Book annotations
“Damn, leave me alone, will you mate?”, Remus complained, as he snuggled up into his warm bed. However, James didn’t quite listened, as he pulled the covers from Remus body, revealing a few scars here and there, but ist not like his roommates didn’t know about those. They were the marauders after all. They were his friends.
“Get up, breakfast is over already. You don’t wanna be late on the first day of school, do you?”
Instead of responding, Remus mumbled some weird noises as he sat up straighter, rubbing the sleep from his eyes while trying to remember the dream he had. But as soon as the memories came back he realised that it might be better to not think about it . His dreams usually weren’t good.
It was Remus fifth year at Hogwarts, but still, a warm and fuzzy feeling spread in his chest as he got up, put on the uniform and made his way downstairs to the common room, where the other marauders were already waiting for him.
While Peter looked the exact same as last year, round puffed cheeks, dirty blonde hair and big eyes, Sirius definitely has gotten more mature over the summer. His hair was longer, almost reaching his collar bones and his facial features became sharper as time passed. However, it was like something was missing.
Remus wondered if he too had changed over the summer.
He certainly grew a few inches, but he didn’t think anything else was particularly different after these few weeks. His hair was the same, no new scars on his face or neck, not even on his hands. He kinda liked that, it meant there was less explaining to do to his friends. The ones who didn’t knew about his condition.
Later that day, after the sorting ceremony, Remus took a seat in his first class, Transifugartion. He didn’t quite like this subject, but Sirius was sitting to his right and Lilly and James were right behind them, which made it bearable.
“Morning Class”, Professor Mcgonnagal announced as she entered the room, hair in a sleek bun and robes as neatly as always. “I hope you had a great summer. This year, we’ll focus on colour change charms, switching spells and transforming spells. I expect all of you brought their textbooks. Open them on page 76.”
The whole classroom sighed in union, frustrated at the fact that they started with something seemingly difficult right away, but Remus didn’t mind. He spend most of his summer revising school stuff and reading a few of the muggle books Sirius had recommended. He then would annotate all of the pages and send the packages to him. Along with it, a short letter that talked about his opinion on the books. Speaking of which, he never replied, not once.
“Eh, Remus? You don’t mind sharing a book, right?” I kinda forgot to bring mine.”
Remus looked at his friend in disbelief, trying to hide the smile that was tugging at his lips.
“You didn’t even bought it yet, did you?”, he whispered.
“No”, Sirius answered hasrshly, while Remus pulled the textbook out of his bag and flicked open the book. “I was…busy.”
“Busy with not replying to any of my letters?”, Remus mumbled.
“Yeah, about that-”, Sirius began, until Mcgonnagall interrupted him with a stern face.
“Mr. Black, silence.” She then went on and talked about a weird kind of spell that made it possible to turn Silver into regular iron, but Remus knew about that already, of course.
Sirius nudged him with his shoulder after a few more minutes. Remus decided to tease him, not moving an inch.
Now Sirius was tapping his knee under the table.
“Moony”, he mumbled, when Remus noticed the piece of paper that suddenly laid in front of him. On it, Sirius neatly handwriting:
I’ll explain later, got a surprise for you
It better be a good suprise, Remus replied, using one of the nasty pencils shattered around in his bag.
Filled with curiosity, Remus felt like his classes went by pretty quickly after that. Even Potions which they must have with The Slytherins.
“How was your summer, Remus?”, Peter asked, when they were finally having lunch.
“Nothing exciting”, he replied, which was true. “I did some research on…y’know.. and asked my family about some things.”
“About what?”, Peter asked. Sometimes Remus couldn’t tell if he was dumb or just pretended to be. James, who was sitting next to him, grabbed his shoulder and shook him a bit.
“You know Pete, the thing.”
“We’re you guys planning some prank without me again?”, he exclaimed and Remus couldn’t believe he had to be so precise:
“God no, the animal sort of thing?”
Finally, it seemed like a switch was turned inside of Peters head. “Ohhhh! You mean the animag-” Gladly, James was able to slap his neck, before Peter was able to spill any secrets at the Gryffindor table.
“Shut it, will you?”, Remus sighed while taking a bite of his sandwich. “But did you at least think about the animal you’d choose?” Trying to talk about their plan to become illegal animagus as discreetly as possible made the whole thing seem kind of ridiculous.
“I did!”, James announced proudly, a bright smile flashing across the big eyes behind his glasses. Peter and Remus starred at him full of expectations, while Sirius played with the tomato’s on his plate. “I’ll be a stag!”
Remus and Peter looked at each other with the same confused expression.
Peter was the first one to speak up: “Why would you wanna be a deer?”
“Not a deer, a stag.”
“That’s stupid”, Remus said, a smile forming on his lips. “You wouldn’t even be able to transform in the school, how would that be useful?”
“We’re not doing this to transform in school, we want to help you!”
With that his smile grew even wider. “That’s kind, mate.”
“I thought I might choose a rat”, Peter muffled through a few layers of vanilla pudding.
Remus looked even more confused now and James spilled some of the water he was drinking on his shirt.
“A Rat? Why the hell would you wanna be a rat?”, Remus laughed so loud that James reminded him to shut up with a kick under the table.
“No, really! It’s smart! Rats can sneak into places no one else can and wouldn’t raise suspiciousness either.”
“Fair point,” James admitted, though he still looked amused.
“And you, Sirius?” Remus asked, turning to his unusually quiet friend. Sirius hesitated, shaking his leg nervously.
“Something simple, I guess” he muttered. James shot him a knowing smile but didn’t press further.
“That’s good, we can’t have you walking around as a Zebra, can we?”
“Probably not.” Sirius grin was forced.
That evening, after all the marauders went to sleep, Remus decided to confront Sirius. When he pulled back Sirius’s bed curtains, he was startled to find his friend sitting upright, his face pale and his eyes red-rimmed.
“Fuck off!”, Sirius snapped, throwing a pillow at Remus, before wiping away the tears on his cheeks. Remus only now noticed the silencing spell that Sirius had put around his bed.
“No I won’t! What’s going on with you?!”
“That’s none of your business, Lupin!”
“Well, you promised to explain!”, Remus said. “So?”
Sirius seemingly struggled to say something.
“How bad is it?”
“Not that bad. I’m fine.”
“No you’re not. You barely ate anything today.”
“I don’t need a fucking diet coach.” Sirius glanced at his friend, not willing to open up. “You won’t leave until I tell you will you?”
Remus just shrugged his shoulders.
Sirius hesitated before sighing. “Fine. But you can’t tell anyone—not even James or Peter.”
“Of course not.”
Sirius gestured for Remus to sit down, then took a deep breath. “Mum and Dad made Reg take Veritaserum. They asked him if I’d done anything against their rules last year.”
“And… did you?” Sirius snorted bitterly.
“Obviously. Reg spilled everything, and when they found out I kissed Mary, they went ballistic.” Remus winced. Mary was muggle-born. “They locked me in my room all summer.”
“God, that’s awful. Anything else?”
“Forbid me to receive any packages or letters. I fear mum all burned them. You didn’t send me anything important, did you?”
“Uh, no.” Just the books he spent hours annotating. It was fine though, he’d just do it again. “Well, now you’re here again, aren’t you?”, Remus said, doing his best to cheer him up, but obviously failing miserably. “Sorry, that’s stupid, I know just-”
“It’s fine. I know you just want to help.” They sat in silence for a few moments. “Sorry for snapping.”
“It’s alright.” He in fact didn’t mind that much. Somehow, Sirius had special privileges when it came to being mean to him.
“Do you still want that surprise?” A grin spread across Remus’s face.
“Show me!”
Sirius reached into his drawer and pulled out a silver bracelet. “Found this in the attic. It’s got a moon on it—I thought it fit.” Remus stared at it, smiling to himself as he assumed that he didnt bring anything for James or Peter.
“It’s not real silver, is it?”
“Course not, I transfigured it.”
“Thank you, Sirius” he murmured.
“Don’t mention it,” Sirius replied, a small smile breaking through his somber expression. “I got one two, see?”, he added, pulling his sleeve. Underneath appeared another bracelet, a star charm dangling from it. “Kinda like those stupid friendship bracelets. Like girls do.”
Remus agreed. “Yes, I guess you’re right.” Like girls do. He then twirled the bracelet between his fingers, feeling the smooth metal against his skin. “You’re an idiot”, he muttered, voice softer than he intended.
Sirius smirked, stretching out in his bed, arms behind his head. “I’ve been told, yeah.”
Remus rolled his eyes but slipped the bracelet onto his wrist anyway. It was still warm from Sirius hands, or maybe it was just in his imagination.
For a moment, there was a silence, a weight between them that neither was quite ready to name. Then, Sirius let out a dramatic sigh, breaking whatever strange tension had settled in the air.
“Alright Moony. Get out of my bed before people start talking.”
Remus scoffed but stood up, stretching. “They already talk.” Not precisely about him and Sirius though.
Sirius barked out a laugh, one that sounded almost real. “Touché.”
Remus then turned to go, but hesitated. “You know”, he started, “if it gets bad again…you can tell me. Or James or Peter. You don’t have to go through any of it alone.”
Sirius smirk faltered, and for a second, he looked younger, like the boy he got to know in the first year. The one whose parents weren’t going nuts. He didn’t reply immediately, but when he did, it was barely above a whisper.
“Yeah, I know.”
Remus nodded once, as if sealing an unspoken promise, before slipping past the bed curtains and back into the dimly lit dormitory.