COMFORT ZONE | Sirius Black [REWRITING]

16. Remus and Quidditch Try-outs

Saturday, 23rd September 1972

Remus Lupin felt incredibly stupid.

Feeling worthless or despicable was quite normal for him on most days, but Remus liked to consider himself at least somewhat intelligent. However, this aspect of his self-confidence had suffered tremendously the moment he had boarded the Hogwarts Express a few weeks ago; he knew that Madiha, Lily and Marlene (and possibly James) had all spotted him hugging his perfectly healthy mother before stepping onto the carriage.

She was supposed to be bed-ridden.

Whilst he had good reason to believe that James was oblivious to what he had seen, Remus was sure that the girls would have been perplexed at his mother's good health when he had painted a very different picture to them throughout the whole year. Not only that, but if the girls ended up mentioning this to James, he would have to come up with a really good story to make up for his careless mistake.

After lunch, he would have to disappear to go to the Hospital Wing and pretend he had left to go home, when in reality, he was going to be spending the night inside the Shrieking Shack, as he had done every month the previous year.

Only this time, his whole cover-up story had been blown apart by his own lack of foresight. If he hadn't been such a fool, he could have asked his father to drop him off at the train station instead. Then, none of the girls would have spotted her and he wouldn't need to come up with another lie to mask the reality of what he actually was.

To top it all off, the way in which Marlene McKinnon was watching him right now made Remus absolutely certain that he was going to get asked questions about this very, very soon.

Marlene had been sitting on one of the couches in the Gryffindor common room for half an hour, attempting to read a book she thought might help with her Transfiguration essay. This mission had been aborted quickly, however, when she spotted Remus looking extremely poorly, sitting on the window-seat, and very badly pretending to read a book. Marlene decided that she would go talk to him.

She gave him a casual smile as she sat across from him on the window-seat.

"Hello Lupin."

Remus avoided her gaze.

"Hi Marlene."

They both just sat there for a while, with Marlene growing increasingly annoyed at him for continuing to pretend that he was reading a book he clearly had no interest in.

"You haven't turned a page of that book since you've been sitting here," she pointed out. Remus stared at her.

"You've been watching me?"

"I mean, you look really unwell," Marlene answered as if that explained everything, noticing that his scars seemed to be more prominent than usual. "Like you've been trampled on by a herd of hippogriffs."

He seemed quite affronted at her words, but only muttered out a response.

"Uhm, yeah. Not feeling that great today."

She decided to ask questions

"Is your mum better now? I saw her at the train station when we came, she's got hair exactly like yours."

Of course, Marlene would notice the hair before anything else. Remus searched wildly in his mind for anything that he could tell her, feeling even more uncomfortable with the way she was looking at him closely. He managed to put something lame together.

"She's a little better. I still have to visit her though."

Her eyes scanned across the common room as she spoke to him.