Thirteen and a Half Letters by Everlasting
Chapter Notes: Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine…. are these things even necessary anymore? Hm.
This story takes place during the Marauders’ 6th year. It’s for my friend Carina. (I listened to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack while writing this.)
For Remus Lupin, there was something stirring about words. They moved him, picked him up in their strong hands and relocated him from grief to sadness, from sadness to contentedness, from contentedness to joy. Besides the fact that it (for the most part) wasn’t painful, books were what Remus enjoyed the most about living in human form. It was magic: the smell that brought flashbacks to someone else’s childhood, the rough or smooth texture of the pages, so susceptible to giving paper cuts, but most of all, the words inside.
His friends and not-friends thought he was slightly strange for never being caught without a book in his hands, especially the Muggle variety: Kurt Vonnegut was his favorite Muggle author, which was a fact he didn’t often divulge. He was passionate about, one day, successfully confessing his love to someone using just the right words. He lived for them.
Oh, and he was quite fond of cats as well.
*~*
“Your frog looks more like a parrot,” James managed to spit out amidst a laughing fit. His Transfigured frog definitely looked as if the tissue box was still lodged inside it.
Peter jerked his arm; making to swat James, then resigned his hands to his lap with a dejected look at his beaked toad.
“What? Can’t even make a nice retort?” James rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder why we stick around you, little Peter.”
“Ouch!” Sirius said, mouth agape in a reckless smile. Eyes twinkling.
“You wouldn’t get very far once a month without me,” Peter squeaked.
“Can we not bring this up right now?” Remus asked through gritted teeth. He could usually put up with his friends’ nonsense, but not today. It was the first of February, and there were more important things.
Like the fact that he buried his cat Welly last night. Like the fact that his stomach was eating itself. Like the fact that the full moon had just passed. Like the fact that they never shut up in his favorite class. Like the fact that…
“Moony, is there a prob-”
“Mr. Black, if you and your friends can’t be quiet you’ll need to leave.” McGonagall’s lips were pencil-thin with rage.
“Right, sorry…” Sirius swallowed a sigh and shoved his hand into his palm.
How was he handsome even when he was annoying?
~*~
“He asked if you were upset? What a dimwit,” Lily loudly crumbled a piece of treacle tart in her mouth. She was a big fan of their beloved hang out at the back of the library, usually involving complaints with a side of chocolate.
“You’re going to get caught, you know,” Remus couldn’t help grinning. Lily looked adorable when she mischievously chewed on chocolate. She also looked adorable curled against a stack of books. Actually, she pretty much always just looked really darn cute.
“Like I –”
“I know you don’t care. Anyway, he didn’t ask if I was upset, he asked if there was a problem.” Remus pulled at a thread in his trousers.
“Well, that’s still stupid,” Lily’s knees cracked as she stretched out her legs against the opposite bookshelf.
Remus cast her a silent glance.
“It is! If he can’t see that Welly not being with us anymore hurts you, then he’s dim. I’m sorry. I love the kid, but…” Lily shrugged, wrapping her hair around a finger.
Remus remained quiet. She shoved the last of her treacle tart into her mouth and grabbed the nearest book.
“Oh look! Magical memories! How interesting…” Lily thumbed through the book, feigning interest.
She slammed it shut.
“Okay, you’re not saying anything. Speak.”
“I… I didn’t tell him,” Remus let out his lungs’ contents in one exhale.
In its absence, the magical memory book’s shelf companions inhaled and enlarged, leaving no room amongst themselves. Lily shoved two books apart with her feet and stuffed the memory book back inside.
“Genius,” Remus remarked.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Lily’s big green eyes swiveled onto him, and Remus lost track of his backups as to why he hadn’t told his best mate that his beloved Welly died.
“I just… I don’t know! He’s been spending a lot of time with James? I didn’t want to bother him…”
“Oh, come on. He always spends time with James. And you and Peter! Am I the only one who knows about Welly?” Lily raised a brow.
But there was no room for Remus to answer. A gaggle of voices approached and they were frozen still.
“Did you see the look on his face?” a boy guffawed.
“Pitiful.” That deep voice could only belong to one Hogwarts student… Beside Remus, Lily tensed up and crossed one leg over the other.
“He had it coming, Sev.”
The obvious thing to do, it seemed, was stand up and exit the library through the other end of the aisle. But still Lily and Remus sat rooted to the spot. The boys still had a chance to pass them up, right?
Apparently not.
Snape, Mulciber, and Avery rounded the musty book corner and noticed the Gryffindors nestled on the floor. Snape cast one look at the pair and took a sudden, intense interest with the nearby books on memory.
“Oh look, they’re sad! Loony Lupin might just run to his Blacky and caress his nosey!” Avery sneered.
“You’re horrible,” Lily’s eyes leveled with his and narrowed into slits.
“What the hell did you do?” Remus stood up quickly, stumbling over his robe.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Scarface?” Mulciber snickered. “What’s that on your face, anyway? Filthy half-bloods…”
“Shut up before I Silencio you,” Lily stood valiantly at Remus’s side, wand at the ready.
“Calm it, Ginger,” Mulciber shrugged her threat off, though fear burrowed in his porous, oily skin. “Let’s go.” He motioned to Snape and Avery and the dark trio brushed past.
And they were gone. Remus would have called out, but there were more important things. Like the fact that Lily looked like she was in pain. Like the fact that every time his scars were brought up he got a little more self-conscious. Like the fact that something was wrong with Sirius.
Sirius. Why hadn’t he told him about Welly? More importantly, what the hell happened?
Madam Pince towered on her way over to scold them for making too much noise.
Lily hoisted her schoolbag higher on her shoulder, grabbed Remus by the elbow, and off they were to Gryffindor Tower.
*~*
“Sirius, what –” Remus blurted out as he fell through the portrait hole.
“Hospital wing, you git,” Greta Catchlove muttered from a seat near the fire.
Remus was speechless – why had he not immediately fled in the direction of the hospital wing?
Feeling incredibly stupid, he and Lily fell back through the portrait hole. Time seemed to fly, each step toward the hospital resulting in one more yard to cover.
And there it was – the cool white hospital wing. Lily and Remus gasped for breath as they jogged toward the clump of dark-haired people near the back.
“No more visitors!” Madam Pomfrey announced, swatting at their shoulders.
Remus ignored her and pushed her and Lily aside, making a beeline for Sirius.
“Is he okay?”
Barking laughter answered him. James, Peter, and three girls from their Charms class were seated around Sirius, who was propped up on one elbow, in the midst of a story.
“Wait, wait, I’m almost done. So then she kicked open my bedroom door and said, ‘I may not be magical but my body is!’” Sirius had the widest grin on his face, clearly telling this just for the feedback. Never mind the bruise on his nose or the blood Pomfrey failed to staunch flowing from his mouth.
The girls gave hysterical forced giggles. James roared with laughter, smacking the bed. “No she didn’t!”
“No, she did. And then she started taking her clothes off.” Sirius turned to lie back down, then noticed Remus.
“What happened?” Remus asked for what seemed the umpteenth time.
Sirius gave a brilliant smile. “Old Snivellus decided to come creeping into Gryffindor, so I gave him what he asked for.”
“Into Gryffindor?” Lily tilted her head.
“Well, he was sulking around the seventh floor,” Sirius shrugged, flopping back against the cream colored sheets.
“Yeah, his grease would provoke anyone trying to go down the corridor…” James added his two cents.
“Shut up,” Lily clenched her fists.
“But he didn’t actually do anything?” Remus raised an eyebrow, sitting down on the bed behind the Charms class girls.
“He’s Snivellus! Come on,” Sirius reached beneath his bed and chugged some Butterbeer.
“Could’ve just walked on by. Does your nose still hurt?” Remus twisted his mouth to the side. Lily shrugged her arm around his shoulder and sat down beside him.
A couple of the Charms girls giggled. Sirius shot them an approving glance.
“Not at all. Pomfrey knows how to clear a fella up,” Sirius said. “I’m fine,” he added at the worry on Remus’s face.
*~*
“Where you going?” Peter asked, sticking his head out from his four-poster’s curtains in the middle of the night.
Damn Peter, noticing every little thing. Why couldn’t he just let Remus go?
“Bathroom,” Remus muttered, paying extra mind to the squeaky door leading out of the boys’ dormitory. He grabbed James’s Invisibility Cloak from his dresser on his way out.
He trotted, barefoot, down the stairs and out the portrait hole. There was something itching at his muscles that he couldn’t describe. It was a mini monster that wouldn’t let him sleep, wouldn’t let him say what he meant, and wouldn’t let him have any apprehension about walking around in his pajamas through the corridors after hours.
These halls were so familiar; they really were home. Remus closed his eyes and stepped forward, paying attention to his breathing and counting the steps it took to get to…
…the Owlery?
He wasn’t exactly sure how he wound up there; only that he was already digging for the parchment and quill in his robes. They had to be in there, surely. Ideas struck him often so he tried to keep parchment handy.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with just his blue striped pajamas. The only thing to do now was dig around the Owlery in hopes of finding leftover parchment.
Lo and behold, after scrounging and ducking around hooting owls for a few minutes (they seemed to feel his presence despite the Invisibility cloak), he found a scrap and an old battered quill. Whether there was any ink lying around the room was questionable, but maybe Remus could scratch some hieroglyphics into it at the very least.
After spending several minutes with the dried ink on the tip of the quill, scratching a brown “L” into the paper, he decided he might as well carry on. The Invisibility Cloak had slipped from his back and puddled onto the floor.
“Live…”
He was almost there. He didn’t know why he was doing this, why he couldn’t sleep, or why he thought it was a good idea when he head early Potions the next day. His friends had come to expect somewhat odd behavior of him after the full moon. Even after a year or so of getting them warmed up to his lycanthropy, there was still a thin layer between Remus and the others.
“to…”
Come to think of it, he could probably share in his outcastdom with Peter, but for some reason he didn’t see that as an option. Peter was too simple minded, too… well, he just wasn’t James. Or Sirius.
“your…”
Sirius… Just how did he do it? Attract all the girls – no, the whole school –like that? All he had to do was lift the corners of his lips and a flock of adoring birds would surround him. And he’d subsequently turn his nose up. If Remus could have just a pinch of that nonchalance, just a handful… things might be different. Maybe then he could speak around Sirius and not just talk.
“potential…”
But those eyes. Those gray eyes, so betraying the family traditions that came with them. Sure, Sirius was a bit of a jerk, but he wasn’t horrible. He wasn’t a pureblood elitist. He was… He was a chocolate Bertie Bott’s Bean, he was a lumpy snowball spiraling straight at your face on the grounds, he was a pumpkin juice mustache, he was hushed conversations with Lily…
“Keep this confidential.”
Scratching his heart out onto that scrap of paper, staring at his hardly legible message, Remus beckoned the nearest owl over and off it went. Out the window, out to Gryffindor tower, where his handsome friend would find it in the morning and think a not-so-secret female admirer had sent it.
~*~
“I still don’t think you should’ve fought Snape. I’m still hearing griping about it on Prefect duties,” Remus shrugged, blurry eyed by the common room fire a week later. His elbow was propped up on the chintz chair behind him, gaze focused on Sirius.
“Moony, it was just a bit of fun! Drop it,” Sirius shook his head, finishing a set up of Exploding Snap and waiting for James and Peter to step through the portrait hole.
“That’s what you always say.” Remus gave his Arithmancy book the laser eye treatment. His knee was resting against Sirius’s leg, ever so gently. Friction. Was he the only one of them who noticed? Stop that.
“Forgot one!” Sirius exclaimed, pulling the last Snap card out of the velvet sack that Welly always used to hide and sleep in. “Besides, it makes a good name for myself.”
Remus almost adopted Sirius’s barking laughter for a moment. “What, does it give off eau de bad boy?”
“Maybe.” Sirius’s teeth bared in a maniacal grin.
“You already have that. Those girls in the Hospital Wing? Definitely wanted you,” Remus began referring to the back-of-the-book Arithmancy answer key.
“No way. Which one?”
“Oh, shut up. Honestly, mate, they all want you. And even some blokes, or so I’ve heard…” Remus concealed a lip-curling smirk.
“Aaand we’re all set to play,” Sirius brushed a hand through his shaggy hair. “Wait, what did you say?”
“It’s true! I overheard the other day that little Peter was thinking of asking you to Hogsmeade, sans James and I…” Remus teased, beaming as he noticed his answer to a problem matched the answer key.
“You twat!” Sirius yanked Remus’s Arithmancy book from his lap and thumped him on the shoulder with it.
“Ow!” Remus yelped, but they both collapsed in a fit of laughter.
After a moment’s silence, Sirius cleared his throat.
“Where’s Welly?”
Remus’s smile slipped before his hushed voice. It’s been a week, and he just noticed.
“I buried her the other night.” There. The truth, sniffle-free.
“You – what? When?” Sirius tore his attention from the game at the ready. Smooth fingers curled around coarse fabric bunched over Remus’s thigh. “Moony, I’m so sorry. I know how much she meant to you.”
“You’re going down, Wormtail!” James whacked Peter’s chest as they came through the portrait hole.
“Am not!” Peter pouted with pretzel arms.
“Find out who your secret admirer is, Padfoot?”
Sirius’s hand jerked away from the vicinity of Remus’s thigh. That was comfort, this was game time.