In the Wrong House, chapter 5
Dec. 5th, 2011 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarIN THE WRONG HOUSE (chapter 5)
Summary:
Sirius Black, Remus thought, was just as arrogant and annoying as James Potter, and he wished the two of them would stop getting into fights. Because Remus kept finding himself stepping in to stop them, and calling that kind of attention to himself was really the last thing he needed during his first year at Hogwarts.
It didn't matter if they were unpredictable Blacks or show-off Potters, or even someone harmless like Peter Pettigrew. None of these boys could be his friends, and it was time Remus started remembering it.
He didn't mind, Remus told himself. He didn't need friends.
Characters: Remus, James, Sirius, Peter and supporting cast
Warnings: None
Chapters: 7 + epilogue
Story:
CHAPTER FIVE
"So what d'you think? Why did the Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor?" Peter asked Sirius one evening in the common room.
Remus, still shivery and weak after a full moon the night before, was curled up nearby in an armchair with a blanket and his Potions textbook, and the usual feeling that no one quite saw him.
Sirius and Peter had managed to score the seats closest to the fireplace, though this stroke of luck was mostly thanks to the fact that the upper years hadn't yet returned from a Hogsmeade visit.
Sirius was poking lazily at the logs behind the grate, using his wand to levitate the poker. He looked bored and only shrugged in response to Peter's question.
"I mean…" Peter continued. "Everybody thinks I should have been in Hufflepuff. They say it all the time. And my whole family were in Hufflepuff. The ones who weren't in Slytherin, at least."
Sirius looked up at that. "You had family in Slytherin?"
"It doesn't have to be a bad thing," Peter countered. "I'd rather be in Slytherin than Hufflepuff. It just means you're clever and you know what you want. And Hufflepuff, well, that means you're…dull."
Sirius actually seemed to consider that. "I s'pose so."
"But I don't know why Gryffindor," Peter sighed. "I'm not brave. I'm never gonna be a hero or something. And that's the main Gryffindor thing, isn't it."
"Ah, you'll surprise us yet," Sirius replied. It was an offhand comment, but Peter seemed mollified.
"What about you?" Peter pressed. "You must wonder why you ended up in a different House from all your family."
Sirius scowled. Remus knew he'd had another run-in with his family – in the person of Lucius Malfoy, who was not yet married into the Black clan but as good as – just the week previous, which had left him with a black eye and a tendency to lash out at anyone who so much as tried to talk to him for the next few days.
"Because I'm not an ugly git," Sirius retorted now.
Peter chuckled. "Is that what the Hat said to you?"
"Nah, it said there was 'greatness ahead of me on either side' or something like that."
Peter turned to look at Sirius. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. I thought it did that creepy prophetic thing with everybody. Why, what did it say to you?"
"Just that I would have the chance to 'choose courage later' or something. Dunno how you're supposed to choose courage. Even Professor Sprout scares me." Peter sighed and slumped down further in his armchair.
"Hey," Sirius said. "Pete. If you're in Gryffindor, it's 'cause you really are a Gryffindor. I reckon the Hat doesn't make mistakes, after it's been doing this for a thousand years or whatever."
Remus shifted in his seat, accidentally rustling his book loudly enough that the other two boys noticed him. He froze under the weight of their combined stares.
"Remus," Sirius said, faintly surprised.
"What about you?" Peter asked. "I bet everyone thinks you should've been in Ravenclaw, don't they? Since you're so book-smart?"
Remus shrugged, embarrassed. "I don't know."
"What did the Hat say to you?" Peter wanted to know.
"I don't remember."
"Come on, you must remember."
What Remus remembered was the Hat suggesting that someone with his condition would do well to be surrounded by courageous friends. And he wasn't about to share that. "I think it said something about growing…into Gryffindor…with time," he improvised.
"Ooh, that's like mine!" Peter said. "Maybe that's true. I mean, it must be sort of able to tell what we'll be like in the future, right? Not just what we're like now?" He sounded like he very much hoped this was true.
The portrait hole opened then and James came tumbling in, laughing, flanked by Tristan and Alvin and a couple of second-years. The three boys by the fireplace watched James and his entourage make their way through the room, still laughing, and up the stairs toward the dormitories.
"And some people are just Gryffindor because…they're Gryffindor. You know?" Peter put in, gazing after James.
"Yeah, if it's only about showing off," Sirius grumbled. But he, too, looked a little longing.
"Some people have it so easy," Remus murmured.
He hadn't actually meant to say that out loud.
– – – – –
Remus woke to the sound of someone thrashing about. He fumbled for his wand and muttered, "Lumos," just in time to see a shape topple out of bed, tangled in the sheets. Remus pushed himself up to a sitting position, blinking in the half-dark. "Sirius?"
"It's nothing," Sirius growled from the floor.
"Are you okay?"
"It's nothing," Sirius insisted, in a tone that brooked no disagreement. Remus politely pretended not to hear as Sirius put his bed back together, still breathing heavily.
The next night, as they were all getting ready for bed, Sirius found a small sachet of herbs on his pillow. He sniffed it suspiciously. "What's this?"
From his own bed on the other side of the room, James shrugged with studied nonchalance. "Wolfsbane, nicked it from the Potions storeroom. It's supposed to keep away bad dreams and stuff like that."
Sirius' expression cycled through embarrassed to angry to grudgingly pleased and back again. "Thanks," he said shortly and tossed the thing aside. But just before they turned the lights out, Remus saw him slip it under his pillow.
Remus, who had understandably mixed feelings about Wolfsbane, managed to keep from sneezing for Sirius' sake.
– – – – –
"Have a biscuit, Mr Lupin."
Professor McGonagall was fixing him with that stern stare she must have perfected over uncountable decades of teaching.
Remus squirmed, unsure whether he could actually stomach a biscuit right now. He had no idea why he was sitting in the Transfiguration teacher's office. Either he'd unwittingly got himself into trouble, or this had something to do with his condition. Remus supposed he was hoping for the former by default.
"How are you getting on?" McGonagall asked, still sitting ramrod straight and steepling her fingers in a way reminiscent of Professor Dumbledore.
Remus blinked. "…Ma'am?"
"Your classes, your fellow students in Gryffindor. How are you getting on with it all?"
"Fine, ma'am."
"No difficulties concerning your medical condition?"
"No, ma'am. Madam Pomfrey looks after me very well."
"I'm glad to hear it. And what about friends?"
"Friends?" Remus asked, then remembered to add, "Professor?"
"Have you made friends with other students in your year? In your House?"
"I get on fine with most of them, ma'am," Remus mumbled, not wanting to lie but loathe to disappoint his Head of House with the full truth.
He could tell she saw through him. "I can understand the impulse toward isolating yourself, Mr Lupin, given your condition, but it really isn't necessary. Surely you could spend a bit more time getting to know the others in your year. Perhaps join a club or society. I know you've offered homework help to others on occasion – that might be an opportunity to forge some connections."
Remus felt his face grow hot. So Professor McGonagall had called him into her office simply because she'd noticed that, more than halfway through the second term, Remus still hadn't made any proper friends. What a loser she must think he was. But then again, she didn't understand.
"Yes, ma'am, I suppose so," he said, not supposing so at all. "I can try to talk to the others a bit more."
"That's all I ask, Remus." She surveyed him for a moment more, taking in his slight frame and hand-me-down robes. "And do have a biscuit."
Walking back to Gryffindor Tower, Remus felt himself caught up in a familiar bit of fancy. He wouldn't mind staying unhappy, he thought, if only he could extract a promise somehow, from some powers that be, that others would be happy in exchange. He wouldn't mind making that sacrifice, if someone else could benefit from it. Why didn't the world work that way?
Remus left dinner early that evening, still lost in similar thoughts, to start his homework before the common room grew noisy and crowded. But when he stepped into the Entrance Hall, he saw Sirius surrounded by an ugly knot of Slytherins. Arnold Nott, another first-year and cousin to the terrible Teresa, had his wand right up under Sirius' nose.
"Get – out – of my face, Nott," Sirius growled.
"Or you'll do what?" Arnold sneered. "Call your little Gryffindor pals for help? Oh wait, I forgot, you haven't got any."
"I have so."
"Oh, who, stupid Pettigrew? Who blushes every time a teacher calls on him? I'm terrified, Black, I am."
"Don't insult Peter." Sirius lunged at Arnold, but another of the boys grabbed his arms.
Remus was just about to turn back to the Great Hall for help when Professor Flitwick came barrelling through the door.
"Stop that, boys!" he squeaked, and had the lot of them Disarmed before they'd even turned around. "Roughhousing in the Entrance Hall, really. I'll be having a word with your Heads of House." He passed the wands back one by one, deducting five points from each of the boys in the hall as he went. From each of the boys except Remus, that is, since Flitwick didn't even seem to have noticed passing him in the doorway.
Remus watched the Slytherins slink off in one direction and Sirius slump away in another, looking silently enraged that he'd had to be rescued, and by a teacher no less.
And an idea that had been slowly coalescing in the back of Remus' mind made itself ever more insistently known.
– – – – –
"Hey, I know you're planning something about those Slytherins," Remus told Sirius when he managed to catch the other boy alone in a corridor between classes. It wasn't that hard to do, actually, since Sirius had been brooding more after his latest run-in, taking off on his own after classes and meals. It wasn't hard for Remus to slip after him and then look like he just happened to be passing by.
Before Sirius could interrupt, Remus continued, "And believe me, I don't want to know what it is. But have you thought about taking Peter with you? He's so good at getting in places, at not being noticed." It took one to know one, and Remus had often admired this trait in Peter. A little recklessly, he extemporised, "I bet you could even sit him down right in the middle of the Slytherin common room and no one would see him if he didn't want to be seen."
That was surely overdoing it, Remus thought, but Sirius looked duly impressed at the idea. Remus gave a friendly nod and continued off down the hall, before Sirius could start to wonder why exactly they'd just had that conversation.
– – – – –
"You know Sirius is going to do something to those boys in Slytherin, don't you?" Remus mentioned to James.
It had taken a lot of courage to approach the ever cool James Potter unbidden, but this was all part of the Plan, so Remus had trailed along to where James, with a distinctly longing expression, was watching the Gryffindor Quidditch team practise in the slanting evening light.
The weather was warm and a number of other younger students were scattered in the stands to watch, so it wasn't hard for Remus to drift through the crowd and end up near James.
"I know you don't trust him much," he continued, "but you might not want to leave him to his own devices. Especially since he's planning to take Peter along, and he's bound to get them both into trouble."
James cocked an eyebrow at him, probably about to ask why Remus cared, but just then one of the third-year Chasers lost control of her broom and came careering straight toward the stands. In the ensuing kerfuffle, Remus managed to disappear again.
– – – – –
Peter was the easiest to track down, since they still occasionally met in the library to do homework or revise for tests.
"I wonder why you don't hang out with James more," Remus tossed off over their Transfiguration books. Though he'd never quite got the hang of the homework planner, Peter did now bring the right textbooks to the right classes. "I mean, I know he likes you."
This was stretching it a bit, since Remus wasn't sure James ever really paid enough attention to Peter to feel one way or another about him – but James didn't actively dislike Peter, so that seemed close enough. And it was gratifying to see Peter's eyes go wide with surprise.
"I'm sure he'd say yes if you asked him to join you doing something," Remus added, just in case the message hadn't got through clearly enough.
– – – – –
Remus couldn't believe it could be so simple – People are so terribly easy to manipulate, he thought a little sadly, and wondered if maybe he should have been in Slytherin instead – but within a day, he saw James and Peter in whispered conversation on one of the common room sofas, casting covert glances in Sirius' direction.
Another couple days and it was all three of them – Sirius and James and Peter – whispering and laughing at a table in the corner of the room. They looked, Remus thought, like a real group of mates.
Remus didn't mind, because he himself wasn't looking for mates.
– – – – –
Remus woke one night to the sound of whispering and raised an eye above the covers just in time to glimpse something silvery disappearing around the doorway. A glance around the room told him James and Sirius and Peter were all missing from their beds. He heard them creep back in, hours later, still giggling over whatever discoveries they had made.
The three of them together created such a magnetic pull, Remus sometimes thought if he could somehow record all his footsteps over the course of a day, they would reveal a strange sort of orbit, endlessly tugged between a desire to see what James and Peter and Sirius were up to and guilty reminders to himself to stay away.
The next evening, with his homework completed aggravatingly early and nothing to do, Remus looked around the common room. There was a riotous game of Gobstones going on in one corner and a few anxious seventh-years already revising in another. Remus saw Ben Davies watching two fourth-years play chess and told himself he ought to go join him. But instead, he sidled over to Sirius and James and Peter, who had their heads all bent together, off to one side of the fireplace.
"Hey," Remus said, stopping a few feet away from their table. "What are you doing?"
The other boys looked up warily.
"Nothing," James said.
"Yes, nothing," Sirius agreed.
"Is it a type of nothing that will get you into trouble with Professor McGonagall?" Remus pressed, somehow unable to stop himself.
"No!" Peter said, too quickly.
"…Because we're too good to get caught," James admitted.
"How can you be so sure?" Remus asked.
"Because I have…a special way of not being seen."
Sirius snorted. "Oh, yeah, make yourself sound super mysterious."
"And now we'd like to get back to what we were doing," James concluded. It wasn't rude, the way he said it, but it definitely was dismissive.
"Don't let me stop you," Remus replied, but some contrary impulse made him drop down into a nearby armchair, instead of simply going away.
Sirius cast him a dubious glance, but the others resumed their conversation.
"The problem is still the password," Peter said.
"Think we could trick their entranceway into letting us in?" Sirius wondered.
"No," James determined.
"Think we could trick one of them into telling us?"
"No."
"Think we could trick someone, maybe Peter, into tricking –"
"Hey!"
"Hmph," Sirius grunted. "Maybe if we hexed Snape?"
"We could do that anyway," James suggested.
Sirius grinned. "I like the way you think."
"So you're planning to sneak in the Slytherin common room," Remus deduced.
"Er," said Peter.
"No," said Sirius.
"Yes," said James.
There was a silent but expressive exchange of glances between Sirius and James.
"Oh, come on," James said. "He's not stupid. And it's not like he's going to tell on us. Right, Remus?"
Later, Remus would reflect on how best to classify this moment: temporary lapse of judgement, or first step on a slippery slope? "Right," he agreed.
"So, then," James declared and turned back to the others, already forgetting Remus.
Remus opened his Charms textbook. No reason not to reread this week's chapter. Again.
James and Sirius and Peter continued to bandy about suggestions, each more ridiculous than the last, and Remus sighed despite himself.
"What?" Sirius sounded testy.
Remus looked up from his textbook. "Nothing."
"You have a better idea?"
"I was just thinking that it wouldn't be all that difficult, really. If one wanted to get the password for the Slytherin common room, that is, which I certainly don't."
"Well, stay out of it then."
"Fine."
Sirius turned back to the others. "If we could somehow stick ourselves to the ceiling…"
Remus couldn't help it, he snorted at the thought.
"Look, it's not easy, okay!" Sirius snapped.
"It is," Remus replied, closing his Charms book on his finger to keep his place. "All you need is to overhear a Slytherin saying the password, right?"
"But we can't just stand round the entrance," James pointed out. "They'd report us to Slughorn. Or just pound us themselves."
"I thought you had a special way of not being seen?"
James rolled his eyes. "It doesn't make me non-corporeal. Have you seen that corridor? It's so narrow, anyone who passed by would bump into you."
Remus tried to hide his mounting glee at being a step ahead of James for once. "Of course I've seen the corridor. So what I'm thinking about is that statue of the three goblins just down from the Slytherin entrance, kind of set back into the wall."
"Too far away," James said. "If you hid behind there, you wouldn't be able to hear anything anyone said at the door."
"Well," Remus said. "Not unless you used a unidirectional Proculauditory Charm. Although I suppose you might want to add a mild Resonance Charm to the wood, too, just in case they tend to speak directly into the door when they give the password."
The others were suddenly looking at Remus as if he had grown a second head.
"Really?" he asked them. "You never read ahead to the material we haven't covered yet in class? It's all in here." Remus tapped the Charms book in his hand.
"Are you… Why, exactly, aren't you in Ravenclaw?" James asked weakly.
"Teach it to us," Sirius demanded. "The…whatever it is you said."
"The Proculauditory Charm," Remus said. "For distance hearing."
The other three nodded in tandem.
Remus fetched his wand from where he'd it tucked into another textbook for safekeeping, then took a deep breath and pointed it at the fourth-years who were playing chess across the room. This was one of very many charms he'd learned in theory, but never actually performed. He extended his wand straight forward and murmured, "Proculauditorus unidirectionalis." Instantly, they could hear the fourth-years' conversation as if they were sitting next to them.
"Finite incantatem," Remus said and privately felt very pleased with himself.
The others stared at him.
"Where did you learn that?" Peter wanted to know.
"I didn't, really. I just read about it in the Charms book when I was preparing for school over the summer."
"Okay," Sirius said. "Teach us."
Remus squared his shoulders, wondering if he was creating a monster, and why he didn't seem to feel as concerned at the prospect as he probably should. "The charm is 'Proculauditorus,' but you want to make sure to do it in only one direction, because otherwise they'll be able to hear everything you say too. So that's 'unidirectionalis.' It doesn't work through wood or even through cloth, and you want to make sure to end the spell as soon as you don't need it anymore, because it can start going haywire if you leave it too long. The wand motion is kind of a forward jab."
James picked up his wand, eager to try. "It's 'Proculauditorus unidirectionalis'?" Remus nodded and James gave his wand a few experimental swings and jabs, before pointing it directly at the chess players and uttering the spell.
"No, not the ROOK!" one of the fourth-years yelled directly in their ears. James started back, dropping his wand, and Sirius gave a bark of laughter. Remus quelled a tiny bit of disappointment that James performed the spell just as well as he himself had.
"My turn!" Sirius declared.
Remus shook his head. "Let James end his first. Remember, it's important to remove the spell as soon as you're done with it."
"Yes, professor," Sirius grumbled, but James picked up his wand from the floor and pronounced, "Finite incantatem."
Sirius performed the spell next and did just as well, then Peter did it too.
"Brilliant," Sirius breathed, once they'd each removed the charm again under Remus' careful watch. "Are we ready to go?"
James nodded and jumped up. "I'll just get the – you know."
Remus had almost managed to forget about this part of their plan. "You're going now?"
Sirius grinned a little wolfishly. "No time like the present."
James turned to Remus. "Thanks, mate. By all rights you should be in Ravenclaw, but we're glad you're not." He turned toward the dormitory stairs to fetch whatever mystery item he had to fetch, then looked back at Remus again. "Besides, now you really can't rat on us." He flashed that dazzling grin and disappeared up the stairs.
– – – – –
Remus was at breakfast early the next morning, so he was privy to a rather unusual sight: underpants, strung up all along the walls of the Great Hall with Permanent Sticking Charms. Professors Flitwick, McGonagall and Slughorn had clearly been trying for some time to remove them, to no avail.
Looking a little closer, Remus saw that each item flashed periodically with bright yellow letters spelling out a name, presumably the name of the individual to which that particular pair of pants belonged.
Unable to suppress a certain fascination, Remus surveyed the room surreptitiously from a seat at the far end of the Gryffindor table. It was nicely done, he saw, and quite subtle. The names he could see were all from Slytherin, but it was an even mix, not just first-years, not even limited to Slytherins Sirius or James or Peter had personally had run-ins with – although he couldn't help noticing that Lucius Malfoy, Arnold Nott and Severus Snape all featured in the mix. But there was nothing that would necessarily draw a line of blame to any of the three boys Remus knew with absolute certainty to be behind the prank.
Also, those Sticking Charms were really rather impressive.
Remus found himself smiling, just a little bit, to think of the three of them sneaking through the castle together, bent on performing mischief of a highly Gryffindor kind.
Probably Peter really had been the one they'd sent in to procure the goods. James must have been the one to charm each item to light up with the relevant name. He was good at that sort of thing, charming objects to speak or bits of paper to display writing.
And Remus figured Sirius had done the Sticking Charms. He had a flair for them and had gone through a brief but memorable phase, a couple months back, of sticking everything to everything else, after they'd learned the charm in Flitwick's class. That had lasted until he stuck Chastity Macmillan's toad to the common room ceiling and no one was able to get it down for a week, which meant Chastity had to climb up on a stack of chairs when she wanted to feed him, and…well, there were other disadvantages to having a toad directly over one's head. After that, the rest of the House had managed to dissuade Sirius from carrying his Sticking hobby any further.
Yes, as Remus surveyed what was by far the most impressive bit of mischief carried out all school year, he couldn't help feeling a little bit amused, a little bit impressed, and – if the entire truth be told – a very tiny bit proud. This was clearly a meeting of great minds, and he'd been behind it.
Plus there was the added bonus of Lucius Malfoy glowering impotently from the front end of the Slytherin table, as Professor Slughorn attempted yet again to detach Malfoy's pants from the wall. Remus remembered Lucius threatening Sirius all those months ago at Hallowe'en, and insulting James, and he allowed himself one more tiny smile.
James, Sirius and Peter sauntered in to the Great Hall a few minutes later, tousle-haired and nonchalant, and made a very good show of their reaction to the yellow-flashing, permanent-sticking, wall-adorning Slytherin underpants, seeming amused and surprised, but without overdoing it.
All three settled down together on a bench and Sirius reached for the toast, nearly bumping Remus' fork out of his hand in the process. "And anyway," he was saying, "Bella always says, the best way to keep your opponent guessing –"
"Why do you always do that?" James interjected.
"Do what?"
"You always quote Bellatrix like she's some kind of – of – great sage or something. You don't even like her."
Sirius blinked at James. "I don't quote Bellatrix."
"Yes, you do! You were doing it just now."
"No, I wasn't. I was just telling you something she used to say."
"That's the same thing!"
Sirius appealed to Peter. "It's not the same, is it, Pete?"
Peter tilted his head to the side, the way he did when faced with a thorny Transfiguration problem. "You do talk about her often," he acceded diplomatically. "But you probably don't mean to do it as much as you do."
"It's just a bit creepy," James put in. "It's like your body's left home, but your head hasn't, quite."
Sirius opened his mouth to retort, but Peter elbowed him quickly in the side. "McGonagall," he muttered, and sure enough, their Head of House had spotted the three most likely minds behind the prank and was headed straight toward them.
"Remember what we planned!" Sirius hissed urgently to Peter.
"'Course I do!" Peter rejoined.
They all dug into their breakfasts with an air of great innocence.
"Mr Pettigrew!" Professor McGonagall cried as she drew up to their part of the table. Going for the weakest link, Remus thought to himself, which didn't seem quite fair.
Peter turned, looking convincingly surprised. "Professor?"
"Do you know anything about this?" One severely raised eyebrow was all she needed to encompass the entirety of the hall.
"This, ma'am? No, I just got here."
"And where were you before breakfast?" McGonagall continued, undeterred.
"I got up early to finish my History of Magic homework in the common room."
"Can anyone confirm that?"
"Um, I think Ben Davies was there too. And Mary Macdonald. I was in the corner to the right of the fireplace."
Professor McGonagall stared at him a few moments longer, but Peter showed no sign of caving in. She turned to James. "Mr Potter?"
"Yes, Professor?"
"Where have you been for the last hour or two?"
"Asleep, Professor. I only just got up."
It was true, Remus realised. He'd noticed James, still fast asleep, when he'd passed the other boy's bed on the way out of the dormitory. How and when had they done it? In the middle of the night?
"And you, Mr Black?"
"I was sleeping, too, Professor. The others must have seen me, because they were all already gone when I woke up."
Professor McGonagall gave each of them in turn a long and searching look. Then she sighed and said, "Very well." She hesitated, on the verge of making a further comment, but in the end all she said was, "Hurry up, now. You don't want to be late to class."
The three boys waited a decorous interval, until Professor McGonagall was well out of earshot and engaged again in conversation with Professor Flitwick, then all three leant in closer of one accord.
"Peter!" Sirius crowed. "Brilliant! 'No, ma'am. I just got here, ma'am.' We'll make a master sneak thief of you yet. Cool as an iron cauldron."
"Cool as an Ever-Extending Icicle," James agreed.
"As a Glacier Gardenia," Peter grinned.
"Secret low five," James whispered, and all three surreptitiously slapped hands beneath the tabletop.
And the professors didn't get the flashing pants off the walls until nearly dinnertime.
(continues in CHAPTER 6)
Summary:
Sirius Black, Remus thought, was just as arrogant and annoying as James Potter, and he wished the two of them would stop getting into fights. Because Remus kept finding himself stepping in to stop them, and calling that kind of attention to himself was really the last thing he needed during his first year at Hogwarts.
It didn't matter if they were unpredictable Blacks or show-off Potters, or even someone harmless like Peter Pettigrew. None of these boys could be his friends, and it was time Remus started remembering it.
He didn't mind, Remus told himself. He didn't need friends.
Characters: Remus, James, Sirius, Peter and supporting cast
Warnings: None
Chapters: 7 + epilogue
Story:
CHAPTER FIVE
"So what d'you think? Why did the Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor?" Peter asked Sirius one evening in the common room.
Remus, still shivery and weak after a full moon the night before, was curled up nearby in an armchair with a blanket and his Potions textbook, and the usual feeling that no one quite saw him.
Sirius and Peter had managed to score the seats closest to the fireplace, though this stroke of luck was mostly thanks to the fact that the upper years hadn't yet returned from a Hogsmeade visit.
Sirius was poking lazily at the logs behind the grate, using his wand to levitate the poker. He looked bored and only shrugged in response to Peter's question.
"I mean…" Peter continued. "Everybody thinks I should have been in Hufflepuff. They say it all the time. And my whole family were in Hufflepuff. The ones who weren't in Slytherin, at least."
Sirius looked up at that. "You had family in Slytherin?"
"It doesn't have to be a bad thing," Peter countered. "I'd rather be in Slytherin than Hufflepuff. It just means you're clever and you know what you want. And Hufflepuff, well, that means you're…dull."
Sirius actually seemed to consider that. "I s'pose so."
"But I don't know why Gryffindor," Peter sighed. "I'm not brave. I'm never gonna be a hero or something. And that's the main Gryffindor thing, isn't it."
"Ah, you'll surprise us yet," Sirius replied. It was an offhand comment, but Peter seemed mollified.
"What about you?" Peter pressed. "You must wonder why you ended up in a different House from all your family."
Sirius scowled. Remus knew he'd had another run-in with his family – in the person of Lucius Malfoy, who was not yet married into the Black clan but as good as – just the week previous, which had left him with a black eye and a tendency to lash out at anyone who so much as tried to talk to him for the next few days.
"Because I'm not an ugly git," Sirius retorted now.
Peter chuckled. "Is that what the Hat said to you?"
"Nah, it said there was 'greatness ahead of me on either side' or something like that."
Peter turned to look at Sirius. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. I thought it did that creepy prophetic thing with everybody. Why, what did it say to you?"
"Just that I would have the chance to 'choose courage later' or something. Dunno how you're supposed to choose courage. Even Professor Sprout scares me." Peter sighed and slumped down further in his armchair.
"Hey," Sirius said. "Pete. If you're in Gryffindor, it's 'cause you really are a Gryffindor. I reckon the Hat doesn't make mistakes, after it's been doing this for a thousand years or whatever."
Remus shifted in his seat, accidentally rustling his book loudly enough that the other two boys noticed him. He froze under the weight of their combined stares.
"Remus," Sirius said, faintly surprised.
"What about you?" Peter asked. "I bet everyone thinks you should've been in Ravenclaw, don't they? Since you're so book-smart?"
Remus shrugged, embarrassed. "I don't know."
"What did the Hat say to you?" Peter wanted to know.
"I don't remember."
"Come on, you must remember."
What Remus remembered was the Hat suggesting that someone with his condition would do well to be surrounded by courageous friends. And he wasn't about to share that. "I think it said something about growing…into Gryffindor…with time," he improvised.
"Ooh, that's like mine!" Peter said. "Maybe that's true. I mean, it must be sort of able to tell what we'll be like in the future, right? Not just what we're like now?" He sounded like he very much hoped this was true.
The portrait hole opened then and James came tumbling in, laughing, flanked by Tristan and Alvin and a couple of second-years. The three boys by the fireplace watched James and his entourage make their way through the room, still laughing, and up the stairs toward the dormitories.
"And some people are just Gryffindor because…they're Gryffindor. You know?" Peter put in, gazing after James.
"Yeah, if it's only about showing off," Sirius grumbled. But he, too, looked a little longing.
"Some people have it so easy," Remus murmured.
He hadn't actually meant to say that out loud.
– – – – –
Remus woke to the sound of someone thrashing about. He fumbled for his wand and muttered, "Lumos," just in time to see a shape topple out of bed, tangled in the sheets. Remus pushed himself up to a sitting position, blinking in the half-dark. "Sirius?"
"It's nothing," Sirius growled from the floor.
"Are you okay?"
"It's nothing," Sirius insisted, in a tone that brooked no disagreement. Remus politely pretended not to hear as Sirius put his bed back together, still breathing heavily.
The next night, as they were all getting ready for bed, Sirius found a small sachet of herbs on his pillow. He sniffed it suspiciously. "What's this?"
From his own bed on the other side of the room, James shrugged with studied nonchalance. "Wolfsbane, nicked it from the Potions storeroom. It's supposed to keep away bad dreams and stuff like that."
Sirius' expression cycled through embarrassed to angry to grudgingly pleased and back again. "Thanks," he said shortly and tossed the thing aside. But just before they turned the lights out, Remus saw him slip it under his pillow.
Remus, who had understandably mixed feelings about Wolfsbane, managed to keep from sneezing for Sirius' sake.
– – – – –
"Have a biscuit, Mr Lupin."
Professor McGonagall was fixing him with that stern stare she must have perfected over uncountable decades of teaching.
Remus squirmed, unsure whether he could actually stomach a biscuit right now. He had no idea why he was sitting in the Transfiguration teacher's office. Either he'd unwittingly got himself into trouble, or this had something to do with his condition. Remus supposed he was hoping for the former by default.
"How are you getting on?" McGonagall asked, still sitting ramrod straight and steepling her fingers in a way reminiscent of Professor Dumbledore.
Remus blinked. "…Ma'am?"
"Your classes, your fellow students in Gryffindor. How are you getting on with it all?"
"Fine, ma'am."
"No difficulties concerning your medical condition?"
"No, ma'am. Madam Pomfrey looks after me very well."
"I'm glad to hear it. And what about friends?"
"Friends?" Remus asked, then remembered to add, "Professor?"
"Have you made friends with other students in your year? In your House?"
"I get on fine with most of them, ma'am," Remus mumbled, not wanting to lie but loathe to disappoint his Head of House with the full truth.
He could tell she saw through him. "I can understand the impulse toward isolating yourself, Mr Lupin, given your condition, but it really isn't necessary. Surely you could spend a bit more time getting to know the others in your year. Perhaps join a club or society. I know you've offered homework help to others on occasion – that might be an opportunity to forge some connections."
Remus felt his face grow hot. So Professor McGonagall had called him into her office simply because she'd noticed that, more than halfway through the second term, Remus still hadn't made any proper friends. What a loser she must think he was. But then again, she didn't understand.
"Yes, ma'am, I suppose so," he said, not supposing so at all. "I can try to talk to the others a bit more."
"That's all I ask, Remus." She surveyed him for a moment more, taking in his slight frame and hand-me-down robes. "And do have a biscuit."
Walking back to Gryffindor Tower, Remus felt himself caught up in a familiar bit of fancy. He wouldn't mind staying unhappy, he thought, if only he could extract a promise somehow, from some powers that be, that others would be happy in exchange. He wouldn't mind making that sacrifice, if someone else could benefit from it. Why didn't the world work that way?
Remus left dinner early that evening, still lost in similar thoughts, to start his homework before the common room grew noisy and crowded. But when he stepped into the Entrance Hall, he saw Sirius surrounded by an ugly knot of Slytherins. Arnold Nott, another first-year and cousin to the terrible Teresa, had his wand right up under Sirius' nose.
"Get – out – of my face, Nott," Sirius growled.
"Or you'll do what?" Arnold sneered. "Call your little Gryffindor pals for help? Oh wait, I forgot, you haven't got any."
"I have so."
"Oh, who, stupid Pettigrew? Who blushes every time a teacher calls on him? I'm terrified, Black, I am."
"Don't insult Peter." Sirius lunged at Arnold, but another of the boys grabbed his arms.
Remus was just about to turn back to the Great Hall for help when Professor Flitwick came barrelling through the door.
"Stop that, boys!" he squeaked, and had the lot of them Disarmed before they'd even turned around. "Roughhousing in the Entrance Hall, really. I'll be having a word with your Heads of House." He passed the wands back one by one, deducting five points from each of the boys in the hall as he went. From each of the boys except Remus, that is, since Flitwick didn't even seem to have noticed passing him in the doorway.
Remus watched the Slytherins slink off in one direction and Sirius slump away in another, looking silently enraged that he'd had to be rescued, and by a teacher no less.
And an idea that had been slowly coalescing in the back of Remus' mind made itself ever more insistently known.
– – – – –
"Hey, I know you're planning something about those Slytherins," Remus told Sirius when he managed to catch the other boy alone in a corridor between classes. It wasn't that hard to do, actually, since Sirius had been brooding more after his latest run-in, taking off on his own after classes and meals. It wasn't hard for Remus to slip after him and then look like he just happened to be passing by.
Before Sirius could interrupt, Remus continued, "And believe me, I don't want to know what it is. But have you thought about taking Peter with you? He's so good at getting in places, at not being noticed." It took one to know one, and Remus had often admired this trait in Peter. A little recklessly, he extemporised, "I bet you could even sit him down right in the middle of the Slytherin common room and no one would see him if he didn't want to be seen."
That was surely overdoing it, Remus thought, but Sirius looked duly impressed at the idea. Remus gave a friendly nod and continued off down the hall, before Sirius could start to wonder why exactly they'd just had that conversation.
– – – – –
"You know Sirius is going to do something to those boys in Slytherin, don't you?" Remus mentioned to James.
It had taken a lot of courage to approach the ever cool James Potter unbidden, but this was all part of the Plan, so Remus had trailed along to where James, with a distinctly longing expression, was watching the Gryffindor Quidditch team practise in the slanting evening light.
The weather was warm and a number of other younger students were scattered in the stands to watch, so it wasn't hard for Remus to drift through the crowd and end up near James.
"I know you don't trust him much," he continued, "but you might not want to leave him to his own devices. Especially since he's planning to take Peter along, and he's bound to get them both into trouble."
James cocked an eyebrow at him, probably about to ask why Remus cared, but just then one of the third-year Chasers lost control of her broom and came careering straight toward the stands. In the ensuing kerfuffle, Remus managed to disappear again.
– – – – –
Peter was the easiest to track down, since they still occasionally met in the library to do homework or revise for tests.
"I wonder why you don't hang out with James more," Remus tossed off over their Transfiguration books. Though he'd never quite got the hang of the homework planner, Peter did now bring the right textbooks to the right classes. "I mean, I know he likes you."
This was stretching it a bit, since Remus wasn't sure James ever really paid enough attention to Peter to feel one way or another about him – but James didn't actively dislike Peter, so that seemed close enough. And it was gratifying to see Peter's eyes go wide with surprise.
"I'm sure he'd say yes if you asked him to join you doing something," Remus added, just in case the message hadn't got through clearly enough.
– – – – –
Remus couldn't believe it could be so simple – People are so terribly easy to manipulate, he thought a little sadly, and wondered if maybe he should have been in Slytherin instead – but within a day, he saw James and Peter in whispered conversation on one of the common room sofas, casting covert glances in Sirius' direction.
Another couple days and it was all three of them – Sirius and James and Peter – whispering and laughing at a table in the corner of the room. They looked, Remus thought, like a real group of mates.
Remus didn't mind, because he himself wasn't looking for mates.
– – – – –
Remus woke one night to the sound of whispering and raised an eye above the covers just in time to glimpse something silvery disappearing around the doorway. A glance around the room told him James and Sirius and Peter were all missing from their beds. He heard them creep back in, hours later, still giggling over whatever discoveries they had made.
The three of them together created such a magnetic pull, Remus sometimes thought if he could somehow record all his footsteps over the course of a day, they would reveal a strange sort of orbit, endlessly tugged between a desire to see what James and Peter and Sirius were up to and guilty reminders to himself to stay away.
The next evening, with his homework completed aggravatingly early and nothing to do, Remus looked around the common room. There was a riotous game of Gobstones going on in one corner and a few anxious seventh-years already revising in another. Remus saw Ben Davies watching two fourth-years play chess and told himself he ought to go join him. But instead, he sidled over to Sirius and James and Peter, who had their heads all bent together, off to one side of the fireplace.
"Hey," Remus said, stopping a few feet away from their table. "What are you doing?"
The other boys looked up warily.
"Nothing," James said.
"Yes, nothing," Sirius agreed.
"Is it a type of nothing that will get you into trouble with Professor McGonagall?" Remus pressed, somehow unable to stop himself.
"No!" Peter said, too quickly.
"…Because we're too good to get caught," James admitted.
"How can you be so sure?" Remus asked.
"Because I have…a special way of not being seen."
Sirius snorted. "Oh, yeah, make yourself sound super mysterious."
"And now we'd like to get back to what we were doing," James concluded. It wasn't rude, the way he said it, but it definitely was dismissive.
"Don't let me stop you," Remus replied, but some contrary impulse made him drop down into a nearby armchair, instead of simply going away.
Sirius cast him a dubious glance, but the others resumed their conversation.
"The problem is still the password," Peter said.
"Think we could trick their entranceway into letting us in?" Sirius wondered.
"No," James determined.
"Think we could trick one of them into telling us?"
"No."
"Think we could trick someone, maybe Peter, into tricking –"
"Hey!"
"Hmph," Sirius grunted. "Maybe if we hexed Snape?"
"We could do that anyway," James suggested.
Sirius grinned. "I like the way you think."
"So you're planning to sneak in the Slytherin common room," Remus deduced.
"Er," said Peter.
"No," said Sirius.
"Yes," said James.
There was a silent but expressive exchange of glances between Sirius and James.
"Oh, come on," James said. "He's not stupid. And it's not like he's going to tell on us. Right, Remus?"
Later, Remus would reflect on how best to classify this moment: temporary lapse of judgement, or first step on a slippery slope? "Right," he agreed.
"So, then," James declared and turned back to the others, already forgetting Remus.
Remus opened his Charms textbook. No reason not to reread this week's chapter. Again.
James and Sirius and Peter continued to bandy about suggestions, each more ridiculous than the last, and Remus sighed despite himself.
"What?" Sirius sounded testy.
Remus looked up from his textbook. "Nothing."
"You have a better idea?"
"I was just thinking that it wouldn't be all that difficult, really. If one wanted to get the password for the Slytherin common room, that is, which I certainly don't."
"Well, stay out of it then."
"Fine."
Sirius turned back to the others. "If we could somehow stick ourselves to the ceiling…"
Remus couldn't help it, he snorted at the thought.
"Look, it's not easy, okay!" Sirius snapped.
"It is," Remus replied, closing his Charms book on his finger to keep his place. "All you need is to overhear a Slytherin saying the password, right?"
"But we can't just stand round the entrance," James pointed out. "They'd report us to Slughorn. Or just pound us themselves."
"I thought you had a special way of not being seen?"
James rolled his eyes. "It doesn't make me non-corporeal. Have you seen that corridor? It's so narrow, anyone who passed by would bump into you."
Remus tried to hide his mounting glee at being a step ahead of James for once. "Of course I've seen the corridor. So what I'm thinking about is that statue of the three goblins just down from the Slytherin entrance, kind of set back into the wall."
"Too far away," James said. "If you hid behind there, you wouldn't be able to hear anything anyone said at the door."
"Well," Remus said. "Not unless you used a unidirectional Proculauditory Charm. Although I suppose you might want to add a mild Resonance Charm to the wood, too, just in case they tend to speak directly into the door when they give the password."
The others were suddenly looking at Remus as if he had grown a second head.
"Really?" he asked them. "You never read ahead to the material we haven't covered yet in class? It's all in here." Remus tapped the Charms book in his hand.
"Are you… Why, exactly, aren't you in Ravenclaw?" James asked weakly.
"Teach it to us," Sirius demanded. "The…whatever it is you said."
"The Proculauditory Charm," Remus said. "For distance hearing."
The other three nodded in tandem.
Remus fetched his wand from where he'd it tucked into another textbook for safekeeping, then took a deep breath and pointed it at the fourth-years who were playing chess across the room. This was one of very many charms he'd learned in theory, but never actually performed. He extended his wand straight forward and murmured, "Proculauditorus unidirectionalis." Instantly, they could hear the fourth-years' conversation as if they were sitting next to them.
"Finite incantatem," Remus said and privately felt very pleased with himself.
The others stared at him.
"Where did you learn that?" Peter wanted to know.
"I didn't, really. I just read about it in the Charms book when I was preparing for school over the summer."
"Okay," Sirius said. "Teach us."
Remus squared his shoulders, wondering if he was creating a monster, and why he didn't seem to feel as concerned at the prospect as he probably should. "The charm is 'Proculauditorus,' but you want to make sure to do it in only one direction, because otherwise they'll be able to hear everything you say too. So that's 'unidirectionalis.' It doesn't work through wood or even through cloth, and you want to make sure to end the spell as soon as you don't need it anymore, because it can start going haywire if you leave it too long. The wand motion is kind of a forward jab."
James picked up his wand, eager to try. "It's 'Proculauditorus unidirectionalis'?" Remus nodded and James gave his wand a few experimental swings and jabs, before pointing it directly at the chess players and uttering the spell.
"No, not the ROOK!" one of the fourth-years yelled directly in their ears. James started back, dropping his wand, and Sirius gave a bark of laughter. Remus quelled a tiny bit of disappointment that James performed the spell just as well as he himself had.
"My turn!" Sirius declared.
Remus shook his head. "Let James end his first. Remember, it's important to remove the spell as soon as you're done with it."
"Yes, professor," Sirius grumbled, but James picked up his wand from the floor and pronounced, "Finite incantatem."
Sirius performed the spell next and did just as well, then Peter did it too.
"Brilliant," Sirius breathed, once they'd each removed the charm again under Remus' careful watch. "Are we ready to go?"
James nodded and jumped up. "I'll just get the – you know."
Remus had almost managed to forget about this part of their plan. "You're going now?"
Sirius grinned a little wolfishly. "No time like the present."
James turned to Remus. "Thanks, mate. By all rights you should be in Ravenclaw, but we're glad you're not." He turned toward the dormitory stairs to fetch whatever mystery item he had to fetch, then looked back at Remus again. "Besides, now you really can't rat on us." He flashed that dazzling grin and disappeared up the stairs.
– – – – –
Remus was at breakfast early the next morning, so he was privy to a rather unusual sight: underpants, strung up all along the walls of the Great Hall with Permanent Sticking Charms. Professors Flitwick, McGonagall and Slughorn had clearly been trying for some time to remove them, to no avail.
Looking a little closer, Remus saw that each item flashed periodically with bright yellow letters spelling out a name, presumably the name of the individual to which that particular pair of pants belonged.
Unable to suppress a certain fascination, Remus surveyed the room surreptitiously from a seat at the far end of the Gryffindor table. It was nicely done, he saw, and quite subtle. The names he could see were all from Slytherin, but it was an even mix, not just first-years, not even limited to Slytherins Sirius or James or Peter had personally had run-ins with – although he couldn't help noticing that Lucius Malfoy, Arnold Nott and Severus Snape all featured in the mix. But there was nothing that would necessarily draw a line of blame to any of the three boys Remus knew with absolute certainty to be behind the prank.
Also, those Sticking Charms were really rather impressive.
Remus found himself smiling, just a little bit, to think of the three of them sneaking through the castle together, bent on performing mischief of a highly Gryffindor kind.
Probably Peter really had been the one they'd sent in to procure the goods. James must have been the one to charm each item to light up with the relevant name. He was good at that sort of thing, charming objects to speak or bits of paper to display writing.
And Remus figured Sirius had done the Sticking Charms. He had a flair for them and had gone through a brief but memorable phase, a couple months back, of sticking everything to everything else, after they'd learned the charm in Flitwick's class. That had lasted until he stuck Chastity Macmillan's toad to the common room ceiling and no one was able to get it down for a week, which meant Chastity had to climb up on a stack of chairs when she wanted to feed him, and…well, there were other disadvantages to having a toad directly over one's head. After that, the rest of the House had managed to dissuade Sirius from carrying his Sticking hobby any further.
Yes, as Remus surveyed what was by far the most impressive bit of mischief carried out all school year, he couldn't help feeling a little bit amused, a little bit impressed, and – if the entire truth be told – a very tiny bit proud. This was clearly a meeting of great minds, and he'd been behind it.
Plus there was the added bonus of Lucius Malfoy glowering impotently from the front end of the Slytherin table, as Professor Slughorn attempted yet again to detach Malfoy's pants from the wall. Remus remembered Lucius threatening Sirius all those months ago at Hallowe'en, and insulting James, and he allowed himself one more tiny smile.
James, Sirius and Peter sauntered in to the Great Hall a few minutes later, tousle-haired and nonchalant, and made a very good show of their reaction to the yellow-flashing, permanent-sticking, wall-adorning Slytherin underpants, seeming amused and surprised, but without overdoing it.
All three settled down together on a bench and Sirius reached for the toast, nearly bumping Remus' fork out of his hand in the process. "And anyway," he was saying, "Bella always says, the best way to keep your opponent guessing –"
"Why do you always do that?" James interjected.
"Do what?"
"You always quote Bellatrix like she's some kind of – of – great sage or something. You don't even like her."
Sirius blinked at James. "I don't quote Bellatrix."
"Yes, you do! You were doing it just now."
"No, I wasn't. I was just telling you something she used to say."
"That's the same thing!"
Sirius appealed to Peter. "It's not the same, is it, Pete?"
Peter tilted his head to the side, the way he did when faced with a thorny Transfiguration problem. "You do talk about her often," he acceded diplomatically. "But you probably don't mean to do it as much as you do."
"It's just a bit creepy," James put in. "It's like your body's left home, but your head hasn't, quite."
Sirius opened his mouth to retort, but Peter elbowed him quickly in the side. "McGonagall," he muttered, and sure enough, their Head of House had spotted the three most likely minds behind the prank and was headed straight toward them.
"Remember what we planned!" Sirius hissed urgently to Peter.
"'Course I do!" Peter rejoined.
They all dug into their breakfasts with an air of great innocence.
"Mr Pettigrew!" Professor McGonagall cried as she drew up to their part of the table. Going for the weakest link, Remus thought to himself, which didn't seem quite fair.
Peter turned, looking convincingly surprised. "Professor?"
"Do you know anything about this?" One severely raised eyebrow was all she needed to encompass the entirety of the hall.
"This, ma'am? No, I just got here."
"And where were you before breakfast?" McGonagall continued, undeterred.
"I got up early to finish my History of Magic homework in the common room."
"Can anyone confirm that?"
"Um, I think Ben Davies was there too. And Mary Macdonald. I was in the corner to the right of the fireplace."
Professor McGonagall stared at him a few moments longer, but Peter showed no sign of caving in. She turned to James. "Mr Potter?"
"Yes, Professor?"
"Where have you been for the last hour or two?"
"Asleep, Professor. I only just got up."
It was true, Remus realised. He'd noticed James, still fast asleep, when he'd passed the other boy's bed on the way out of the dormitory. How and when had they done it? In the middle of the night?
"And you, Mr Black?"
"I was sleeping, too, Professor. The others must have seen me, because they were all already gone when I woke up."
Professor McGonagall gave each of them in turn a long and searching look. Then she sighed and said, "Very well." She hesitated, on the verge of making a further comment, but in the end all she said was, "Hurry up, now. You don't want to be late to class."
The three boys waited a decorous interval, until Professor McGonagall was well out of earshot and engaged again in conversation with Professor Flitwick, then all three leant in closer of one accord.
"Peter!" Sirius crowed. "Brilliant! 'No, ma'am. I just got here, ma'am.' We'll make a master sneak thief of you yet. Cool as an iron cauldron."
"Cool as an Ever-Extending Icicle," James agreed.
"As a Glacier Gardenia," Peter grinned.
"Secret low five," James whispered, and all three surreptitiously slapped hands beneath the tabletop.
And the professors didn't get the flashing pants off the walls until nearly dinnertime.
(continues in CHAPTER 6)
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