Four To The End (prev Shifting Lines) - Book One (Marauder Era)

Chapter Fifty-Four - Valentine's Prank

The four boys stayed up that evening instead of their usual pre-Astronomy naps, all of them feeling quite victorious over escaping getting caught, James, Sirius, and Peter all congratulating Remus on his brilliant plan to get an alibi like he did. However, they were not deterred. The next day before Potions Sirius asked Remus what the coda flower looked like. Remus (a bit exasperated since it was in their Herbology book!) showed him but as it turned out, they didn't need to even break into the storeroom at all. During class Sirius just said he forgot his potions kit so after a long lecture from Slughorn, he was permitted to go to the cupboard and fetch the ingredients needed. When he came back, Remus heard Sirius whisper to James that he got the flower.

After class, Slughorn had Sirius stay behind and they thought perhaps he had been caught, but it turned out Slughorn just wanted to give another lecture to Sirius about bringing the proper tools to class. Sirius came out grumbling, hissing out that next time he'd rather they just steal from the storeroom because anymore of that and 'I'll go nuts I swear I will'.

James and Sirius worked on the potion while Remus was at study group, after which he hurried up to the bathroom to see how they were coming along, sitting with them until it was done. Of course they made Peter test it out (which Remus thought was unfair). When all his hair stood on end they high fived each other and began bottling the potion up so they could take it to the kitchens on Saturday.

*

Friday afternoon Remus started feeling that panicky, sweaty, dizzy, scraping feeling again--like he needed to escape his friends. He wasn't really sure why, nothing bad had happened. It just sorta started. This time he took a few deep breaths, said he really needed some time to himself, and went up to the dorm to hide under his bed. He still felt shaky, but began to calm down--except he also felt pretty bad for having to do this. It isn't fair. None of them have this happen. He wished he knew more about werewolves so he could say for sure that's what it was, but what if it wasn't? What if he was just... broken?

Sometime later the door opened and Sirius's fancy shoes approached Remus's bed, then he dropped down to the floor to look. "Doing all right?" Remus just shrugged. "Do you need anything?" He shook his head. "Okay. Do you want me to check on you before we go to sleep so you don't sleep under there? Or leave you alone?"

"Y--yes p-please. Check on me, I--I mean."

"Okay. Um. Is it anything we did or...? I mean, if we upset you..."

"No," he whispered. "Just... that... itchy feeling again..."

"Okay. It's okay. I'm just wanting to make sure we didn't, erm, do anything. I'll see you in a bit."

Remus did wind up falling asleep under the bed, and Sirius woke him up at around nine, helping him out. Spinnet cast disgusted looks at the sight of Remus coming out from under the bed. Remus went to the bathroom to change into pajamas then hesitated outside the dorm door, since there was an argument going on. Spinnet and Sirius, no surprise there. Spinnet was going on about Remus being insane, Sirius was threatening to cut Spinnet's tongue out.

"Did you learn that from your family?" Spinnet sneered. There was a crunching sound, gasps, and a thud at the same time Peter yelped out Sirius's name while Struthers yelped out Spinnet's name, and then Remus threw the door open to find Spinnet laying on the floor, blood pouring from his nose. Sirius was standing over him, James with an arm around Sirius's chest to hold him back.

Sirius yanked away from James and stormed out of the dorm. Remus quickly stepped aside, quivering a bit from fear, but as Sirius passed him he didn't look angry, he looked sad. Also he smelled like a mixture of anger and sadness, but more sadness. Remus watched him disappear into the bathroom then he crept into the dorm. Spinnet got to his feet, wiping the blood off, glaring at Remus as if it were his fault.