Rage

October 31, 1971

Sirius gawked at the Hogwarts decorations. His family had never been through this much effort for a holiday. On Halloween, they made him sit through an awful family get-together, and lectured him on how a good Black heir should behave. He walked around the Great Hall, having to take it in piece by piece so his brain wouldn’t explode.

Flying up with the enchanted ceiling were live bats. Swooping and diving, adding to the wonder. There were huge orange and white pumpkins carved, twelve for each colour. Their expressions ranged from simple, to angry, to goofy. And some of them didn’t have faces, but witches sipping around on brooms, owls flapping their wings and hooting. And the most impressive in his opinion, a werewolf was carved on a white pumpkin. It paced back and forth, howling soundlessly. He watched it a while longer, then got his head back in the game. They had an epic prank planned for tonight. Remus and Romulus would gather all the bats in a swarm, and Peter, James, and he would direct them in a specific  way.

He waited for the signal. A shower of bright red sparks flew above him, and he readied his wand. Soon, the bats were in a tight knit group, and he concentrated hard. He muttered the spell under his breath, and the bats loomed into a new shape.

A giant mountain troll with a giant club ran across the ceiling, swinging its club a few feet above the students’ heads. Students and teachers screamed. Sirius observed with great amusement Snape and Mulciber dive for cover under the table as Bellatrix and Narssisa screamed. The troll threw back it ugly head and roared. Sirius had a surprise of his own when he heard the booming “ROAR!!” of the giant troll. He leapt back and looked around. James, Pete, and Remus looked as shocked as he, but Romulus had his head back, wand pointed into the air, and a huge grin on his face.

An hour later, they were in the dorm, bombarding Romulus with questions. He looked quite flustered with the attention, looking like he would much rather have James or Sirius to have the attention, but they wouldn’t let him off the hook.

It turned out that Romulus had only suggested the silent roar so he could surprise the rest of them with the ear-splitting shriek that had emitted from the bat-mountain troll. It worked, and he had been the butt of the joke for the first time. He didn’t know if he liked it, but he was so impressed with the bit of magic that he didn’t dwell on it too long. 

“You five boys are in so much trouble!” shrieked a voice from down the stairs. McGonagall. The door flung open a few seconds later, and the head of Gryffindor house marched in. “Where are the twins?” she snapped. Sirius looked around, bemused. James and Peter looked equally bewildered.

“What…?” Sirius whispered, spinning around to look around the dorm room.

“Professor, I swear they were just here,” James said, looking around as well.

“To the two idiot Welsh boys, COME BACK A FACE HER WITH US! WHERE IS YOUR GRYFFINDOR COURAGE! WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON-”

“Jesus Christ, you were supposed to go along with it!” Remus said exasperated, poking his head from the rafters of the dorm.

“How in merlins left, wrinkled, saggy-”  

“Sure you want to finish that sentence, Mr. Black?” McGonagall said behind him. He spun, he forgot that she was there.

“No ma’am,” he said, bowing his head. The twins jumped down from the ceiling, rolling their eyes as if all of this was below them. They brushed off their jeans, and turned to McGonagall.

“If you're going to punish us for a harmless prank-” Remus started.

“How would that prank be considered harmless, Mr. Lupin?” McGonagall cut him off as well.

“Oh, if it was intended to harm, you would know and wouldn’t need to ask that question,” Remus seemed to really like to watch the world burn, because if he had any sense, he would shut the fuck up.

McGonagall looked as if he had hit her. Remus smirked at her. She recovered from her shock, and was obviously trying to hide a smile. It was a smile of sheer disbelief of Remus’s audacity. 

“Okay then. Just for that comment, you get an extra day of detention. You will all serve a week of detentions, except for Remus, he will serve a week and one day, Mr. Filch will arrange them. Every night for a week, at 6:00.” And with that, she walked out.

November 3, 1971

Sirius's birthday was awesome. They played records in the common room. They planned future pranks. They laughed until their stomachs hurt. They smiled until their cheeks were sore. They wrestled. They ate snacks that Remus had snatched from the kitchen. They stayed up so late they got to see the sunrise. They played muggle card games, Hearts, Spades, Rummy, and a Welsh game the twins had taught called Whist. 

Remus managed to snag some Butterbeer from the kitchens, and Romulus had grabbed a muggle soda called Root Beer. It was so fizzy that if you drank too much too fast, tears would come to your eyes. Remus challenged James to a chug contest with the muggle beverage. Remus won by drinking a whole can in one go, while James only managed half. 

It was so great, that Sirius almost missed it. The twins had gone home again to cheek on their mum, and had put on an almost impenetrable mask to make everything seem fine. But Sirius could tell. They were exhausted, and they seemed sore. He asked Remus, and Sirius saw him try to push down anger that flared at any personal question. Remus really has improved, Sirius thought to himself, a few months ago, Remus would have thrown me through a wall for that question. 

Remus, after composing himself, said everything was fine, and the only reason why he was tired was because he only slept around people he trusted, and his father wasn’t one of the lucky ones. Sirius shrugged it off, believing him, and forgot about it. 

Around 5:00am, the girls went to bed, going up the stairs to the girls dorm. The party was calming down. With half the people gone, James and Romulus snoring on the couches, Peter off in some Peter-world-trance, and Remus staring at the fire, in some Remus-world-trance, Sirius was the only one fully awake, probably from all the sweets he had. 

“Hey, you awake?” he asked Remus. No reaction. “Heyyy,” he tried again, waving a hand in front of his face. Still no reaction. “Earth to Remus. No? Fine, but don’t freak out on me.” He grabbed Remus’s shoulder, and shook it hard. Remus jolted, coming out of his trance, and almost falling in the fire. Sirius caught him, and laughed at the startled expression on Remus’s face. “Sorry, you were off in some other world there. Had to bring you back to Earth.”

Remus, still looking bemused, blinked, and looked at the hand that was still on his shoulder, seeming to just notice it. Sirius pulled away, blushing furiously. He blinked rapidly, and looked away.

“Sorry,” Remus’s voice startled him. Not by the sudden sound, but the way it sounded. It sounded of pure exhaustion, sadness, and something else. Sirius wasn’t startled about what was in it though, it was what was missing. There was no mischievous edge, no defiance, no teasing tone. It was empty, defeated. Sirius glanced up.

“You alright?”

“Yeah. Sorry for not talking. I-I was just thinking about… doesn’t matter. I just guess that I should, y’know, pay a bit more attention to you. ‘S your birthday, after all,” he said. He sounded genuinely sorry about it. Sirius blinked. Remus had done nothing but talk and listen to music and play with him all day. What was he talking about?

“N-no, Remus, don’t even. You’re obviously exhausted, and you have done nothing but pay attention to me. Today was the best day of my life. The party was thinning out anyway. It’s fine. More than fine, it’s great. Now come on, let's leave James and Rom down here, and get Peter from the different planet he’s on, and go to bed.”

_

November 7, 1971

Detention was horrible, and Remus pledged that he would make the teachers lifes a living hell for the rest of all seven years of school, and they would know that Remus was the one making them miserable, but they wouldn’t be able to punish him because they would have no solid proof. They would just be like ‘oh, shit, it’s that Remus, but we can’t do anything because we were to stupid to catch him at it, so we can’t punish him’ and Remus would be like ‘wow, you guys are dumb, but I’m to smart for your sorry arses so suck a dick.’

He was incredibly mature about this whole situation. 

It wasn’t too bad. He had his detention with James, who would crack jokes that were so un-funny that they were kind of funny. He had just said the worst dad-joke that Remus had ever heard ‘what do you call two Quidditch players who share a dorm? Broom-mates!’ when Filch walked in.

“What are you two hooligans doing? Done polishing trophies, I see. Well, as much as I would love to hang you in the dungeons by your pinkie toes, it looks as if your detention is served. Lupin, your last detention will be tomorrow at 6:00, shovelling out Hagrid's hippogriff enclosure,” he said this with an evil smirk, looking at Remus as though he was prey. “No wands, of course.” Remus cursed under his breath, and the lights in the trophy room flickered.

They stepped outside to find the other three waiting. 

“We saw the room flicker. What's wrong?” Peter asked tentatively. Normally, Remus would snap at him, tell him it was none of his business. He hated people knowing things about him, he hated pity. But he begged for control, closing his eyes, trying to calm down. It’s not Pete’s fault you had a shite day. Calm down, and answer. 

“Filch gave me a shite detention for my last. Cleaning the hippogriff pen. Fucking ass,” he breathed. He needed the room. He had gotten good at knife throwing. Being able to hit the red spot on the target nine times out of ten. He had even started to use moving targets. 

He really had had a shite day. In transfiguration a Ravenclaw named Gildory Lockhart had ran his mouth about just how great and intelligent and how useful he was without actually doing anything, and he had commented on how Remus’s feather still had the colour of the steel thimble when he had an unchanged thimble on his desk, and Remus had to restrain from breaking the kid’s skull.

Then he laughed at the angry red of his cheeks and his tense muscles as signs of embarrassment, and Remus made the thimble fly up Lockharts nose in anger without even waving his hand. Even though there was no proof that Remus had done this, McGonagall still took ten points from Gryffindor for making the thimble go into Lockhart’s nasal cavity. 

In his least favourite class, herbology, he had nearly been strangled by one of the plants that Snape had one of his older friends plant at Remus’s table, but Professor Sprout had said that it was his fault for not paying attention to the plant he was walking towards. Since he was still angry about transfiguration and his newly bruised windpipe, he had said, “Oh, silly me. I should always just expect to be strangled in a first-year greenhouse because this schools security is just top of the fucking line.” He got ten more points taken away. Five for his attitude, and five for his profanity. 

Next was his favourite class, Defence Against the Dark Arts, taught by Professor Adlar, who, in Remus’s opinion, was white hot in the looks department and plenty of people thought so as well. On his way in, a Hufflepuff had tripped on his way in and had knocked his things from his hands, spilling ink all over his books and notes. He just stood there for a moment. He had been paying attention to where he was walking, and the Hufflepuff had run into him from behind. He turned to face the boy. Eddie Park, he remembered. Park was white with fear as Remus turned to look at him. He knew how he looked. Completely blank expression, all muscles slack, somehow more terrifying than an easily read expression. He had darted forward so fast that half the people that were watching didn’t see it. He grabbed the inkwell from the scared boy, and smashed it on his head. Black ink dripped down the boy's face, as well as his and Remus’s blood from the glass shards. He had been sent to McGonagall’s for that one.

In his last class of the day, another one he hated but was oddly good at it, potions. It was with the Slytherins, and Remus and Romulus just had to sit at a table next to Snape’s group with Lily. He had been sneering at Remus the entire time, and it was starting to get to his nerves. They were working on a quick growth potion, and they were adding the scarab beetles. He got an idea. Moonstones would make an explosion…

He did it. He lost ten more house points. 

Now he was in a corridor with his brother and the people he shared a dorm with. He had almost thought of them as friends, but no. Friends were dangerous, he should know… 

He said goodbye to the others, they met him with puzzled faces, and he ran down the hall, carefully using all of his senses to see without seeing the teachers and that blasted cat coming towards him. He was at the seventh floor corridor, with the painting of the trolls learning to dance. He thought and paced, and almost ran through the door to get to the room. It was the same. It was always the same, but Remus felt a wash of relief when he stepped over to the wall of knives, grabbed five, and hurled them in rapid succession, not caring about accuracy. 

Five satisfactory thunks later, and Remus already felt better. There was something else, too. He couldn’t stop thinking about Sirius’s birthday. You’re obviously exhausted, and you have done nothing but pay attention to me. Today was the best day of my life. The party was thinning out anyway. It’s fine. More than fine, it’s great.

He knew he had no right. No right at all. But he couldn’t help it. In a perfect world, you would have been able to choose the people you fell for. Could choose to be normal, like all the other kids. This was no such world.