In the Wrong House, chapter 6
Dec. 9th, 2011 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarIN THE WRONG HOUSE (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 SIX
The first time it happened was at breakfast a couple weeks later.
"I can't remember the password," announced a timid voice that nonetheless managed to boom across the Great Hall.
A startled silence fell as everyone looked for the source of the voice. When nothing further happened, the usual din of chatter rose up again, but Remus thought Professor McGonagall looked a little concerned. He saw her studying each of the long tables.
The next time it happened was the following morning in Potions class, which the Gryffindor first-years had together with Ravenclaw. They were all bent diligently over their cauldrons, when someone yelled, "No, I won't let you copy my notes! Leave me alone!" But no one in the room had spoken.
At his desk in the front of the classroom, Professor Slughorn's head snapped up. "Which one of you did that?"
The students looked back at him blankly.
"One of you cast some sort of voice-throwing charm," Slughorn insisted. "And just a word to the wise here, but that sort of magic is beyond your abilities to control at the moment. I suggest you leave that until you've covered it in class." He looked at them sternly. "And no more interruptions. Back to work!"
With a sinking feeling, Remus saw James and Sirius share the very smallest of covert glances. Of course.
By unspoken agreement, all four of them ducked off down a side corridor, while the rest of the Gryffindors headed out to the greenhouses for Herbology.
"You didn't undo the distance hearing spell when you finished, did you?" Remus accused them.
Sirius shrugged in a way that presumably indicated guilt and James turned on him. "I thought you said you did!"
"Maybe I thought I had, okay?"
"What does thinking have to do with it? Either you did or you didn't."
Sirius scowled. "Oh, what does it matter?"
"It matters because you lied to us!"
"I didn't lie! I…adjusted the truth. Based on what I thought was true."
James cast him a disdainful look. "We're supposed to be able to trust you."
"Well, I should be able to trust you too, not to start making wild, unfounded accusations at me! Back me up here, Pete."
Remus cleared his throat. "Um, could we get back to the business at hand?"
The others turned to him, perplexed.
"What business?" asked Sirius.
"This spell you cast that's going out of control."
Sirius shrugged. "It'll wear off with time."
"No, it won't. It only gets stronger with time. I did tell you that."
James shrugged too. "I'm sure Dumbledore'll sort it out. And it's not like anyone can trace it back to us."
Remus shook his head. "Actually, they can, because –"
"GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF ME, MACNAIR," someone hollered and all of them jumped. Even Sirius couldn't help looking around for the source of the voice.
"That's why," Remus said weakly, heart pounding. "Because the spell's still doing exactly what you told it to do, picking up sound from near the Slytherin common room door and projecting it to wherever you are. Sooner or later one of the professors is going to be able to narrow it down to you, because it only ever happens when you're there."
Remus was gratified, in a queasy sort of a way, to see Sirius' face pale ever so slightly.
"Oh, Crups," James mumbled, and Peter's eyes were wide.
"We have to undo the spell!" Sirius declared.
Remus rolled his eyes. "Yes, you do."
"We do? You taught it to us, you have to help us undo it."
"I – wait – what?"
James nodded. "It's true, we'd better take him along."
"Tonight do you think?" Sirius asked.
"But I don't think all four of us will fit. You have to go, because you cast the actual spell. I'll go because it's my, you know. Sorry, Pete, you're out this time."
"Fine with me," Peter said. "I've got no interest in getting caught there by Slughorn."
Sirius addressed James. "You're willing to have him see the – you know?"
"Well, we'll have to, won't we?"
Remus was so frustrated he actually stamped his foot. "Look, I'm not going to help you. The spell's got too strong for us now anyway. You'd be better off going to Professor Dumbledore and telling him what happened and what kind of spell it was, and asking him to fix it."
"And land in detention for a week?" James asked. "Nah, no thanks."
"Detention for all of us," Sirius hastened to point out. "And the ickle prefect-in-training wouldn't want that, would he?"
Remus glared. "Fine. Just this once."
To his surprise, the grin Sirius tossed him was without guile. "A midnight adventure! Excellent."
"You know what?" James pondered. "Maybe we should get to Herbology."
Remus, who had yet to be late to a class the entire year, even on mornings after a full moon, moaned and took off at a dead run, heavy schoolbag flapping awkwardly against his legs.
– – – – –
The secret something James was always running off to fetch from the dormitory turned out to be an Invisibility Cloak. It was a gorgeous thing, silvery and almost weightless, like holding onto water. Remus' breath caught when James let him touch it.
"Cool, huh?" James said. "It was my dad's, but he gave it to me when I started Hogwarts. Said I'd have more fun with it, and he's got other ways to be invisible." Remus' head spun at how nonchalantly James dangled this precious object from his hand.
"Stop bumping, Remus," Sirius growled more than once as they crept through the castle's silent corridors.
"It's hard to all fit under here," Remus protested.
"James and Peter and I manage it just fine."
"Yeah, well I bet you've had a lot more practice, haven't you?"
"Shut up, you lot," James hissed more than once as they made their way down to the dungeon. Sirius' elbows kept ending up in Remus' ribs, though it didn't seem to be deliberate.
Finally, they made it to the underground corridor where the Slytherins had their dormitories.
"We should hide behind the statue of the three goblins again, I think, just in case anyone does come along," James whispered. With some jostling and muttering, they managed it, with James up against a wall, Sirius crouching under one of the goblins' outstretched arms and Remus squashed in between them. Once they were settled, James continued, "Okay, so now we just try casting 'finite incantatem' until we're sure it's worked, right?"
"It takes a really powerful wizard to undo a spell that's been strengthening for this long," Remus reminded him, but he had a feeling the warning fell, as usual, on deaf ears.
"Eh, if we all cast the spell together, it'll be strong enough."
"But it has to be done by the person who cast the original spell –"
"And that was Sirius. But it can't hurt if we both do 'finite incantatem' together with him, right?"
"Besides," Sirius added, "if it doesn't work, then at least the professors are going to be finding out some very interesting things about what the Slytherins get up to when no one's round."
The backfiring charm had projected sound from the Slytherin corridor a few more times during the day – including once in the Great Hall and once in the Gryffindor common room – and each time the snippets of conversation it revealed were less than flattering. Remus figured the professors knew by now where the sound was coming from, and he was more than a little worried they might also have figured out where it was going to.
He sighed, already envisioning the hundred ways this could go wrong.
James and Sirius had their wands out. James nudged Remus. "C'mon, you ready?"
Remus pulled out his wand too and the three of them aimed at the Slytherin door.
"On the count of three, okay?" James suggested. "And say it in a whisper, but, you know, a loud whisper. Ready? One, two, three."
"Finite incantatem," they all whispered, more or less in unison.
Sirius asked what was on all of their minds: "How do we know if it worked?"
Remus sighed, and the other two seemed to realise what he was going to say before he said it. "One of us has to go over there and say something."
"I'll do it," Sirius said.
Wordlessly, James shrugged himself and Remus out of the Cloak, and passed it to Sirius. "Be quick," James said.
Sirius disappeared under the Cloak and Remus heard a slight rustle as he walked away toward the Slytherin common room door. He reappeared in front of them a few moments later, looking confused, and wriggled back behind the statue with them.
James looked hopeful. "Did you say anything? If you did, we didn't hear it."
Sirius nodded. "It was weird, though. I could kind of hear my own voice coming back at me."
Remus groaned. "We're all idiots. You cast the spell, of course you have to be the one to stay here and see if you can hear anything. But obviously it didn't work anyway, if you could hear yourself."
James was all business. "Okay, so we do it again! And this time, let's say it three times in a row, getting louder each time. Because sometimes things in threes have extra power. So we're three people, and we'll say it three times."
Remus sighed, declined to comment on the merit of this suggestion, and raised his wand again with the other two.
"Finite incantatem, FINITE INCANTATEM, FINITE INCANTATEM."
They looked at each other.
"I'll go test it," James said. He grabbed the Cloak and disappeared. A moment later, they heard his voice as if he were still beside them. "Welcome to the home of Severus Snape, greasiest first-year ever at Hogwarts. Please don't knock, because you wouldn't want to meet him anyway."
A moment later, he was back, grinning. "Well?"
Remus shook his head. "Still heard you."
"Gargoyles," James complained, "Why is this thing so stubborn?"
Just then, they heard voices coming from the end of the corridor.
James' eyes widened as he slipped back behind the statue and hurried to drape the Cloak over all three of them. Sirius leant out under the goblin's arm to take a quick peek, then ducked back too with a hiss of alarm. "Dumbledore and Slughorn," he announced.
Remus moaned.
"They're coming because of the spell!" James declared, eyes wide. "Sirius, fix it, now."
Equally wide-eyed, Sirius whipped out his wand and pointed it toward the Slytherin door. "Finite incantatem," he intoned with fierce concentration. He murmured something softly to himself, then raised his wand and cast the spell again. Then once again.
Professors Dumbledore and Slughorn had almost reached the spot where they hid and Sirius was still repeating the spell under his breath. James tugged at his arm, but Sirius only shook his head. "I've almost got it," he whispered.
Just as the professors passed by the goblin statue in a whoosh of robes, Sirius raised his arm a final time and whispered, very softly but with impressive force, "Finite incantatem."
Dumbledore and Slughorn, who had been chatting companionably as they walked, stopped in front of the Slytherin door. With a nod to Slughorn, Dumbledore waved his wand in gentle arcs, muttering an incantation too quietly for the boys to hear. After a moment, he gave a small shrug and Slughorn's broad eyebrows went up.
"How odd," the Potions professor commented. "Mind if I try?"
Dumbledore gave a gracious wave of his hand, and Slughorn stepped closer to the door, performing the same incantation Dumbledore had done. Remus held his breath, not daring to look at Sirius or James.
"How very odd," Slughorn repeated. "I'm really quite sure the spell was cast here. It's the only explanation."
Professor Dumbledore shrugged in that enigmatic way of his. "Perhaps the original caster has already been and removed the spell."
Slughorn furrowed his brow. "Possible. But that has to have been difficult by now. And as I told you, I witnessed the spell's effect while I was teaching the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw first-years. It has to have been one of them."
"Well," Dumbledore said, his entire beard seeming to crinkle into a smile. "The culprit appears to have slipped through your fingers this time, Horace." He raised his voice almost imperceptibly. "But perhaps next time, he or she will think twice about dabbling in spells a bit too difficult for the present." He clapped Professor Slughorn on the shoulder. "Come, come, it's not the end of the world. There will always be a few cunning, clever ones who don't make it into your House."
Remus could have sworn he saw a pout on Professor Slughorn's face. "Right you are, of course, Albus. Right you are."
Then the two professors turned and headed back the way they had come, their voices receding as they reached the end of the corridor and rounded the corner.
Remus let out a desperate sigh he hadn't even known he was holding. "Oh – my – Merlin," he gasped.
Next to him, Sirius chortled so loudly that Remus spun round to look at him, getting tangled in the folds of the Cloak still draped over his head. "We did it!" Sirius crowed in a stage whisper. "I did it, we did it, whatever, it worked!" He grinned at Remus. "Hey, mate, we're totally brilliant."
Remus felt a bubble of laughter rising in his own chest and suddenly, he was laughing and Sirius was laughing too, making no effort to be quiet. How fabulous it was to laugh helplessly together with this barking mad individual.
"C'mon, you dolts, save it till we're back in the tower!" James said, but he looked pleased too.
Remus still felt slightly hysterical as they bumped along through the corridors, nearly running in their eagerness to get back to Gryffindor Tower and out of the range of trouble. James swept the Invisibility Cloak off them outside the portrait hole, and they tumbled inside, took one look at each other and started laughing again.
"The look on Slughorn's face –!" Sirius said.
"Boy is he sorry he didn't get you in Slytherin!" James added. "Cunning and clever, Sirius, eh?"
"Yup, you know me," Sirius said. "Got those Slytherin characteristics to the core."
James turned to Remus. "Thanks for helping us," he said. "I know you didn't want to come."
Remus made himself look braver than he felt and said, "I couldn't leave you two to make a mess of it, could I?"
James looked startled for a moment, then snorted with laughter. Sirius said, "You know, Lupin, you're not half bad."
With a sharp twist in his stomach, Remus thought this might be what it felt like to have friends.
– – – – –
The next time he passed the three of them – James, Sirius and Peter – with their heads all bent over the same bit of parchment at a table in the common room, casting looks over their shoulders and clearly up to something again…well, it was just an hour or two away from the April full moon, so perhaps he was simply feeling everything more acutely…but the sight actually stopped Remus in his tracks. Why? he thought furiously. Why can't that be me?
Sirius looked up at him, but in the vague way he had when he didn't consider the object of his gaze all that important. It seemed to Remus that Sirius hadn't even looked at him properly again since what he'd come to think of as the Slytherin Door Incident. "'Smatter, Remus?" Sirius asked now. Then, when he didn't answer, "Kneazle got your tongue?"
"No – nothing –" Remus managed to choke out and made a dash for the dormitory stairs. He'd only come up to collect a few things to take along when he went to meet Madam Pomfrey, but he paused for a moment as he knelt to open his trunk, pressing his face against the cool sheets of his bed.
Just a few more weeks, Remus chanted to himself. This moon, then one more, then back home. Just a few more weeks.
He could hear the others whispering together as he passed by again in the other direction, but he resolutely didn't look at them.
Why not ME? the traitorous voice repeated relentlessly inside his head, but Remus shook it off. The answer to that question was due to rise shortly from behind the hills east of Hogwarts. And now he'd better hurry or he'd be late to meet Madam Pomfrey.
(continues in CHAPTER 7)
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 SIX
The first time it happened was at breakfast a couple weeks later.
"I can't remember the password," announced a timid voice that nonetheless managed to boom across the Great Hall.
A startled silence fell as everyone looked for the source of the voice. When nothing further happened, the usual din of chatter rose up again, but Remus thought Professor McGonagall looked a little concerned. He saw her studying each of the long tables.
The next time it happened was the following morning in Potions class, which the Gryffindor first-years had together with Ravenclaw. They were all bent diligently over their cauldrons, when someone yelled, "No, I won't let you copy my notes! Leave me alone!" But no one in the room had spoken.
At his desk in the front of the classroom, Professor Slughorn's head snapped up. "Which one of you did that?"
The students looked back at him blankly.
"One of you cast some sort of voice-throwing charm," Slughorn insisted. "And just a word to the wise here, but that sort of magic is beyond your abilities to control at the moment. I suggest you leave that until you've covered it in class." He looked at them sternly. "And no more interruptions. Back to work!"
With a sinking feeling, Remus saw James and Sirius share the very smallest of covert glances. Of course.
By unspoken agreement, all four of them ducked off down a side corridor, while the rest of the Gryffindors headed out to the greenhouses for Herbology.
"You didn't undo the distance hearing spell when you finished, did you?" Remus accused them.
Sirius shrugged in a way that presumably indicated guilt and James turned on him. "I thought you said you did!"
"Maybe I thought I had, okay?"
"What does thinking have to do with it? Either you did or you didn't."
Sirius scowled. "Oh, what does it matter?"
"It matters because you lied to us!"
"I didn't lie! I…adjusted the truth. Based on what I thought was true."
James cast him a disdainful look. "We're supposed to be able to trust you."
"Well, I should be able to trust you too, not to start making wild, unfounded accusations at me! Back me up here, Pete."
Remus cleared his throat. "Um, could we get back to the business at hand?"
The others turned to him, perplexed.
"What business?" asked Sirius.
"This spell you cast that's going out of control."
Sirius shrugged. "It'll wear off with time."
"No, it won't. It only gets stronger with time. I did tell you that."
James shrugged too. "I'm sure Dumbledore'll sort it out. And it's not like anyone can trace it back to us."
Remus shook his head. "Actually, they can, because –"
"GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF ME, MACNAIR," someone hollered and all of them jumped. Even Sirius couldn't help looking around for the source of the voice.
"That's why," Remus said weakly, heart pounding. "Because the spell's still doing exactly what you told it to do, picking up sound from near the Slytherin common room door and projecting it to wherever you are. Sooner or later one of the professors is going to be able to narrow it down to you, because it only ever happens when you're there."
Remus was gratified, in a queasy sort of a way, to see Sirius' face pale ever so slightly.
"Oh, Crups," James mumbled, and Peter's eyes were wide.
"We have to undo the spell!" Sirius declared.
Remus rolled his eyes. "Yes, you do."
"We do? You taught it to us, you have to help us undo it."
"I – wait – what?"
James nodded. "It's true, we'd better take him along."
"Tonight do you think?" Sirius asked.
"But I don't think all four of us will fit. You have to go, because you cast the actual spell. I'll go because it's my, you know. Sorry, Pete, you're out this time."
"Fine with me," Peter said. "I've got no interest in getting caught there by Slughorn."
Sirius addressed James. "You're willing to have him see the – you know?"
"Well, we'll have to, won't we?"
Remus was so frustrated he actually stamped his foot. "Look, I'm not going to help you. The spell's got too strong for us now anyway. You'd be better off going to Professor Dumbledore and telling him what happened and what kind of spell it was, and asking him to fix it."
"And land in detention for a week?" James asked. "Nah, no thanks."
"Detention for all of us," Sirius hastened to point out. "And the ickle prefect-in-training wouldn't want that, would he?"
Remus glared. "Fine. Just this once."
To his surprise, the grin Sirius tossed him was without guile. "A midnight adventure! Excellent."
"You know what?" James pondered. "Maybe we should get to Herbology."
Remus, who had yet to be late to a class the entire year, even on mornings after a full moon, moaned and took off at a dead run, heavy schoolbag flapping awkwardly against his legs.
– – – – –
The secret something James was always running off to fetch from the dormitory turned out to be an Invisibility Cloak. It was a gorgeous thing, silvery and almost weightless, like holding onto water. Remus' breath caught when James let him touch it.
"Cool, huh?" James said. "It was my dad's, but he gave it to me when I started Hogwarts. Said I'd have more fun with it, and he's got other ways to be invisible." Remus' head spun at how nonchalantly James dangled this precious object from his hand.
"Stop bumping, Remus," Sirius growled more than once as they crept through the castle's silent corridors.
"It's hard to all fit under here," Remus protested.
"James and Peter and I manage it just fine."
"Yeah, well I bet you've had a lot more practice, haven't you?"
"Shut up, you lot," James hissed more than once as they made their way down to the dungeon. Sirius' elbows kept ending up in Remus' ribs, though it didn't seem to be deliberate.
Finally, they made it to the underground corridor where the Slytherins had their dormitories.
"We should hide behind the statue of the three goblins again, I think, just in case anyone does come along," James whispered. With some jostling and muttering, they managed it, with James up against a wall, Sirius crouching under one of the goblins' outstretched arms and Remus squashed in between them. Once they were settled, James continued, "Okay, so now we just try casting 'finite incantatem' until we're sure it's worked, right?"
"It takes a really powerful wizard to undo a spell that's been strengthening for this long," Remus reminded him, but he had a feeling the warning fell, as usual, on deaf ears.
"Eh, if we all cast the spell together, it'll be strong enough."
"But it has to be done by the person who cast the original spell –"
"And that was Sirius. But it can't hurt if we both do 'finite incantatem' together with him, right?"
"Besides," Sirius added, "if it doesn't work, then at least the professors are going to be finding out some very interesting things about what the Slytherins get up to when no one's round."
The backfiring charm had projected sound from the Slytherin corridor a few more times during the day – including once in the Great Hall and once in the Gryffindor common room – and each time the snippets of conversation it revealed were less than flattering. Remus figured the professors knew by now where the sound was coming from, and he was more than a little worried they might also have figured out where it was going to.
He sighed, already envisioning the hundred ways this could go wrong.
James and Sirius had their wands out. James nudged Remus. "C'mon, you ready?"
Remus pulled out his wand too and the three of them aimed at the Slytherin door.
"On the count of three, okay?" James suggested. "And say it in a whisper, but, you know, a loud whisper. Ready? One, two, three."
"Finite incantatem," they all whispered, more or less in unison.
Sirius asked what was on all of their minds: "How do we know if it worked?"
Remus sighed, and the other two seemed to realise what he was going to say before he said it. "One of us has to go over there and say something."
"I'll do it," Sirius said.
Wordlessly, James shrugged himself and Remus out of the Cloak, and passed it to Sirius. "Be quick," James said.
Sirius disappeared under the Cloak and Remus heard a slight rustle as he walked away toward the Slytherin common room door. He reappeared in front of them a few moments later, looking confused, and wriggled back behind the statue with them.
James looked hopeful. "Did you say anything? If you did, we didn't hear it."
Sirius nodded. "It was weird, though. I could kind of hear my own voice coming back at me."
Remus groaned. "We're all idiots. You cast the spell, of course you have to be the one to stay here and see if you can hear anything. But obviously it didn't work anyway, if you could hear yourself."
James was all business. "Okay, so we do it again! And this time, let's say it three times in a row, getting louder each time. Because sometimes things in threes have extra power. So we're three people, and we'll say it three times."
Remus sighed, declined to comment on the merit of this suggestion, and raised his wand again with the other two.
"Finite incantatem, FINITE INCANTATEM, FINITE INCANTATEM."
They looked at each other.
"I'll go test it," James said. He grabbed the Cloak and disappeared. A moment later, they heard his voice as if he were still beside them. "Welcome to the home of Severus Snape, greasiest first-year ever at Hogwarts. Please don't knock, because you wouldn't want to meet him anyway."
A moment later, he was back, grinning. "Well?"
Remus shook his head. "Still heard you."
"Gargoyles," James complained, "Why is this thing so stubborn?"
Just then, they heard voices coming from the end of the corridor.
James' eyes widened as he slipped back behind the statue and hurried to drape the Cloak over all three of them. Sirius leant out under the goblin's arm to take a quick peek, then ducked back too with a hiss of alarm. "Dumbledore and Slughorn," he announced.
Remus moaned.
"They're coming because of the spell!" James declared, eyes wide. "Sirius, fix it, now."
Equally wide-eyed, Sirius whipped out his wand and pointed it toward the Slytherin door. "Finite incantatem," he intoned with fierce concentration. He murmured something softly to himself, then raised his wand and cast the spell again. Then once again.
Professors Dumbledore and Slughorn had almost reached the spot where they hid and Sirius was still repeating the spell under his breath. James tugged at his arm, but Sirius only shook his head. "I've almost got it," he whispered.
Just as the professors passed by the goblin statue in a whoosh of robes, Sirius raised his arm a final time and whispered, very softly but with impressive force, "Finite incantatem."
Dumbledore and Slughorn, who had been chatting companionably as they walked, stopped in front of the Slytherin door. With a nod to Slughorn, Dumbledore waved his wand in gentle arcs, muttering an incantation too quietly for the boys to hear. After a moment, he gave a small shrug and Slughorn's broad eyebrows went up.
"How odd," the Potions professor commented. "Mind if I try?"
Dumbledore gave a gracious wave of his hand, and Slughorn stepped closer to the door, performing the same incantation Dumbledore had done. Remus held his breath, not daring to look at Sirius or James.
"How very odd," Slughorn repeated. "I'm really quite sure the spell was cast here. It's the only explanation."
Professor Dumbledore shrugged in that enigmatic way of his. "Perhaps the original caster has already been and removed the spell."
Slughorn furrowed his brow. "Possible. But that has to have been difficult by now. And as I told you, I witnessed the spell's effect while I was teaching the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw first-years. It has to have been one of them."
"Well," Dumbledore said, his entire beard seeming to crinkle into a smile. "The culprit appears to have slipped through your fingers this time, Horace." He raised his voice almost imperceptibly. "But perhaps next time, he or she will think twice about dabbling in spells a bit too difficult for the present." He clapped Professor Slughorn on the shoulder. "Come, come, it's not the end of the world. There will always be a few cunning, clever ones who don't make it into your House."
Remus could have sworn he saw a pout on Professor Slughorn's face. "Right you are, of course, Albus. Right you are."
Then the two professors turned and headed back the way they had come, their voices receding as they reached the end of the corridor and rounded the corner.
Remus let out a desperate sigh he hadn't even known he was holding. "Oh – my – Merlin," he gasped.
Next to him, Sirius chortled so loudly that Remus spun round to look at him, getting tangled in the folds of the Cloak still draped over his head. "We did it!" Sirius crowed in a stage whisper. "I did it, we did it, whatever, it worked!" He grinned at Remus. "Hey, mate, we're totally brilliant."
Remus felt a bubble of laughter rising in his own chest and suddenly, he was laughing and Sirius was laughing too, making no effort to be quiet. How fabulous it was to laugh helplessly together with this barking mad individual.
"C'mon, you dolts, save it till we're back in the tower!" James said, but he looked pleased too.
Remus still felt slightly hysterical as they bumped along through the corridors, nearly running in their eagerness to get back to Gryffindor Tower and out of the range of trouble. James swept the Invisibility Cloak off them outside the portrait hole, and they tumbled inside, took one look at each other and started laughing again.
"The look on Slughorn's face –!" Sirius said.
"Boy is he sorry he didn't get you in Slytherin!" James added. "Cunning and clever, Sirius, eh?"
"Yup, you know me," Sirius said. "Got those Slytherin characteristics to the core."
James turned to Remus. "Thanks for helping us," he said. "I know you didn't want to come."
Remus made himself look braver than he felt and said, "I couldn't leave you two to make a mess of it, could I?"
James looked startled for a moment, then snorted with laughter. Sirius said, "You know, Lupin, you're not half bad."
With a sharp twist in his stomach, Remus thought this might be what it felt like to have friends.
– – – – –
The next time he passed the three of them – James, Sirius and Peter – with their heads all bent over the same bit of parchment at a table in the common room, casting looks over their shoulders and clearly up to something again…well, it was just an hour or two away from the April full moon, so perhaps he was simply feeling everything more acutely…but the sight actually stopped Remus in his tracks. Why? he thought furiously. Why can't that be me?
Sirius looked up at him, but in the vague way he had when he didn't consider the object of his gaze all that important. It seemed to Remus that Sirius hadn't even looked at him properly again since what he'd come to think of as the Slytherin Door Incident. "'Smatter, Remus?" Sirius asked now. Then, when he didn't answer, "Kneazle got your tongue?"
"No – nothing –" Remus managed to choke out and made a dash for the dormitory stairs. He'd only come up to collect a few things to take along when he went to meet Madam Pomfrey, but he paused for a moment as he knelt to open his trunk, pressing his face against the cool sheets of his bed.
Just a few more weeks, Remus chanted to himself. This moon, then one more, then back home. Just a few more weeks.
He could hear the others whispering together as he passed by again in the other direction, but he resolutely didn't look at them.
Why not ME? the traitorous voice repeated relentlessly inside his head, but Remus shook it off. The answer to that question was due to rise shortly from behind the hills east of Hogwarts. And now he'd better hurry or he'd be late to meet Madam Pomfrey.
(continues in CHAPTER 7)
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