One Week

"Flew in from Miami Beach B.O.A.C., didn't get to bed last night - On the way the paper bag was on my knee, man I had a dreadful flight -"

"LILY!"

"-Back in the USSR! You don't know how lucky you are, boy - "

"LIL-Y!"

"Back in the USSR!"

Petunia pounded irritably on the wall adjoining their rooms, but Lily ignored her and turned up the volume. She danced on the carpeted floor in her white embroidered socks, lifting the record sleeve up to her lips and kissing it.

"Well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out, they leave the west behind - "

"LILY EVANS, TURN THAT DOWN THIS INSTANT!"

Scowling, Lily turned the volume down a tiny notch.

"THERE'S GOING TO BE HELL TO PAY WHEN YOUR FATHER GETS HOME -"

Lily turned it down a bit more.

"WITH THIS ATTITUDE, YOU CAN JUST FORGET ABOUT GOING OFF TO HOGWARTS - "

Lily turned it off entirely.

"Thank you, dear," her mother called up.

Lily slumped down against the wall, making a face at the record sleeve. A moment later, Petunia came in - without knocking, as was her custom.

"What do you want?" Lily asked sulkily, glaring up at her older sister.

Petuni ignored her and crossed over to Lily's record collection, thumbing through it casually. "I bet you're happy," she said coolly. "You get to go off to your freak school in a week."

"I am happy, I won't have to look at your ugly face any more," Lily snapped.

Petunia selected 'The Who Sell Out' and examined the cover. "Who knows, maybe you'll actually make some friends? As freaky as you are, in a school full of weirdos like that, I bet you'll even be popular."

"Get out!" Lily flared. "I'm telling Mum you called me a freak again!"

"Or maybe you'll be too weird even for them," Petunia mused, replacing the record in its spot. "Maybe even in a whole school full of freaks, you'll still be a lonely, friendless loser."

"Get out!" Lily said again, jumping to her feet. "Get out, get out, I'm telling Mum! At least I'm not stupid and ugly like you are!"

"I'd rather be the stupidest, ugliest person in the world than be a weirdo like you!" Petunia snapped.

"Well, good! Because you are the stupidest, ugliest person in the world! Aside from your ugly boyfriend, anyway!"

Petunia gasped, horrified. "How dare you call John ugly!"

Lily made a hideous face, crossing her eyes and screwing up her lips, and flapped her arms like a broken-winged bird. "Look at me, look at me, I'm JOHN, I'm buck-toothed and cross-eyed and I'm the best-looking boy Petunia's ever gonna date! Nyeeeh! When Petunia and I KISS it looks like I trying to drown the WHOLE WORLD in my SLOBBER! Nyeeeh! Nyeeh! I'm gonna KISS you and you'll DROWN!"

Lily chased Petunia around the room, shrieking and 'Nyeeh'ing, Petunia screaming as loudly as she could for their mother.

Mrs. Evans, preparing dinner in the kitchen, set down the pot of roast beef and paused, listening to the shrieks and stampeding feet from the room above. Sighing and shaking her head, she thought to herself how glad she would be when this week was over.

-----

Sirius returned home one evening from spending the day at James' house to an unpleasant surprise. He bounded up the steps to his room, ignoring his mother yelling after him to get down here this instant, and threw open the door, only to discover his little brother, who had apparently ignored the many brightly colored and widely lettered 'keep out' signs that Sirius had posted on his door.

"What are you doing in my room?!" Sirius demanded loudly.

Regulus turned, startled, and lost his footing on the chair he was standing on and fell to the floor. The pile of Sirius' new schoolbooks that had been perched precariously on his writing desk tumbled down onto Regulus.

Sirius strode over, furious. "What are you doing in here? Did I say you could come in my room? Have I ever let you in my room?!"

"I was just looking for your wizard cards!" Regulus protested, his voice muffled, trying to extricate himself from Sirius' clothing - a set of heavy winter robes that had been hanging on the chair since February, and a forbidden pair of jeans Sirius had managed to save from his mother's monthly wardrobe purging.

Sirius yanked the robes and jeans away from Regulus, throwing them carelessly to the floor. The velvet robes were deeply wrinkled and one of the sleeves had a large rip near the shoulder. The jeans were in even worse condition.

"So can I play with your cards?" Regulus asked eagerly, still on the floor.

Sirius kicked him. "Get out."

"Can I? Please? I promise I'll bring them back!"

"No! I said get out!"

"But they're mine too, Mother said you have to share!"

"I said you could have them when I go off to Hogwarts, now get out of my room!"

Eyes shining at the mention of his parents' exalted alma mater, Regulus demanded, "What House do you want to be in?"

"Hufflepuff! Now get out!"

"I'm telling Mother you yelled at me and that you won't share and that you want to be in Hufflepuff!"

"Better a Hufflepuff than a stupid sissy Slytherin!"

Regulus was horrified and leaped to his feet. "I'm TELLING!"

"So TELL!" Sirius advanced on Regulus, who stumbled backward.

"I WILL!"

"Then get out!"

And Sirius shoved Regulus out the door and slammed it behind him. He heard Regulus' shriek of protest and then his hurried footfalls as he dashed down to his parents bedroom.

It wasn't until later, after Regulus had been put to bed and Sirius' punishment had been duly doled out by his parents, that Sirius took his wizard cards out of his back pocket and began to sort through them. There was no way Regulus would be getting these now when he went off to school. The little brat could just choke on it.

-----

At dinner that night Remus was unusually glum. He became progressively more glum as September 1 approached, haunted by calendars that suddenly seemed to hang everywhere in the house. He couldn't get away.

His parents, however, did not notice, or if they did, they steadfastly ignored it. He had confessed his misgivings to them, but they had quickly dismissed it - it was natural to be nervous, they said, it was such a huge change. Just be excited. Everyone else is excited. I was excited when I was your age.

Remus knew it was wrong to not be excited, and even felt guilty for it. After all the effort everyone had put into getting him into Hogwarts, after all the special allowances had been made, he was wishing his hardest that he could get out of it. It made him feel like a terrible person to want that, but here he was. Remus merely took it as a sign of his continued abnormality that no matter how hard he tried he could not want to go to Hogwarts.

It wasn't that he wasn't grateful. He was very grateful, in a guilty sort of way. After all, could you really be grateful for a gift if you wanted nothing more than to throw it away from you and never look at it again?

True, there were some parts of going to Hogwarts that Remus was excited about. Classes, for one. The thought of going to class and getting a real magical education made the whole thing almost bearable, if that thought didn't lead automatically to the next - his classmates.

Remus had never really gotten along with other children his age and had never been around them enough to get a sense for it. He recalled the times he had spent with other children, and shuddered. Except for the transformations - horrible transformations - they were among his worst memories.

Other children were mean. They laughed too loudly, talked too loudly, they touched and pushed and shoved and pinched and screamed; they tried to talk to him and Remus would just stare, mouth hanging open, unable to say anything back. They told him he was weird. They stood too close. They *touched*. Touching! How Remus hated touching! He knew at Hogwarts that he would have to share a room with other boys, and the thought made his skin crawl. His parents had said that there might be as many as five or six boys in one bedroom, but that couldn't be possible. Remus would die. Five other boys sleeping in the same room as him! The stench and sweat and heat of five bodies in one room, five voices, laughing and yelling, ringing in his head-

"Remus? Honey? You aren't eating," his mother said, trying to be nonchalant. Her nerves were frayed, and Remus knew it - all because of him. Remus bit his lip. He was trying so hard, but he was so scared.

His father put his fork down and took a deep breath, staring at the wall. Remus felt his eyes fill with tears and lowered his head.

I'm trying, he wanted to scream. I'm trying so hard - can't you try too? Pretend just a little longer that nothing's wrong. Please don't yell at me. Don't make me go. Can't I stay here? Just pretend for another week and then it's all over, I'll be gone and then who cares what happens, it's all settled and I'll just get used to it. Please, please let me stay. Pretend I don't want to stay. Pretend I'm excited. Pretend I'm like other boys. Please don't make me go.

His father picked up his fork again. His mother relaxed. Remus stared down at his plate, blinking away his unshed tears. He wanted to ask - he wanted so badly to ask -

But they would say yes. They would give in. All the hard work, all the time it had taken to get him accepted to Hogwarts - all the special meetings, all the letters they had written - they would toss it all aside. He would stay here, at home, with their miserable accusing eyes and his own gnawing sense of failure and unfulfilled potential.

Remus took a breath and picked up his fork, poking at his dinner. No, he didn't want to go. But the alternative was even worse, and so he resigned himself to one more week - one more week until the decision was irrevocable, and he no longer had to struggle not to ask every time he opened his mouth.

Once the struggle was over, once the week was up, Remus wondered suddenly if maybe it wouldn't be so bad.