The Marauders: Year One (female)

23. Lupin's Lie

Sirius's eyelashes fluttered as bright sunlight filtered in through the windows, waking her up. She groaned, and pulled her blankets over her face, trying to get back to sleep, but it didn't work.

She sat up in bed, cracked her spine, and yawned, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She was surprised to learn that she was the first to wake in the dormitory; usually she was the last to get out of bed, and Jamie sometimes had to drag her.

It was quite late. Sirius crept over to Jamie's bed, where she was snoring, her glasses still on crookedly, and her arms askew. Sirius snickered, and carefully smeared some foul smelling substance from Jamie's herbology kit on to her palm. She strongly suspected it was Mooncalf Dung, but it was best not to make too many assumptions.

Sirius darted to Petra's bed, but she was still asleep, and so was Frankie. Remus's curtains were drawn, so Sirius padded silently up to her bed, and cautiously pulled the drapes aside. She nearly jumped back in horror, Remus looked like the undead.

There were huge, dark smudges underneath her eyes, she was incredibly pale, and her arms were folded across her chest like a person in a coffin, although her expression seemed to be twisted with pain.

She let out a whine in her throat, and shifted a little. Sirius heaved a sigh of relief, now that she was entirely sure Remus was still alive.

The truth was, she was still incredibly worried about her, even though she had mainly given up on trying to find out what was wrong. Remus would deny anything Sirius said, and would continue to deny, so there was hardly a point. Maybe she did have an illness, Sirius mused, looking at the sickly girl in front of her.

She tried to take a step back, but stumbled, as Remus's hazel green eyes suddenly flew open and made contact with Sirius's gray ones.

She looked bemused at Sirius's guilty stance. 'Morning,' she said, doubtfully.

'Morning,' replied Sirius guiltily. She tried to act as if she hadn't been caught staring down at her dormmate. 'Wanna go down for breakfast? I'm starving, and this ruddy useless lot don't look like they're going to resurrect any time soon.'

Remus flexed her shoulders and winced, more than any normal eleven year old should have, Sirius noted. 'Sure,' she replied stiffly.

Sirius allowed her to hop out of bed, and the two of them quickly got ready, chuckling at the dung smeared on Jamie's palm.

It seemed like some of the older girls had thrown a wild party, and Remus was surprised to see a Ravenclaw boy without a shirt on hanging half out the Sixth Year dorms, covered in confetti and lipstick. He flopped a hand over his eyes and groaned as they passed, knocking over an empty bottle of Firewhisky. The girls must have smuggled him in.

Judging by the amount of groaning and swearing coming from the dorms as the girls awoke, it seemed like that hadn't been the only bottle of Firewhisky opened that night.

Remus picked her way nervously over his body.

Sirius snorted. 'We should have a party like that someday, eh?'

Remus nodded nervously.

They walked to the Great Hall, exchanging gossip, and telling stupid jokes, Sirius not really talking about what she wanted to, afraid of scaring Remus off again.

Lillian was already there, primly reading a Muggle detective novel, but Sirius dragged Remus further down the table to where it was more deserted so that no one would overhear them speak.

As they helped themselves to rashers and eggs and beans, Sirius made small talk. 'Don't you just love breakfast?' she asked, rather stupidly.

Remus looked at her oddly, but nodded. 'I suppose so. It's alright,' she shrugged.