Funny

Funny

You sat in the corner, laughing softly at their latest misadventure into the Slytherin dormitories. Everything they ever did was funny.

Later on, you lay in your bed; feigning sleep, and listening to them plan the next in hushed voices. Their words were separated by bubbling giggles, always quashed before they woke anyone.

When you sat in the library then next afternoon, with your nose buried in an advanced Transfiguration textbook, you didn't expect them to approach you, and you didn't expect them to talk to you, either.

'Hey, Lupin,' they hissed. 'You going to join us tonight?'

You dropped your book in shock, and it made a dull thud when it hit the dusty table. Your eyes were wide and disbelieving, but when you saw their expectant faces, you managed to stutter out your assent.

-------

For a while, everything you did was funny, too.

Your peers laughed while you spent your evenings in detention with them, and your average grade lowered from 'E' to 'A'.

Your evenings you spent in the library, your nose deep in texts concerning hair-lengthening charms and time-locked pranks.

Your teachers glared at you when a burst of fireworks went off in your classes, silently blaming you for doing nothing to keep them under control.

You lost point-after-point for your house with no reward but laughter. And their acceptance, too.

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When they discovered your lycanthropy, you expected them to leave.

Instead, your average grade rose back up to 'E' as they left you alone in the library every afternoon, with no request for more prank-related research. Theirs rose, too: especially in Transfiguration.

The silence pounded in on your ears, in the absence of laughter.

'We've given ourselves nicknames,' they told you, after five years with little to no correspondence.

You asked them why, and they told you.

Your smile almost tore your face in half.

-------

The first betrayal wasn't even acknowledged as a crime.

You sat under the tree, trying to block out the laughing masses with your book.

Now that the silence was gone again, you missed it sometimes.

Your book couldn't hold back the laughter, but it could hide the humiliated Dark-Boy from your sight. You didn't want to see him dangle upside down in front of the lake, but you didn't want to speak out against them, either.

So you did neither. You sat, and ignored.

And when it was over, you silently forgave him.

-------

The second betrayal was apologised and apologised and apologised for.

You lay in the hospital wing, your wounds stinging from the healing spells, and they sat around you, explaining what had happened.

You frowned, then nodded, and held back tears.

When they finished, they looked at you and waited for your response.

You struggled to sit up, then hugged them, and told them you understood. Even though you didn't.

The look in their eyes was all you needed to forgive the second betrayal on the spot.

The Dark-Boy never forgave it, though. He fumed and ranted, but was sworn from revealing your secret.

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The third betrayal was unforgivable.

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Grown up, you looked down at the old map on your desk and remembered the face of the boy who'd given it to you, both like and unlike his father's.

You watched his dot as it moved alongside his friends' dots.

You hesitated, and your eyes widened, disbelieving.

When you understood what you were seeing, you made your way to the Whomping Willow, determined to set things right.

Mad laughter and shouting and screaming echoed through the passageway; the combination was unlike any sound you'd heard before.

You desperately missed the silence.

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Everything they ever did was funny... Except for the things that weren't.

Funny, don't you think?