Remus
“Peter Pettigrew”
“No! James, listen to me you don’t get it!” Sirius shouts at James. James rolls his eyes and turns to me. “What do you think?” I shrug.
James lets out a loud sigh and jumps up. “Whatever you want to believe,” he says. “He is! James he is and I’ll prove it to you!”
Remus made the stupid mistake to play some muggle music. Specifically from this ‘David Bowie’? lad. Now Sirius believes he is a wizard, because he claims he has bewitched him. James doesn’t agree with him.
“Remus,” Sirius slurs, “play it again!” He bounces on Remus’ bed. He rolls his eyes and plays the recorder again. Bowie’s voice fills the room again and we listen, mesmerized.
In the corner of the morning in the past.
James lets himself fall back on my bed. We were playing a game of exploding snap, but he stopped once the music began again.
I would sit and blame the master first and last.
Sirius plays with Remus’ curtains, making a rustling sound.
All the roads were straight and narrow.
I have never seen Sirius so calm. He closes his eyes and mumbles the words he knows.
And the prayers were small and yellow
And the rumour spread that I was aging fast.
Once it gets to the chorus Sirius gets up and dances again. Remus looks at him, smiling softly and me and James exchange a look.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I’m telling you Marls, he’s a wizard!” Sirius explains (again). Marlene sighs deeply and gets ready for the long discussion they’re going to have.
Sirius has been going on nonstop about Bowie, telling everyone who has a chat with him about him.
I say goodbye to them and go to look for James and Remus. They are headed off somewhere, while me and Sirius were getting ready.
They are sitting in our usual spot and James is charming Lily, well trying to. She is not interested.
“Hey Pete,” Remus says, glad I saved him. I smile softly and Lily smiles back.
James looks offended from me to her and folds his arms over each other.
Lily rolls her eyes, laughing with me. “Where is Sirius?” James asks me. “Traumatizing poor Marlene,” I answer. Mary and Lily look up from what they’re doing.
“What do you mean?” they ask concerned in unison. “Well, you see, Remus here decided to introduce this David Bowie guy to us and Sirius strongly believes he’s a wizard,” James tells them.
Lily burst out in laughter and it’s so contagious that soon our whole group is dying of laughter.
“REMUS LUPIN!” a high voice shrieks through the great hall. He sinks in himself as Marlene marches over to him. “Why,” she burst out, “did you let Sirius listen to David Bowie!”
She lets her hands fall flat on the table, slamming it. Remus tries to make himself even smaller. “Sorry,” he purses out.
We all start laughing again, Marlene her face red with anger. “David Bowie this, David Bowie that! Do you know we did not talk about ANYTHING else than David Bowie!”
Sirius then struts into the great hall, humming the melody of one of David’s songs. Marlene her lips form into a straight line and she falls on the bench beside Lily and covers her ears with her hands.
“SIRIUS!” James, me and Remus shout at the same time, he jolts up and looks over at us, eye wide.
“Shut up,” we demand. He grins, but stops (for now).
“Pete, you're coming to the library with me and Lils later right?” Remus asks after a while. I nod in agreement and we finish our breakfast and head off.
Lily says her goodbye and we walk away. “So I was thinking that for potions, we could start a study group. Cause a lot of kids are really bad at it,” Lily suggests. Remus hums in agreement. “How do you want to do that? Because the only ones good at potions are you, Remus and James?” I point out, “and James is not going to help.”
“Well,” Lily hesitates, “there is somebody else that’s very good at potions.”
“No,” Remus says immediately. “What? Remus what?” I ask him.
“She means Snivilus.” “No way in hell!” I agree with Remus. “Hey, Don’t call him that! Plus, what’s even wrong with him? What did he do to you?” She demands to know.
“Well for one he doesn’t like us, he literally cursed me to a tree upside down,” Remus snaps at Lily. “We don’t like him either, he’s a Slytherin and he hates Sirius!” I add.
Lily grunts and walks away. Remus sighs and I give him a small smile. He gives a sad small back and we walk to the library in silence.
“No, Pete, you're doing it wrong. It’s leviOsa not leviosA!” Remus tells me.
“It’s not going to work, I’ve been trying for three days now! Why isn’t it working!” I cry out. “I want to learn it before Christmas!”
“You will don’t worry, you just need to put some work in it and believe in it,” Remus encourages me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Hey Pete,” James murmurs, changing his pace to walk beside me. “Hey James,” I say.
“So it’s not working is it?” He asks compassionate. I shrug and he puts his hand on my shoulder.
“It’s fine Pete, you’ll get the hang of it. Come on, we’re planning another prank!”
I hurry after him and Sirius and Remus are waiting for us behind the corner. James takes his cloak out of his bag and we squeeze under it.
We’re just able to get under there with four people, but with five wouldn’t work. “We’re floating the benches in the great hall,” Sirius whispers in my ear.
“Actually,” James interrupts us, “we’re letting all the benches float.”
“Now?” I ask. “Yeah, it’s nearly 22:00, there won’t be a lot of people out yet,” Remus explains.
I breathe in deeply and shake my head: “Fine.”
“Wingardium Leviosa,” Remus murmurs quietly. The long bench starts to float slowly. Slowly but surely it goes higher and higher in the air. “Your turn,” he whispers softly in my ear.
“Remus,” I cry, “you know I can’t do it!” “Yes you can, everyone believes in you, you’re the only one who still needs to believe in you,”
Beside me the benches from Ravenclaw and Slytherin float in the sky. Remus lets the second bench from Gryffindor float and it’s only Hufflepuff left.
I breathe in deeply and breathe out. I close my eyes.
“Wingardium leviosa,” I call out. The bench makes a small movement but doesn’t budge further.
“Wingardium leviosa,” I say, with a little more hope, one of the benches flies just above the ground.
“Wingardium leviosa!” Nothing happens, my shoulders fall down and the smile that was softly creeping on my face was swept of.
“Come on, you can do it!” Remus urges.
“Wingardium leviosa!” I say, too loud. One side of the bench flies up fast. The other one hangs down, trying to bring the other side back to the ground.
“Yes! Well done Pete!” Sirius voice screeches from the other side of the room.
With more confident I say it again and again and again. Until all the benches are flying in the air.
“Pete! Wow! You did it in just 15 minutes!” James calls out, clapping me on the back.
The other benches are on the floor and I look at them confused.
“We just wanted you to learn it and now you did,” Sirius explains when he sees my look of confusion. My face turns red and I look down.
“But now that we’re here we should just go ahead with our prank,” Remus grins. We look at each other and a second later we’re running around the great hall “wingardium leviosan” the benches in the air.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Okay, so you know why you’re here?” Professor McGonagall sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“No, we don’t,” Sirius says innocently. “Yeah, why are we here?” James asks as innocent as Sirius. McGonagall groans and closes her eyes tightly.
“I know it was you lot, no point in denying.”
We stop and I close my mouth, because I was going to agree with them. “Honestly, Professor, I tried to stop them,” Remus tells her and we all look over at him, mouths wide open in shock.
“Yes, well, I expect nothing different from you Lupin, you may leave,” McGonagall tells him after a while. He gets up and grins down at us when his back is facing the professor.
We scoff and feel betrayed. We get off lightly, we just have detention for the rest of the week. She waves us off and she breathes out deeply.
“So, we gonna get back at Remus or what?” James smirks. We nod in agreement and head to our dorm.
“You’re sure this is safe?” I ask them. “Nope,” Sirius chuckles, James continues to pour the insects in Remus’ sheets.
Remus doesn’t show up to the dorm and after a while we get worried. It’s normal that he doesn’t come back, because he’s injured a lot of the time, we don’t know how though, but he always tells us.
We crawl under James cloak and walk to the infirmary.
“Remus!” I call out quietly.
No answer.
“Remus!” Sirius whispers a little louder.
Still no answer.
“Remus!” James says.
No answer and then.
A gasp: "Boys! What are you doing out of your dorms so late?” Miss Pomfrey walks out of her office, in her dressing gown.
We all stumble a little and push each other in front of the other.
“We’re looking for Remus, he left without telling us anything,” I tell her after a while.
She looks at us with pity in her eyes. “Come back tomorrow morning, now go back to sleep,”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Where do you think he is?” I mumble on our way back. Sirius shrugs.
“Let’s find out,” James begins, “he leaves us alone without telling us like every month. We will find out why.”
So that’s where it starts, the hunt on why Remus leaves every month without telling us.