The Natural Progression Of A Dying Species
Willow Evans is an enigma.
After their nighttime excursion in the library, during which Peter had started two more fires and Sirius had nearly broken his ankle playing Repel, she starts seeking them out of her own volition.
Repel, a game played by standing on any flat, portable surface, like a large library book, and having someone point their wand at it and say the spell “Repellere”, which sends the object sliding for several feet, bringing with it whoever is standing atop it, seems to have served an ample bonding experience, even if Willow was accidentally launched into the air by James, who had pointed his wand at her instead of the dictionary of verbs she was standing on.
It isn’t so much the act of her looking for them specifically that comes off as strange; it’s the way she appears out of nowhere, popping up in the corridors or appearing from shadows, constantly startling them out of their knickers. It sometimes feels almost as if she has her own invisibility cloak.
Sirius is the one who minds it the most, always yelping or flinching when she looms up out of thin air, but Willow doesn’t seem to know how to gradually approach from a distance, instead choosing to scare the breath out everyone, be it intentional or not.
She doesn’t quite understand Hogwarts etiquette either.
There’s an unspoken rule among the four houses that the only time they’re supposed to mingle is if they’ve been paired up for classes or fallen into the same extracurricular activities. The official rules don’t forbid fraternization between houses, but they do prohibit students from entering another house’s common room, which over the years has subtly discouraged friendship for those not wanting to get in trouble.
The first years catch on to this rule fairly quickly, and since most of a student’s time is spent surrounded by their housemates, people are quick to fall in line and settle for making friends amongst themselves. There might not be a written commandment to avoid anything more than casual acquaintanceship with those who wear different house colors, but people are sheep, and sheep don’t tend to mourn the possibilities of what can be versus what is.
Willow is decidedly not a sheep. Every day she eats a quick breakfast at the Ravenclaw table, usually while flipping through her homework or doodling on spare bits of paper, then she sidles over to the Gryffindor table, sits down near her sister to chat while stealing bacon off her plate, then, much to Lily’s displeasure, sits herself near the boys, usually Peter, and engages herself in casual conversation about whatever happens to be on her mind that day.
When this happens, Lily, who also doesn’t much care for Hogwarts etiquette, will stand up and stalk over to the Slytherin table, where Severus waits for her with a genuine smile on his face. Regulus, who has made friends with almost all of his Slytherin classmates, aside from Snape and a few others, tells them that, though he is a bit of a recluse and has some strange habits and hobbies, his affection for Lily is the most authentic thing about him.
Willow ignores that this happens, continually choosing to take a seat near the four of them after bidding her sister good morning and stealing her food.
“I might not like Severus,” she says placidly one day, “but he’s her friend, isn’t he? I can’t ask her to just cut him off.”
They’re all sitting beneath the arches of one of the many stone walkways that map out the school’s grounds and working on their assignments. Well, Remus and Peter work on their assignments. James is watching Quidditch practice through a shiny pair of copper binoculars, and Willow is chatting with Regulus, who has already completed his homework, while Sirius is ripping blades of grass free from the lawn and tying them into knots.
“He might not be that bad after all,” Willow muses aloud. “Maybe we’ve judged him too suddenly.”
Sirius snorts and tosses a mangled blade of grass away in favor of plucking a new one. “Bad or not, I don’t like him. He gives me the shivers.”
“Fair point,” she agrees, leaning her head back to enjoy the cool breeze sweeping through the grounds.
And that’s that.
At some point during October, they notice that Lily’s attitude has shifted slightly.
It might be because Sirius begrudgingly apologizes for the French toast incident, or because Remus starts saying hello to her every morning. Or maybe it’s Peter who inspires the change when he asks her to help him with Charms. It very likely isn’t James because, although he’s been very friendly to her, he’s made it clear that he won’t take back calling Snape “Snivellous”. But it could very well be Regulus, who, when helping his new Muggleborn friends learn how to properly write with a quill, notices that Lily can’t get her own quill to behave and offers her assistance as well.
So, by early November, when the weather has faded from fallen leaves and nippy breezes to flurries of snowflakes and sharp wind, each of the boys can safely say they’re off Lily Evans’ naughty list. Though they’re not quite friends yet, they’ve entered the strange zone of cordial associates. Acquaintances, perhaps, on a good day.
Lily has acquainted herself with many of the girls in her year as well. They bond with her faster than the boys, but then again, they haven’t instigated any fights with her best friend, which, even though Lily doesn’t completely hate James for it anymore, is something that lowers her general view of a person.
The girls tend to hang around the common room, or more often curl up on beanbags in the library, watching amusedly as the boys, the Marauders, as they call themselves (or the Instigators, as everyone else does), plan their next pranks.
The boys try to be discreet, but James is loud by nature, and Peter can’t be subtle for the life of him.
In only a few short months, the entire school has learned to give them a wide berth while they’re huddled up and plotting. It’s half out of fear of being their next victim and half out of respect for the hustle. The ones that do snitch never manage to provide any concrete proof because Sirius expertly hides their supplies and Remus is a master manipulator when it comes to authority. Even after a number of close calls, none of them give up plotting their next moves, too drawn to the thrill of being rebellious.
Remus enlists Regulus’ help once again in potions to create Phlegm, which is the title he gives to the monstrosity of a workshopped version of a cold medicine potion combined with the noses of every species available as potion ingredients.
Since his entire method of invention is to throw a bunch of loosely connected ingredients into a cauldron and hope for the best, Remus, who doesn’t actually know too much about potions, keeps Regulus on hand to mitigate the possibility of anything exploding too violently.
When he finally checks on his concoction (which looks like boiled urine that has somehow grown mold and not at all like phlegm), and pronounces it finished, Regulus imbibes it with a reversal spell to help it induce sneezing instead of curing colds and helps Remus fill his bag with little potion samples, not daring nor caring to ask what it’s for. All he requests is that he be spared from its effect, which is a condition Remus readily agrees to.
Slughorn has apparently decided that he doesn’t care what potions the first years are making anymore. Indeed, the only times he looks to be anywhere in the vicinity of happiness is when Lily Evans (and on rarer occasions Regulus) manages to goad him into explaining the details of a specific potion or ingredient.
She does it with her eyes opened wide and her lips slightly pouting, the picture of inquisitive innocence, but Peter tells them she does it to make Slughorn smile. Which is very sweet, of course, but none of them care too much about Slughorn, so they leave him to chatter Lily’s ear off about firestones and bezoars and collect their vials of Phlegm from Remus’ bag with poorly concealed glee.
Dinner that night is absolutely splendid.
Sirius sneaks into the kitchen beforehand and splashes the potion over every potato dish he can find. At dinner, when everyone is eating their fill, they’re a little disappointed to see nothing happen when someone bites down on a roasted potato or swallows a spoonful of mash.
They decide to try a spoonful of tainted mashed potatoes each, which turns out to be an extremely bad decision.
They’re about to resign themselves to a failed venture when Professor Dumbledore lets out a thunderous snort, spraying the teacher’s table with an unearthly amount of mucus for two feet in every direction. The mess droops into his beard, cementing itself among the hairs as he blinks, clearly caught off guard. The crudely embroidered birds on the tablecloth flutter in fear.
A seventh year Ravenclaw is next to follow, letting out a strange honking noise, much like a goose, and flooding her dinner plate with snot.
James looks at Peter, Peter looks at Sirius, Sirius looks at Remus, and Remus looks across the room at Regulus, who looks down at his plate, full of food he hasn’t touched, in horror and relief.
Professor Dumbledore sneezes again and all hell breaks loose.
People begin to sneeze and honk and roar, letting out torrents of goop hither and thither. Those few students that haven’t partaken in any dish involving one of the world’s most popular root vegetables are given no chance to escape the snot-storm that the Great Hall has become. Some people hide under their house tables, Regulus among them, while others just run. And not even to a particular place. Just anywhere.
Among the various animal noises and students that have become fountains of nasal goo, Remus, Sirius, James, and Peter sit at the Gryffindor table, sneezing and snorting out all kinds of fluids, making all sorts of ridiculous noises, and laughing so hard they can’t breathe.
It takes thirty minutes for someone to slip-and-slide their way to the door to fetch Madam Pomfrey, the school matron (who very rarely dines with the school), and it takes about another hour and a half to put a cork in all the sneezing.
The animal noises are another problem entirely. People are still screeching and honking for over a week after the incident, and always at the most inopportune times. Remus himself does an excellent imitation of a coked-up swan whenever he’s asked to demonstrate a spell he hasn’t yet mastered. Quite unfortunate.
The residue of Phlegm fades with the last remnants of Autumn as winter fully sets in. By mid-December, no one has seen anything but snow for what seems like forever, and the holidays are fast approaching.
Remus is to spend Christmas with his mother, as per the court order, so he doesn’t need the usual amount of convincing to attempt another mass pranking before he leaves. In fact, he mostly makes the others beg for his help because it amuses him, but Remus wants to delay being easier to persuade until they figure that out for themselves.
Sirius has become fascinated with a most complicated Muggle invention: The bouncy rubber ball. Peter, who gave it to him, finds this hilariously amusing, as do Lily and her fellow Gryffindor friend, Mary MacDonald, who witness him bouncing it around the common room whispering, “Not even spelled! How do they do it?” to himself.
Regulus, the clever thing, conveniently learns a doubling spell just after Sirius implores Peter to procure him more of the marvelous little things. He swears up and down that it’s pure coincidence, but grins secretly as he watches his brother master the spell and proceed to dump out one of the drawers in his nightstand just so he can fill it with little, colorful, rubber balls.
The day before Remus is set to leave for the holidays, Sirius and James skip lunch and manage to levitate three drawerfuls of rubber balls to the top of the large staircase connecting the Entrance Hall to the Grand Staircase. They stand together under James’ invisibility cloak, waiting patiently for the bell to announce the end of lunch.
The bell sounds loudly, and the first students appear from the Great Hall, strolling down the corridor to the Entrance Hall completely unsuspecting.
Three dresser drawers floating serenely at the top of the stairs isn’t the usual post-lunch scenery, so the crowd is thoroughly perplexed at the sight at first. It’s a strange thing to see, even in a magical castle, but it’s largely ignored as students shrug it off as another quirk of the castle and begin climbing the stairs anyway.
James waves his wand from beneath the cloak. The drawers tip forward ominously, and a wave of balls bounces free, hitting people in the face and tripping them up on the stairs, sending the crowd falling backwards like dominos.
The little rubber menaces ricochet off the stone floors and walls, soaring in wide arcs and coming down on students’ skulls and shoulders, giving off puffs of colorful, luminescent powder as they make contact with any and every target.
James distinctly recalls the Muggle rubber ball not having any staining properties, so he assumes that part is Sirius’ work. He turns away from the sweet Armageddon unfolding in front of him and asks Sirius. “Who made them do all that powdery, exploding stuff??”
“Mm, yours truly,” Sirius grins proudly.
“Impressive.”
“Naturally.”
Peter and Remus have now emerged from the Great Hall and are picking their way through the crowd to the top of the steps. They’re grinning and covered in neon powder when they make it to the now settled and empty dresser drawers.
Regulus stands at the other end of the room, covered almost exclusively in pink and yellow powder and looking vaguely murderous.
Willow is covered in green blotches and using the Repellere spell to keep the balls from ceasing to bounce, as are many other students. A few people separate into teams and start competing to see who can bounce them the highest. The penalty for the loser is instantly and unanimously decided to be getting pelted with as many balls as possible, which only heightens the mayhem further.
Lily stands with her arms folded, looking amused. Bright blue powder is settling on her lashes and the front of her robes are bright orange. She knows exactly who’s behind this sudden rubber ball war, and though she's slightly miffed at her dirtied uniform, she can't help but be a little impressed. Severus glowers next to her, looking thoroughly vexed. He knows the culprits too, and he doesn’t like them one bit. Of course, his entire face is neon purple, which likely contributes to his anger a great deal because the color doesn't seem to come off.
“I’ve brought you sandwiches,” Peter says breathlessly. “We should get going. McGonagall will be here any second.”
A disembodied hand reaches out and snatches the sandwiches from Peter’s grip.
"Run, lads, run!" James' voice giggles, and the drawers lift into the air and speed away just before Professor McGonagall enters the Entrance Hall.
A stray ball bounces off a suit of armor and hits McGonagall in the chin. She splutters, bringing her hand up to wipe away a layer of yellow film from her face. Everyone freezes. One third year boy coughs guiltily in the background as McGonagall surveys the scene, her eyes narrowed.
“What in Merlin’s name in going on here!” she demands.
The entire student body glances around at one another. There's hesitancy in the air at first, but it slowly morphs into confident looks of confirmation as they all silently share a single, wonderfully bad idea.
Someone raucously yells, “Freedom!” into the silent hall, and then, in a rare moment of mortifying unity, everyone simultaneously ignores McGonagall’s question and throws as many balls as they can in every direction.
Regulus sighs and steps neatly behind a suit of armor, narrowly avoiding a purple ball to the forehead.
“I’m surrounded by idiots,” he huffs.
“You and me both, lad,” the armor agrees.
The vivid stains left behind on nearly every student and their robes don’t fade for a long while. People who go home for the holidays leave with their hair tinged every shade of the rainbow and their faces decorated with bright spots of color, and McGonagall’s chin remains stubbornly yellow all through Christmas.
Dumbledore announces happily during his speech at Christmas Eve dinner that he thinks it all looks quite festive, and that he very much regrets not being invited to their Rubber Ball Ball. A group of fourth years interrupt and ask if they can dye his beard with the leftover rubber balls. He agrees readily, and when the feast starts, he sports a true spectacle of a dye job on the lower half of his face. (He proudly shows it off to McGonagall, who makes a sharp remark and tells him to be quiet and eat his turkey before it goes cold.)
Christmas at Hogwarts is a truly spectacular affair.
The halls are draped in streamers and baubles of red, green, white, and gold, clashing wonderfully with the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw house colors. The Great Hall is decked out with twelve pine trees, all a-glimmer with little golden stars and all sorts of elegant ornaments and wreaths of holly hang on the walls and sprigs of mistletoe hide above nearly every doorway.
Snow falls all through the Eve, gifting the castle and its remaining residents a beautiful, white Christmas, and a mountain of presents appears at the foot of each student’s bed in the morning.
The food is wonderful and decadent as always, and the menu is specialized to cater to every remaining student’s favorite holiday dish and large bowls of Christmas Crackers are set out on the house tables, ripe for the taking at any time. Peter finds that Wizard Crackers are amazing, sprouting much more exciting surprises than the usual Muggle contents of a paper hat and a riddle.
Still, even with all the gifts, the festive cheer, and the inter-house snowball fights, Sirius, James, and Peter can’t help missing Remus.
Remus isn’t the absolute authority of their little group (no one really is, though they all jokingly hail James king from time to time), but he’s often the voice of both reason and chaos, helping James and Sirius find ways to complete their homework in a way that entertains them while promising to help flip all the trophies in the trophy room upside down or whatever else the others dream up.
They aren’t by any means helpless on their own, but their bedroom feels a bit empty without his tall figure taking up all the space in the bathroom or keep them up by reading by wand-light until midnight or conducting as the other three belt out botched renditions of holiday songs. Even Regulus, who would never admit it out loud, misses Remus’ steady calmness that balances out the others’ hyperactive tendencies.
It isn’t the season of plentiful pranks either. Though James is full of innovative ideas, over half the school is missing, so it’s more of a problem of not having anyone to throw paper airplanes at or jump-scare with sock puppets than anything else.
In fact, the only other first year left in the castle is Severus Snape, and he isn’t someone the four of them particularly like. He knows this, and he takes full advantage of it, constantly making snide remarks and low passes at them when they walk by him in the halls.
Regulus is the first to snap at him, already on edge with having to share a dorm with him and a common room with a few other unsavory Slytherins. Snape, they come to find, isn’t very good at taking insults with dignity. Insults aggravate him, itching at his temper until he spits out the most vile thing he can think of, which is usually asking if Remus is gone because the fat pig (he sneers this one at Peter) ate him, or a jab at Sirius being the family disappointment.
“I swear to Morgana, I’m going to shove one of Professor Sprout’s cactuses down Snivellous’ throat if he keeps bothering us,” James spits venomously one day.
They’re sitting on the dirt floor of the greenhouses and flicking loose holly berries at the walls.
Regulus hits one of the Venomous Tentacula plants firmly in its stem. “Not if I get there first.”
Sirius snorts, throwing his berry as hard as he can. It hits an overeager Venus Flytrap that snaps its leaves shut around the berry immediately. “I’ll visit you in Azkaban,” he says, “Or maybe I’ll go there with you. We can be cell neighbors.”
The Flytrap spits out the berry, horrified as a carnivore that it nearly ingested a fellow plant.
“Azkaban?” Peter asks, and the others realize that he has no idea what they’re talking about.
“It’s a wizard prison,” James explains. “It’s on an island, I think. And the guards are Dementors. Big, shadowy things that eat your emotions or something.”
“Really now,” Peter squeaks, sounding horrified.
“They don’t eat your emotions,” Regulus rolls his eyes, “They feed off your despair until you can no longer feel happiness. Kind of like Filch.”
“That’s so much worse than the first thing, oh my God.”
“Yes, well. That’s Dementors for you.”
Regulus tosses another berry at the Venomous Tentacula. It snaps at it, swallowing it in one gulp. The Venus Flytrap rustles in horror.
Peter looks down at his own handful of berries. A sudden question occurs to him, and he wonders why he hasn’t thought of it before.
“Why do wizards celebrate Christmas?”
“What?” James blinks.
“Well, it’s the day Jesus was born. You know, son of God and all that, but wizards have magic. I didn’t think they- we? - wizards believed in God.”
“It started for appearances, I think,” says Regulus thoughtfully. “You know, keep the Muggles off our scent. We shared lots of our winter traditions anyway, so people just went with it to keep from being suspicious. I’m pretty sure Jesus was a wizard anyway.”
“And some wizards do believe in God,” James adds. “My mum believes in God. I think.”
“You think?” Peter laughs.
James smiles and shrugs. “I’ve never actually asked her.”
“I can’t believe Jesus was a wizard,” giggles Peter. “That explains a lot.”
“We don’t know for sure,” Regulus amends, “but yes, it is a bit obvious.”
Peter laughs again and throws the rest of his holly to the ground. “Water into wine my dick.”
This sets the others off too, and the lingering bitterness towards Snape is promptly forgotten in favor of retraumatizing the Venus Flytrap by feeding the rest of their berries to the Venomous Tentacula.
Plant cannibalism aside, the rest of the holidays are mundanely uneventful.
Sirius spends a lot of his free time catching up on assignments he never bothered to do and coaching Peter to master a new spell for Charms class.
James visits the library and picks up a book in Latin, then hounds Regulus into being his translator. James’ codependent owl, Toby, has taken a liking to Regulus and just so happens to immensely enjoy cuddles, so the last couple days before school restarts find James and Toby nestled against a petulant Regulus on various squashy beanbags in different corners of the library as he reads to them in fluid Latin and lulls them into a warm, sleepy trance.
Peter thinks it’s adorable. Sirius blows a raspberry and calls Regulus a softie with a fond smile on his face.
Remus appears in their shared dorm on the morning of January 3rd, dressed in his school robes and chewing on a Muggle candy bar. He leans casually against his bed, listening for movement behind the curtains of his friends’ four poster beds.
Sirius wakes before the others, but he doesn’t draw his curtains open, so it’s James who gets to hug Remus first. He squeals when he sees him, launching himself out of bed like a hyperactive puppy and squeezing Remus in a firm hug.
His excitement gets Sirius to emerge from behind his curtains, flashing a blinding smile despite his eyes being half lidded with sleep and his hair sticking up in all directions. Sirius' hug is just as strong, though he doesn’t make any noise. He then chomps a bite off Remus’ candy bar, kisses him on the cheek, and strolls to the bathroom to get ready for class. Remus blinks in flustered disbelief.
Peter topples out of bed, having caught his foot in his curtains, but gets up quickly and greets Remus with a wave and a squeeze around the shoulder.
“Had a good holiday?”
“More or less,” Remus says vaguely. His head is still reeling from Sirius’ peck on the cheek and the fact that half his candy has suddenly gone missing.
James gives him another hug and says, “I’m glad you’re back, mate, I missed you,” then bounces off to the bathroom as well, as if he hasn’t just said one of the most life-affirming sentences Remus has ever heard.
“I think this candy is messing with my perception of reality,” Remus holds out the bar to Peter, “Here, you take it.”
“Aw, mate, thanks. You’re the best.” Peter takes it cheerfully and traipses after James and Sirius to get ready for the day.
Remus just stands there, his heart filling with dread as he realizes how much losing these people is going to hurt him. “Not even six months,” he chastises himself quietly, “Not even six months and you’re already attached, you idiot.”
He realizes steadily as time wears on and January fades into February (February being the official marking that the time he’s known his new friends is six months), that this bond will hurt him no matter how he tries to feel about it.
The moment of absolute realization comes on a quiet Sunday morning as he's catching up on some homework. Willow, as usual, pops up out of nowhere, holding a little brown pouch in her hands.
“Look,” she says, ignoring his gasp of surprise and reaching into the pouch. She withdraws a small handful of seeds and throws them at his face.
A strange feeling erupts on his eyebrows, and when Remus reaches up to touch them, he discovers his brows have sprouted a thick layer of little chia seed sprouts.
“Oh wow,” he laughs, “Have you showed this to the others yet?” And oh, there it is.
He’s thinking about them, about how they would react to his new eyebrows. They would laugh themselves silly, he knows this for sure, then they would take turns tossing seeds at each other so everyone could match.
And Remus is utterly screwed, so he thinks, "Fuck it. Fuck it all."
“C’mon,” he stands up and gathers the essay he’s working on, wiggling his eyebrows theatrically. They’ve got to see this.”
And if he fully embraces rigging little seed traps that pour onto any unsuspecting passersby's heads just so he can create another warm memory to bring tears to his eyes when it’s all gone sour, that’s no one else’s business but his.
It’s just as well for Remus to create a bit of fun for himself, because his school days are quite a bit more stressful than he lets on.
Though he would never say it out loud, Remus Lupin has a secret. It isn’t a fun secret, like being surprisingly good at football or being double jointed, this secret is the dark and painful kind. It’s the kind of thing that tears a family apart or shuns a person from society.
Sometimes, when Remus is screaming into another moonlit night or when he’s flipping through a book for Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons, he feels as if he might not be a person at all.
During the two bouts of sickening agony he underwent in the months just before Christmas, all he could remember was teaching Sirius about glue and spitballs as a birthday present.
On November 3rd, the twins' birthday, he gave Regulus a sampling of sweets he’d brought from home, then dragged a gift-less, sulking Sirius to a makeshift lesson in Muggle pranks. Sirius had marveled at the idea of fart cushions and snorted when he accidentally hit Remus with his very first spitball, and Remus had felt almost human.
On November 9th, Remus could no longer think coherent thoughts without pain.
He thinks of November 3rd every time his bones crack and his mind shatters. He thinks of how Sirius’ happy smile will twist into disgusted terror if he ever sees Remus’ true state.
He tries to live as the calm boy with a couple of tricks up his sleeves as his own fingernails irreparably scar his flesh and psyche, but every time he wakes up in the infirmary, nursing new scars and aching all over, he knows he’s failed again.
Still, something inside of him knows it’s futile to fight it. To wish to still be something he hasn’t been in almost six years.
So, Remus brushes off his medical visits as frequent head colds, helps Peter to orchestrate the others’ plans in ways that won’t get them caught, and hopes to the little wooden cross his mother had tucked in his suitcase when she thought he wasn’t looking that none of his new friends will notice the pattern of his sickness any time soon. The lie won’t keep forever, he knows that, so he decides to enjoy the company while it lasts. He lets Madam Pomfrey patch him up as best she can, then rejoins his friends in their routine of eat, prank, sleep. He’s sure learning will enter stage left at some point, but it’s only first year, and, so far, they’ve got nothing but time.