Four To The End (prev Shifting Lines) Book Three (Marauders Era)

Chapter Ninety-Five - Experiments

Author's note: In the previous chapter I forgot completely somehow that Remus met the Potters when James had been burnt by the painting. I've changed the scene where he meets Monty again to reflect this. Thank you Haru for pointing this out!

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Remus felt rather hollow the entire way back to Hogwarts. He managed to put on a smile for his friends when he returned to the pool room, and forced himself to engage with them after they were done swimming. Mr. Potter took them via Floo network back to Hogsmeade and rode with them to the school, so he could take them to Professor McGonagall's office as a check-in. James hugged his father goodbye then the Marauders went to their dorm room, each of them flopping on their beds, exhausted.

It was only around seven-thirty, so Remus stayed up a bit longer before falling asleep so he wouldn't mess his sleep schedule up too much. However, once he fell asleep he started having nightmares. Of Mrs. Potter telling James, James asking Remus and then telling Sirius and Peter. In one nightmare they drowned him in a pool, in another they tied him to a broom and sent it off high into the clouds.

The words used in his nightmares were the same his mother had used the previous summer about David Bowie.

The third nightmare woke Sirius up too, and Remus just told him he kept dreaming about being on a broom really high in the sky. It was... sort've the truth. Truth enough. Sirius went back to bed, and Remus crept down into the common room to pace around for a while, trying to clear his head.

He wasn't completely sure Mrs. Potter believed him, but hopefully she believed him enough. He knew he had reacted badly. He could be a good liar, but when he was surprised by things like that it was hard. His panic seized him before anything else did. Perhaps that was why he had trouble with Occlumency?

I need to get hold of my emotions better, he told himself, staring at the embers glowing in the fireplace. In case anyone did anything like that again.

In case anyone accused him of being a werewolf.

Forget fight or flight, he thought as he sat down. My response is absolute stupid panic before flight, and I need to stop before it kills me. Or worse. He wasn't sure if death was worse than being ousted as... a homosexual... (that word), but at the moment he thought he preferred death.

He blinked a few times, going over everything he had said to her. Nothing he could do now, except hope. She was a nice woman, at least, and wasn't... angry about any of it. If she did suspect, then she might just keep it to herself. She never told her husband, after all. Or at least, didn't say she told him. Maybe he did get off lucky this time.

He returned to bed, able to sleep somewhat better, and when morning came he was even able to sleep in, since James's practice had been switched out with Slytherin. Then, after brunch, James got his broom and dragged his friends outside in the cold so he could try some of the tricks they had seen the afternoon before. At least he did it over a snowbank, so every time he fell he landed in snow.

Remus yawned, watching James dangle from the broom, trying to swing himself back up like the witch had. His body twisted around and his grip loosened too much, and down he came into the snow yet again.

"It probably took a lot of practicing," Peter said when James complained about how easy it looked when the adults had done it. "They've been doing it for ages."

"But I'm good with a broom," James said as he called his broom back down so he could get on it again. "I'm one of the best! It shouldn't be too hard for me." Up he went again and this time he stood on his broom, which was something he had done before. Except unlike before, now he stepped off it, trying to catch the handle as he fell. He did manage to get his fingers around it but was unable to hold on and was soon in the snow.