The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

More Than a Feeling

More Than A Feeling

Tuesday morning, James carried Remus piggy back over the grounds, back to the castle, as Sirius ran ahead to be sure they wouldn't be caught on the way inside. Remus hugged onto James's shoulders weakly, asleep against him. "All clear," Sirius said into the shard of mirror on his end, standing in the entrance hall, and James nodded into his bit and hurried across the grounds to the stairs of the castle, climbing up and ducking through the door Sirius held open.

It was early - not yet even breakfast - but the boys had wanted to get Remus safely back to the dormitory before Professor Gaunt would be up and about the castle. They'd left the Shack mere minutes after Remus had turned back from his wolf form. They hurried on the moving staircases and into the passageway, snaking their way through the dark all the way up to the sixth floor, and up two more flights to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Wombats!" Sirius declared.

But the Fat Lady was snoring and the empty bottle of wine in the next painting over told James he had a feeling he knew why.

"Oi, wake up, woman!" Sirius implored her. "We haven't got all day!"

The Fat Lady groaned. "What are you even doing out of bed at this unholy hour?" she demanded, "What sort of student choses to leave their beds before the sun is properly up?!"

"The sort that never went to bed in the first place. Now let us in! Wombats!"

She scowled, "You haven't got to say it so loudly! Shouting at the top of your voice like that..." and she started to swing forward.

Sirius grabbed hold of her frame, "YOU CALL THAT SHOUTING?!"

"Sirius, for Godric's sake," muttered James and he climbed through the portrait hole, carefully ducking low so he wouldn't hit Remus in the frame, and disappeared into the common room.

Sirius climbed through behind them, tugging the portrait shut in his wake.

The common room was dark and they hurried up to the dorms without running into anybody. Peter was asleep on his bed, his face smushed onto the parchment of the Marauder's Map, clutching his wand in one hand and a half-eaten bar of chocolate in the other. "Bloody hell," Sirius muttered and he grabbed the Map, tugging it out from Peter's face roughly just before a bit of drool fell upon the parchment, and he dusted it off as Peter spluttered awake by the sudden movement.

"What? What?" Peter asked, looking around, "Oh, it's you lot. You're back early."

"Wanted to get Moony situated before going to class," James said as he lay Remus down on his bed and Remus whimpered quietly from the pain of the mattress cupping his back as it did. Despite it being a good night, there were still a couple oozing cuts on Remus's forearms and one on his hip, just above the band of his trousers, where Snuffles had nipped him to keep him from turning towards Hogsmeade in the forest.

Peter pointed at the cut on his hip, "That looks right nasty."

"My teeth are stronger than they look," Sirius muttered, and he pulled open a drawer in the night stand for a jar of healing balm and started to smear it over the cut.

James walked over to his bed and sighed, falling onto the mattress. "Ohh gods." He closed his eyes.

"Hey don't be doing that, you'll fall asleep and we'll miss Potions," Sirius said, throwing the lid of the balm at James. It hit his knee and James groaned.

James ran his hands over his face, "Fuck Potions." Then, forcing himself to sit up, he asked, "Oi, Pete, what was Gaunt up to all night?"

"Dunno," Peter said, "I couldn't find him on the Map!"