first year - the art of being awkward
30th January
As soon as they burst into their room, the other three boys broke into a fit of laughter.
They had started wrestling each other and hurling pillows across the room...Remus had no desire to join in.
At first anyway.
"Come ON James you can throw harder than that" Sirius shouted, trying to take cover under one of the beds
"At least I'm not trying to run aw- Oi!" Pete threw a pillow at James' arse while he was trying to drag Sirius out by the ankle
"JAMES! You're giving me carpet burn"
"You're not even on a carpet idio- PETE!" Peter had lobbed another pillow at James and so in retaliation James let go of Sirius' ankle and instead gathered up his duvet into a ball and launched it right at the smaller boy.
He toppled right on to his bed as silence fell on the room.
"Er.. Pete?" he looked at the duvet, concerned, probably worried about having potentially injured his friend "I'm sor-"
Peter then stuck his head out of the mess of sheets and grinned like a Cheshire cat, causing James and Sirius to once again erupt into laughter and collapse onto James’ bed where Peter clambered out of the sheets to join them
Remus just shook his head at them, and laughed a little. The sun shone through the windows and filled the room with a beautifully ambient brightness. The other three had calmed down considerably and just appreciated the silence. Remus could've heard a pin drop. It was perfect.
They had been out exploring the top floor of the castle, where none of them had actually been to yet, but without James’ handy invisibility cloak they had to all make a run for it when confronted with Mrs Norris. It wasn’t even curfew yet because it was about 4pm, but James and Sirius had had some sort of nasty run in with Filch the other day and did not want to see him and get told off for simply looking around.
Anyway, he hadn’t appreciated the run at all, Remus was just about ready to collapse, and unfortunately for him his evening wasn’t over.
He sat on the floor by his bed, while the other three were piled onto James' one. Remus just looked at them and smiled. The bunch of idiots had severe boundary issues.
He laughed a little, and then stood up to make his way toward the door
“Where you going Lupin?” James asked
Of course they were going to ask
“Uhm, I’m going to visit my mum, she isn’t very well at the moment”
“Like a cold?” Peter asked
Remus almost laughed. He didn’t give a proper a reply and just shrugged, opening the door
“I’m so sorry Remus” James said, looking at him pityingly
“Well she better get better” Sirius nodded
“Yeah the marauders won’t allow any sickness” Peter added
Remus sighed and let the door close again
Sirius grinned “Still not a fan of the name?”
“I won’t accept it Lupin” James added “It’s decided, we’re the marauders”
“I told you” Remus snorted “I refuse to join a gang, especially with you lot in it”
""It's not a gang Remus" Sirius rolled his eyes "Even if it was a gang, you're too far in with us for you not to join"
“Plus we’ve been the marauders for about a month now” Peter added, eyebrows raised looking at him expectantly.
James then got up, strode across the room and clapped a hand on Remus’ shoulder. "We're your friends Remus"
He sighed, looked over to James’ bed where the other two were still sitting and made eye-contact with Sirius who gave him a soft smile.
He then looked at James right in front of him and grinned.
“Well” he shrugged “ Can’t argue with that” James grinned back and took his hand off his shoulder “I’ve still got to go and visit my mum though”
“Oh of course” James nodded seriously
“We hope she get’s better soon” Sirius called out as Remus opened the door again and left.
28th February
“"Guys, put your pyjamas on!" James exclaimed.
For Christmas James had all gotten them matching pyjamas and every now and again over the past two months he asked everyone to wear them.
Predictably, Sirius leapt across the room to change into them and so did Peter with the leaping part excluded. Remus himself then gathered up his pyjamas and he went to change in the bathroom like he always did, however to James' disappointment he came out wearing the set of clothes he usually wore to bed, not the matching ones
"Remus"
"James" He then looked at Remus expectantly. He then tutted to really make sure Remus got the signal
"No."
"Yes"
"Absolutely not"
"There's nothing wrong with them"
"I know"
"So?”
"I'm not matching with you. It's weird and I'm not a weird person." Remus laughed a little
"You're weird for not wanting to match with us"
"Goodnight James" Remus gave him a pointed look and climbed into his bed
"Wait"
"Nope" he shut the curtains
"Remus"
"Goodnight"
"Lupin"
"Bye bye now"
"Pretty please?"
“Shush”
“Have you ever even worn them?”
He had, just not around the other marauders. But he wasn’t going to tell James that.
“Goodnight James”
“Remus” this time it was Sirius who spoke
“Not you too”
“You’re breaking our hearts”
“Jesus christ”
“You’ll make Peter cry”
“Hey!”
“No I won’t”
“You’re killing him”
“No I’m not” Remus was now starting to get annoyed, and his voice had gotten a bit louder
“You’re killing me then”
“You’ll live”
“Out of bed Lupin come on now”
“I’m tired, goodnight” he bit back
“It’s nine!”
“I’m visiting my mum tomorrow”
“Doesn’t mean you have to go to bed early”
“For God’s sake” he sat up and flung the curtains open, looking angrily at Sirius “I’d really fucking appreciate it if you let me sleep” he then wrenched the curtains back again and lay back down
A few moments of stunned silence then James spoke “We’re sorry Lupin, Goodnight”
And the lights went out
It hadn’t even been Sirius who had apologised, it had been James who had left the conversation at the right time, Sirius had been the one to push it too far.
Remus was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t trying to be grumpy by not matching with them, he did think it was weird but if he was being honest he would have done it eventually, maybe as a present for James’ birthday in March. But then the light-hearted bickering had turned annoying and at the moment Remus simply didn’t have the patience to deal with annoying.
He opened his curtain by a slither to check the time. 1:00 am
Ugh. He needed to sleep.
And it didn’t help that someone had now gotten up and made his way over to his bed. Christ.
“Remus?” Sirius whispered “ You awake?”
He guessed there was nothing better to do
He sat up and opened his curtains “Yeah” he whispered back
Sirius looked like he was about to do something, almost as if he was going to sit down in Remus’ bed, but instead he spoke “I’m sorry”
“Did James tell you to say that?”
“Er.. yeah, but I do feel bad”
“Ok”
“I’m sorry, I know your worried about your mum”
Sirius looked at him wide-eyed and earnest, holding eye-contact for a second before Remus broke it off.
The room was quite dark, but Remus’ ability to see well in it meant he saw the sheer look of concern on the other boy’s face
“It’s ok” he nodded “And…”
He struggled to get the words out, he wasn’t always the best in situations like this.
“It’s ok” Sirius smiled, and the softness of it made Remus relax a bit
“I’m sorry for getting angry”
The other boy then shook his head “You don’t have to be sorry, you’ve got reason to be upset”
“Still” Remus shrugged and then smirked a little to try and show Sirius he was genuinely sorry “Tell James I’ll wear the pyjamas with you lot at some point”
“Good, his heart doesn’t need to be broken”
Remus nodded and then looked at Sirius awkwardly standing by his bed, a little bit bent over probably so that he could hear what Remus was saying
The other boy then fidgeted a bit uncomfortably before speaking
“When did she get sick?”
“Over christmas” That was a lie but he didn’t want to go into the subject
Sirius hesitated again “Is it ok if I ask what illness she has?”
He was about to be a bit rude, but Remus didn’t want to discuss it and he didn’t want to lie again either.
“None of your business, sorry”
Sirius fidgeted uncomfortably. Good, it was true anyway, it was none of his business. Remus might tell him if they were still friends in a few years, but for now that was sensitive information
“Is she really sick?”
“I guess”
“What about St Mungo’s? Can’t they fix her?”
Remus hesitated, he didn’t like Sirius’ questions but he let him ask them anyway “She’s a muggle”
“Oh”
“Problem?”
“No”
“Ok”
“What about the muggle version of St Mungo’s? Can’t they fix her?”
What Sirius didn’t understand was that not everything in the world was fixable, some things you just had to leave be and let happen, you had to find a way to be ok with it, move past it and let the broken thing sit broken in your life, even if it hurt.
“Maybe”
“Oh” Sirius said “Sorry for asking, I’ll let you sleep now”
He didn’t move for a good five seconds. He obviously wanted to ask something else, and Remus was curious so he called out in a loud whisper
“Sirius”
He came back over “Yeah?”
“What’s your question?”
“Not a question”
“Ok”
He stared at Remus, fidgeted a bit and then held the bottom of his shirt and pulled out a loose thread
This was taking painfully long.
“Sirius”
“Beginning of January”
“Ok”
“We saw your scars”
Oh. That’s what he wanted to talk about, an even more sensitive subject.
He didn’t reply he just let Sirius continue and Remus wasn’t quite sure why.
“I just wanted to say, you’re not alone”
“Huh?”
“In that department” he nodded a little “I’ve got some scars too”
“Oh”
He didn’t know how to reply to that
“You don’t need to say anything, just wanted to let you know you aren’t alone”
He then reached for Remus’ curtain, shut it and quietly made his way back to his own bed.
Remus wasn’t sure how he felt, so he just went to sleep.