The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

The Disappearance of Remus

"What is all the racket out here?!"

Professor McGonagall came out of the Great Hall almost immediately after Lily had disappeared through the doors, as James and Sirius were still taking their bows before the students of Hogwarts. Her eyes narrowed when she saw James, Sirius, and Peter on the stairwell, the center of attention, and she trotted over. "Off to your quarters, boys," she shooed them.

Sirius leaped down from the third stair, "But Professor - we're waiting for Remus."

"Yeah, we haven't eaten yet," James added.

She sighed, "Remus will not be rejoining you this evening. Professor Dumbledore has informed me that he fell ill earlier this evening and was sent to the hospital wing to be treated by Madam Pomfrey."

"What's wrong with him?" James prodded.

Professor McGonagall shook her head, "Dumbledore didn't tell me. Now off you go, get some dinner and then it's off to your dormitories with you. I don't want to see you hanging around causing disruptions again." She chased the three of them off into the Great Hall and to the Gryffindor table, where she left them, heading back up to the staff table.

James, Sirius, and Peter sat down. Peter quickly grabbed sandwiches from a platter, and Sirius went for a couple chicken drums, but James rubbed his chin thoughtfully, wondering about Remus and this mysterious illness that he'd suddenly come down with. "You better eat," Sirius told James, "McGonagall's watching us." James looked up at the staff table and sure enough she had one eye on the boys, the other was nodding along with a conversation she was holding with Professor Viridi. James grabbed a couple sandwiches and ate them distractedly.

Once the boys had eaten their fill, they headed up to Gryffindor tower. The common room was crowded and there was no way they'd get to the comfortable chairs before midnight so they headed up to their dorms to do their homework - though Peter seemed to be the only one actually doing any. He sat diligently at his desk and poured over the books and scrolls of notes he'd taken in Potions while Sirius laid on the floor and attempted to practice the Wingardium Leviosa charm. James, however, was laying on his back, his feet up on the wall, tossing the red Drooble's Best Blowing Gum ball up in the air and catching it again over and over, thinking, eyes half on Remus's empty bed.

"So where do you think Remus is?" James asked outloud.

"Professor McGonagall told you," Sirius said, aiming his wand at an old sock he'd extracted from the rubble of his trunk. "He's in the hospital wing, ill."

"He left to see Dumbledore and just... gets sick?" James said in a disbelieving tone.

Sirius shrugged. "Wingardium... leviosa!" The sock limply wiggled but didn't lift off the ground.

"Maybe Dumbledore and him had some cookies and they were bad and he got food poisoning," suggested Peter from his desk.

James's face wrinkled with skepticism.

Sirius rolled his eyes at James behind Peter's back. He waved his wand again, "Wiiiingarrrrdium levio-SA!" The sock flipped over pathetically. Sirius groaned. "I'm never going to get this to work!"

"Wingardium leviosa!" The voice had come from the doorway and the sock lifted up, floating high above Sirius's head towards the ceiling. All three of them looked up to see Bilius Weasley in the doorway. "Hey guys," he said, and he let the sock drop. It fell onto Sirius's lap. "Didn't see you in the common room, so I thought I'd check up here. I heard you put on quite the performance on the grand staircase."

"Our rendition of 'I'll Be Seeing You In My Pensieve' was a hit with the witches," nodded Sirius with a dashing playboy grin. "Maybe we should start our own band, James, what do you think? We could call ourselves... the Broomstick Boys."

Bilius laughed, "I can see the cover of Teen Witch Magazine now. Cheesy matching outfits and swooning third years..."

Sirius laughed heartily.

Bilius grinned. "Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you found your way back up here alright, since you weren't downstairs." He paused, looking around. "Where's Remus?"

"Hospital wing," Peter Pettigrew replied.

"At least that's what they say," James added darkly.

"What's wrong with him?" Bilius asked.

Sirius answered, "We don't know."

"Would be nice to know that at least," James commented, "What if it's contagious?"

"I'm sure Professor McGonagall would have moved us if it was contagious," said Sirius, but James noticed that Peter twitched uncomfortably and inched a little further away from Remus's desk, which was next to his.

"Well, if you decide you're tired of homework and you want to play a round of Exploding Snap or Wizards Chess come on downstairs," Bilius said, and he ducked out of the room, bringing the door closed behind him.

The boys didn't go downstairs, though, they stayed up in their dormitory, awake late into the night until Sirius had finally mastered the levitation charm and Peter fell asleep on his parchment, snoring loudly at his desk. "Look up if there's an anti-snoring charm," James requested. Sirius did, but there wasn't a charm like that which he could find, so he used his new levitation skills to wingardium leviosa Peter into his bed. The endeavor went fairly well - he managed to only hit Peter in the head once, and Peter managed to sleep through it so Sirius said it didn't really count if he didn't feel it.

The next day was Saturday, the first free day they had at Hogwarts and they rushed out onto the grounds excited to explore. They hoped that Remus would show up but he didn't all day. James and Sirius spent a fair amount of the time outdoors trying to lose Peter, who followed them around like a shadow as they walked down to the lake and threw toast to the giant squid to watch his long tentacles grab at the bread as it floated away from the water's edge.

That night, Remus still hadn't returned and James's suspicions were growing. "What could possibly have made him so sick he doesn't come back for two whole nights?" he demanded, again shirking off his homework while Peter did his at the desk. This time, Sirius sat on his bed and they were tossing the gumball back and forth.

By Sunday night, they still hadn't seen hide nor hair of Remus Lupin.

"Do you think it's something serious?" he asked, looking around. "Do you reckon he's dying or something? I mean, three whole nights. And let's face it, he didn't exactly look like a specimen of health to begin with..."

"I'm sure he's not dying," Peter argued.

"You never know," James replied. "I was over a muggle friend's house and I saw a television program that was raising pounds for kids with cancer at the muggle hospital in London... Remus doesn't look much different than them."

Sirius shook his head, "If it was cancer they'd have sent him to St. Mungo's to have it magicked out, wouldn't they?" he said.

"Maybe they have," James suggested, "None of us have seen him, after all."

Sirius rubbed his chin. "Maybe we should go visit him. Not because I don't believe Professor McGonagall when she says he's there but because it must be boring up there in the hospital wing without anyone to talk to. We should've gone over the weekend."

"You want to go visit him now?" Peter asked, looking up from the parchment he was working on for Herbology. "But it's dark and it's against the rules to be out of the common room at night..."

"Not now, obviously," Sirius replied, "But - maybe tomorrow after Defense Against the Dark Arts, if he's not back by then."

James agreed and the boys went to bed, crawling under their blankets as the air had cooled considerably in the last couple days as autumn set in and the last of the summer nights had come and gone. He fell asleep staring through a crack in his four poster's curtains, wondering and hoping that Remus was okay.