Forsaken

Six
In which there is brotherly love.

'Are you serious?' James blurted.

'Of course I am, and you're James.'

'No, I mean…' he fumbled. 'Are you telling me the truth?'

'Could I ever lie to you?'

'Do you want me to answer that?'

He feigned hurt. 'It was brilliant, Jim, I'm quite sorry you missed it. First practice of the year and Butler took a chance to get to know the grass better. She'll be in the infirmary for months!' he stopped. He had just finished telling it, of course, but Sirius liked to hear his own voice. 'And Patrick said that you're the perfect candidate for her replacement. He wants you at practice today.'

'Seeker?' he choked. 'He wants me to play Seeker?'

At this point Sirius nodded and then walked over to where I sat with Peter, letting James fully adjust to the situation.

'You're an evil boy, Sirius,' I told him.

'I do try, Rem.'

'James and I were talking, and we think it's time to get them back for Potions on Monday.' He then went into his ideas for the prank he had planned. This time the target was Rosier. 'So does Saturday sound okay?'

'Saturday?' I repeated. 'This Saturday?' I choked. It was 11 October, a full moon.

'No Saturday three weeks from now,' he laughed, 'of course this Saturday.'

'I can't,' I said quickly, maybe too quickly. 'I, er, need to do something with, er, my guardian…'

'You what?'

'My guardian needs something,' I said more confidently.

'You guardian,' he repeated, 'needs something. And it will take all day?'

'Well, the night, too. Into Sunday, actually.'

'Tell us,' James had come down a bit from his elation and joined in, 'maybe we can help. Four are faster than one.'

'No! I mean… it's, um, it's okay. I can, er, just help plan and you… can… execute it?'

'But…' Sirius began but was silenced by James. I had hidden myself in Peter's paper so I missed any looks that passed between them.

What kind of freak was I, anyway? I had to make excuses that were coming less naturally as I grew more accustomed to them. It was unsafe for them to be around a monster like me, but my own selfishness kept me there.

I got a letter from Quin on Saturday. As he had the month before, he wished me well and told me to take it easy. He also said that he had helped the French Ministry track my uncle down and corner him. He was now residing in prison with a good number of charges against him. Not one of them read 'harm to a werewolf' but Quin did see that 'child abuse' was high on the list. I was glad that I didn't have to testify.

I stumbled back to my bed Sunday afternoon. I had just had a Healing, but I hit the bed and fell asleep immediately. I could do my homework later, but the entire House was in the Quidditch pitch for the match (Gryffindor v Hufflepuff) where James would either succeed or fail as the fill-in Seeker, and I revelled in the quiet of the emptiness.

'I can't believe you fell! That was so great!'

'It was pretty funny,' Peter added.

'I caught the Snitch.'

'And a mouthful of dirt.'

The three came in, and immediately settled down. Sleep was now impossible. I got slowly out of bed and made my way to my books. If they noticed me getting up, they didn't make a show of it, they just kept on about the match. For hours. By the end even I knew who had done what when and to whom in the fullest detail. And I wasn't even paying attention. By the time I was finished with my work and ready to crawl back into bed, I found James sitting on one side of me and Sirius crouching on the other.

'Remus…' James began.

'Can we borrow your Defence notes?' Sirius finished.

'Please?' in unison.

I dug them out, 'if you had paid attention, you wouldn't need them,' I scolded, knowing that it fell on deaf ears.

'I hope your… guardian is okay,' Sirius said as he made a move to follow James, 'we missed you last night.'

Maybe I was being paranoid, but it seemed to me as if there was some kind of hidden meaning in his words. I shrugged it off and went back to my inviting bed. Pulling the curtains around it, I burrowed in the duvet and fell asleep.

I woke, as usual – early, and grabbed my uniform and hurried off to the shower. As I left I heard the fall of footsteps behind me.

'Rem! Wait up!' and there was Sirius behind me, his overgrown hair was mussed. His uniform was in a bundle but he had a wide smile on his face. It was sickening how cheery he could be so early in the morning. It was rare that he was even up that early – usually he and James threw clothes on and ran to breakfast. Peter often work in-between them and me.

'Up a bit early?' I slowed my steps to let him catch up with me.

'Wanted to make sure you were okay,' he said after an uncharacteristic pause.

'Of course I'm okay.'

'I meant,' he shook his head, 'never mind.'

I shrugged my shoulders. And we walked the rest of the way and went through getting ready with little remarkable conversation. We went together to the dorm, passing Peter on the way.

'Watch this,' Sirius grinned. 'Aqua!' he said with a flick of his wand. James was pleasantly awoken by a large puddle of water. His reaction was less than grateful. He leaped out of bed and proceeded to chase Sirius out of the room and through the Common Room.

Did the two of them ever stop? If there wasn't a Slytherin around, they practiced their techniques on each other. I took my things and made my way to the Great Hall, hoping that they would at least remember that there was class.

A couple of Gryffindor girls were there, as usual, when I go there. Lily Evans and Kay Jemmying. Evans was bright, quick to think and eager to learn. Jemmying was smart, she was ready to learn. What interested her most was Quidditch, she, too was a Chaser (and an avid fan of Man U, a football team she said). Both she and Jemmying were Muggle-borns and used that as an excuse to make the most of their time.

'I just hope that Trouble One and Two behave themselves in Potions,' Jemmying was saying, 'why did we have to have it with the Slytherins?'

'What do they think they're trying to prove?' Evans muttered, she looked to me as if I had some kind of mysterious insight.

'I don't get it, either,' I confessed.

The girls sighed in a way that I learned eventually meant 'BOYS!' in the least flattering way.

Peter and Sirius came in at the same time, Sirius was laughing uncontrollably and Peter, too, was having a hard time with laughter. They sat down and helped themselves to some food, though they were still laughing too hard to actually eat. A few minutes later James came in, his shirt was untucked and his tie untied, and he was pointing his wand at a certain black-haired Gryffindor. The Black Gryffindor grinned and shoved some eggs in his mouth before grabbing his thinks, telling a quick 'goodbye' and taking off, circling the Ravenclaw table before making his way to the entrance, his Potter tormentor chasing after him.

'And it starts over again,' Peter murmured.

'What happened?' Jemmying asked.

'Sirius woke James up by dumping water on him,' I told her.

'And then he started chasing James around, but James realised that he couldn't come here dressed as he was…'

Peter and I looked at each other. Such was the life of a Marauder.