The Dating Disasters of Sirius Black

8

Part 8: Scarlett Artemis, and something bad
Late June, hospital wing.

Remus was surprised at how quickly his life got back to normal. Professor McGonagall kept casting concerned looks in his direction, but apart from that it was as if nothing had ever happened. He found it rather annoying.

The OWLs had helped a lot; Remus and Peter had needed to revise, and James and Sirius needed to loaf around scoffing at those who were bothering to revise.

The only real difference was Sirius, who had sulked for a week, then promptly began acting towards Remus and James in the same way he always had.

Almost the same way.

Of course he never snuck into Remus' bed anymore, and never shared his secrets, and never again would anything be hidden from James. And Sirius had stopped treating Remus as his equal, had returned to his arrogant selfish self, who had no time for the ideas and opinions of anyone but James.

Oh, fuck; Remus knew he was starting to go mad, but it wasn't fair, was it? Because yet again he'd done nothing wrong but he was the one being punished.
It was enough to make you start bashing your head against a wall, or it would have been if Remus' head didn't hurt far too much already.

Things had been easier in some ways; for instance Remus had found it very easy to forget the terrifying parts of what had happened on James' birthday. Looking back it just seemed so surreal, and now that it was never mentioned it was easy to pretend it had never happened. I mean, really, Remus told himself, fair enough that Sirius fancies blokes, but to fancy him; that was just silly. When Sirius could have almost any girl he wanted and quite likely a larger percentage of the boys than would normally swing that way, it would be ridiculous for him to fancy Remus. Remus thought that it was quite possible that Sirius had just decided it was a good idea whilst drunk that night.

And it was just typical that the whole thing was clearly causing Remus more problems than it had caused Sirius. Sirius had had four different girlfriends in the last three weeks! And possibly a boy or two as well, though it probably wasn't something he'd advertise, and there'd be no other way for Remus to find out because Sirius was avoiding him like the plague.

I feel like I have the plague, Remus thought.

And the problems it was causing him! For a start there was the feeling all weird and creeped-out; he'd never been able to believe that any girl would fancy him, so boys just seemed daft. Then there was the guilt, which was mainly James' fault; despite his actions that night, James had quickly sided with his best friend, the two of them carrying on as normal and leaving Remus out as much as was humanly possible. Then there was the worst part, which was losing his friend, not being allowed to be close to him at all.

Oh, shut up, you miserable whining little werewolf! yelled that part of his brain that didn't like him very much. Remus had a feeling it held the majority.

And the other worst part, which was the fact that yet again stuck in the hospital wing after a full moon -a particularly bad one during which he scratched himself to pieces and Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs did not put in an appearance--he was wide awake, still in agony and forcing himself to run the whole ludicrous situation over and over in his head.

Bollocks!

He frowned deeply. 'Oh, shut up!' he told his brain crossly.

'What?' hissed a pathetic little voice, making him jump a mile.

'James?'

'No...'

'What the hell are you doing here? And why the cloak? Doesn't usually bother you. And-' he stopped abruptly.