Not Allowed

James was sad. Not your usual feeling a bit down, the kind of sad that makes you want to curl up into a small ball and die, that makes you want to crawl out of your own skin.

He had felt fine until Quidditch practice, when someone had made a harmless comment about the way he looked. "You look like you've been eating well, Potter". Ait was normal for the Quidditch lads to joke around a bit. It was such a small thing that anyone else would have just ignored it and gone on with their day. Not James, that comment stuck in his brain.

He knew he had gained a bit of weight after the holidays, but could other people notice. The can't notice he has to be perfect. Who would want him if he wasn't perfect?

He stared at himself in the mirror, spent hours tracing the bits of himself that he thought should change, only stopping when his friends entered the dorm.

Remus pov:

"Pronggggsss!" Yelled Sirius from his bed, where he had sat himself. James emerged from the bathroom, he looked tired, dark circles traced his under eyes. Had he been sleeping?

"Hi Pads, what's up?" He said with a small smile. "Come to dinner with usssss, I've barely seen you all day" Sirius whined.
"You literally saw me this morning" James chuckled.
"That's basically forever. Please come to dinner with us" Sirius pleaded. James paused, it was as if he was trying to work something out in his head. "Sorry Padfoot, just not that hungry at the moment" Something was off, Remus new it.

James was practically connected to Sirius usually, you could hardly ever separate them, and yet now it seemed like James was avoiding them both.

James had seemed off, since they got back, but Remus just convinced himself that it was probably just readjusting to Hogwarts life, and going back to classes. But as time was going on, he had started to get worried. James was acting strange, he was skipping meals, and by the looks of him, wasn't sleeping well either.

James was one of the most open people he knew, he cared about people, and he loved like nobody else. He was always there to help, or take care of you when you needed it. But Remus had started to think, who takes care of James?

Of course they all cared about eachother, but maybe they all go too caught up in their own lives, and of course James would never let on if there was something wrong. Always bright and open and quick to forgive, but always the first to shrink away when the topic of his own wellbeing came up.

He decided he would talk to James about it, make sure that was doing alright.

Evan pov:

Evan was back to studying, it seemed to be a constant thing. There always seemed to be a new homework assistant, or quiz that they needed to study for. And of course he couldn't get stupid Potter out his head.

As he was thinking though, he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Potter during a mealtime, he would glance over to the Griffindor table where all his friends were, and no sign of him.

It was odd, he thought, Potter was usually taking every opportunity he could to be close to his friends, but he was realising now how little he had seen them together recently. It didn't seem like there had been an argument or anything, whenever he did spot them together, on the way to a class or something, the were joking and smiling like always. No, it seemed like Potter was avoiding them for some reason.

Just as he was thinking about it, Lupin walked in and sat at a table close to him. He opened his book and took out a bit of parchment from the middle, he was looking very intently at the book as if he was trying to find something specific.

After thinking about it for a minute, perhaps against better judgement, he approached Lupin. He didn't even know id Lupin would talk to him, but it was worth a shot.

"Hello" he started. Lupin looked up to meet his gaze, brows furrowed, as if he was wondering why Evan would ever be talking to him.

"Hello?" Evan decided that it would be better to just ask what he wanted to and leave as quick as possible.

"Why is Potter avoiding you?" Lupin looked even more confused after that. Evan started to wonder if he had got it wrong until...

"How do you know that?" Lupin replied hesitantly.

"Well mean he's never at meal times with you guys, and he is never with you guys when you have been about recently"

Lupin still looked confused but didn't try to deny it like Evan thought he would. "Well, that is quite observant of you" he paused "I don't know why he is avoiding us, but he's been doing it since we arrived back at school"

"I know" Lupin raised his eyebrows at this, but said nothing "It's not like him to just ignore you all though, I mean him and Sirius are practically attached at the hip"

"Why are you so invested Rosier?" Evan felt his cheeks heat up at this.

"I'm not" he snapped "I'm just curious" looking back to Lupin's amused gaze.

"Right" he said, like he didn't believe him. "Well Rosier, if your so concerned, go ask him yourself. I'm sure he'd love to talk to you" With that he stood up, collected his book and parchment and left with a smirk.

Evan stood there stunned for a while, what did he mean Potter would love to talk to him. What was going on?