Hogwarts Is My Home p2 - Wolfstar
A/N: Sorry it took so long to update, school is a bitch when you’re doing every hard subject. Enjoy!
Sirius hit Potter with the pillow once more before he heard the bathroom door close. He looked around for the fourth member of their room but did not find him.
“Hey Pettigrew, was that Lupin?” he asked Pettigrew.
“Call me Peter. And yeah,” Peter replied.
“Yeah, no need for formalities between friends right? Just James for me,” James hit Sirius again causing a brief battle to commence.
It finally ended only when the shower in the other room turned on.
Sirius threw his pillow behind him where it belonged and jumped down to sit on the bed, “Is he alright though?”
Peter and James looked at each other.
“He seemed fine to me,” James said copying Sirius, sitting on his own bed, “A little weird sure but there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“That’s not what I mean. He didn’t look like he was going to eat at the feast until I filled up his plate. Also, when he mentioned his mum he kinda, I dunno, closed off I guess? You were the first to meet him, Pete. You think anything was up?” Sirius and James both directed their attention to the mousey boy.
“I- uh. His Muggle clothes were pretty daggy. Second-hand and oversized, like his robes. He kinda zoned out for a bit too when I asked what house he might be in.”
Sirius thought for a bit and James looked over at him, his gaze almost calculating.
“Could have been something to do with his mum again. Maybe something happened to her?” James offered, adjusting his glasses. The other two nodded.
“He also didn’t have any money that I could tell. When the trolley came round it was obvious he wanted something, he lit up at the mention of chocolate,” Peter gave a small chuckle along with the others, “He couldn’t get any though. I gave him a chocolate frog, he ate it so fast.”
“Well he likes chocolate then,” Sirius laughed.
“Who doesn’t?!” Peter exclaimed and flushed when the other two laughed in a light-hearted, friendly way.
A few minutes of laughing and friendly banter about Peter’s size, James stopped, remembering something that Sirius mentioned.
“Wait, he only ate when you served him the food? What? That’s kinda a stuck up thing to do, you’re not a House Elf.”
The other two stopped laughing too.
“It didn’t seem that way. He looked nervous to take the food and only reluctantly ate it after I got it for him, almost as if he was going to get into trouble for eating it or something.”
The bathroom door shut, causing all the boys to jump. They hadn’t heard the shower shut off.
They all stared at Lupin as he put away his robes, now wearing his long-sleeved, oversized, light brown pyjamas.
“What?” Lupin asked them, with a look of amusement on his face but had a glimmer of fear in his eyes, “Have I got something on my face?”
James and Peter turned away and gathered up their own shower supplies to get in.
“No. You just startled us is all,” Sirius told him. Remus seemed to relax a bit but still stared at the other two warily.
Sirius went to go and get his pyjamas too, not bothering to have a shower, he’d do that in the morning, he was too tired now.
Lupin fiddled with the latch on his trunk before it sprung open and the tawny haired boy shrunk back with a small yelp, clutching his left hand to his chest.
“You okay Lupin?” asked Sirius as the other two had departed from the room moments before.
Lupin looked terrified, “Y-yes. I’m f-f-fine. Don’t w-worry about it.”
Sirius looked down at Lupin’s hand to glimpse an inflamed, angry red burn mark just below the boy’s palm. He crossed the room in under three steps and seized his hand in his own.
“What happened!?” Sirius looked at Lupin with a mix of worry and confusion.
The shorter boy tore his hand from Sirius’s grasp with a surprising amount of strength, “Just something I had in my trunk was hot. It’s fine.”
“That is not fine! You’ve got to go to the hospital wing!”
“Its fine,” Remus said softly digging in his trunk with his uninjured hand, as though he was looking for something.
“What are you doing?” asked Sirius, lowering the raised volume in his voice as he crouched down next to Lupin.
“Just – trying – to – Ahh! Got it!”
Lupin pulled out a small, green bottle with a cork in the top and no label, with a smile. He popped the cork and rubbed a dab of the substance on the burn, which immediately deflated and looked a bit better. Sirius looked at him with confusion, hoping Lupin would explain. Thankfully, he did.
“It’s just an old healing potion, an ointment my dad sells in a small time shop in our town,” Lupin shrugged.
“Yes, but why do you have it?”
“I’m clumsy,” said Lupin a-matter-of-factly.
Sirius couldn’t help but let out a small, exasperated snort, “Well that makes it normal then does it?”
Lupin tensed and grabbed a book out of his trunk before closing in with much more ease than it took to open and retreated behind the curtains on his bed, muttering a small “Goodnight” to Sirius.
Sirius, who was rather confused at the sudden finality of the conversation, got up and went to his own bed.
Not much later James came sauntering out of the bathroom in scarlet pyjamas with Golden Snitch’s on chuckling.
“You know Pete sings in the shower. I recon he forgot I was there.”
Earlier confusion forgotten, Sirius laughed along with his friend.
______________________________________________________________
When Sirius awoke the next morning, Lupin was not in the room, nor the bathroom, much to the pureblood’s disappointment. He had wanted to question him about what happened the night before, and see if the burn was any better.
“Morin’,” groaned Peter from two beds across from Sirius’s own.
“Hey Pete, you know where Lupin is?” Sirius asked, gesturing to the empty bed.
Peter’s eyebrows furrowed as he glanced behind him at Lupin’s bed, “No. Maybe he’s downstairs.”
A loud yawn sounded from the bed between Peter’s and Sirius’s.
James’s curtains split open to reveal an overly messy mop of dark hair, “Morning lads.” He looked around, “Where’s Lupin?”
“We were just wondering that,” Sirius informed him.
James huffed, apparently still to groggy to care at the time being.
“You two know when breakfast is?” asked Peter.
Sirius laughed and James threw a pillow at the confused Peter.
“Oh screw off Pete! I’m not even properly awake yet!”
Once the three boys had dressed they headed down to the common room in search of their missing roommate.
“Hey Evans!” James yelled, looking much more awake now, “Seen Lupin?”
Lily Evans looked up from the book that was resting in her lap. Neither Sirius nor James recognised the title but Peter did from his dad’s book collection back home. The title read, ‘The Hobbit’.
“Lupin? No, I haven’t seen him. Isn’t he in your room?”
“Yeah but he wasn’t there when we woke up so we thought he’d be here. Obviously not,” said Sirius, voice trailing off slightly at the end.
A pretty, brunette girl sitting with a group of other first year girls yelled over to the boys, mainly James and Sirius, “Who cares about your lost puppy, come sit with us!”
Sirius scowled. Lupin was no puppy. Sure he was weird and seemed shy, but a puppy? They didn’t see his strength when he got out of Sirius’s hold. James also looked a bit uncomfortable, glancing sideways at Sirius, noticing his expression. Peter just looked confused.
“Fisher! Can’t you see I’m talking to them?” snapped Evans.
“Okay. Jeez. Sorry Evans.”
Evans shook her head as the girls went back to chatting, “You should check the Great Hall. He might be having breakfast already.”
“Thanks,” said all three of the boys before the left the room, James looking back at the red head with a look Sirius could only describe as longing.
“She’s gorgeous,” proclaimed James when they approached the open doors of the Great Hall.
Sirius elbowed him lightly with a smirk, “Told you, you fancy her.”
“Lads,” interrupted Peter.
James and Sirius looked up to see Lupin sitting as far away from everyone at the Gryffindor table as possible, carefully picking out a second egg from the food racks, his plate had already been half filled with food.
Sirius plopped down next to him while James sat on the other side, Peter next to James.
“Morning Lupin. Wondered where you’d gotten to,” Sirius said, smiling that they had found him.
Lupin smiled and slightly flinched as he dropped the egg on the racks, still trapped. Sirius noticed that his left hand was bandaged.
“Is that from yesterday?” Sirius gestured to the hand.
Lupin froze and stared at the bandaged hand, “Y-yes.”
“What happened yesterday?” asked James, suddenly interested in the conversation.
“Nothing,” Lupin exclaimed instantly.
The boys went silent and Lupin went back to carefully trying to get the egg out, almost as if he didn’t want to touch the racks…
After seeing him struggle a bit more Sirius intervened, “Need a hand there mate?”
Lupin looked at him, “I’m alright. Th-thanks though.”
Sirius shook his head and got the egg for him. To his surprise, Lupin looked annoyed.
“I said I was alright,” he flushed, “You didn’t need to do that.”
Sirius felt a tug in his lower stomach that he couldn’t explain.
“So, why’d you disappear so early?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I wanted to get into the library before class this morning.”
Lupin ducked his head and shoveled some egg into his mouth to avoid the question, blushing?
Sirius noticed this and waited for his mouth to be clear so he could answer.
Lupin, realising the question would not be dropped this time, swallowed and sighed, “I’ve already read my textbooks. I wanted some extra reading.”
James’s mouth hung open, “You’ve already read them? All of them? Completely? Cover to cover?”
Lupin gave a shy, but proud, smile, “All of them. Cover to cover.”
“Blimey. I haven’t even opened any of mine!”
“Really?” Lupin looked stunted, “I pretty much read them all when I first got them.”
“Is that what you do with your time them? Read?” asked Peter, sounding genuinely confused.
“Well it’s not like there’s much else I can do…” he muttered, eating more of his eggs.
James heard him, “What do you mean ‘not much else’ you can do?”
Lupin flushed, “There isn’t much around where I live and we haven’t got much money for anything but the essentials. My mum had heaps of books before-,” his eyes widened and he stopped talking, getting up and leaving James, Sirius and Peter very confused.
Sirius watched him go and James spoke up, “Before what?”
They all looked at each other.
______________________________________________________________
Sirius didn’t see much of Lupin over the course of the day. He, James and Peter would sit near the back while Lupin sat closer to the front. At first, Sirius thought he was avoiding them so no one would ask questions about why he had left early only after eating no even two eggs for breakfast as he would always be the first to leave the class. He later realised that seemed to just want to get to class before anyone else to talk to the teachers as he saw Lupin talking to Professor Slughorn when he and the others turned the corner.
“Ahh, yes, Mr Lupin, I am very aware of your…. Condition. But you needn’t worry of course, no, I’m sure you’ll be able to get the notes you miss off some of your friends.”
Lupin looked down, “I don’t have any friends though sir….”
Sirius felt a twinge of guilt in his chest and looked at James who had also overheard the conversation. Peter was too busy gawping at a pretty Hufflepuff girl passing to notice.
‘Why does Lupin think he doesn’t have any friends? Maybe it’s because we continue to call him Lupin when we use each other’s first names,’ thought Sirius, ‘Also what, condition?’
He made a mental note to inform Lupin that they were his friends later that night.
Potions sped by until they finally had their last class of the day, Transfiguration.
Lupin didn’t seem to disappear off to talk to McGonagall though, much to the other three’s surprise.
The class started but Sirius found he wasn’t paying attention, but starting over at Lupin, trying to figure him out. Lupin shivered and looked over his shoulder with a confused and annoyed look at Sirius who stiffened and listened to McGonagall for the rest of the lesson.
After class, Lupin packed his books up was about to leave before, “Mr Lupin! I would like to speak to you please.”
Lupin froze and turned back to McGonagall who gave him a polite smile.
The classroom cleared, along with James, Peter and Sirius, who hovered outside the door listen in. Luckily for Lupin though, Professor McGonagall cast a silencing charm on the room so the boys didn’t hear a thing.
______________________________________________________________
Lupin entered the Great Hall when everyone was already at their tables, or with friends, eating. Sirius waved him over to where he and the others were seated, but Lupin ignored them and sat on the end of the table.
“What’s up with Lupin?” asked Peter.
“I have no idea,” replied James.
Sirius stared at the mop of tawny hair with a rejected expression.
After mostly eating what was left on his plate, Sirius said goodbye to the others to go and sit with Lupin.
He plopped down next to him and was ignored, “Hi-ya Lupin.”
Lupin looked up at him for a second with an expression Sirius didn’t recognise and then went back to his food. Sirius noticed there wasn’t much on his plate even though he had practically just walked in. It was probably because he didn’t serve himself a lot again, thought Sirius.
“Is that all you’re eating?”
Lupin stiffened, “I’m not that hungry.”
“You said that first day.”
“You didn’t even finish your eggs this morning.”
“Hey, look. I’m sorry. We, me, James and Pete, we overheard you talking to Slughorn.”
Lupin stiffened but didn’t say anything.
“I just came over here to just tell you that… you do have friends, Remus,” the shorter boy looked up, surprised, at the use of his first name, “You are our friend, mine, James’s and Peter’s.”
Remus smiled shyly, still looking unsure, “Really?”
Sirius felt his heart break a bit at the expression of such longing and hopefulness at the offer of acceptance on the smaller boy’s face, “Of course.”
Butterflies fluttered around in his stomach at the sound of his name spoken by Remus.
People started leaving the Great Hall and Remus frowned, looked down at his watch.
“I have to go. I’m sorry.”
Sirius was confused, “What? Go where?”
“I… uh… have to…” Remus set down his cutlery, “It’s not important. I’ll see you late Sirius.”
He got up and left with a wave before Sirius could reply.
(If you don’t want to be tagged in this I can take your name off. You were tagged cause you read the first part.)
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