Quintessence: A Compendium of Memories (Chapter Two)
Quintessence: A Compendium of Memories
Authoress: chelime
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize isn't mine.
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“We need to talk.”
Remus glanced up at his three roommates-My friends, his mind firmly asserted-and decided that the prudent thing to do would be to listen to that tone of Sirius Black’s voice and put his book in its proper place on his nightstand. He did just that, then folded his hands politely in his lap and focused on the three boys now surrounding his bed. “Anything particular in mind?”
“Actually, yes,” James Potter said, running a hand through his perpetually-mussed hair. “And, well…well, go on, Sirius, you seemed to have a pretty good idea of what to say back there.”
Utterly perplexed by this statement, Remus turned to look at Sirius. Sirius was glaring at James, but upon realizing that Remus was now looking at him, he adopted a just-got-caught-stealing-a-cookie-that-Mommy-specifically-said-not-to-touch look. “Now, Remus, we don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything-that is, what do you have to be uncomfortable about? I mean, it’s not like it’s a bad thing, in fact-“
“Crikey,” Peter Pettigrew muttered, “I thought we agreed to just come out with it?”
He wilted under James’s and Sirius’s stares.
“Carry on then, Sirius,” Peter meekly said.
“Yeah,” James added, “go on.”
Sirius gulped. He focused his pale eyes onto Remus and gulped again. He took a deep breath…and then seemed to come to a conclusion. “Look, Remus, we just wanted to know…are you a werewolf?”
Remus jerked, a strangled noise rising from his throat. “What-how-oh, God-“
Sirius placed a hand on Remus’s shoulder. “Remus, calm down.” Surprisingly, Remus did, looking up at Sirius with wide eyes. “If you are one, then it makes no difference to us. After all, you’re still Remus, right?”
“Yes,” Remus whispered, giving each of the boys an earnest look as if to say, Believe me, please believe me.
“Well, that’s it then, isn’t it?” James said with a smile. “You just…you have a furry little problem is all.”
A ghost of a smile whispered across Remus’s lips. “How did you all find out?” he asked hoarsely.
“It really wasn’t all that hard to figure out,” James said, appearing to be more eager to talk now that Sirius had gotten the hard part out of the way. “We were getting a little suspicious of your aunt’s ability to get sick only once a month-every month-and what with learning the phases of the moon in Astrology we started to realize that it was always on the full moon that you went to go visit her.”
“At first we thought she was the werewolf,” Peter piped in, “but then we thought, ‘Why would Remus go visit a werewolf while she was a werewolf?’ And that’s when everything fell into place.”
“We wanted to know a bit more about, well, what you are before we confronted you about it,” Sirius continued, “and once we did and realized that you are still Remus-for 353 days out of the year, anyway-well, the whole thing didn’t seem as big of a deal as it had initially, but we still needed to know for sure.”
The three boys looked expectantly at Remus.
Remus opened his mouth to say something, then hesitated upon realizing he didn’t know what to say.
“Are you still my friends?” he blurted out.
Sirius seemed to give Remus an assessing look. He nodded his head once and said, “’Course we are.”
James clapped Remus on the back, jarring the small boy. “You won’t get rid of us that easily.”
Peter grinned conspiratorially. “Besides,” he said, “anyone that can charm Snivellus’s stomach to growl like a Gryffindor lion is worth keeping around.”
A smile flashed across Remus’s features before his eyes began to water. The other three boys looked alarmed.
“You are all the best friends anyone could hope for,” he managed before he burst into tears.
“Aw, Remus,” Sirius groaned. “Don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it,” Remus wailed before grabbing the handkerchief from his nightstand and giving a thunderous blow.
Chapter One: Better Than Packing