the truth is stranger than my own worst dreams
(remus)
Remus really liked the school grounds. He was very set on keeping the fact that he did not want to be there very clear, but the school grounds were absolutely mesmerising.
They were huge, for a start. Just the walk from one building to another was exhausting (well, he couldn’t say he was in very good physical shape, but still).
There were all sort of cool spots, too. Random tunnels where you could see crouched-down students doing last-minute studying. Hidden spaces behind buildings where some very nice people would give you a few fags if you asked them nicely. And then there was the library. Remus loved the library. It was large, but also cozy, somehow, and there were candles lit and there were thousands of books that he’d always wanted to read but never managed to find. At one point, he’d even heard of a tree that would (as the story went) try to kick you off if you tried to climb it. He really wanted to try to climb it.
Currently, he was walking with the girls by said tree, all laughing at a joke Mary had made, when he spotted something unexpected. Under the tree sat his three roommates. Peter was sat on the ground, craning his neck up at Sirius, who was leaned against the tree trunk. It seemed like Peter and James were saying something to the long-haired boy, something that he was not particularly enjoying hearing.
As Remus was staring, Sirius looked up at him and gave a little wave, light smile on his face.
Remus was frozen in his place, not knowing exactly how to act. Did he give a sign of acknowledgment, or did he keep walking? He was mildly aware of the uncaring mask he was always trying to put on, ever since Sirius had pointed it out. But there was really no need to think about that.
Right when he had decided to smile and wave back, Mary beat him to it.
“Alright, Black?”
To his surprise, Sirius didn’t answer. From what Mary had told him, her and Sirius were good friends, though they did banter a bit. They’d known each other for quite a while. You’d expect they’d have a bit more chemistry. But no, Sirius just looked down and… blushed? Before he could make sense of it, though, James came forward and addressed Marlene.
“McKinnon, right? You’re trying out for the football team?”
Marlene raised a defiant eyebrow. “Yeah, I am. Why?”
“Oh, well, you see,” James seemed unaffected by Marlene’s sanctimonious attitude. “I’m actually team captain. And I demand full implication from each team member. If you think you can’t give all of what you have, I just wanted to let you know now that maybe you’re not cut out for it.”
James had a way of saying things in such a manner that they never sounded mean or condescending. It just sounded like he genuinely wanted to help. This being said, Marlene was not happy.
“Alright, captain boy, let me tell you something, I’ve been playing football since I was four years old. I was the first and only girl on the team back home and I scored three winning goals on the championships. Growing up, I had to train by myself because none of the guys wanted a girl on their team, so I trained even harder and became better than all of them, and they still didn’t let me join in until I beat all of them in one-on-one matches. Now, I know for a fact you haven’t had to go through any of this, so why don’t you lay off for a bit, alright?
James opened and close his mouth a few times. Everyone present was staring at him, waiting to see how he was going to respond to that; even Sirius and Peter, who were still leaned against the willow were trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on.
Finally, after ages, James said,
“I didn’t mean to offend you, and I am sorry if I did,” in such a squeaky, scared tone that Marlene couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Nah, it’s fine. I trust you to be a good and thorough captain,” she said.
She stretched out a hand. James looked at it for a few moments, stunned. Then a charming grin appeared on his face, and he shook Marlene’s hand.
“Good luck on the tryouts,” he told her, shooting her a wink. “Something tells me you have a good shot at a spot on the team.”
And just like that, James flew back to his friends by the tree, probably continuing their conversation from before.
Remus chuckled, incredulous.
“Well, that’s something.”
***
(sirius)
They just wouldn’t stop.
Ever since that first time, the Mary allegations wouldn’t cease. James and Peter were very set on making Sirius confess that he had feelings for Mary.
At one point, Sirius had even found himself seriously questioning it. Could he really fancy Mary McDonald? It wasn’t like it was exactly… unideal. He could see himself with Mary. But people who had real feelings about someone were aware of it, weren’t they? They didn’t have to wonder like he was.
At the moment, he was sitting under the Whomping Willow with the rest of the Marauders, who kept making very rude jokes, seeing how they were supposed to be his best friends.
As he was staring in the distance and trying to block out their laughter, something caught his eye. It was Remus, who was staring back at him while walking with Lily and Mary and their new roommate. Sirius wondered why it was that Remus got along better with the girls better than his own roommates. The two of them hadn’t really talked all that much since their meeting in the dorm. He worried for a moment he had said something wrong, or weird. Or later that night, when he’d called him an insomniac stoner. Was that weird? Or had it been that last observation he’d made? Had it been too soon? He hadn’t really engaged with too many new people the past few years. It’s always been his friends from school and his brother.
Mentally crossing his fingers that it didn’t make him look even weirder, he gave Remus a small wave and a friendly smirk.
Remus continued to stare, without any sign that he wanted to greet Sirius back. He was just about to turn his gaze back down at the ground and pretend the wave never happened, when he noticed Remus just as awkwardly raising a hand.
He didn’t get all the way to waving back, though, for he was interrupted.
“Alright, Black?” It was Mary, yelling at Sirius.
He spun his stare towards her quickly. Maybe too quickly, because he could hear James muffle a laughter behind him.
He blushed, slightly embarrassed at his reaction, and looked back down. He knew it was rude to ignore somebody like that, but he frankly didn’t need to give James and Peter more content to speculate about.
Suddenly, James’ train of thought took a turn, as he asked,
“Wait, isn’t that the new girl who’s trying out for the football team?”
Sirius was about to tell him he hadn’t the slightest idea, but James was already hurrying to the group of girls (and Remus). Sirius could see him talking to the blonde girl (Marlene?), but he wasn’t able to figure out what he was saying.
Now he could see Marlene saying something to James, though it was just as unintelligible. Whatever it was, James’s confidence from before seemed to actively shrink, even from a distance.
They exchanged a few more words and appeared to shake hands at one point. When James returned to the tree, he was smiling.
“What did she say?” Peter wanted to know.
“Something about the football team. But listen, guys, I think we’re getting closer in my plan of courting Lily. I saw her looking at me just now, and let me tell you, she almost looked like she didn’t hate me,” James stated, hilariously serious.
Sirius threw his head back and laughed.
“Well, that’s something.”
***
(remus)
For however much Remus loved reading, he hated other academic activities just as much. And for however much he hated academic activities, he put just as much work into doing them as thoroughly as he could. He’d always aimed for the best, even though most of the time the thought of schoolwork made him roll his eyes and scoff. He didn’t exactly know why he cared so much.
He was sitting in the library with the girls, books open on the table. Remus was trying to explain the history chapter they were currently studying to Marlene (“Look, it’s really quite simple if you understand why they were all doing what they were doing. History is cool if you don’t think about it as things that just happened because that’s what the textbook says…”), while Mary was going on about Sirius (or that’s what Remus suspected, he’d tuned out a while ago).
“I just don’t get him, Lily. Like, he was alright last year. Fun, you know how. Now he’s acting all weird. I don’t know what-“ she paused, her stare fixed somewhere on the wall behind Lily. “You don’t think he fancies me, do you?” Mary asked Lily, who was working on her algebra homework.
“I don’t know, Mary. He might. You never know with these blokes,” she shrugged, momentarily seeming to consider something. She quickly shook her head, though. “Anyway, would it be so bad if he did like you? It’s not like you don’t fancy him back.”
Mary scoffed, appalled at the thought.
“Obviously I don’t. Sirius is my friend. Or at least, he was.”
Lily raised an incredulous eyebrow. “If you say so.”
“God, you and your men,” Marlene pitched in. “Everything’s so complicated. It’s why i stay away from rom-“ she trailed off, focusing on something over Remus’ right shoulder.
Remus turned around and tried to find what Marlene was looking at. There was a group of students talking to each other who had just entered the library. There were five of them- three guys and two girls. One of the guys had lustrous dark hair which reminded Remus of Sirius.
He turned back to Marlene.
“What, do you know them?” he asked.
“Not really,” Marlene answered. “Well, technically, the, uh, the tall one is er… on the football team, I think. Er.”
Remus and the rest stared at her as she kept stumbling.
“Who, Dorcas?” Lily leaned in, sort of conspiratorially. “The one in the sweater?”
Marlene looked down shyly and nodded.
“What, you fancy her?” Mary joined in, smile on her face.
“I don’t know!” Marlene whispered desperately, seemingly scared of being overheard. “She’s an attractive person. I’ve seen her around a few times. That’s all.”
“Careful, McKinnon,” Lily warned. “You can’t just go around dating Reggie Black’s friends.”
“I’m not dating her, for God’s sakes! I don’t even like her!”
But that’s not where Remus got stuck. “Reggie Black? Like Sirius?”
Lily and Mary both stared at him as if he was mad.
“Yeah, Regulus is Sirius’ brother. Didn’t you know?” Mary said.
“No, not really. It’s not like we talk much.”
“Fair point. It’s not like Sirius talks much about his family, either,” Lily pointed out.
Remus remained stunned. How much history do these people have?
“So do they not, like, get along?”
Lily shrugged. “Nobody knows, really. Well, maybe James. But nobody really understands what goes on between them.”
Remus shook his head. “Alright, forget it. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get back to history-“
“Do you fancy anyone, Remus? Any girls caught your eye?” Mary interrupted.
“Er, no. Not really my thing.”
“Boys, then?”
Remus swallowed nervously. “That either,” Remus kept staring at his book.
“You know our Remus. He’s too busy for all that relationship bullshit,” Lily said.
You know our Remus.
Was he really that close with these people?
***
Sirius could safely say his last year of school wasn’t off to a great start. It was all somehow made worse by the fact that everyone was feeling pressured by the approach of the final exams. It felt way too different from his other years at Hogwarts, when they could just mess around and not be warned to “take their work very seriously” at least once a day.
James had promised they’d do one of their classic Marauder pranks to lay off steam, but so far they hadn’t so much as sneaked out.
Sirius was just feeling exhausted.
He was sitting on their dorm building’s rooftop, smoking a cigarette and trying to not think about all of it.
He had discovered this place back in Year 10. There was a ladder on the last floor that you had to pull on to climb, but it was kind of hidden behind a wall, so Sirius assumed not many people knew about it. He’d only caught someone else up there two or three times, but it was pretty quiet otherwise. He never told anyone about it. Not even James. It was his quiet place, to think about everything and nothing at all.
Just then, though, he heard the trapdoor opening behind him and someone’s footsteps. He turned to see who it was and wasn’t exactly surprised to be met with a lanky figure wearing corduroy trousers with his uniform shirt.
“Oh. Sorry, mate, I didn’t-“ said Remus, a strange sense of deja-vu hitting Sirius.
He laughed, the scene they found themselves in yet again very funny to him.
“We have got to stop meeting like this,” he said to Remus.
Remus let out a chuckle, albeit a little awkwardly, and looked down, all of his weed-induced flamboyance from their previous meeting now gone.
“Yeah, sorry,” Remus apologised, seemingly for nothing at all.
Sirius put on a smile and gestured for Remus to take a seat next to him on the ground.
Remus did so, reluctantly, and lit his own cigarette.
“Do you know it took me six months of living in this building to find this place, and you discovered it in not even two weeks?” Sirius tried to break the ice.
To his relief, Remus let out a real chuckle this time, and said,
“Just my magic, I suppose.”
Sirius gave him a crooked smile.
“So, how did you end up here, then? What’s a bloke from Bristol doing in Scotland?”
“Dunno,” Remus shrugged. “Got kicked out of all the other schools. I think my parents thought there’s no way for me to possibly be expelled from a boarding school in the middle of nowhere.”
Sirius looked at him, intrigued.
“You said it like it’s a challenge.”
“Isn’t everything?”
Sirius smiled and took a drag out of his cigarette.
“My money’s on you being out of here by May.”
“You said it like you’re hoping for it.”
“Don’t you?”
Remus gave a considering look.
“Well. Might be alright to stay for a bit.”
He smirked. Sirius stared into the distance.
That was all.