Mary, Mary, where you goin' to?
Mary, Mary, can I go too?
This one thing I will vow ya,
I'd rather die than to live without ya,
Mary, Mary, where you goin' to?
Friday 5th February 1977
The rest of January seemed to whizz by in a blur, and Remus just tried to get back to normal. The full moon landed early in the month, and Remus threatened to lock the marauders out of the shack if they didn’t promise to stay inside this time. Eventually he knew he would weaken and allow them to begin letting him out again - but he felt that they ought to play it safe, at least for a while.
The sudden distance between Remus and Sirius was painful, and made all the more difficult by the fact that their relationship (such that it was) had been a secret all along. Remus resorted to his usual tactic, burying himself in his studies, while Sirius absorbed himself in Emmeline. He was sulking, Remus knew. And for once, he didn’t blame him. The whole messy situation only proved to Remus that they had to put a stop to it as soon as they could. It was becoming impossible to stay friends, and they needed to be friends before anything else.
The problem was, Sirius hadn’t come to him at all since that night they’d slept in the common room. Remus was terrified that this meant it was already over - that Sirius had come to the realisation on his own, and simply chosen to stop. And Remus would not allow that. It couldn’t just be finished , without either of them saying anything about it. Surely?
You held my hand. He wanted to say. You saw me cry.
The day after the February full moon, Remus lay in his usual hospital bed, pondering these things. He had a cut on his arm, which Madam Pomfrey had told him to practice his healing charms on. It was very basic, but he was so tired after his transformation,
“You have to try, dear,” the medi-witch said, unsympathetically, “You wanted to be able to take care of yourself after the moons, so you’ll just have to learn to find the strength.”
He prodded the cut, already healing by itself anyway, making another half-hearted attempt to fix it. Nothing. The marks Livia had left were dulled to pale pink now, and Madam Pomfrey thought they would probably vanish, in time, as they weren’t inherently magical wounds.
“You’re welcome to leave,” she called to him, now, from her office. “If you’re just going to sit there moping… Go and see your friends.”
Remus didn’t bother telling her that it was his friends - or rather, one friend in particular - he was moping about. But he never thought twice when she gave permission for him to leave, so he got up and dressed quickly, hurrying out of the hospital wing,
“See you Tuesday!” He called, on his way out.
It was after lunch, and there was only one lesson left that day - Care of Magical Creatures - which Remus wasn’t much in the mood for. He was ahead of the rest of the class anyway, and no one would miss him. He sloped along the corridors aimlessly for a while, still thinking about Sirius and Emmeline, and how he was ever going to... wait a minute .
He stopped and frowned, looking at the nearest portrait. Something was very off about it. The painting depicted an elderly wizard with thinning hair and a neat little goatee peering through a large golden telescope. For some reason, he was wearing an enormous bright red curly wig. It didn’t seem to bother him - he just kept adjusting the sight on his contraption, murmuring quietly to himself. Remus snorted, and looked at the next picture along.
This one contained a group of pretty, buxom young shepherdesses tending to their flock - and they all had bright red wigs on too. The same with the next portrait - a witch carrying an overflowing basket of fruit, garish scarlet curls bouncing on her head. And the next - a sinister looking monk, whose red wig actually sat on top of his hood. None of the subjects of the paintings seemed at all perturbed, as Remus followed the trail of bizarre headwear to the third floor mezzanine.
