Tongue Tied
James Potter
Monday | October 20th, 1975
“Oh no.” The four marauders looked up to see that it was Micah that had spoken. They were looking between the four boys. “What’d you do?”
“What are you talking about?” Remus asked. James had to hand it to him; Remus was the best actor/ liar of the group– even James was beginning to doubt his involvement.
“James is jumping in his seat, Peter hasn’t eaten anything, Sirius keeps looking at the other tables, and you,” Micah looked at their boyfriend pointedly, sitting down beside him. “You haven’t touched your coffee.”
“That obvious?” James asked.
“Only to those who know you and look out for the signs.”
“It’s nothing harmful, babe.” Remus smiled at them softly. “And if we’re lucky, we’ll get out of class.”
“Who are you and what have you done to our Moony?” Peter gasped and then laughed when Remus flipped him the bird.
“Lads,” James snapped his fingers, looking at his gold watch on his left hand. “Breakfast is about to be dismissed. Five minutes.”
All four boys lifted their so-far-untouched cups of pumpkin juice (in Remus’ case, apple juice), clicking them together in a toast before throwing them back like shots.
Remus handed his partner a cup, “Drink up. I’ll see you later. I hope your Welsh has improved.”
“Oh, Merlin.” Micah chugged.
~ ~ ~
Sirius Black
The four boys had made it to Potions by the time the spell triggered. The prank was rather simple… once the potion was made (a potion that they created, Sirius might add). Early that morning, the boys snuck down to the kitchens– Remus coming a few minutes behind since he was the one that went to wake Lily– and poured the potion into all of the drinks while Peter distracted the house elves (he was the closest to them due to the amount of times he’d sneak into the kitchens to bake with them).
They sat at their desks. James and Peter, Sirius and Marlene (who wasn’t there yet), and then Remus and Dorcas.
“Bore da,” He said casually.
Dorcas’ eyes widened, “What?”
“Dywedais i,” Remus’ lips curved into a smile. “‘Bore da’.”
“What the fuck?” Dorcas stuttered into a laugh. James started laughing too, until Sirius elbowed him. Sirius shot him a pointed look. “Is that Welsh?”
Remus nodded.
“Ah, Dorcas.” Sirius tutted, smiling coyly. Dorcas eyes him suspiciously. “Ne parlez-vous pas une autre langue?”
*Do you not speak another language?*
“I only understood, like, part of that.”
“No la vi en el desayuno, Pads.” James spoke up.
*I didn’t see her at lunch, Pads*
“Vous n'avez rien bu ce matin?” Sirius asked her, pouting.
*You haven’t drank anything?*
“Sirius, the only French I know is from Regulus.” Dorcas explained, still confused. “And that’s only profanities.”
Remus’ eyes widened as if he remembered something. “Sirius!”
“Remus?”
Remus quickly finger spelled with FSL, G-R-E-E-K.
“Yeah,” Dorcas eyed Remus, somehow understanding the FSL. She started signing along with her words, almost subconsciously. “I speak Greek. My family’s from there after all.”
Sirius decided to ignore the fact that Dorcas knew perfect FSL and switched to Greek.
“Oh, Υπέροχα. Κι εγώ το ίδιο.” Sirius grinned. “ Meadowes, Ήσουν στο πρωινό;”
*Great, me too**Were you at breakfast?*
“No, I slept in.” Dorcas said slowly. “Why?”
Remus slid a small vial over the table and winked, nodding.
Dorcas debated it for a moment before finally saying, “Fuck it.”
The empty via hit the countertop.
Slughorn walked into class. The three boys in front of Dorcas and Remus turned in their seats to face the front.
“Good morning, class.” He said joyfully. “Can anyone tell me what potion we’re making today? Miss Evans?”
Lily lowered her hand, “Fuil clotting.”
The class laughed.
“Excuse me, Miss Evans?” Slughorn looked nervous.
“Nach do thuig thu mi?” Lily smiled, resting her chin in her hands.
“Anyone else?” Slughorn asked the room, hoping to avoid scolding his favourite pupil.
Everyone in the class started to shout in their own languages. Poor Ol’ Sluggy looked about ready to faint. Lucky for him, a small origami bird fluttered in through his door, landing in his hand. He read over the note quickly and let out a quick sigh of relief.
“Everyone, class is dismissed for the day.” Slughorn announced.
Everyone cheered– an odd mix of cheerful noises and words Sirius didn’t understand.
“Except you four. McGonagall’s, you lot.”
The marauders didn’t even need to turn to know that he was talking about them.
# # #
Interlude
Regulus Black
“Regulus!”
Regulus and Evan turned around to see Dorcas running up to them. She had the biggest grin on her face.
“Cas?” Evan asked as soon as she reached them.
“Δεν έχουμε μαθήματα!” She exclaimed. Evan’s eyes widened.
*We don’t have classes!*
“Ναι, ακούσαμε.” Regulus raised his eyebrows.
*Yes, we heard*
Evan rolled his eyes. Can we switch to sign? I don’t know Greek.
Okay. Dorcas signed, and she turned to Regulus. Your brother and his friends are behind this. It’s a potion.
A potion? Regulus furrowed his brow.
There’s a potion that does that? Evan signed.
“Une potion qui fait quoi?” Pandora asked, walking up to them with Barty. They had switched ties at one point for whatever reason. She was signing along with her words as well.
Dorcas, Regulus signed. Dorcas’ sign name was the letter D, drawing a circle in the air. Says that my brother and his friends are behind the language barrier.
And they did it by a potion? Pandora asked.
They couldn’t have. Barty signed while yawning. I’ve read every potion text book in my father’s library. There is no language potion.
You’re sure it’s a potion? Evan asked Dorcas.
Yes. Dorcas frowned. They put it in something at breakfast. I slept in so they gave me the potion to drink in class.
Could they have made a potion? Barty asked.
That’s almost impossible. Regulus sighed. It’s extremely difficult to create a new spell or potion. Especially with a specific goal in mind. Accidentally making a spell? Possible. On purpose? No.
Don’t underestimate them. Pandora hummed while she signed.
When’s this potion supposed to wear off then? Barty asked.
Lunch.
How do you know that? Evan asked.
Pandora winked.
You don’t have visions about small things. Dorcas signed. Wait, do you?
Pandora just smiled and skipped away.
She can’t. Evan signed. I don’t think.
Who knows, Regulus smiled softly.
~ ~ ~
Do you have any spare curl mouse? Pandora signed to Regulus. Their head was in his lap while they sat in the West Courtyard behind a wall (they were kind of hiding).
Mouse? Regulus raised an eyebrow.
Pandora’s brow furrowed. M–O-U-S-S-E
Mousse? Regulus chuckled.
Pandora stuck her tongue out at him. Yes. Mousse. Do you have any?
Why? Regulus asked, looking at their blonde twists. You don’t have curly hair.
It’s for S-Y-B-I-L-L, Pandora signed. Her dad hasn’t sent his usual, monthly care package yet.
When does he usually send them?
They always arrive within the first week of every month.
“Pandora,” Regulus said. They lifted off his lap to look at him. “C'est le vingtième.”
*It’s the twentieth.*
“Oui, il est un peu en retard.” Pandora shrugged.
*Yeah, he’s a little late*
Okay. Maybe Regulus was a little particular on time. He liked being on time. In fact, he needed everything and everyone to be exactly on time. So what? So, maybe he was thinking too deeply into Mr. Trelawney’s tardiness. So what?
Maybe, he was overthinking.
“Vous ne pensez pas qu'il est... mort, n'est-ce pas?” Regulus asked.
*You don’t think he’s… dead, do you?*
Pandora didn’t think his question was odd though. “Non. Il ne mourra pas avant juin.”
*No. He won’t die until June.*
“Est-ce que je veux savoir pourquoi vous connaissez le mois exact?” Regulus raised an eyebrow.
*Do I want to know why you know the exact month?*
“Sybill a lu son avenir il y a quelques années.” Pandora explained. She was still signing along with her words. “Il voyage dans le monde entier. Parfois, il est un peu distrait.”
*Sybill read his future a few years ago**He travels around the world, you know? Sometimes he gets a little distracted.*
“Eh bien, si vous êtes sûr.” Regulus said. A small smile formed on his lips. “Elle peut emprunter ma ‘souris’.”
*Well, if you’re sure.**She can borrow my ‘mouse’*
Pandora rolled her eyes and playfully shoved his shoulder.
# # #
“¿Cómo, en nombre de Merlín, nos salimos con la nuestra?” James scoffed as soon as they made it to the hallway.
*How in Merlin’s name did we get away with that?*
“Minnie nos encontró graciosos.” Sirius laughed.
*Minnie thought we were funny*
Remus groaned and looked to Sirius, signing: I need to learn S-P-A-N-I-S-H.
“¿Qué ha dicho?” Peter asked.
*What did he say?*
Sirius translated.
“¡Por favor!” James exclaimed, hand on Remus’ shoulder.
Remus rolled his eyes. He signed, I’m going to find M-I-C-A-H. See you.
Sirius signed back, fighting a frown. See you.
Remus nodded at the other two boys and walked away. Peter and James looked at Sirius confused. Sirius groaned; he was getting really sick of being everyone’s translator.
~ ~ ~
“Moony!” Peter exclaimed.
It was lunchtime and the other three marauders had only been seated for a few minutes, waiting for Remus.
“The spell finally wore off.” Remus smiled. “I did not like it as much as I thought I would.”
“Not our fault you don’t speak a common language.” James raised his hands in mock surrender.
Remus rolled his eyes and, before one of the boys could fix his plate, he snapped his fingers. Sirius felt the subtle, quick buzz of magic, but didn’t see a difference. Until Remus reached for a silver plate and didn’t get burnt.
“What did you do?” Sirius asked.
“I transfigured it into tin.” Remus bit into his chicken.
“We could’ve made your plate for you.” James said with a small furrow in his brow.
“Yeah, but the moon’s tonight.” Remus swallowed his bite. “My magic is, like, right on the surface. I need to get it out.”
“Right.”
“Have fun with Micah?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, he was the only one that could understand me.” Remus said.
“He speaks Welsh?” Sirius asked, trying to push down the really strong urge to run to the library to learn Welsh.
“Not fluently.” Remus wrinkled his nose. “And his accent’s awful. It hurts to listen to it.”
“Then what-”
“We didn’t talk much.” Remus interrupted Sirius with a quick wink. Sirius blushed and looked down. James patted his thigh, reassuringly.
“Hey!” Lily sat beside Remus, and her eyes widened once she realised that she spoke English. “Oh, thank god that spell’s over.”
“I’ll cheer to that.” Remus bumped her shoulder with his.
She chuckled. “Hey, quick before the other girls come. Are you going to be okay tonight?”
The other boys stilled. The way that Lily said that… she couldn’t know… could she? The three marauders looked at each other with matching faces of worry.
“I’ll be fine, Clover.” Remus gave her a small, reassuring smile. “I’m used to it.”
Her small smile curved down into a frown. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”
Remus shrugged, but Lily wasn’t done.
“Does your hip still hurt?”
“Your hip?” Sirius repeated. Lily and Remus both looked at him as if they were just remembering his existence. If Sirius ignored the situation of 1) what Lily was implying and 2) Remus’ hip, he’d find their creepily similar expressions funny. “When was your hip hurting?”
Remus rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Sirius. Lily is over exaggerating. I stumbled a bit when I went to go get her this morning for the prank and… don’t worry. I’m fine.”
Lily scowled, wrinkling her nose, at Remus. “Excuse me? I’m not ‘over exaggerating’. You were one wince away from limping, and it wasn’t because of some stumble.”
Remus shot her a quick glare.
“Moony!” Sirius chastised. “Why didn’t you tell me your hip was hurting? I could’ve gotten some pain potions from Poppy!”
Remus flexed his jaw, sighing through his nose. “It wasn’t that bad. I’m fine. I didn’t want to prolong the prank; we had to get the potion set up.”
“We could’ve done that without you,” Sirius said. “Or we could’ve pushed back the prank to tomorrow or Wednesday or- or even fucking lunch! We-”
“Sirius!” Remus hissed. Sirius shut his mouth with a glare. James laid a hand over Sirius’ shoulder. “I’m. Fine.”
“Remus,” James started gently. “You should’ve told us.”
“All of you,” Remus stood up, leaving his plate and pointing between all of his friends. “Need to fucking shove off. I said ‘I’m fine’. I don’t need your fucking sympathy. I’m fine.”
He stormed off, swatting away Peter’s hand to help him up. Sirius watched his back, the slight limp to Remus’ step not going unnoticed by him. Sirius turned back to Lily. “What happened?”
Lily bit her lip, looking at where Remus stormed off. She was debating on whether or not it was a breach of trust to tell the other marauders. She caved.
“This morning when he came to get me for the prank, I noticed that he winced when I accidentally bumped into his side. Total accident. He said it was fine and we moved on, but I noticed that he was visibly trying to not wince again every time his left leg went down a stair. I asked him about it, and he just said that he slept weird and that it was fine. I believed him. But, then when he was looking for Micah earlier, I saw him lean on the wall and rub his hip. I was going to ask if he was alright again, but Micah showed up and I didn’t want to bring attention to it.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell us.” Peter frowned, clearly more annoyed that Remus didn’t tell him rather than concerned. Sirius tried not to get offended by it, he knew how Peter viewed Remus’ pain.
Once, in third year, Sirius asked Peter why he always seemed to be more annoyed by Remus withholding that he was in pain and not more concerned over his friend being in pain. Peter seemed to think that the answer should’ve been obvious.
“Remus is tough.” Peter had said. “If he couldn’t handle it, he would let us know and rest. It just hurts more to know that he thinks we wouldn’t care if he was in pain. Or that we’d pity him.”
“Do you know why he might be hurt?” Lily asked.
The boys exchanged a look again. They all knew the answer.
The moon.
The reason behind most of Remus’ problems.
Remus started having physical problems outside the scars and typical bruising due to the moon mid-fourth year. Sirius didn’t know the exact cause of them, only that that’s when they started. It would be a poor ankle, sore hip, hurt back, whatever. It kind of made Remus like an old man. He’d just wake up sometime near the full moon– before or after, it didn’t matter– and would be unable to walk for certain distances without sitting down.
James had asked Poppy about it, but she said that it was one of the few things that all accounts on werewolves had in common. Sometimes, when they (werewolves) transformed back, not all of their bones snapped back into their places the right way.
It’s happened to Remus’ back and hip so often that it’s started to affect him outside of the morning after the moon.
“Ah.” Lily nodded. The boys turned back to her. “So, it’s a moon thing.”
She took a sip of Remus’ tea and grimaced, opting for pouring a glass of pumpkin juice instead (which Sirius knew from their late night talks that she didn’t like that much).
“What?” James’ mouth fell open.
Lily looked between the three boys. “A moon thing.”
“What moon thing?” James asked, a terrible liar. Sirius saw Peter roll his eyes at James’ attempt in the corner of his eye.
Lily looked at the boys like they were stupid (specifically James). “Really, boys?”
“We really don’t know what you are talking about.” James rubbed the back of his neck, not looking at anything in particular as his head swiveled around.
“Boys,” Lily put her cup down, laying her hands on top of each other and leaning forward. “Remus has been my best friend for the past three years. He gets ‘sick’ at least once a month, he’s covered in scars, he has an amazing sense of smell, hearing, and sight, and y’all literally call him ‘Moony’. Do you think I’m dumb?”
The boys’ eyes widened.
“I’ve already confronted him about it. He knows I know.” Lily added with a smile after a few moments of their stunned silence.
“Does he?” Sirius asked dryly. He couldn’t be sure that this wasn’t a trick for them to accidentally confirm her suspicions.
“Yeah,” Lily took a bite of her dinner, humming. “He didn’t, however, tell me how you guys started helping him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Around the same time the moon stopped affecting him so much, you lot started to fall asleep in classes.” Lily set down her fork. “I want answers.”
“And you’re not getting them.” Sirius said simply.
Her gaze sharpened. “Why not?”
“Because you’re only friends with two out of the four marauders,” Sirius crossed his arms on the table and leaned closer. “And this is an all-four-marauder kind of secret.”
Lily frowned but shrugged and turned back to her food. When she looked up again, Sirius winked at her and she smiled, understanding that there were no hard feelings.
“Hey,” Lily whispered conspicuously to Sirius. He leaned closer over the table. “I get that it’s some weird boy-secret thing, but it’s still weird that you’re nicknamed after menstrual products.”
Sirius brow furrowed. “Menstrual?”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “Like, period products? For girls on their period?”
Sirius looked at James and Peter, who were wide-eyed and trying not to laugh. Sirius looked back at Lily.
“What’s a period?”