Chapter 1
Remus pulled at the stiff collar of his new, white shirt uncomfortably, trying to adjust it in a way that would somewhat cover the large, raised scar running up the side of his neck. He had even grown his curly mop of hair out into a longer style than he would usually wear, in an attempt to cover it up. Though, the sides did remain shaved in his preferred shaggy mullet style. Remus sighed as he took in his appearance of second-hand grey slacks, white collared shirt and wanky, navy blue blazer, “Great, I’ll fit right in”, he grimaced. Yanking his heavy schoolbag from the ground up onto his slouched shoulders, Remus called out to his mum that he was leaving and started off on his trek to Saint Gerard Grammar School.
He wasn’t exactly jazzed to be starting at a new high school at the beginning of term two. Remus knew that transferring to a new school would be tough as it is, let alone getting there halfway through the first semester with some huge, ugly scars on his face to accompany him. There were sure to be heaps of questions that he frankly didn’t want to answer. It was his business and he was only going to this rich-kid school rather than another government one because of how pleased his mum was when he was offered the full-scholarship, and for how close it would be to Lily. It was also a nice thought that he could take at least a little stress off his mum's back if she wasn't needing to worry about paying school fees.
Shoving his headphones into his ears and blasting Skegss on full volume, Remus waited impatiently at the stop for his bus to arrive, anxiously moving from foot to foot. It certainly wouldn’t help his ‘smooth start’ if he was late on the first day. Finally, the bus pulled up to a screeching stop and Remus hopped on, tapping his myki on and settling into a seat next to middle-aged woman with a bad dye job. Nodding his head at her in greeting, he turned away to stare at his phone and message his best mate Lily.
Lily Evans and Remus Lupin had been best friends all their life. They had gone to primary school together and had lived around the corner from one another since they were in nappies. But, at the end of year 8, Lily got offered a scholarship at this swanky all-girls school and had to move away so she could be closer to it. They kept in touch though, texting all the time and face-timing pretty much every day to fill the space between them. Despite the distance, Lils was really there for Remus when everything went down last year. She took a train and a bus to his house most days after school just to keep him entertained while he lay in bed with healing wounds that stung if he smiled or laughed too much. It was safe to say that their friendship was strong, and they both couldn’t have been more chuffed when Remus was offered a scholarship that happened to be the neighbouring school to hers.
[flower power]
7:34am
lupus: oi
lilyflower: hey love u on the bus yet
lupus: yeah cant wait to see u
lilyflower: ill meet you out the front of st gerrys yeah?
lupus: yes! sounds good xoxoxoxo
lilyflower: xoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoox
Remus laughed slightly at lily’s affections and glanced over to see the woman next to him smiling knowingly at him. “Ahh young love I remember sweetie” she said pointedly with a wink.
Raising his eyebrows at the woman who had clearly been reading his texts over his shoulder, Remus replied, “Oh yeah she’s a keeper”, with a wink of his own. Luckily, he was able to avoid the rest of that no doubt uncomfortable conversation, when his bus arrived at the train station and Remus waved goodbye to the lady as he hopped off the bus. It had been running late so he was going to need to run if he was gonna make the 7:40am train and be early enough for his orientation. As he sprinted through the station, Remus took notice of a couple other boys that shared the same uniform as he did, but he didn’t get a good enough look to commit any faces to memory before he was running off. His schoolbag shifted from shoulder to shoulder as he ran carefully down the steps to platform 3. Remus sighed in relief when he was able to catch the doors before, they closed completely and sank down into a soft seat. Closing his eyes and taking a moment to catch his breath, Remus didn’t take notice of another boy sitting right in front of him until he cleared his throat in amusement and startled Remus out of his calm.
“Oh fuc- jesus christ give a guy some warning yeah?” Remus exclaimed as he ran his fingers through his tawny hair, trying to flatten it down after it had gone wild in his attempt to get on the train in time. The other boy merely smirked at him and looked back down at his phone, giving Remus a chance to fully take him in. And shit was he gorgeous. The boy has this wavy, longish hair that sat tucked behind his ears and it was a jet-black colour that went so damn nicely with his olive toned skin. And those eyes, fuck it should have been illegal for them to be that shade of grey. As Remus’ eyes made their way over the rest of the boy’s face, he was greeted yet again with a smirk and quickly looked away at the realisation that he had been caught staring.
Fucking hell Remus, you see one attractive guy and nearly ruin your whole straight boy persona by ogling at him before you’ve even started at the fucking school. Get your shit together.
“Oi”, the other boy questioned, and Remus slowly turned from where he was facing the window, fully prepared to get a slur thrown at him when the boy asked, “Are you new at Saint Gerry’s? You’re in the uniform but I swear I’ve never seen you before.”
Remus nodded at him, secretly relieved, “Yeah, its my first day today.”
The boy nodded slowly as if processing the information before he tilted his head at Remus and said, “I’m Sirius.” At Remus’ confused look as to what the fuck is he serious about? the boy spoke again, “My name is Sirius, Sirius Black. Shit name I know,” He laughed at what must be a very common misconception about his name.
“Oh, right well its not heaps worse than Remus Lupin” Remus smiled at him, understanding how shit it is to have a stupid name picked out for you by parents who clearly didn’t realise the emotional turmoil their children would have to go through every time they introduced themselves. They smiled at each other for a moment before Remus cleared his throat and asked, “So what year are you at Saint Gerard’s?”
“Year 10, you?”, Sirius asked.
“Yeah right, same.”
An awkward silence filled the space and Sirius looked like he was about to say something when their train arrived at its stop. “Right, well see you around then mate.” Remus said as he ran a hand through his curls and walked towards where he could see a red blob of hair in the distance, frantically waving at him.