Feeling Normal
“I can’t believe they cancelled the Hogsmeade trip,” Sirius lamented early one Monday evening mid-October.
Remus looked at his friend incredulously. The staff had cancelled it for the safety of their students. “They had to, Sirius. A bunch of people died there only last week.” He yanked on one of his socks, which was sliding off his foot. “You couldn’t expect Dumbledore to let us go, especially when they didn’t catch whoever did it.”
“I hope they catch him soon,” Peter muttered desperately. James, Sirius and Remus, who were piled on Sirius’s bed, looked down at Peter, who was sitting on the floor. Mr. Pettigrew worked in one of the Hogsmeade businesses; they could easily see why Peter hoped for the quick arrest of the culprit. The day they heard of the attack, the boys had waited nervously with Peter as he awaited a letter from one of his parents, assuring him of the safety of his father. When Mrs. Pettigrew owled him, she told him that his father hadn’t even gone to work that day. He had been feeling under the weather and decided to stay home. There were no words that could sufficiently describe the relief Peter felt at his mother’s words.
“Are they rescheduling?” James asked, diverting the conversation away from the uncomfortable side. They knew Peter was doing his best to forget about it. Even with his father safe at home, he still wished the culprit was apprehended soon.
Remus shook his head, his brow furrowed. “I don’t think so. If they do, it won’t be for a long time.” They all knew the professors would never let the students step foot in Hogsmeade after such an attack.
“There’s goes the Christmas trip!” Sirius whined, throwing his hands up in the air and falling backwards on his mattress.
Remus shot his friend an angry glare. “You’re taking this very maturely, Sirius, as usual. People died, that’s as good a reason as any to miss a few trips to the village.” He glanced hopefully down at Peter. “You’ll back me up on this, right, Pete?”
It was obvious Peter wasn’t truly listening to their conversation. “Mmhmm… sure, James.”
“I’m taking that as an insult.” Remus knew Peter was tuning them out; he didn’t want to hear anymore about the attack on Hogsmeade. “Okay… change of subject. How about that test in Slughorn’s class?” He had regretted skiving off Lily’s tutoring session, as he severely needed the extra help. He knew next to nothing about brewing an effective poison and, as a result, melted a large hole right through the bottom of his cauldron and through the desk. His friends had fared better than he did.
“That was easy,” Sirius said offhandedly, sitting up straight again.
“Yeah,” James conceded wholeheartedly. “I’d do it all over again.”
Sirius scoffed. “No you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t.” He turned to Remus. “I felt sorry for your desk. It must’ve hurt when the potion went right through it.”
Remus shifted his head from side to side guiltily. “Yeah… well… that’s what I get for leaving tutoring before we even started.”
“Why did you?” James inquired interestedly. It was not like Remus to skive off a tutoring session without a good reason. There had been no full moon that night.
Remus had resolved not to tell them any of his thoughts about Greyback. Those thoughts were precisely the reason he had left. He couldn’t sit still long enough to focus on something as trivial as potions when there was Fenrir Greyback to think about. “No reason, I wasn’t feeling well.”
James raised his eyebrows at Sirius, but said nothing else, for which Remus was thankful. He didn’t very much feel like creating a lie to cover up why he hadn’t been feeling well.
Instead, James cleared his throat and shifted his sitting position. “Well, you’ll do better next time.”
“Hopefully.” He slid off the bed and crouched down beside Peter, who had become occupied with a dust bunny that was tumbling across the floor. “Come on; let’s go down to the kitchens.” One of the easiest ways to cheer Peter up was to sneak down to the kitchens and have the House Elves whip up some of his favourite foods. Their favourite House Elf, Twinky, was always ready to assist them. Peter considered Remus’s offer for a moment, before yielding. He stood up and led the way to the door. Remus looked over his shoulder at James and Sirius, who were still sitting on Sirius’s bed. “You guys coming?”
“Nah,” Sirius told him. “You go on ahead.” Remus shrugged and followed Peter out of the dormitory. When the two were gone, Sirius turned to James. “What would we have done if Pete’s dad had been one of the people who were killed?”
James shivered at the thought. “Don’t even ask me that, Sirius. He wasn’t, so why should we worry about that?” James just wanted to forget about the possibility of Mr. Pettigrew’s death.
Sirius understood how James felt. He, himself, had no idea what he would have said to Peter. He had never been skilled at consoling someone after the death of a loved one. He could only attribute this to the fact that he had rarely ever encountered a situation such as that. The only time he could really remember was when Remus’s grandparents had died. He didn’t think he had done a good job at it, anyway. James had been the one to accompany their friend home, not him. He hadn’t even thought of that idea. No, consoling someone who was in mourning was not one of Sirius’s good abilities.
“We would’ve just been there for him,” James said firmly. “If that ever happens to any of us, we would just be there for each other.” James sighed and pulled his knees up to his chest, staring at the wall opposite him. “Okay, I feel depressed now.”
Sirius pulled the most shocked face he could. “Depressed? Never!” He jumped off his bed. “We should remedy that!”
“How?” James asked, feigning a desperate tone. He slid off the bed, landing on his knees. He folded his hands together and shook them wildly. “How?”
“Dance in women’s clothing?”
James rolled his eyes. “Sirius, stop living your fantasies through me. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“We’re going on fifty three, I think.”
“Really? I thought we were at sixty.”
“No, fifty three.”
James got to his feet. “Well, if you’re sure… But, in all seriousness, how do we solve my depression?”
“I’m all for turning Snivelly’s hair pink.”
James frowned at this suggestion. “We just got him the other day with that itching charm. Let’s think of someone else.”
“Like who?”
“I dunno… we could always go after Abrac Zabini. We haven’t gotten him in a while.”
Sirius grimaced. “He would look too good in pink.”
James cringed and took a cautious step back. “I’m a little afraid that you actually thought of what colour he would look good in.”
“I didn’t, I just thought of that now.”
James dismissed this claim, not wanting to question the validity of it. “Who are we going to hex?”
“What about Evans?”
James looked horrified at the very notion. “Are you barking mad? She’d murder me!”
“That’s half the fun of it!”
James raised his hand, ready to bring it down on Sirius’s head, when the dormitory door opened. To their utter shock, it was Lily Evans. James and Sirius gaped at her; they had never realised girls were allowed in their dormitory. They vaguely wondered if it worked the other way around. Most importantly, had she heard Sirius’s suggestion to hex her? Judging by the expression on her face, she hadn’t. She didn’t look angry. Instead, she looked embarrassed to even be in there, but shook it off and shut the door.
“What’s up, Evans?” James asked coolly, folding his arms across his chest.
Lily answered just as coolly. “I just thought you’d want to know, your friends are in the Hospital Wing.”
“What? Why?” Sirius questioned quickly. What could Remus and Peter possibly have done that would hospitalize them?
“They were ambushed down on the first floor by some Slytherins.”
Sirius wheeled around to face James. “I told you we should’ve gotten Snape.”
Lily gritted her teeth. Of course the first person Sirius would accuse would be Severus Snape. “It wasn’t Severus, Black. It was some older students that you don’t even know.”
“How do you know this, anyway?”
Lily’s face took on a hard, mean look. She did not loathe Remus and Peter nearly as much as she loathed the two boys standing before her. “I heard some Slytherins who had seen it boasting about it.”
“What happened to the ones who actually did it?”
“I imagine they’re in the Hospital Wing too. The Slytherins who were boasting about it probably forgot to mention that -” She hurriedly stepped aside as James and Sirius bounded for the door. “You’re welcome!” she called at their retreating backs.
“Yeah,” Sirius called back. “Thanks, Evans!” They hurried through the crowded common room, nearly destroying a group of first years and their game of Wizard Chess. The only good thing they could think of was that Lily said that the culprits were in the Hospital Wing too. That meant that Remus and Peter had gotten them good enough to cause some damage. It was just like Slytherins to neglect to mention that they had been brought down by a group of Gryffindors, especially ones that were younger than they were. The ones who were boasting must have chosen to repress their housemates and the damage that Remus and Peter had inflicted. They followed the corridor until they were outside the infirmary and subjected to hearing Madam Pomfrey’s furious tirade about the dangers of dueling. The boys snickered at each other. They had heard this a million times before. They waited until her voice died down before entering.
It was easy to see that Remus and Peter had gotten the better of the Slytherins, though James and Sirius supposed that the majority of the damage on the Slytherins had been reversed. The older boys still looked as if they had been shoved through an extremely tiny hole. They looked shorter and smaller than they probably were and their faces were somewhat scrunched together. James and Sirius could only imagine what else their friends had done to defend themselves. Remus and Peter were sitting next to each other on one of the vacant beds, their faces ashen, their robes singed, and their arms bandaged, but otherwise looking quite pleased with themselves. James and Sirius strolled over, eager to hear what had occurred.
“So,” James began casually. “What did we tell you two about fighting when we’re not around?”
Remus looked thoughtful for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. “To do it more often?”
“That’s what I thought.”
Sirius sat down beside Peter and observed his friend’s ragged appearance. “What did they do? Shove you two in a fireplace?”
“They tried,” Peter muttered darkly. Then, smiling, he added, “We still would’ve come out better than they did.”
“They caught us when we were going down to the kitchens,” Remus explained lightly. “They tried hexing us and ended up setting our sleeves on fire.”
James flinched. “Ouch.”
Remus waved it off, as if it was every day that someone ignited his clothes. “It looks worse than it is. Right, Pete?”
Peter nodded agreeably. “You couldn’t feel it after a while.”
“That usually isn’t a good thing, you guys,” Sirius told them gravely. “Doesn’t that mean you lost nerves in your arm or something?”
“Probably.” Peter observed the bandage wrapped around his arm, wondering if what Sirius said was true. He then decided that it didn’t matter and continued with the story. “So, Remus and I got them good. They were small enough to be put in a little satchel by the time we were through with them.”
“Really?” James said, leaning back, impressed.
Remus grinned proudly. “Yeah. We got detention for a week with Twikom after she caught us, but that’s nothing.”
“I never thought I’d hear the day Remus Lupin said a detention was nothing,” James whispered to Sirius.
“We must be having a bad influence on him.”
Before any of the boys could get another word out, Madam Pomfrey came bustling out of her office to check on her patients. She clicked her tongue in disgust when she approached the two Slytherins. The boys wondered if she did that because she was angry or because they looked so disfigured. They preferred to think that it was the latter, but knew it was the former. Or it could have been a bit of both. When she was through with the Slytherins, she strode over to the Gryffindor boys and briskly gave Remus and Peter the once-over before announcing that they were free to go, only to return the next day to change their bandages.
“And no more dueling,” she warned them distinctly as they left the ward.
“Can’t make any promises,” Remus and Peter mumbled under their breath.
Remus and Peter sat in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, their hands cramping painfully as they scrawled out three hundred lines of I will not duel in the hallway. Professor Twikom was nowhere to be found. They had only seen her once since they arrived. She had been waiting just inside the doorway with a stack of parchment and the instructions ready to give to her detainees. Once she was sure the boys were settled and at work with their lines, she hurried out of the classroom to a destination unknown to the boys. They hadn’t thought of anything at first, but now that their detainment was almost over, they wished she would appear. They couldn’t leave unless she allowed them to.
“Where do you reckon she’s gotten to?” Peter asked Remus as he looked toward the doorway, hoping she would suddenly materialize.
“I dunno,” Remus replied concernedly, also peering at the doorway. “I hope she gets back soon.” Remus did not really wish this, as he always got an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach when he was around her. He only wanted her there so they could leave. Just as he thought this, the door swung open and the professor reappeared, a piece of parchment clutched tightly in her hand. She strode over to her desk and set the parchment down. Without even acknowledging the boys, she left again.
“Why do I feel like she’s forgotten we’re here?” Peter asked Remus exasperatedly.
“Because she did.” He set his quill down and cracked his sore and cramped knuckles. He wondered why the Slytherins were not serving detention as well; they had started the fight. He knew it was because he and Peter had bested them in the worst way possible, but they hadn’t exactly escaped unscathed. Their arms still bore bandages for their healing burns.
“She looked worried,” Peter was saying, breaking Remus out of his thoughts.
“Yeah… yeah, she did.” Remus scratched his chin and let his eyes wander over to the piece of parchment Twikom had set down. It was wrinkled and slightly rolled up. This must have been the source of the professor’s anxiety. He turned to Peter. “You don’t think that,” he pointed to the parchment, “has anything to do with it.”
Without hesitation, Peter nodded. “Definitely. She looked like she wanted to burn it.” He stood up and joined Remus where he stood. “I wonder what it says.”
“We can’t go looking at a teacher’s mail.” Remus knew that they would be serving more detention if they were caught looking at Twikom’s letter.
“Who says we can’t?”
“I think a few people would.” Despite his resistance, Remus couldn’t deny that he was curious as to what might be written in the letter. He bit his bottom lip in frustration, one look couldn’t hurt. He hurried over to the desk and snatched up the letter. He quickly scanned it and felt the knot that had been residing in his stomach since the beginning of the term constrict. It was a letter written in a scratchy, disjointed handwriting. It didn’t give off the impression of the sender being well-educated. As Remus read, he saw familiar phrases. He had heard them recently and he knew whom he had heard them from. Greyback wasn’t going to stop. With a shaky hand, he set the letter down and tried to act natural. “Come on, Pete.”
Peter did a double take. “What?”
“Let’s go. Twikom can’t get mad at us if we finished our lines.”
Peter narrowed his eyes to get a closer look at his friend. Remus’s face had gone a shade or two paler. “What did that letter say?”
“Nothing,” Remus said hastily, his voice raising an octave. He began leading the way to the door. “Come on, Peter.”
But Peter wasn’t budging. He had to know what that letter said. Swiftly, he made a run for it, and Remus was not fast enough to catch him. Peter snatched the letter up and pushed Remus’s hand away as he tried to grab it back. Peter walked away, the letter almost pressed against his nose as he read it. When he finished, he spun around to see Remus glaring at him. “I said it was nothing, Peter.”
Peter merely gaped at him. When he regained the use of his tongue, he was disbelieving. “This is nothing? Remus, who are you trying to fool?”
Remus ripped the letter out of Peter’s hand. “Myself, thank you.” He replaced the letter on Twikom’s desk and proceeded through the open doorway, not halting or slowing his pace to match Peter’s. He heard Peter’s footsteps following him, though they seemed to be coming from far away, rather than right behind him. Peter’s voice, when he began speaking, also seemed to be a long distance away.
“Why are you pretending that this isn’t happening? Remus!” he shouted when his friend didn’t respond. “You’ve always been the most realistic one out of all of us, why aren’t you being like that now?” He stood momentarily in his spot, hoping that Remus would answer him. His hopes, however, were not received. “Remus, you know this is happening! Why are you suddenly acting like this?”
Remus snarled and whipped around. There was an anger, and a terror, in his eyes that Peter had never seen before and wished to never see again. It was unnerving. “I’m acting like this because all those times when I was being realistic never involved a vicious werewolf trying to get me and make me like him! That’s why, Peter, and if you don’t like it, that’s too bad!” He whipped back around and continued furiously on his way to the common room.
“I know you’re scared, Remus.” Peter was trying to be reasonable, bring his friend back down to a calm level. This was futile.
Remus didn’t even stop walking, he spoke as he went. “Scared? I’m not scared, Peter. I’m terrified! You don’t get it. You won’t get it until it’s happened to you and I pray to Merlin that it never will because you don’t deserve it. No one deserves it. No one except Fenrir Greyback himself and he’s the one who caused it.” He finally stopped walking so Peter could catch up with him. Peter hovered behind his friend, unsure if another outburst was to follow. Slowly, Remus’s shoulders began to relax and his breathing steadied. “I’m sorry, Peter.”
Peter blinked. “For what?”
“Blowing up at you. None of this is your fault. I’ve just been frustrated lately.”
“I can see why…”
“I just… I guess I never thought something like this could happen.” He loosened his fists and walked over towards the wall, sliding down against it so he was sitting with his knees against his chest. “I thought that once Greyback ruined your life that was it. He wasn’t going to come back for seconds.”
Peter groaned inwardly. This wasn’t his area of expertise. James or Sirius was usually the one who handled situations like this. Peter had never been involved in the inspirational words of comfort, except as backup. He never had to take care of it himself. He had no idea what to say. He joined Remus by the wall and sat down. “He didn’t… Greyback didn’t ruin your life.”
Remus had half a mind to ask how could Greyback not have ruined his life, but then realised that Peter was right. Yes, he had his monthly transformations, which were easily the worst kinds of pain he would ever experience, but aside from that… he had friends. It took him so long to find true friends, friends who would never abandon him because of his condition. That wasn’t something that could qualify as a destroyed life, quite the opposite. He was too busy getting caught up in his worry to realise these things. “Yeah… you’re right.”
“You have every right to be scared, though.”
“I know.” Remus stood up and looked around the vacant hallway. “What do you think will happen if he does find out it’s me?”
Peter couldn’t very well lie, Remus would know. “Something bad.”
There was a grim sort of acceptance in Remus’s voice. “That’s what I thought.” He leaned against the wall. “Do you ever think we’ll have a year at this place that’s close to normal?”
“First year was fairly normal,” Peter reasoned.
“With the exception of a lunatic teacher.”
“We got rid of him.”
“Let me rephrase my question, then… Can we ever have a year like first year where our only problem was getting rid of a teacher we hated?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you suppose will happen next year?”
“Sirius becomes a Prefect?”
Remus grinned lightly. “That’s scarier than Greyback.”
“Hey, I don’t think me being a Prefect is so scary.” Remus and Peter looked around to see James and Sirius approaching them, Sirius looking considerably insulted. They stopped when they reached the boys by the wall. “I may be loud and obnoxious and a troublemaker, but I could definitely be a Prefect.”
James looked doubtful. “I don’t think so, mate.” He patted Sirius on the shoulder and talked to him in a voice that suggested he was speaking to someone slow. “You see, you have to be a good boy, not a troublemaker.”
“I get good grades,” Sirius argued defensively.
James turned to Remus and Peter. “You know, I still find that unbelievable.”
“James… I act stupid, but I’m not actually stupid.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Want to go find my records and prove it?”
James stepped forward, standing on his toes so he was taller than Sirius. “Let’s go find them!” he challenged.
“Come on then!” Sirius began marching down the corridor.
“Hey, wait a moment.” James sped off to meet Sirius. “Where exactly are we going to find them?”
“How should I know? Come on!”
Remus and Peter watched as James and Sirius ran up the marble steps. Laughing quietly, Peter turned to Remus. “After listening to them, don’t you feel normal?”