Born With Sin ⁘ |Remus Lupin|⁘

3. Sickles

POV Remus Lupin

My fingers throbbed and became red and irritated as I picked at the lock on my trunk.

"Why do you even bother with that stupid thing?" James threw his legs up on the table tray and pushed up his new glasses from falling off his thin frame.

"Some of us have drawers that we like to keep concealed for the ladies," Sirius smirked.

"You're twelve." I pointed out.

"Doesn't mean I don't have game." He brought his arms behind his head to rest on.

"What does that even mean?"

Peter was fiddling with a wrapper, trying to scrape off whatever remains he could and consume them with his wand. My eyes drifted to the window as James began to start a leg fight with Sirius, which ultimately resulted in James getting kicked in the nose.

"You two are asking for it," I mumbled. I counted the number of cows in the pasture we passed as fast as I could to pass the time.

"So!?!" James leaped a little closer to me.

"So?" I raised an eyebrow.

"What do we have planned for this year?" he flashed a wicked grin.

"Oh no," Peter squeaked, "no funny business this year! I almost failed Potions last year because of all of the detention I had."

"But wasn't it worth it?" Sirius popped a chocolate frog in his mouth and gagged a bit, "Never quite liked these."

"I agree with Peter." I interrupted Sirius' critiques of my favorite candy, "It might be more useful to focus on our studies this year. Nothing we did last year was exactly planned anyway. I don't know how you plan to blow up the Quidditch broom sheds on purpose."

"You'd have to be a genius!" James argued, "Besides, did you see how frightened little Ellie Crippin was? Classic..."

I had absolutely no idea how I had become a part of whatever this was nor was I interested in a relay of last year's events, I had studies and responsibilities. My original plan when arriving at Hogwarts was to get through my studies as fast as I could and to skip ahead a year. But I am now certain that plan was foiled the moment I met Peter, James, and Sirius.

"C'mon Lupin. We're only second years after all." Sirius slung his arm over my shoulder, "You've got another five years to get that broomstick out of your arse."

Peter sniggered at the comment and threw a sour tart in James' general direction.

Despite all the nonsense and crudeness, they did have a point, we had already received fair marks our first year and really could lay low this year if we chose to.

I continued to sit in silence as James attempted to change Peter's hair color.

I took note of how dreary and dark the clouds complemented the sky. I felt at peace knowing that I had friends and things to look forward to this year. I tried to not dwell on the things I had no control over, the thought of Peter, James, or Sirius knowing me made me nauseous. I tried as best I could last year to manage, really. But my fake illness was tiresome to keep up with. McGonagall and a few other teachers tried to keep me up to date as much as possible, but sometimes it was too hard to manage. I wasn't a shining star when it came to appearances exactly either, I knew I looked like hell froze over after every lengthy episode, but I did what I could manage.

James had managed to get Peter's hair to turn into leaves at this point.

"Candy from the trolley!" the trolley lady called, she passed by a third time, something told me she knew she had already been here.