Chapter 75: Fifth Year: The Surprise
Summary:
WARNINGS:
- Smoking/casual mention of drug use
- Sexuality - Remus is working through a lot of stuff in this chapter, mostly relatively innocent puberty related stuff, but parts are a bit more detailed with regards to his sexuality, and some people might find it uncomfortable. To help you avoid this, I have highlighted two sentences in bold - 'Sirius was quite enough to contend with.' and 'It had been a very trying three weeks.' You should stop reading at the first sentence, and it's 'safe' to resume from the second sentence.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
So inviting - so enticing to play the part
I could play the wild mutation
as a rock 'n' roll star
I could do with the money (y'know that I could...)
I'm so wiped out with things as they are (y'know that I should...)
I'd send my photograph to my honey
- and I'd come on like a regular superstar.
Saturday 20th September 1975
Over the next three weeks, Remus managed to fall into a somewhat more comfortable routine as he learnt to navigate his newfound feelings. Once upon a time he might have simply tried to avoid Sirius; to withdraw and hide in the library, or one of his little corners. But he had learnt that this never worked in the end, especially when you shared a bedroom. And at any rate, he was far too big for most of his old cubby holes now.
So he simply tried to cope, and in trying, found that he could. Not that it was easy, exactly - but he had so much else to worry about. On top of prefect duties, which already had Remus up and down the castle for patrol duties and meetings, it was an important year for their studies.
With OWLs coming up, the teachers were loading them up with more work than ever - and there had been a noticeable shift in the syllabus. In Transfiguration they were learning concealment; in Charms they practiced disarming; Potions was largely focussed on identifying and counteracting poisons; and Defence Against the Dark Arts seemed to be nothing but drill after drill of attack and defence spells. They were training for war, and everyone knew it.
Care of Magical Creatures was a grim affair. Professor Kettleburn was a grumpy, barking old man with half his limbs missing and an eye patch. He didn't bring anything in for them to look at, or tell them stories of his encounters with fantastical beasts - he preferred to recount how he had got all of his various injuries, and it was always horrible.
Remus tried to spin this in a positive way - at least without Ferox there was one less distraction. There was no way he was going to develop a crush on crusty old Kettleburn. Sirius was quite enough to contend with.
Though he managed to simply smile through his feelings most of the time, they seemed to surface at the most inopportune moments. He'd be reading a book, and there it was. Or completely alone in the library, and a memory would pop up, stirring up his insides. It left him often shaken, too hot, and confused. If this had been how James and Mary and Marlene and Peter and everyone involved in the stupid snogging business had been feeling for the past two years, then Remus simply didn't know how any of them had got anything done. It seemed his mind and body were constantly at war.
He wasn't stupid; he knew he was something of a late bloomer where that sort of thing was concerned. The summer after he'd turned thirteen, Matron had called him into her office and asked him in the vaguest terms possible how much he knew about 'marital relations'. He wasn't very sure how much he ought to know, and didn't want to look stupid, so he just said he knew 'everything'. She nodded and told him to ask a male member of staff if he had any questions. Of course, he never had. They also once had a talk from the local vicar about the sanctity of marriage and the sinful nature of 'acting on base urges' - but Remus had been so mortified that he had blocked most of that out.
