Friday 7th September 1973
By the end of his first week of third year, Remus felt like he needed another two months just to recover – and there hadn’t even been a full moon yet. He felt foolish for not considering that adding three extra subjects to his timetable would also increase his workload. But of course it did, and by the time Friday rolled around he felt weighted down by the amount of homework to be completed over the weekend.
“It’s not fair,” Peter whined, “This year was supposed to be fun, with Hogsmeade and everything.”
“We’ll still go to Hogsmeade, Peter,” James murmured over a complicated looking star chart.
“I’m with Pete,” Sirius groaned, screwing up his dream diary for Divination, “Let’s sack this off and go and use the quidditch pitch while it’s still light.”
James looked up, eagerly,
“Yeah, go on then.”
All three of them stood.
“No thanks,” Remus said, absentmindedly. He was actually quite enjoying his Transfiguration homework – an essay on bodily transformations. He was pretty good at basic modifications now, for covering up scars, and was able to answer the questions at length.
“Don’t fancy looking over my muggle studies, do you, Moony?” Sirius asked, matily. Remus raised his eyebrows.
“If I have time. James, Pete, want me to look at yours?”
“Thanks Remus!” Peter grinned, tying up his shoelaces.
“Nah,” James refused, “Thought I might ask Evans for a bit of help on it later.”
“Losing battle, mate,” Sirius counselled. “Dunno why you’re so hung up on her.”
James just shrugged, not looking at all discouraged.
Remus spent a satisfying hour or two by himself, completing the rest of his work for the week. He’d made a start on Potions, but thought it could bear leaving for a little bit longer – Peter could give him a hand in exchange for the muggle studies comprehension homework. They had double Potions on Mondays now, first thing – but thankfully no longer with the Slytherins. In fact, the only class they shared with Slytherin now was Arithmancy, and that wasn’t a practical subject, so there was much less space for open house-warfare.
Arithmancy was a real surprise to Remus – he had expected to fall behind Sirius and James, at least at first. But it appeared that this subject was down to logic, rather than magical ability, and Remus had found his first lesson to be shockingly straightforward. The homework, which he knew Sirius and James had not yet attempted, was to calculate their own heart and character numbers using the Agrippan method. This he actually found quite soothing, though he knew he would never admit it to anyone.
Herbology plodded along at its usual pace – Remus couldn’t pretend to be all that interested in it, but at least it wasn’t difficult. Astronomy was not his strongest subject either, but luckily Peter was generally so thrilled to be the only one who knew something that he gave Remus most of the answers for nothing.
Then there was his new favourite subject; Care of Magical Creatures, on Wednesdays and Thursdays. He wasn’t going to tell the others about that either – they already teased him for liking History so much, and for taking Runes. All good natured, of course – he made fun of them for doing Divination, which by the sounds of it was pretty dire.
He had read his copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them twice other the summer – it had been his favourite bedtime reading. The pictures and descriptions were so vivid they filled his dreams with the most spectacular images. There had been nothing in the set text – Remus was sure to check this – about werewolves. Fortunately, they weren’t considered in the same league as ‘magical creatures’, and it looked as though they weren’t going to be studying ‘half-humans’ until next year in Defence Against the Dark Arts.
