Chapter 6
Remus was on edge, we could all sense it really, he’d been like this for the last few days but now it seemed worse.
All through dinner he kept tapping his finger on the table, pale faced and nervous. He kept glancing up at the large clock, and dutifully ignored the plate of food James had practically forced in front of him.
They had met me here after their detention hours, (two days in and seemingly unfinished) and in the ten minutes of sitting here, Lupin had already berated all three of us in an array of curse words and halfhearted insults.
James and Sirius, therefore, had given up on worrying for him and had moved on to trying to work out how many more days their detention would take them.
Both of their plates had been pushed to the side, and a scroll of paper and a bottle of ink sat beside them as they multi-tasked between eating their mashed potato and using their incredibly bad maths skills.
“No” Sirius said again, scribbling out what James had just written, getting ink on the table.
“What do you mean no?”
“Listen, there's no way it’s going to take us that long. See if we carry the three-”
“Why are we carrying any 3’s? You're just trying to show off! There are two of us. It takes us 3 hours to do like… lets say 15 cages yeah? There are… I dunno… 60 odd cages? We’ve been doing it for two days so there will only be two days left, yeah?”
“You're being too certain! We only managed 10 cages today!”
“Yeah but we did 20 yesterday!”
“That's only because we did the easy ones!”
I watched them bicker silently, picking around at my food with a fork, eventually Remus stood up.
“I'm going to the hospital wing,” he said curtly.
James turned to him, giving him a smile, “Probably for the best Lupin, you really dont look good”
“See you later Remus…” I said, but he walked away before I could finish.
James sighed dramatically, putting his head in his arms, “If only a pretty ginger muggleborn who was very smart and was probably taught maths as a child would help us work this out” he said loudly, making eyes at Evans who was sitting with Mary besides us, (clearly to Evans annoyance).
She turned to us, eyebrows raised, “Potter if this is your new tactic of trying to annoy me, you can stick it right up your arse.”
James did his ‘Evans’ laugh (as Sirius called it) and gave her a James-worthy smile. “Oh Evans i would never try to annoy you”
Before Lily could retort though, Mary cut in. She waved her knife in James’ direction with mock-menace.
“Ya rap-scallion, if ya try to annoy my dear friend again i shall have ta eat-cha for tea!”
“Aha! An opponent!”
James hoisted his fork and they began to have a sword fight before Lily grabbed the cutlery from their hands.
“This is ridiculous! I'm going to the common room”
She stood up and walked away, fists clenched.
Sirius raised an eyebrow, “Poor dear, better go cheer her up miss pirate”
Mary saluted him with a wink, “Will do captain”, then as if on a second thought, she turned to me ”See ya Pete”
I waved at her awkwardly, “Bye Mary, see you in Herbology!”
She rushed after her quickly disappearing friend, and I watched her go.
Mary had begun to sit with me in the library after school, and it was nice. She reminded me of James, a bigger than life type of person.
She filled up every room she was in, and it amazed me everytime she chose to sit with me after school. Me. She was pretty enough to have all the friends she desired, yet she sat with me.
James and Sirius were still arguing about maths on our way to the common room, so I changed the subject back to Remus (i was even worse at maths than they were). “I hope Lupin is ok though, he really did look poorly.”
Sirius shrugged, flicking his perfect hair out of his face, “Yeah, probably he’ll be fine though, i bet you we’ll see him tomorrow and he’ll be laughing about it”
We didn't see him the next morning though, or at breakfast.
In fact we didn't see him until last period, when he walked into transfiguration 40 minutes late and was still looking hellish.
He didn't speak to us, he refused to even look at us.
When we were released from lessons he rushed off before we could catch up to him.
Mary walked to the library with me, after I had said goodbye to the other two.
“Is Remus ok?”
I shrugged, “I don't know, i hope so”
“His knuckles were all ripped up, did you notice? Like he had been punching something?”
“No… i didn't”
“God he's so complicated, i don't know how you put up with him”
“He's really nice, just doesnt open up much..”
She snorted “Yeah i can see that”
It was like he had reset back to how he was before my birthday, cold and silent, like he didn't want to get too near to us, like we were dangerous or something.
I had hoped he would be ok again after that evening, but he wasn't, he continued his charade for the next couple days, until finally the three of us cornered him in the common room.
It was late, but we had stayed up waiting for him. James had become more and more on edge as the hours ticked away, until finally when Remus did show, he had cracked.
We were sitting towards the back of the common room, besides the portrait hole, and when he entered we all stood.
He took one look at us and turned around, exiting the common room again.
“Shit” James hissed, rushing after him. Me and Sirius glanced at each other, James had never sworn before.
The two of us exited the portrait seconds after James, who was shouting Remus’ name.
“IMPEDIMENTA”
Remus slowed instantly, and Sirius raised his eyebrows, “Where In Merlin's tits did he learn that?”
“Probably his dad” i responded
Sirius whistled, impressed, and we joined James standing in front of the slow-motion Remus.
James had a fire in his eyes I had never seen before.
“What is wrong with you Lupin? Avoiding us like we’re bloody monsters or something?! We’re your friends and you bloody well better start acknowledging that instead of pulling something like this. Ok? Got it?”
Remus was still, then started nodding, very very slowly.
“Good God” Sirius muttered, “James un-slow him yeah?”
James waved his wand and muttered something, and Remus stumbled forwards into him.
“What the hell?!” Remus snapped, “Why would you do that?!”
“If you pull that act on the three of us again I swear to Merlin I will do worse.”
Remus didn't say anything, just scrunched up his eyes.
“Remus, why were you avoiding us?” I asked.
“I-”
“Tell us inside the common room, I think I can see Filch's ugly little cat coming towards us.” Sirius interrupted.
No-one wanted to have an encounter with Filch or his cat, so we trooped inside the common room and sat back down in the far corner.
“Muffliato…. So why are you being such a dickhead eh Lupin?” Sirius asked, flicking his hair nonchalantly.
Remus’ eyebrows were raised “What did you just do?”
“What do you mean”
“With the spell? What did that do?”
“Oh that old thing… silencing spell y’know? Didn't think you’d want the whole common room hearing you whine like a baby”
James wacked him in the stomach “Black”
“Merlin Ok, sorry, sorry! I really was worried too though Lupin, remember, you’re one of us now? No backsies, the pact has been made!”
“Shush Sirius, let Remus speak” I said, giving Remus my full attention, with a supportive smile.
That’s just what I did, give supporting smiles.
Perhaps that was all I would ever do.
Remus didn't actually tell us anything of importance, just that we were better off without him or something, and he seemed to be telling the truth, from what I could see.
I doubted him though, because there was something else, something deep down that he couldn't bear to think about.
September disappeared with the warmth, and Halloween was fast approaching. I had never known about Halloween until the Potters, and even then it had been as underwhelming as eating pumpkin pie and giving sweets to the muggle children who showed up at their doorstep.
As the holiday approached though, James and Sirius seemed to be planning something, together all the time except for the short interruption where Remus reverted back into his cold self for a few days and disappeared into the hospital wing for long hours before James could pull him out of his miserable state.
The two of them would spend a lot of time in the library too (but leaving as soon as me and Mary entered) though they didn't actually look at books rather old reports and documents.
One day, the afternoon before the fateful holiday, I entered the library with more companions than usual, and exceptionally happy (it was a friday, i loved fridays).
Mary was with me, of course. Remus had tagged along, out of his state of illness and ‘too tired to explore the castle’. Lily Evans had also decided to come, much to our surprise, and I found she was far nicer when both Snape and James were far away from her.
As we walked into the library, we saw James and Sirius leaving, they waved at us, causing Lily to raise her eyebrows.
“No snide comments from those two then. Feeling ill are they?” she said as we sat by our table, the one by the window.
Mary tittered and shook her head, “Oh leave them be Lily, they’re better than Snape for God's sake”
“leave Severus out of this Mary.”
Mary gave me a look of frustration and I shrugged.
Remus had his head in his hands and was looking thoughtfully out the dark window at the new moon. “I think James and Sirius are planning something”
I pulled out my homework as we spoke, the two girls copying.
“You dont say,” I muttered.
Lily checked over her charms homework assignment, “No homework Remus?”
“Did it all already”
Mary looked taken aback “We were only set it this morning!”
He shrugged, “Yeah, i did it at lunch”
“It's true he did,” I said “and he let me copy” I fanned my copied homework in front of Mary and she stuck out her tongue.
“Cheater”
I sniffed, putting it on the table to check over, “I am no cheater Mary Macdonald, i am simply smart enough to know i’ll get a higher mark if i copy off my very own nerd”
“I am not a nerd”
Mary smiled coily, “Remus you are the definition of a nerd”
“Bla bla bla blocking you out”
After a few moments of silence Mary cleared her throat, she hadn't started her homework, but was instead glancing between Remus and my copied homework.
Remus didn't respond, so she did it again, louder this time.
And again
And again-
“Oh for God's sake Mary, fine you can copy my homework, Jesus you just had to ask!”
She mock-bowed at him “Oh thank you great lord of homework what do i owe you for the honour of copying your charms homework”
“Lord of Homework??!”
“just go with it Lupin”
“Oh sorry… Um, i um” he straightened and did his best impression of a king, whilst Lily stifled a laugh behind her hand. “I-um- I demand, er… Three chocolate frogs!”
“Only got one”
Remus blushed and shook his head, “No-i- No Mary i didnt- You put me on the spot!”
She laughed and threw him a chocolate frog, and he smiled gratefully.
He opened the box and quickly bit down on the chocolate, before looking at the card. “Oooooh I got Dumbledore! Mum hasnt got this one yet!”
“Why are you sending it to your Mum?” Lily asked, looking at the card over his shoulder.
“My Mum really likes them, thinks they’re cool and stuff, she's a muggle y’know so she can't get them herself”
He tucked it into his pocket and I couldn't help but smile, because that was all I wanted, a Mother I knew so well I could send home things like chocolate frog cards without worrying whether she’d like them or not or if she’d hate me for even giving them to her.
I hated Mother for making me feel like that.
That evening I walked back to the common room with the three of them, and I felt happy, truly happy. I wondered how I had ever survived before Hogwarts, sitting around alone, waiting for Pandora or James or anyone really to fill the horrible loneliness I felt.
I knew now why Pandora adored Hogwarts, and could never bear to return home, and I understood her for that.
How could I ever go back now?
At breakfast the next morning Sirius and James were grinning like idiots.
“I know you two are planning something” Remus said as soon as we sat down.
James’ smile miraculously got larger, “planning something? Now where did you get that from”
Remus pointed his toast at them “Look, i'm all in but, if i get detention again, you two are six feet under got it?”
Sirius smirked at him “Oh Lupin, we’d never ever get you detention”
“Oh no…” I mumbled, and Sirius laughed.
Halloween was surprisingly boring, spent under our tree waiting for whatever Sirius and James were planning.
I was wearing my hat and winter coat already, and was watching my breath cloud out and pretended to smoke a cigar or be a train or both at the same time.
Eventually, when the grey sky began shifting to pink, Jame stood up.
It was curfew, so I didn't think much about it until we began walking in the opposite way to the castle, along the shore of the black lake.
Remus groaned, “Here we go, we’re definitely going to get detention.”
Our destination was on the far side of the lake, a place that no-one ever went to, where a clump of trees hung over the old, crumbled abandoned ex-owlery.
The archway had writing all over, people who had also made their mark.
James turned on the three of us, framed by the entrance.
“Gentleman” he announced, “Today you join me past curfew in a completely abandoned place, only used by marauders like us. I managed to persuade Prewett to give me her brother's address, and when I wrote to them, they told me about this place. So without further adieu: Welcome to the homes of mischief makers!”
Remus shook his head, “What exactly are we doing here?”
Sirius joined James, grinning, “we, Remus Lupin, are making our pact! No secrets, or fears or worries between us, we are a pack, we are blood brothers!”
James elbowed Sirius “Save it for the actual bloody thing Black”
We followed them inside, and climbed the winding stairs that led up all the way to the top. It sat just at the tree line, so we could see the castle far off in the distance, and the stars appearing above our heads.
The moon was hidden in darkness, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.
There was a clump of wood in the centre, stacked like a campfire.
“Incendio!” James cast, and it burst into bright flames.
Sirius branded an intricate knife, “A BLOOD BOND, BROTHERS! LIKE THE MUGGLES DO!”
“This is insane” Remus whispered to me, but I could see the grin on his face, the excitement and chaos that I knew was reflecting on my own.
It was just that type of night, we stripped off coats and hats and mittens until we stood shivering in shirts, with only the fire, grinning like maniacs.
Sirius raised his hand above the flame and quickly cut through the skin on his palm without wincing, “TO BROTHERHOOD” he shouted as the fire hissed as the blood hit it.
TO BROTHERHOOD we shouted back
James was passed the knife, he cut and shouted “TO MISCHIEF”
TO MISCHIEF
To Remus, “TO MAGIC”
TO MAGIC
I took the knife, and suddenly I felt nervous. OH MERLIN what was i doing?
My hands trembled and i cut,
“TO THE MARAUDERS”
And my ears filled with roars.
Mary raised her eyebrow at me the next morning when she saw our matching bandages James had wrapped around our hands when we had got back to the dorm room.
I only grinned at her.
I knew now that I never had to worry about being loved again, because I had three people who had willingly merged their blood with mine (sort of), that feeling was the best I had ever had, perfect.
I had thought that coming to Hogwarts would mean that I would be able to see Pandora more often, as I had wished to do so for so long.
However I found I barely even saw her, sure in the hallways I would wave to her and she would give me that beautiful, big, beaming smile of hers, but other than that I didn't speak to her.
I suppose she didn't exactly approve of the people I had chosen to be friends with, but I still felt sad, not spending time with her.
That was my new life, wishing for my sisters love but hating to be away from my friends for too long, because they made Hogwarts home, and when summer or Christmas came i wondered how i would cope with only James, because the marauders had carved a 3 people sized hole in my heart, and without two of them, it would feel completely empty.