Hay Fever

Hay Fever

A warm night of early summer had descended on the castle and grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but high up in one of the dormitories of Gryffindor tower, James Potter couldn't sleep.

He had been the last to return to the dark room tonight, his three classmates already in bed with their curtains drawn, and he had moved as quickly and silently as he could to undress, lay out his clothes for tomorrow and get ready to sleep. It had been a stressful day, it was already later than he would have liked, and he felt just ready to let himself fall into the arms of deep and dreamless slumber, and to wake refreshed and ready on the next morning for the great task that was waiting for him.

At first, it had seemed that his wish would be granted, until a noise as if of a small explosion had shattered his hopes and jerked him back rather ungently from the edge of sleep. It was shortly after midnight that the occupant of the bed opposite James's own had begun to sneeze.

For a while, James had listened, first with amusement, then with growing irritation. He was used to sleeping in a room with three other people. Most of the time, it was actually good not to be alone, in spite of the occasional minor disturbance caused by his and his classmates' rather incompatible sleeping habits and patterns. But tonight, he'd have given anything to be alone on a deserted island somewhere far out at sea. He didn't consider himself a particularly sensitive soul normally, but this was a night before a Quidditch match, and when it came to Quidditch, nobody messed with James Potter.

After a while, he began to be earnestly annoyed. The sneezes were coming often, but not regularly enough to form a pattern you could get used to, and sleep anyway. Not loudly, but loud enough to make them impossible to ignore.

James tried every stupid trick he knew to make himself go to sleep. Reciting in his mind lists of Potion ingredients, names of stars and planetary constellations, dates in the history of magic, the complete national Quidditch league results of the last season. Counting hippogriffs. Putting his pillow over his ears. But none of it could block out those noises from the bed opposite, and they were getting worse.

He stuffed his fingers into his ears.

For a pre-match day, it had been less than perfect to start with, to say the least. James hadn't got enough sleep last night either, due to a detention he had to serve, and then today's classes hadn't even been of a sort you could have a quiet doze in. They had been Care of Magical Creatures, Potions and Herbology, all of which were practical and not suited for catching up on missed sleep. Herbology had been particularly hectic today, as they'd been on an excursion along the edge of the Forbidden Forest, classifying, sketching and collecting plants of the season. And then he had got to bed rather late again, catching up on homework that had had to wait because of the detention. Definitely not the ideal way to get ready for a Quidditch match, let alone one as important as this.

If there was a positive side to it, at least he had had no time to think about it very much yet, and be nervous. Even in his fifth year on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and after many victories (ridiculously quick and easy as well as hard-earned ones, but victories all nonetheless), James still suffered rather badly from nerves before every single match. After all, he couldn't afford to disappoint his house, his mates, his team, his captain, or himself. When the latter two had finally been merged into one at the start of this school year, he'd thought that it would rid himself of one worry at least, but a new one had quickly taken its place. James had become increasingly aware over the last years that there was one person in the crowd he wanted to disappoint even less than any of the others, including himself. The realisation had hit him with full force around a year ago, and now regularly distracted him during matches, his stomach performing Porskoff Ploys of a kind he could never have pulled off on a broom as soon as he spotted that person in the crowd below.

She was always there, along with everyone else from their house, dark red hair shining like a beacon, unmistakeable even from far above. But no matter how many goals he scored, no matter what daring manoeuvres he flew, in his mind dedicating each and every of these moves to his muse down below, she wasn't disappointed with him, she simply didn't seem to notice.

But one day she would. Tomorrow, if he could help it. Tomorrow wasn't just any match - it was the Quidditch final, Gryffindor against Ravenclaw, and it would decide the all important question whether Gryffindor was going to keep the Quidditch Cup that had stood proudly on their common room mantelpiece for three years running now. And there it would remain, James swore to himself. He would be the one to keep it there, and they would all love him for it, including her.

Ravenclaw didn't even have the remotest chance of winning the Cup this year, but Gryffindor still had to beat them by a fair, almost unrealistic number of points to overtake Slytherin in the overall rankings. It was a challenge, but let nobody say that James Potter had inaugurated his team captaincy by handing the Cup to the Slytherins on a plate.

But if there was to be any hope for them at all, he needed a good night's rest. He had to sleep, dangit. Tonight mattered. And now someone in his own dormitory seemed hell-bent on undermining both James's confidence and his physical fitness. He estimated that the sneezing had been going on for about an hour now, and that certainly no longer qualified as a minor disturbance, but more as deliberate and malicious sleep deprivation. Tonight mattered, and that complete berk in the bed opposite knew it.

James sat bolt upright, wrenched his curtains open and called across the dark room. "Sirius, you jerk. Stop sneezing. Now."

He paused to listen, but he might have been talking to a brick wall for all the good it did. Except that although brick walls didn't listen, they usually didn't sneeze, either.

"Listen. I'll need to be fit tomorrow. I want to sleep. I mean it. Be quiet."

"Prongs, you're going to flatten Ravenclaw tomorrow anyway," came Remus Lupin's voice through the dark, stifling a yawn. "You've been telling us so for weeks."

"That was before some cruel fate decided to plant me in a dormitory with someone who apparently wants us to lose the Cup!" James retorted. "This is a deliberate act of sabotage, I'm telling you, he's probably being paid by the Slytherins to keep me awake, or something!"

There was a muffled, vaguely angry sound from behind the curtains of Sirius's bed, but James couldn't make out any words. And it was followed by another sneeze.

"Sirius, if you're doing this to annoy me, I'll see to it that you're drawn and quartered if we lose the Cup tomorrow. There'll be enough volunteers to assist me, I assure you."

"I don't think he's doing it on purpose," said Remus quietly.

"How do you know?" James asked peevishly. "Don't you think he'd stop if it was ten points from Gryffindor for every time he sneezes again?"

There was no reply, but few minutes later, Sirius had lost his house another sixty points, and James was at the end of his tether. He knew from long experience that getting Sirius Black to shut up by daytime was next to impossible, but it wasn't asking too much of him that he'd let them alone at least by night, was it?

James briskly got to his feet and picked up his glasses with one hand and his wand with the other. "That's enough," he announced, putting on his glasses in a very businesslike manner and rolling up the sleeves of his pyjamas. "You're a case for a Silencing Charm, and no arguing. You're asking for it."

"Silencing Charms only work on vocal chords," Remus argued on behalf of his friend. "I doubt they'll get you anywhere."

James turned around to him. "Thanks for your support, Moony," he said sarcastically to the curtains that hid his classmate. "I don't suppose you can sleep with that racket he's making? It's worse even than Wormtail's snores."

"Thank you for that," said Peter Pettigrew's voice from his own corner of the room.

"Well, it's true," James snapped. "Except you stop when someone rolls you over on your side."

"Why don't you try that with him?" Peter suggested, poking his head out of his curtains and nodding towards Sirius's bed.

James contemplated the idea for a moment.

"It's worth a try," Remus supported Peter, and sat up on the edge of his own bed to watch whether James would be successful.

James padded over to his best friend's bed, drew the curtain aside and muttered "Lumos", igniting the tip of his wand. But he found Sirius already curled up on his side with his back to him, facing the wall. When the light from the wand fell on him, Sirius gave a small sound of protest and made to pull his pillow over his head.

"No, won't work," James reported resignedly.

There was a sniffing noise from under Sirius's pillow, and a moment later, another violent sneeze shook the writhing body from head to foot, making it double over even further.

"Oh dear," Remus muttered and got up to join James by the bedside. "It's beginning to sound worrying, isn't it?"

"It's beginning to be no longer funny at any rate," James replied. He patted Sirius impatiently on the shoulder. "Hey, what's wrong with you, mate?"

"Noth'n'," came the reply, muffled by the pillow, and Sirius's shoulder twitched in a feeble attempt to shrug James's hand off.

James rolled his eyes at Remus, and Remus gave a rather helpless grin and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Sirius," he said quietly, "there is something wrong, and if you don't want to incur the wrath of the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team and their fearsome captain, not to mention the rest of your house, you'd better turn around and tell us, so we can do something about it and go back to sleep."

"Go away," said the voice from under the pillow, very nasally, and gave another sniff.

"The only one who's going away will be you, to sleep down in the common room if you can't leave us in peace here," said James irritably.

"He isn't - ?" asked Peter in a whisper. He had come to join the others, and was peering anxiously at the pile of blanket and pillow their friend was buried under.

Remus shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Sirius," he said again then, putting a hand on his friend's heaving side. "Come on. Don't be stupid. Tell us what's wrong." He tightened his hold a little, and gently but persistently nudged Sirius over until he slumped onto his back. The face that emerged from under the pillow made all three onlookers jump.

"Merlin's beard," Remus gasped.

"Merlin's snot, more like," said James dryly.

The pale wandlight revealed the ruin of a face that hardly resembled the usually far too handsome one they knew. Bloodshot, watery eyes were blinking into the light, their corners encrusted with something yellowish and sticky, lids swollen half-closed over them. Sirius's black hair was damp with sweat, and he was drawing harsh, exhausted breaths through dry and cracked lips. The skin around his nose and eyes was burning red with an angry rush, weeping raw and chafed in places, his nose was running, and the space between his nostrils and his upper lip was glistening wetly with -

"Yuck," Peter couldn't help himself saying. "Someone get him a hanky."

"Blimey," said James, irritation giving way to genuine concern. "You're a complete mess, mate. Do you actually know what you look like?"

"Yes," sniffed the bundle of misery that had once been Sirius Black.

James sighed and turned to Remus for help, who unsurprisingly did carry a clean handkerchief even in his pyjama pockets. Clean, folded and ironed.

"There you go," Remus said in a very motherly tone. "Want me to wipe your nose for you?" He made a move as if to, but a hand shot out from under the blanket and snatched the handkerchief from him before he could even get close to his friend's face. Sirius gave him a very dirty look out of very puffy eyes and pressed the handkerchief to his nose.

"You've got a really bad cold, man," Peter observed, shaking his head.

"But we're in June," James said with a frown. "Are you sure it's a cold, Sirius? Looks a bit more evil than that, if you ask me."

"Some rotten Slytherin's put some sort of sneezing jinx on him!" Peter exclaimed.

But Sirius was shaking his head stubbornly.

"Sure?" James pressed. "They can't have hit you with anything? You haven't turned your back on any of them lately?"

"I know better," said Sirius defiantly, though his belligerent tone was somewhat dampened by the fact that the words seemed to come out through his nose rather than his mouth, "than to turn my back on a Slytherin. A live one at any rate."

"That's the spirit," Peter muttered.

"I think," Remus said thoughtfully, surveying his friend's tormented face, "that you've simply got a really bad case of hay fever."

"What? No I haven't!" Sirius protested, and was immediately racked by another sneeze that disproved his point. "I've never had it."

"Maybe you've got it now," Remus said, shrugging. "It just pops up, out of the blue, you know. Just because you haven't had it before doesn't mean it can't hit you this year. And with all the shrubs in flower and all the plants and seeds we've been handling in Herbology lately..."

"Muggles get hay fever."

"So do wizards," Remus replied calmly. "My mum's had it every summer since she was around eighteen."

"Your mum's Muggle-born," Sirius grunted.

"Hey," said James rather sharply.

"Hadn't you better go and see what Madam Pomfrey can do about it?" Peter suggested anxiously.

"Yeah, right," James agreed. "She'll know what to do. Come on, go see her. And we'll get our rest," he added in an undertone, and turned away from the bed in the rather premature hope that the case was concluded.

"No I won't," came the surprisingly fierce reply, and James whirled around again, his eyebrows flying up into his messy hair.

"What do you mean, no you won't?"

Sirius had rolled over on his side and crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself tightly, his bloodshot eyes fixed on some point in the region of James's knees. "I don't want anyone to see me like this," he muttered defiantly.

"Oh come on!" James exclaimed in frustration. "That's ridiculous! The female student body of Hogwarts can live with a temporary disfigurement of your pretty face, and so can you."

"No, I'll stay in here until it's gone again."

"But then you'll miss the final!" said Peter in a shocked tone.

"I don't care."

"Yeah, I know you don't," James snapped, remembering what had kept him from sleeping and driven him out of bed in the first place, his anger returning with a fresh surge. "I can hear that you don't. I've been listening to you not caring half the night, I'm not going to listen to it any longer."

"And you are aware, Sirius," Remus remarked conversationally, "that this would not only mean missing tomorrow's match, but actually spending the next four to six weeks cooped up in here, and depending on our mercy to bring you food and homework?"

"And the extent of our mercy will of course depend entirely on the outcome of the Quidditch final," added Peter casually. "Just imagine four to six weeks with nothing but dry bread and water and History of Magic essays."

"Four to six weeks?" James repeated distractedly.

Remus gave a shrug. "That's how long it usually takes for my mum."

"I'm not going to lie awake and listen to this for four to six weeks!"

"It's the holidays in four weeks anyway," Peter reminded them.

"Right," James snorted, "that's it. You're going to see Madam Pomfrey, Sirius. Now."

"I don't want her to see me like this," Sirius insisted stubbornly, crushing Remus's handkerchief in his fist. "She'll think I've been crying!"

James gave an exasperated sigh. "I hate to tell you, mate, but you actually are crying."

"No I'm not!"

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said James acidly, "but I was under the impression that water and goo oozing from someone's eyes met the common definition of crying. No? Then maybe snivelling? Like that better?"

Sirius gave something between a curse and a sob, and began rubbing viciously at his swollen eyes with his knuckles.

"No, no, stop that!" Remus exclaimed, seizing his friend's wrists and prising his hands away from his face. "You're only making it worse!"

Sirius put up something that resembled a struggle for a moment, but Remus didn't let go. There was silence for a while then, except for Sirius's rather ragged breathing. "Every time I turn up there," he said in a sulky tone to James's knees then, still avoiding their eyes, "she gives me these looks, as if it's always my fault I'm there, as if I haven't deserved any better."

"Well, she's right most of the time, isn't she?" Peter pointed out unhelpfully.

"Cut it out, Peter," James told him.

"But it's true!"

"Yes, but still!"

Taking advantage of the other two's bickering, Remus leant down to his friend's ear. "Honestly, Sirius," he said in a whisper. "You've become an Animagus. You've stood up to your family. You've slept with a werewolf. And now you're telling me you're afraid of Madam Pomfrey?"

But Sirius responded only by a sniff and another resounding sneeze.

"And besides," Remus went on in his normal tone, straightening up again, let go of Sirius's hands at last and gave his shoulder a reassuring little squeeze, "hay fever is something nobody can help. Even Madam Pomfrey will understand that. She can't blame you for that."

"What's the time?" asked Sirius, still slightly out of breath.

"Way too late to still be awake," James snapped in an unfriendly tone. "Why?"

Peter turned to check his alarm clock. "Quarter past two," he reported.

Sirius groaned. "She will blame me for having hay fever in the middle of the night."

"I don't give a damn if she blames you for every major and minor goblin rebellion this country has ever seen," James barked, unable to contain his temper any longer. "You're going, now, and I sincerely hope Madam Pomfrey Scourgifies your nose, and thoroughly."

"But you only use Scourgify on things, Prongs!" Peter objected, sounding scandalized. "Flitwick said so, it's way too coarse to be used on people!"

"Exactly," James said dryly. "Come on. We're going." He tugged impatiently at a corner of Sirius's pillow, but let go again very quickly with an exclamation of disgust. "Urgh! It's soaked! How many times have you wiped your nose on that?"

"Not as many times as on his sleeves," Peter observed critically and took a cautious step back from the bed, avoiding a very half-hearted swipe of Sirius's arm.

"Oh, the joys of sharing a dormitory with a bunch of four-year-olds," Remus sighed. "Give that here, we'll find you a new one." He pulled out the pillow from under Sirius's head, stripped it of its drenched pillowcase and Banished it into the laundry basket in the corner of the room.

"You can have mine," Peter offered in a placatory tone. "I only use mine for pillow fights anyway." He quickly went to fetch his own pillow. "Here," he said when he returned, holding it out to Sirius, who took it without a word and stuffed it under his head.

"Treat that one better," James instructed him. "It's bad enough how you drool all over the place as Padfoot, you can at least show a little self-restraint in human form."

"Hang on," said Remus quickly, struck by a sudden idea. "Sirius, do you think that Padfoot gets hay fever, too?"

"I dunno," Sirius replied dully.

"Maybe you should give it a try. Seriously. Maybe he'll be OK."

Sirius gave a shrug.

"But didn't we say," Peter reminded them anxiously, "no transforming inside the castle?"

"Yeah, that's right," James agreed with a frown. "We can't risk it, Moony. Remember, the school rules say only owls, cats or toads in the dormitories, not stags, rats or dogs."

"Since when do you care about school rules?" Remus asked back, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

James shook his head. "Not about rules," he said urgently, Quidditch finals and even Lily Evans forgotten for the moment, "but about our secret! There'll be hell to pay if anyone finds out. How are we to explain the presence of a big black dog in our dormitory if anyone comes in?"

"Are you expecting anyone to come in?" Remus asked innocently.

"Hell, no," James admitted grudgingly. "I wish I was. No need to rub it in."

"What about you, Peter?" Remus went on in an amused tone. "Have you got a long standing secret relationship going with anyone that involves surprise visits to our dormitory at ungodly hours?"

"Except for your sizzling passionate affair with Professor McGonagall, of course," Sirius found the energy somewhere to join Remus's teasing. "We know all about that anyw - "

There was neither time nor need for Peter to retaliate in his turn, as Sirius cut himself off by a sneeze that made the bedsprings groan.

"You can talk," James snapped at him. "That sound just about reminds me, we've got enough dirt of that sort on you to give you sleepless nights for weeks, so watch your mouth."

"And watch your nose," Peter added. "It's bleeding, Sirius. On my pillow."

Sirius raised his head and became aware of the small puddle of blood that had begun to seep into the white fabric. "Shit," he said, turning onto his back and pressing the crumpled handkerchief to his nose again.

"I never knew you had a sizzling passionate affair going with Professor McGonagall, Sirius," Remus said in a very mock-injured tone, and was rewarded with a look that would have to be called murderous, if murderous was a quality that could be ascribed to rabbit eyes.

James gave desperate sigh, admitting defeat. "All right," he conceded. "On your head be it, Moony. You've got exactly three minutes to finish discussing your love lives and turn that bunged up snivelling puppy into a proper dog. If I hear anything after that, this wretched figure goes on pitying himself in the common room for the rest of the night. And I'll make sure personally that he stays there until every single inhabitant of the girls' staircase has got a good long look at his face when they come down for breakfast tomorrow, and if I have to tie him to a chair there."

Without another word, James turned on his heel and marched back to his bed, ignoring the daggers that were being looked at his receding back, climbed in and wrenched the curtains shut. Peter gave an apologetic shrug and then padded back to his own, now pillow-less bed.

When they'd gone, Remus leant over his friend with a wide grin on his face. "So. Is there anything else that you'd like to confess?" he whispered. "It's a good opportunity, you know. Whatever revenge I might exact from you, you heard I'm not allowed to make it last for more than three minutes. On second thoughts," he continued mischievously when Sirius didn't reply, "a lot can happen in three minutes."

Sirius rolled his red eyes at the ceiling of his four-poster bed, dabbed at his nose again with the handkerchief, and contemplated the stains on it with a frown.

"Has it stopped bleeding now?"

Sirius nodded.

"Good. That leaves us still with about two and a half." Remus gave his friend a light kiss on his chapped lips, but then sat back as if he'd thought better of it. "That will have to do for tonight, though," he said half-teasingly, half-regretfully. "There'll be more of that tomorrow if you'll be a good dog now and let us sleep, and go and see Madam Pomfrey first thing in the morning. If you want, I'll come along and hold your hand while she takes a look at you, and I'll gladly volunteer to smear Murtlap Salve all around your cute little nose and your beautiful blue eyes and on your luscious lips to restore them to their former glory - "

"You find this all terribly amusing, don't you?" Sirius said rather flatly, not bothering to keep his voice down.

"Amusing?" Remus repeated, again in his best injured tone. "Oh, no. On the contrary. In case you're not aware of it, I take a vital and entirely selfish interest in your speedy recovery, my dear. The female student body of Hogwarts might be able to live with a temporary devastation of your pretty face, but I'm not sure I can. What's more, I can imagine situations, and I'm not talking about Quidditch finals, in which I'd find it highly distracting if we had to give you a sneezing break every minute or two. And I must admit the taste of your snot isn't all that arousing, either."

Whatever Sirius had to say to that was smothered in Peter's pillow, along with a fresh sneeze.

"Get a move on," James ordered from behind his curtains.

"Prongs is right," Remus said, suddenly serious. "Time's up. Go to sleep, come on. Give it a try." He tousled his friend's damp hair, wiping it gently off the exhausted face that now contorted with the effort to concentrate. The next moment, the fringe of hair his fingers were tangled up in had become a thick, wiry black tuft of fur, and a big black dog had taken the place of the boy on the bed.

"Well done. Thanks." Remus gave his friend another smile and an affectionate scratch behind the ears. The dog responded with a rather melancholy look out of his pale eyes, but those eyes were dry and clear, and when he closed them and let his shaggy head sink onto his paws, his breathing was even and quiet. He was asleep even before Remus had untangled his hand from his fur.

Remus got up, closed the curtains, tiptoed back to his own bed and wrapped himself in his blanket and in the silence that now filled the room and lasted, blissfully unbroken, until dawn.

--- * * * ---

And while Sirius returned from the hospital wing the next day equipped with two different potions he was to take daily over the next weeks to ease the symptoms, a pot of salve to heal broken skin, and, best of all, a slip of parchment that excused him from all practical Herbology lessons for the rest of the school year, Gryffindor gained a spectacular 280 to 70 victory over Ravenclaw, largely due to the brilliant performance of their sixth year Chaser, who had scored eleven of Gryffindor's thirteen goals.

"You know," said a still slightly red-eyed Sirius morosely to Remus as they sat in a corner of the packed common room that afternoon, watching the Quidditch Cup celebrations escalate, a glowing and beaming James the centre of attention, "the best things James does are always the things he does out of pure spite."