"Why on Earth did Filch want a Kwikspell Course?"
Chapter Ten: Settling the Score
The four boys walked casually down the empty corridors as they made their way down to the Great Hall for dinner. They had missed the majority of their classes because they were too preoccupied with being cooped up in the hospital wing with only Madame Pomfrey to comfort them, which really wasn't much help. It seemed that every time she shoved a new potion down Sirius' and James' throats it tasted ten times worse than the last one she'd given them. It hadn't helped either that every time she re-entered the room she seemed to be there only to provide more bad news.
They, in addition to Madame Pomfrey's style of healing or maybe because of it, had discovered that Snape was very good at timing charms. He had placed a potent vomiting charm on James that hadn't begun to work until a half-hour after he had hexed him with it. This charm was moreover the very reason the four boys had raced from their dormitory in Gryffindor Tower down to the infirmary for some help.
While being stuck down there in the infirmary, they had found out that Snape had also cleverly placed a coughing charm on James that had started immediately after Madame Pomfrey had managed to bring an end to his vomiting. The coughing that the charm had instilled on him made his whole body ache terribly as he coughed continuously for an hour while Remus and Peter tried their best to comfort both of their friends whilst they endured whatever potion or bad news the medi-witch had to offer.
Sirius had only been landed with the coloring charm on his hair and to the boy's disappointment he had been informed that he would just have to wait until it faded back into his normal hair color and style. Which the same case also went for James' hair too, but that didn't make any of Sirius' other injuries any less painful. In fact James almost thought that Sirius had it worse, despite all the pain James had to endure as his coughing fits stopped only to be replaced with more vomiting, only to have the vomiting followed an hour later by an itchy rash that covered him from head to toe. The majority of Sirius' injuries, though, were a compilation of countless bruises that covered the majority of his body, a few broken ribs, and a broken arm that he had received from the mauling that Knott and Avery had given him.
Sirius had refused to go down to the infirmary before James had started to vomit mainly because he hated anything that even resembled a hospital. Yet, when James started to throw up and wouldn't stop, Remus, Peter and he had rushed him down there. The result of this action was that when Madam Pomfrey's eyes had fallen on Sirius' black eye, and obviously pained expression, she had gone straight to work trying to fix him up even with all of his protests to her doing so. The combination of his injuries and the potions seemed to cause Sirius pain every time he moved even slightly and that was what made James feel horrible.
The only thing that seemed to help the two boys over the six hours they were stuck in the infirmary was the company of Remus and Peter. They had stayed by their sides the whole time. James had noted amongst his changing ailments that Remus seemed to be fairly close to Madam Pomfrey. He talked more openly with her than he sometimes did when he was with them, almost as if he wasn't trying to hide anything from her, like he seemed to be doing with them: his friends. That, however, was probably only due to the fact that Remus was down in the infirmary so often. Despite these worries, though, James was glad he was there to unnecessarily explain over and over again that Madame Pomfrey was always fussy, and to occasionally crack some moderately lame jokes that they could all laugh at anyway.
They were all very glad when Madam Pomfrey had said they could leave as long as they went straight to Gryffindor Tower to get some rest. They smiled widely just before they got out of their beds, claimed that they would, and practically ran to the door, before they set out in the direction of the Great Hall with hopes of some dinner. They did have a score to settle, and rest was relatively overrated compared to that.
They arrived in the Great Hall minutes later. Remus opened the doors to the hall as James and Sirius stepped through asking silently for all eyes to fall on them. Once they knew they had everyone's attention, or at least everyone that was at dinner, they smiled widely and bowed dramatically in front of everyone as their fellow students laughed openly at their hair. Sirius and James lead the way to their usual seats at the Gryffindor table and as they passed by Snape they both smiled cruelly at him as he sneered just as viciously back at them. Sirius let out a low laugh as they sat down smiling wickedly to one another. All of them had seen Snape bragging undoubtedly about what he had done to them as they had walked in. Now he had to eat his words, because apparently they weren't suffering at all.
James smiled widely at the wet floor before him as his thoughts drifted through the week's events. McGonagall and Lamia had deducted, shortly after they had entered the great hall, that the boys had had a fight in the corridors and had in return given all of them detentions. Peter was shocked when she had told them that each and every one of them would get detention saying that no matter how noble they had thought they were being, fighting was still against the rules. Remus seemed to have expected as much and said nothing about the detention afterward. He did, however, received a howler the next day from his mother, though the tone in her voice seemed a little less edgy then James' own mother's had been. Sirius had received a letter from his father that said simply that they were disappointed in him (using very foul language to instate the issue) and then as a final note advised him not to come home for Christmas because he didn't know what he and his wife would do to their son if they saw him. Sirius just replied sounding slightly hurt in James' opinion, yet he would have sounded normal to anyone else, "I wasn't planning on going home anyway." It was the truth but no matter how much he hated his family, no one wants to be told they are not wanted back.
"James," he looked up from the floor once more with a confused expression on his face as he met Remus' eyes, "you're supposed to be washing the floor not watching it."
James smiled slightly and started to move the dirty rag that he had in his hand in a circular motion. "That better?"
"Much," Remus said as Filch shot the boy a dirty look from his station in the doorway. Remus quickly moved back over to where he had been cleaning so Filch wouldn't have the chance to scold him for talking to James.
James watched Remus go back to his work on the sinks, which looked to be done to everyone else. Yet, Filch kept pointing out invisible smudge lines all along its face informing the boy that it needed to be spotless before any of them left. James sighed to himself as his mind filtered back into its former thoughts. He soon found himself silently debating whether or not he should go home for Christmas. He shoved the dirty rag into the murky soapy water in disgust and continued to clean.
Through their bonding period with Filch, the boys had discovered a few things: one being that Filch hated them. He had made that very apparent when he occasionally sneered at the four boys as they worked in different corners of the room. He had a tendency to mumble things under his breath about "dungeons", "whips" and "the good old days."
They had found out the hard way that they were not to talk to one another while they worked when Sirius had tried to show Peter a more efficient way of cleaning the toilets. Filch had moved so fast over to the boy, with his eyes filled with pure hatred, as he grabbed Sirius by the collar of his robes and jerkily kicked over his bucket of dirty water. He then stood over Sirius making sure that he cleaned up the newly dirtied floor all over again. Any attempt made by the other three to help him with his new load of work was quickly thwarted by the old man as he went on to dirty whatever they were cleaning, which they soon established was his own special way to get them to understand he wasn't playing with them. Nevertheless, even with that incident and the ones that followed with the others it still hadn't kept them from "bumping" into one another so they could exchange words for three seconds before Filch spoke his mind and sent them to clean the toilets for the fiftieth time.
It was well after midnight before the old brute discovered dismally that making the boys clean invisible smudge lines was no longer pleasurable for him. When he finally growled at them and told them that they could leave with his face set in a look of despair, comparable only to the bleakness of a funeral, they had to, in return, try to resist the urge to sprint out of the room. So with their hands pruned and their bodies too far past begging for sleep left the room.
"You think he could look anymore pathetic?" Sirius asked with a slight chuckle in his voice when they were down the hall and well out of earshot of the caretaker.
James shrugged his shoulders. "No, but I know what would make him happy now."
"Yeah, giving us a good whipping." Peter interjected pitifully.
Sirius smiled at the boy. "No, that would only make him piss himself with excitement."
"That's disgusting." Remus said from behind them.
"But it's true. I think, if things were run his way, he'd use the Chinese water torture treatment on every student until he figured out who let the dungbombs off in the third floor corridor."
James laughed and then added. "And then when he found out who had done it he would whip us like Peter said." The small boy at his side shivered visually at the thought of being whipped.
"That's only his thoughts now. If he had it his way he'd do something very horrible, like put our arms in cuffs and hang them up from the ceiling so we can't put our arms down for hours on end."
James looked at Sirius wondering what book or more likely what family member he had gotten that torture device from and immediately thought of another method to reply with. "Or for the children that were bad but not too horrible-"
"Which ones would those be? To him we're all horrible wretched little buggers." Sirius said with a mischievous smile.
James just looked at him, nodded in agreement, and then continued. "He'd lock us down in the dungeons and make sure it was pitch black. Then he would leave us down their long enough so we forget if it's night or day."
Sirius nodded, "Not bad, but in truth I think we all know that he'd invest in the medieval muggle torture devise called the iron maiden because we all know that he wouldn't really want us around after we break a rule. He'd just want us gone in the most horrible way possible."
James had heard of these things one time from his father and went with what he had been told. "So he'd shove us in the coffin with his face set in a smirk and then take the doors lined with spikes and shut them on us slowly so we can feel them pierce our bodies as we pray for the final release."
"Aye, a very painful way to die," Sirius said, "or he might-"
"Then let's hope we never see a Headmaster Filch." Remus said finally getting sick of hearing about the many ways Filch could possibly get rid of the students. "Anyway, the man's just jealous."
James furrowed his brow and looked back at Remus who was rubbing his back with a pained expression on his face. "How so?"
Remus sighed, as bright as they often were they were never short on daft moments. "He's a squib."
Realization visually showed on the three boys faces. "You're joking, right?"
"No, Sirius I'm-" Remus took a deep intake of breath as he shut his eyes. He felt his body go rigid as every muscle in his body tightened and a headache at the nape of his neck began to set in. He soon heard worried voices from his friends join the chorus of his pain.
"Remus can you hear me?" James asked.
Remus opened his eyes and looked at all of them. His back still felt as if it was on fire but he insisted to try and convince himself that it was only because of all the work he'd just done in detention rather than anything else. He looked at the people around him all with looks of concern set firmly on their faces.
"Are you okay?" Sirius asked unsurely.
Remus nodded and by instinct looked out the window, after finding that he was unable to convince himself that the nasty truth about him wasn't beginning to show its colors, they had just passed and was greeted by an almost full moon. He looked away trying desperately to fight the urge to just break down and cry and tell them everything about him. He couldn't bring himself to look at their worried faces. They seemed to care enough for him. Yeah, but so did the others and how did they repay you when they found out the truth? He found himself thinking bitterly.
He finally returned his gaze back to James, Sirius, and Peter who were all waiting for some kind of excuse for his odd behavior. Remus smiled weakly, "Yeah, I'm fine, my back's just really sore from all the detention work. That's all."
Sirius smiled at him weakly. "Well, maybe we should go get something for it down in the infirmary."
"No," he said too quickly. "no, I'll be fine. I just need some sleep."
They stared back at him not believing his little lie completely but finally nodded as a way to let him know that it was his decision and they were fine with it. With one final look out the window at the orb that sealed his fate, he let them escorted him back up to Gryffindor Tower and went straight to bed without a word. He was ashamed of himself. Ashamed that he couldn't tell them the truth because he was afraid. Afraid of their reaction to it, but ultimately that he'd be alone, again. He silently cried himself to sleep that night. And while he wept over his worries, no one else got any sleep because they were all too worried for their friend. As they stared through the darkness at the drawn curtains around his four-poster, they silently crawled into their own beds and waited for the restless sleep to settle in.