Here’s James and Sirius
- The head had glasses... sandy brown hair, much like his own... gray eyes... Mr. Gregory Lupin's head was perched in the fire... but why? -
An owl fluttered outside an open window… a snowy white owl with green eyes. It was tapping its talons at the window in an attempt to attract someone’s attention. Remus, who was sitting on the floor of his room reading a book, looked up and spotted the owl. He had never seen it before, or at least he didn’t think he did. It looked vaguely familiar, as though he had seen it once before. He lifted himself up and crossed over to the window, opening the latches.
As soon as the last latch was lifted the last lock the owl burst through the window, knocking Remus off his feet in shock. The owl hooted gleefully and perched itself on Remus’s dresser. Remus walked over and took the envelope from it. He read it and discovered that it was from James, asking if he ever wanted to hang out during the summer. Remus folded the letter and decided to ask his mum if James could stay at their house for some of the summer. It was only the second week of July, maybe he could stay until August, Sirius too.
Remus ran downstairs to find his mother, still in a bad mood from Rachael’s letter, which Remus was still angry that he never got to see. He had to keep resisting the temptation to send her a letter, risking his mother catching him. But he knew she was watching all lines of communication from her house.
His mum was bustling about the kitchen in a last ditch attempt to get dinner on the table before eight at night. She was stirring a pot of macaroni quickly and absentmindedly pouring in what appeared to be licorice sticks. Remus made a face of mixed disgust and approval. It would be interesting to see what that combination tasted like.
“Mum?” he asked uncertainly.
“Yes?” she huffed.
“I got a letter from my friend James, from school… I was wondering if maybe he wanted to stay a few weeks here, and my friend Sirius?”
His mother stopped stirring and set her wooden spoon on the towel next to the stove. “I suppose, when could they get here?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
“As soon as I send them letters asking,” Remus answered coolly. His mother nodded and he ran up to his room, sat down at his desk and immediately began writing two invitations to his friends. He would have made it three; one for Peter, but Peter was off visiting relatives in Spain for the summer.
Remus sealed the envelope and called over James’s owl and then got his own owl and sent them both off with the letters… hoping they could come.
Dinner at the orphanage was a quiet affair, nothing apart from the gentle murmur of conversation from the several tables. Rachael was sitting by herself, trying to find the least painful way of picking up her fork to feed herself. Eating with two broken wrists wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do. She wished she could just bewitch her fork to feed herself. It was either down to learning to pick up a fork or eating with her mouth.
“It’s useless,” she mumbled, leaning back in defeat. The dinner wasn’t worth the hassle anyway. She looked around the room to see that it was barely full. She looked up at the wall clock to discover that it was near seven in the evening so it wasn’t unusual.
“Oh look… some of the dinner escaped!” came an only too familiar, not to mention annoying, voice from behind. Rachael turned her head slightly to see the figure of Brandy Culkin. Surprisingly she was alone. She was never seen without her cronies Becky or Brenda Lewis.
Rachael groaned. “What do you want?” she snapped.
“Oh just to see if the rat was getting on.”
“Oh I am, but the hippo doesn’t look it?” she retorted looking pointedly at Brandy. Brandy sniffed her nose.
“Yes well… at least I look fit to walk the earth.”
“Which earth are we talking about?”
“The one you’re not on. You’re on the planet of complete ugliness, stupid unloved child who-"
“SHUT UP!” Rachael was on her feet now, glaring Brandy in the eye, ready to knock the sense out of her. “You just shut up!”“Who’s going to make me stop?”
“I will!”
But it wasn’t Rachael who spoke. Both her and Brandy turned around to see none other than Becky Beckham stalking towards them.
“Becky… what’re you doing?” Brandy said, gaping at her friend in horror. For a moment it looked as though Brandy couldn’t use her tongue, she was fumbling so badly. A few others in the cafeteria looked up to witness this sudden change of events. Becky, on the other hand, knew exactly what she wanted to say.
“What do I think I’m doing?” she sneered. “What do I think I’m doing? I’ll tell you what I think I’m doing, I’m stopping you from bothering her!”
“But - but - but… it’s RACHAEL LUPIN we’re talking about!” Brandy argued, clearly losing her composure at her friend’s sudden strange behaviour. “How can you defend her?” She threw a mean gesture at Rachael, who was standing there watching this, all with mild curiosity.
“Like this.” And before anyone knew what had happened, Becky gave Brandy a sharp kick in the shins. Brandy shrieked and began hopping up and down, clutching her shins. Feeling there wasn’t any time better, Rachael began to slide out of the cafeteria… luckily unnoticed.
Well that was… strange, Rachael thought as she strolled down the hallway, not looking for anywhere in particular to go. Becky sticking up for her was just unheard of. Rachael couldn’t say she blamed Brandy for being surprised. If she were her (which she was thankful she wasn’t) she would’ve been shocked beyond all belief. She heaved a sigh and turned down the hall into the common room.
Remus sat eagerly on the porch of his house. James and Sirius had to arrive by the Knight Bus, as Sirius’s parents weren’t exactly keen on letting him do anything that he would enjoy and James’s fireplace was destroyed (due to the fact that his overweight uncle had tried using Floo Powder and broke the entire thing) so his Floo Powder travelling was out of the question.
James and Sirius should be arriving at any minute. They had said one o’ clock and, according to Remus’s watch; it was now 12:59 exactly. He couldn’t wait to see his friends. Even though it had only been two weeks since he had last seen them, after being with them all year it was a long time to him to not see his friends. They would be staying in Rachael’s old room. All of her old belongings were still there. Her bed was as it was four years before, all her toys still there and untouched, her clothes still hanging and folded in the drawer, nothing had been changed.
Of course it wasn’t supposed to stay that way. Remus’s mother wanted all of her stuff removed to prove that she was no longer a member of the family, but Remus put his foot down. He wouldn’t have his mother get rid of his sister’s stuff. Just to ensure it Remus’s father put a special charm on the door so she wasn’t able to touch anything. Remus went in there earlier to clean it up, as dust had been building up in the four years of absence from its usual occupant.
James would be using his sister’s old bed and Sirius would have to help Remus drag the spare mattress out of the attic and help him set up the bed frame for it.
Remus stared out into the street and saw some of his old friends. Dominick Sweazy, Billy Trent and Jack Higgles. They didn’t know what Remus was of course, being that they were Muggles, but they knew something was wrong with him and avoided him at all costs. They were in deep conversation when Dominick spotted Remus watching them and they quickly turned the other way and ran.
Remus rolled his eyes and continued to wait for his friends. He wondered how long it took for some time to get to another place travelling by the Knight Bus. If it were a bus it might take a while.
BANG!
Remus fell backwards as a giant, purple, triple-decker crashed in front of him. It knocked into the garbage pails, knocking them over, spilling garbage all over the porch. Remus picked himself up and looked at the bus. So this was the Knight Bus….
The front door burst open and out fell James and Sirius, both looking rather green from the ride. Following James was a grizzled old man with a monocle. He was dragging out their suitcases and dropped them on the floor. He looked at James and Sirius.
“That’ll be seven sickles each, boys,” he said in a weedy voice.
“What?” James said incredulously. “We paid you when we got on!”
The man stuck his hand inside his pocket and pulled out fourteen silver sickles. He looked up at the boys again and grinned foolishly, revealing his yellowing teeth.
“Oh… right… sorry, boys…Well… thank you for riding the Knight Bus.” The man got back onto the bus and with another sharp BANG the bus was off around the corner.
James and Sirius picked up their suitcases with disgruntled faces and walked towards Remus, who greeted them with a merry wave.
“All right, Remus?” Sirius asked, stopping in front of Remus and leaning on his suitcase.
“Yeah, you guys?” Remus answered.
“Pretty good,” James said, “With the exception of the ride here… my advice, never take the Knight Bus.” He cringed at the thought of riding it.
“It was that bad?”
“Not unless you call falling off your seat… what was it? Twenty times bad, then you could say it was fun.”
Remus laughed. If he was ever offered the chance to go on the Knight Bus, he knew now he’d turn it down, although it might be fun to get tossed about but… He picked up his friends’ suitcases and brought them into the house with James and Sirius trailing at his heels.
They stepped inside to hear his mother talking to someone. Curious, the three of them crept stealthily towards the living room to see Remus’s mum sitting to the side of the fireplace and talking to something inside of it. First Remus thought his mother was losing what was left of her mind and was talking to a log, and then he noticed it was a head. Remus studied the head for a moment. The head had glasses…sandy brown hair, much like his own… green eyes… Mr. Gregory Lupin’s head was perched in the fire… but why?
James and Sirius poked their heads past Remus and looked at Mr. Lupin curiously.
“Professor Lupin?” Sirius asked, looking at head oddly.
Professor Lupin’s eyes flickered towards the boys. “Hullo boys!” he said in most cheerful voice he could muster. “Didn’t notice you there… Having a good summer?”
The boys nodded, all of them wondering why he was here of all places. Professor Lupin looked back up at Remus’s mother and began talking again. He was talking very swiftly and quietly, so as not to let his son and friends hear what he was saying. But that didn’t stop them from hearing flashes of it, though he couldn’t make out what they were talking about.
They caught phrases such as, “you know it’s right,” and, “would never hear of it.” Putting two and two together he had a slight idea as to what they might be talking about. But he knew it was a lost cause, Mum was too stubborn and Dad just didn’t see it that it was useless to argue.
Finally…
“Just think about it. Bye, boys.” And with that the head vanished from the fire. Remus’s mum turned to them, looking slightly agitated, as Remus didn’t doubt she would after speaking to her husband. She turned to see the boys standing in the doorway and forced a rather hideous smile.
“Hullo,” she said in a high voice, as though nothing were bothering her. “James and Sirius.” As she said this, she didn’t realise she had called James Sirius and Sirius James. She knew quite well what they looked like as Remus had shown her pictures of them from school. James and Sirius exchanged hysterical glances.
“Uh no, Mum,” Remus said slowly. “This is James,” he gestured towards James, who was trying his best to put on a straight face, but the strain was obvious. “And this is Sirius,” he pointed to Sirius, who, like James, was doing his best not to laugh.
“Oh,” said his mum sheepishly, going red in the cheeks. “Right… well pleased to meet you anyway.” She reached out a hand for the both of them to shake. As a joke both James and Sirius both grasped her hand and wrung it up and down. Startled at first, his mum got the joke and smiled. “Well show them to their… room, Remus.”
“Okay,” Remus said brightly. “James, Sirius, walk this way please.” Remus sunk into a low bow and watched as James and Sirius walked by. Remus led them up the flight of stairs and all the way to the back room. He opened the door and did, yet again, a little sarcastic bow and James and Sirius waltzed in.
“So you two’ll be staying in Rachael’s old room,” Remus said, gesturing around at all the evidence that a girl had definitely lived in this room, all of the stuffed animals that is.
“James, you’ll use that bed,” Remus pointed to Rachael’s old bed. James picked up his suitcase and dropped it on it. “And Sirius, you have to help me get the spare one out of the attic.” Sirius nodded.
James sat down on the bed and looked around. “Do the lights work in here?” James asked, indicating the fact that there was only a dim light shining down from the light fixture.
“No, I dunno what me and my sister did, but we did that,” Remus said, smiling. It was strange to be standing in the middle of his sister’s room, when she hadn’t been in it for four years. But still everything was as it was… just a little cleaner. He sat down against the opposite wall and leaned his head back.
“You can sit you know,” he said, turning his head towards Sirius, who was still standing in the doorway. Sirius dropped his suitcase and jumped down next to James.
“Actually,” Remus said, lifting himself up. “Let’s go up to the attic now, get that over with.”