then noticing they had on clothes, or robes to be exact.
Barty had turned his housemates into snake food.
The look on his face must have been something else, because Barty had on a smile like no other, like he’d given in to his most impulsive thoughts, which evidently, he had. “The Basilisk would be happy with this turnout, wouldn’t you agree, Wolf?” He winked, and with that, he left the common room without a second glance back.
The back of the portrait door swung shut behind Barty, and even then, his eyes never left the wooden expanse of the door. That deranged motherfucker, Barty. There wasn’t a single word that could describe the man that he was. Hell, not even a thousand words could be used to explain the absolute unhinged persona of the man. Remus was aghast, he was terrified, but most of all, he was damn-fucking-enraptured by the being that was Bartemius Crouch Junior.
Then a rat - or a Gryffindor housemate to be exact - bit him, surprising him out of his train of thoughts, and Remus scooped him up and placed him down onto the highest shelf he could reach. That stinking rat could wait for someone else to notice him, and transfigure him back into his human form if he wanted to go around gnawing at people’s ankle.