SPELLBOUND | remus lupin

six - you wanted a fight

JAN, 1976
HOGWARTS GROUNDS

"That seemed to go quite well," grinned James as he leaned back onto the damp grass. The day was clouded, but the only rain they'd had was at lunch and the sun was beginning to come out. The four of them had chosen the spot they always occupied, under the huge tree near the Black Lake, and other students were milling about on the grounds as usual.

"What went well?"

"Oh, come on, Wormy! Potions! Did you see Cammy's face, Remus?" Remus smiled, triumphant for once against the arrogant Slytherin girl, happy that she'd been put in her place. She wouldn't be hearing the end of it for a long time.

"It was pretty good, if I do say so myself," winked Sirius, pleased with his handiwork on the parcel. He'd insisted on the colours of the present paper like they meant something important to the contents; those had actually been James's doing.

"Yeah, yeah, Padfoot," laughed Remus. "No need to get ahead of yourself-" he stopped short, looking at the growing shapes behind the black haired boy. "Uh oh," he mumbled quietly in a sing-song voice, almost by accident.

"Hah!" crowed James, pointing the group out to Sirius and Peter. "Look who it is!" Camilla was at the head of the gathering. They were walking at a slow pace across the grounds, all seven of them, but they were clearly on a path to the location of the Marauders. Remus put his head in his hands.

"Oh no..." he muttered. "No confrontations, please."

"Alright, up we get," he heard a voice above him and arms hoisted him up.

"Padfoot, no."

"Padfoot yes. And we're not gonna let them act like the insufferably superior wizards they think they are, are we?" Sirius replied lightly, with a toothy smile.

"Ugh," Remus rolled his eyes, "fine." The other three gave victory whoops and marched forwards to meet Camilla. The first thing that caught Remus was the look of anger on the Slytherin red-head's still slightly pink face. It contorted her clean-cut features in a way he thought wasn't very attractive. She would probably have looked much better with a smile on her face, and not the cruel smirk she'd get when she bullied a muggleborn student, but a nice, kind smile. Remus didn't know if she had a kind bone in her body. She certainly made it hard to look for one. The second thing that struck him was that most of the people around them, all the other pupils outside, were beginning to whisper and point and giggle. He was shocked at how fast the news had spread, but he supposed that if something like that happened to someone with such a fierce reputation, it really would only take a couple of hours to go around the rumour mill.

"Lupin," was the first, cold word out of her mouth. He didn't even realise she knew his name. "It was you, I assume." It wasn't a question, just a statement, and Remus wasn't surprised she'd come to the right conclusion.

"Actually," James cut in, instantly loosening the situation by drawing out the word for good measure, "it was a bit of all of us, y'know? Good old fashioned teamwork-"

Before the fifteen-year old could finish, she'd raised her wand at Remus, who had his out in a flash, and said, "Expelliarmus!" He deflected the spell and for a split second caught a glimpse of something in Camilla he'd never seen before: anguish. It screamed from behind her eyes and was hidden on every line of her face. He didn't realise at first, but he recognised the expression.

His hesitation caused him the fight; she'd spat, "Stupefy!" before he could recover from the minor shock and he was thrown backwards by a jet of light. He could faintly hear over the ringing in his ears his friends shouting at her and the others, threatening a full-out battle, but he sluggishly raised his hands, surprised he wasn't completely unconscious, though he was barely coherent.

"Stop, stop, guys," he mumbled, attempting to come back to reality. "Camilla, Camilla, we're even now, stop!" He saw her come and stand over him as he sat up clumsily, shaking the sickening dizziness out of his head. "We're even, you can stop. You've embarrassed me in front of everyone, look!" He pointed, but her harsh gaze was focused solely on him.

"Is that what you think?" she said in a hushed voice. "Is that really what you think? This is far from over. If you ever try to humiliate me again, I'll do much worse than knock you down, filthy half-blood." At that, she turned and began to walk away, leaving Remus completely stunned at the malicious words. There were a few beats of silence, and then James, Peter and Sirius went ballistic.

"You can't say that to him. What gives you the right to?"

"Just because you're pureblood, it doesn't mean you can spit on everyone else!"

"And it's none of your business, anyway, you complete and utter-"

Camilla cut James off, cooly, now collected after her rage filled explosion.

"I make it my business to know, Potter." The whole group of seven, the other six of whom had been taunting the three while Remus was down, made to leave, but as an afterthought, Camilla turned back to Sirius. "You could have been so much more, Black." He visibly flinched at the cruel words, which was obviously the intended reaction as they smirked at each other, and they turned their backs on the Marauders, proceeding to walk back to the castle. Only Narcissa glanced over her shoulder to watch her cousin's reaction.