Year One: Sliding Stairs

By the end of November, James was in detention again. Remus sat in a high-backed armchair in the Gryffindor common room late at night, his nose buried in a book when James and Sirius climbed through the portrait hole. Remus groaned. While he generally enjoyed the company, their volume gave him a headache.

Peter scrambled up. He’d been lying on the carpet, quill in hand, trying to finish a charms essay. He, too, had seemed to notice their dormmates entering. Peter waved enthusiastically, prompting the others to join them. Lily Evans huffed when James sauntered past her, and she vacated her spot on the sofa by the massive fireplace.

“Oi, what are you reading?” James asked. Sirius plopped down whilst James joined Peter on the floor.

Remus held up the copy of ‘Spellbound: A Comprehensive Guide to Spells and Charms’ he’d checked out of the library. “Just some light reading,” Remus shrugged.

“And what will you do with all your newfound knowledge?” James prompted.

“I dunno,” Remus said. Sirius let his head hang over the sofa’s armrest.

“Why else would you read that much?” James continued.

“And textbooks at that,” Peter added.

“I—” Remus started. “I just want to learn everything I can.”

“But we’ve got seven years for that,” Peter said. Remus focused on the page in front of him, swallowing hard.

“And you already outperform all of us,” James said.

“That’s not true,” Remus mumbled. “I’m rubbish at potions, and my flute still isn’t playable.”

“Please,” Sirius spoke up. “Apart from that, you’re top of the class, and besides, there are plenty of mudbloods that have zero clue what they’re doing, and even worse, some of us, too.”

James and Peter sat in stunned silence, shifting uncomfortably. “What?” Remus asked.

Sirius, too, was white as a sheet. “‘M sorry,” he mumbled.

“Okay,” James answered, shaking his head. Remus sat, frowning, studying Sirius. He was twisting his fingers, staring into the fire. Remus focused on his book afraid of being caught staring.

James cleared his throat. “Have you attempted any of the spells?”

“What spells?” Remus answered absentmindedly, absorbed in the text.

“Those,” James nudged the book in Remus’s lap.

“I don’t think I’m ready for those yet,” Remus confessed.

“Why not?” Peter said. “If anyone is, it’s one of you.”

James leaned closer. “And just imagine what we could do with that sweet knowledge locked in your head.”

Remus groaned. James had been back for less than half an hour, and Remus had barely finished one page of reading. “If I read out loud, will you stop interrupting me, Potter?”

“Ugh,” James said. “Reckon I will fall asleep before I get to interrupt you.”

“You underestimate your ability,” Remus muttered and began reading. “Glisseo is a highly versatile charm that can transform stairs into slick slides or lightning-fast chutes. Too much force while casting the spell can make the slides excessively slippery. It’s recommended to practice on shorter sets of stairs before attempting longer ones.”

James shot upright and shouted, “That’s it! That’s bloody it! You’re brilliant, Lupin!”

“Three sentences.” Remus sighed, exasperated, snapping the book shut.

“New record, though,” Peter added.

“I’m heading to bed,” Remus announced.

James was pacing in front of Sirius, who sat in an uncharacteristically quiet huddle on the sofa.

“Oi,” James shouted. “Wait up!”

Remus pretended not to have heard him and kept climbing.

“Move it, Black,” Remus heard James call into the common room. “Come on, stop your sulking. Lupin’s had another of his brilliant moments.”

Remus quickly slipped into his pyjamas and under the heavy red duvets before the others could burst through the door. His head hit the pillow just as James lunged onto his bed.

“Geroff,” Remus groaned. James had landed on his legs, and he kicked out under the duvet to free himself.

“You’re not going to bed yet, are you? We need you, Lupin. Your brainy brilliance. I had an idea, and it’s going to be the best ever.”

“Can’t it wait ‘till morning?”

“Absolutely not,” James said. “Come on, prank planning, Lupin’s bed. Get in here, lads!”

“Fine,” Remus grumbled, sitting up straight.

“What was your idea?” Peter asked.

“I was thinking,” James started with a huge grin. “What if we turned all the stairs to the dungeons into slides?” Sirius nodded absentmindedly. “Right before breakfast,” James continued. “That way, they’re stuck down there. Oh, that’d be splendid.”

“We’d need to practise the spell, though,” Peter said.

“Plenty of stairs around,” James said.

“If every staircase is turned into a slide, they’ll know we’re up to something,” Peter said. “Where are we going to practise?”

“What about the fourth-floor passage that leads to the girl’s loo?” Remus asked, rubbing his eyes. “Can’t imagine anyone uses it often.”

“What passage?” Sirius asked. Remus studied him. He was pale, hunched over. He’d never seen Sirius so unlike himself.

Remus shrugged. “The one from your birthday. It’s mostly pointless, honestly.”

Peter bobbed up and down on the spot. “How much time do you reckon we need to master the spell?”

“We’ll practise all day tomorrow if we need to,” James said.

***

Sunday morning, the Great Hall was eerily quiet. Dark clouds still hung around the enchanted ceiling, the only light coming from the candles floating over their heads. Only a few older students, mostly Ravenclaws, already sat at their house table, perched over piles of books. James had dragged them out of bed unnecessarily early. Only Sirius remained stubborn, refusing to open his curtains. After ten minutes of arguments, Remus left. His stomach grumbled, and he was in no position to support James’s effort on an empty stomach.

“D’you reckon we can do it?” Peter asked, whispering.

“Hmm?” Remus’s head snapped up. He’d been stacking waffles on his plate. “I dunno.”

“How is the spell performed?”

“It didn’t look complicated,” Remus said.

Remus hadn’t participated in any pranks since Filch’d dragged them to McGonagall’s office in the middle of the night. Sirius and James couldn’t help themselves, though—the first dungbomb was dropped in an unsuspecting student’s bag on Monday following their detention—but they’d scaled back their game. Remus was surprised it had taken almost a month until they’d landed back in detention.

James and a bleary-eyed Sirius joined them when Remus had finished his second helping of waffles with chocolate syrup. Peter was fidgeting, his head fixed on the entrance through which more and more students passed.

Remus could understand the nerves. He’d never expected the thrill of their pranks to feel so good. The notoriety the prankster had gained, even though people didn’t suspect him, still boosted his confidence. He’d noticed it in Peter, too. He carried himself differently, his head held high, daring to raise his hand to answer questions in class.

At the same time, Remus was terrified of the consequences. After a month with no solid leads, the teachers seemed to give up their search for the pranksters. Still, Remus’s hands shook whenever Slughorn lingered a moment too long by their potion, or McGonagall narrowed her eyes in scrutiny. Worse still was Snape, who hadn’t left him out of his sight. He wasn’t very discreet about it, following Remus in the hallways and lingering by the Gryffindor table, staring at the boys.

The others all tried convincing Remus that Snape couldn’t realistically know anything, and they were probably right. Only they had far less to lose. His nerves rubbed off on Peter, who was excellent at spotting Snape and discreetly manoeuvring out of his way.

That morning it was especially important that they didn’t cross paths with Snape.

After breakfast and a short detour to Gryffindor Tower, Remus led the way to the passage on the fourth floor. It had many stairs, but they started practising on a shorter one toward the bottom.

It took them the better part of a Sunday, taking turns exclaiming ‘Glisseo!’ in various volumes until the three steps finally sloped steeply on Remus’s command. They hollered excitedly before realising they were now facing the problem of being stuck using the exit in the girl’s loos.

“Maybe it’ll reverse itself?” Remus suggested as James scrambled up the slope.

“Doubt it,” Sirius said.

They re-entered the passage from the fourth floor and continued with the longer stairs, all other responsibilities forgotten in Gryffindor Tower.

By the next evening, Remus, James, and Sirius had performed the spell with ease, and even Peter had changed the awkward step right by the top entrance. They’d slid down the slopes, nearly crashing into the walls where they bent in a different direction.

After dinner that day, Remus holed himself up in the library’s far corner, researching a counterspell. He hid behind the dozen books he’d stacked in a half circle on a desk. Browsing the shelves, he’d caught a glimpse of Snape furiously scribbling, his nose almost touching the parchment.

Remus sat scowling at his books. While they were all dealing with magical architecture, most of the content was ridiculously advanced, and Remus struggled to grasp the concepts. A headache formed, pounding in his temples. Remus couldn’t understand why these things were so hard to grasp.

A girl cleared her throat. Remus looked up. Lily hugged a stack of books to her chest, smiling.

“Yes?” Remus asked, incredulous.

“Can I sit with you?”

“Your friend is here somewhere,” Remus said.

She dropped into a chair, depositing her stack. “I can’t carry these books any longer,” she said.

“I could help you,” Remus offered. He didn’t want to spend the entire evening in a conversation with her.

Her eyes widened, and her chin shook. “You don’t want me to sit with you?”

He really didn’t. “I would like to work,” Remus said.

“Me too,” she said, turning to her books.

Remus scowled, flipping a page he hadn’t finished yet. “Why do you keep sitting by me?” he whispered.

“What?”

“You try to be my friend, right?”

Lily blinked twice. “Y-Yes?”

“Why?”

“Because I- Why would you ask something like that?”

Remus shrugged. “Your friend hates me. Why do you cause yourself the headache?”

“I don’t know,” she said, gathering her books. “You certainly make it difficult to be your friend.”

She left Remus sitting with her books in the library. He frowned, turning back to his text. He didn’t understand why she’d sit with him when Snape was just a few rows down.

Madam Prince shooed him out with just enough time to return to the common room before curfew. She had not let him check out his last, and most promising book of the night, ‘The Unseen Foundations of Wizarding Architecture’.

Remus’s head was pounding, and he couldn’t wait to fall into his bed. Remus weaved between two seventh-year girls and nearly bumped into Mary.

He smiled, trying to sidestep her. She wouldn’t have it. Her arms were crossed over a Muggle sweatshirt with a band print Remus didn’t recognise.

“What did you do to Lily?”

“What?”

Anger flashed in her eyes. “You heard me.”

Remus scratched his head. “Um.”

“She’s trying to be your friend.”

“And I don’t get why,” Remus said, unable to keep the irritation from seeping into his voice. “Why would she want to be my friend?”

Mary threw up her hands, shaking her head. “I don’t know. Why do you care? You could use more friends.”

“I have friends.”

“You have two friends, Remus.”

“Three, and it’s none of your business.”

“But Lily is. She’s my friend, and you hurt her feelings.”

Remus huffed. “Fine. Tell her I’m sorry or whatever.”

“You don’t mean it.”

“I just want some peace and quiet. Is that too much to ask for?”

Remus shoved past her, not waiting for an answer. He was aware of the stares that bored into his back as he ran up the stairs to the dormitories.

***

The boys met in the passage late on Tuesday afternoon. Lily had ignored him all day, and Remus was free to run to the library during lunch to check out the book he’d been eying.

Remus leaned against a wall, his wand illuminating the page with the supposed counter spell. He frowned. It was far more complicated than the first one.

“Why do we need to reverse it, anyway?” Sirius groaned.

“We need more practice,” Remus said.

“Why are you such a perfectionist, Lupin?” James asked.

Remus shrugged. “Besides, it’s good to know the counterspell. That way, we might learn something about the original charm and make it harder to remove in the dungeons.”

A grin split Sirius’s face as he pushed off the wall opposite. “That’s the spirit.”

They managed to restore the short stairs by dinnertime. That left three long, and Remus supposed slightly deadly, slides waiting in the dark passage. James had tried to convince the others to get up early the following day and pick the fruits of their labour. Both Remus and Sirius objected. Sirius complained that he didn’t want to get up that early on the only day their classes didn’t start until midday. Grumblingly, James let them push it out another day.

In the meantime, James earned detention for setting fireworks on Snape after flying class. At least that gave Remus time to revise his transfiguration notes undisturbed and go to bed early. A group of students played exploding snap in the corner of the common room, squealing whenever a card exploded. He wondered if he should ask to join them—he recognised a few of the students from his classes.

He stoppered his inkwell and wrapped his quill, placing them in his rucksack along with his notes, and leaned back against the cool window. It would have been better if he hadn’t made friends with the other kids in his year. The fewer people who knew him, the fewer people could notice he was sick once a month.

Remus played with his tie, which peeked out of the bottom of his jumper, twisting it around his fingers. With any luck, the others wouldn’t notice he was gone at all the next night.

Finally, he decided to go to bed. Sirius and Peter still hadn’t returned from the passage, and James had another hour of detention.

On the small balcony overlooking the common room, he ran into Mary and Lily. Mary huffed and pushed past him, and Lily didn’t meet his eyes, following her friend. Just like he wanted it—except for the nagging feeling in his stomach.

“Lily, wait!” he called.

She turned around, and Mary, too, stopped. Lily whispered to her friend, who raised her eyebrows and disappeared down the stairs.

“Yes?” Lily said, finally.

“I’m sorry?” Remus said.

Lily crossed her arms. “That doesn’t sound convincing.”

“I-I am,” he said. “I don’t know what got over me.”

Her eyebrows were pinched, and she rocked on her heels. “You were unfriendly.”

“I was. I just wanted to be left alone.”

“Fine,” she said, turning around.

“No, wait.” Remus reached out, but pulled his hand back immediately.

“What?” she huffed.

“Can you forgive me?”

“Why would I need to forgive you if you don’t want to be friends?”

“I didn’t say I don’t want to be friends.”

“You might as well have.”

Remus looked at his feet. As much as he’d always wanted friends, this wasn’t what he’d imagined. “I want to be friends,” Remus mumbled. “I just don’t know how.”

Lily studied him. She blocked the entrance to the boys’ dormitories, so there was no getting away from her.

“We can be friends, or something.”

Remus smiled ruefully. “That’d be great.”

“I should go—Mary’s waiting.”

“She doesn’t hate me, does she?”

“What? Who?”

“Mary?”

Lily laughed. “No, silly. Why would you think that?”

Remus shrugged. “Just an impression.”

“I can ask her, if you want?”

“It’s fine. You shouldn’t let her wait any longer.”

***

At the crack of dawn, the four boys dressed quietly and hurried downstairs, wrapped in James’s invisibility cloak. They passed several ghosts and only nearly avoided colliding head-on with Filch. Twenty minutes later, the large sets of stairs connecting the dungeons directly to the entrance hall had turned into a slippery slope.

Peter’d had the brilliant idea of covering the slides in soapy water. James had gladly provided a large supply of hair potions he’d brought from home to their cause, stating that it was going to be even slipperier than soap. So, they levitated the unstoppered vials to the top and dumped the contents.

They worked their way back through the dungeons to the hidden passageway, leaving no stair unscathed. By the time they had returned to their common room, many of the Gryffindors were heading down to breakfast.

“We’ll miss it,” James whined.

“Slytherins are closer to the Great Hall,” Remus said, wondering if he was the only one with a scrap of common sense. “They won’t leave this early.”

Still, they raced to breakfast, finding the Great Hall delightfully devoid of Slytherins. Chuckling, they found a seat at Gryffindor table.

“This is amazing!” Sirius said.

“I could get used to this,” James agreed, digging into a mound of scrambled eggs.

Weirdly, the Hufflepuffs also seemed absent—Remus could hear faint shouts from the entrance hall. Remus watched intently as a group of older Ravenclaws approached the staff table, red-faced.

Flitwick and McGonagall stood at once and followed them out of the hall. Remus jabbed Sirius, pointed at the teachers, and he craned his neck. McGonagall strode past behind them, muttering under her breath. Sirius roused to stand, but Remus pulled him back by his sleeve.

“We have to go watch,” he hissed.

“And who will they suspect if you follow them on their heels?” Remus replied. “Just wait until it catches on.”

Seething, Sirius sat in his spot until Remus had finished his pancakes. James bounced excitedly, muttering to himself. Breakfast was almost over, and more and more students left the hall. They ducked behind a group of tall boys.

A crowd had formed at the dungeon’s entrances on both landings. Inconspicuously, they pushed through the students to reveal Flitwick trying to comfort a group of Ravenclaws.

The staircase was still a terror-inducing chute into the dark, from which an owl fluttered, dropping a note at the Flitwick’s feet.

“EVERYBODY,” Dumbledore’s voice boomed behind them. The students turned. Remus hadn’t seen him since Halloween. “Please return to your common room or make your way to your classes. Professor Flitwick, Professor Slughorn and Professor McGonagall’s morning classes are cancelled until access to the dungeons is restored.”

Slowly, the crowd dispersed. James whooped once the professors were out of earshot, and they made their way to the common room, laughing.

McGonagall was more irritated than usual, partly because Sirius and James, still in high spirits from the morning’s success, wouldn’t stop interrupting her lecture even after she sat them on opposite ends of the classroom.

The two spent their afternoon scrubbing the restored stairs to the dungeons, still stained with James’s hair potion. Remus chuckled at the irony, especially since the professors had to admit begrudgingly that they had no clue who’d managed to pull it off.

The first December moon passed, much as the others had. James and Sirius were still in detention when Remus left for the hospital wing, and Remus occupied Peter by giving him his Defense Against the Dark Arts essay to copy.

Madam Pomfrey woke Remus early the morning after. He was curled up in a corner, his hands and side bloody. He tried to clamber to his feet but was stopped by a fussing Madam Pomfrey and a stabbing pain in his side.

She assessed the damage to his skin. Slowly, she dragged her wand along the three long gashes. They closed with a burning sensation, leaving only frizzy, bright red marks. His father had tried to heal the wounds before, but Remus’d long learned that the wounds left by the wolf always scarred.