Dead Man's Wish

Chapter 6

It has been a couple of months after their first day and Severus is settling in surprisingly well with his friends. He was famous for his academic excellence instead of being a greasy-haired git, which was certainly a fun change for him. Remus still hasn't mustered up the courage to ask Severus about the scars he saw.

One night, after a long day of learning, James and Sirius decided to be shitheads. So, that night, James and his partner in crime, Sirius, snuck into the DADA classroom and got hold of a Boggart. They read somewhere that Boggarts could be lured with blood and/or milk and obviously, they did not have blood so they took some milk from the Great Hall where students were having their dinner. Before Severus came back from said dinner, they trapped the Boggart inside the medicine cabinet.

After living with the raven-haired boy for two months, James and Sirius knew that Severus would get some sort of medicine to sleep from the medicine cabinet, so they left the little surprise in there. They waited for Severus to come back.

Eventually, he came back with Remus, laughing and joking about something. 

'Hey, Sev, Remy,' James said playfully. Severus raised an eyebrow at him, 'What are you up to?' James faltered for a second, 'What do you mean?' then he chuckled. 

Remus looked at Severus then at James, 'You're acting weird.' 

James: You're better than this, James. Act cool. 

'No, I'm not, you're being weird.'

James internally facepalms himself. 

Sirius is just sitting there, watching his best friend screw up all their hard work of getting the Boggart.

'Never mind,' Severus goes to the bathroom to take a shower, leaving Remus standing and looking at James and Sirius suspiciously. 

As the rest of the boys didn't like to shower in the evenings, Severus could always take his time in the bathroom. After drying off from the shower, he took out a small vial of ointment in his pocket and applied it to the scars on his body. Slughorn didn't mind the prodigy using the lab to brew some potions. He took this chance to make some Scar Vanishing Potion for himself, since his father was quite the abuser when he was little, he had plenty of scars to apply the potion to. 

As he was doing this, Remus was dosing off to bed with the curtains around his bed tightly shut. There was a full moon waiting for him the next day so he had to get plenty of rest. James and Sirius grasped at this chance to look at how their little joke was going to turn out. They put on the invisibility cape that James' father gave him and quietly opened the door to the bathroom large enough for the both of them to sneak in. 

They saw Severus put the ointment on and had to refrain from gasping out loud. They were concerned but they figured why couldn't they just worry about that after the prank. They silently stood there, watching their dormmate get on with his nightly bathroom duties. Finally, the moment they've been waiting for has come. Severus reached to open the cabinet and when he did, he came face to face with his worst fear. James and Sirius saw a dead body, on the ground, it was a body of a young woman, one with red hair and bright, lifeless green eyes. Lily's body. Severus stared at it, surprised, before coming to his senses. 

He brandished his wand and tried to think of something comical. That time when James put an extra-farty fart cushion on Dumbledore's seat during dinner could work. 

'Riddikulus!', he yelled, trying to get the distressing scene out of his sight. 

When he was an adult in his past life, he used to deal with this all the time. But, now, he was in a child's body, thus he had a child's mindset, so it was harder to control his emotions. He could not banish the corpse and was left with Remus Lupin, he wasn't dead but seemed to be transforming into some sort of beast. A werewolf to be exact. Severus stood there stunned while the Boggart/Remus turned into a werewolf. It started to leap at Severus. 

'Riddikulus!' Severus cried out, thinking about his happiest memory for a change. The one where he spent the day at Lily's house for a sleepover. That memory was also the memory he liked to use when casting the Patronus charm. 

It worked and the Boggart turned into a little balloon dog. Severus fell backward and panted, the images were way too much for him to handle mentally and physically. James and Sirius came out from under the Cloak and went to Severus' side. 

'Are you okay?!' Sirius asked, very sincerely worried about his friend. 

James kneeled by his side. 

'You two! I should've known. People never change.' Severus blurted out emotionally, he got up on his feet and pushed the two boys aside, running out of the dorm. Sirius was going to chase after him but James pulled him by the sleeve and shook his head,

'We deserved that. Let him calm down a bit.'

They came out of the toilet and found a very angry Remus standing there with his arms crossed,

'What did you two do to him?'

'It was supposed to be a hearty joke,' Sirius tried to explain himself, 'Y'know, just messing with him. We didn't know it was going to turn out so disastrous.' 

James nudged him and shot him a 'shut the fuck up' look. 

'I said, what did you do?' Remus asked with a bit more venom in his voice. 

James began to get very interested in his shoes, 'We put a Boggart in the bathroom cabinet. We didn't expect it to be so...' He couldn't seem to find a word for what he saw. 

'Terrifying?' Sirius suggested. 

'Yeah.' 

Remus was a little curious about what the Boggart could be but he was more concerned about his friend's well-being. He went out of his dorm and went to search for Severus. He searched every nook and cranny of the school. He went up the the astronomy tower. He paused at the top of the stairs. He was overlooking the entire school. The area was lit just by the light reflected from the stars. 

Then, he saw a little figure with his head on his knees behind the huge telescope. He realized that it was Severus. Before he approached him, he saw his shoulders shake violently and knew he was crying. 

'What do you want, Lupin?' Severus could sense the boy's presence behind him, 'Did Potter and Black send you here to humiliate me more?' 

Even though Severus was trying to be strong, Remus could still hear the hurt and slight fear behind his voice. 

Remus settled himself next to Severus and sat there in silence with him. 

'The night sky is really beautiful up here.' Remus gazed around them. 

Severus sniffed and looked up at him, seeing his gentle, smiling, scarred face. He suddenly felt a bit less angry at the world than he did before.