{HP} A Friend In Need
Title: A Friend In Need
Rating: all ages
Characters: Marauders
Warnings: none
Word Count: 2112
Summary: Wherein Peter has a brilliant idea, Remus is shifty and cautious, and Sirius is fed up with Remus being shifty and cautious.
Author's Note: Part three of What Needs Must Hide.
Part one: It's Always the Quiet Ones
Part two: Truth Be Told
A Friend In Need
It is not the first time that Peter has come up with an admittedly brilliant idea, but it may be the first time he has really done so wittingly (the majority of his ideas have come as the byproduct of a sarcastic tone bespeaking, Yeah, right, like that would actually work...), so it is something of a momentous occasion.
The moment comes when the three of them are sitting round the common room one evening working on the Transfiguration essay due two days later. They are studying not because they really feel they should get it done early, but because it means leaving Remus no chance of slinking away up to the dormitory before they notice him when he comes back from the hospital wing after spending the day recovering from last night’s full moon.
Sirius has been frustrated for weeks now; it has been nearly three months since they’d worked out Remus’s secret, and despite their blatantly sincere show of loyalty towards him, Remus has continued to tread on eggshells around them all. Sirius thinks Remus is waiting for them to give in and reach for their torches and pitchforks, and he is growing weary of telling Remus that no, really, they don’t care, and honestly, for Merlin’s sake, isn’t there something they can do to help him?
It’s this train of thought that they’ve been discussing, having long since given up the pretense of doing any real studying, when Peter suddenly says, “Ohhh...” causing Sirius and James to look at him in confusion.
“I’ve just thought,” Peter says, his fingers fluttering in mid-air in the way Sirius recognises as When Peter has Come To A Conclusion And Now Needs To Work Out How He Got There.
“Maybe,” Peter continues, “maybe we could be there with him. You know, when he changes. Might help to not be, you know, alone.”
“Brilliant, Pete,” James says from where he is slouched roughly equal with his knees, which are bent up against the table in front of him. “Except for the part where he’d either kill us or bite us.”
Peter shoves forward the large textbook in front of him. “Only,” he says, tapping a picture, “if we’re human.”
Sirius leans forward, staring at the picture, which shows a man halfway through becoming a lion. He feels the grin spreading across his face, wide and wicked as he looks up at Peter.
“Oh, Pettigrew, mate, you are a genius.”
James is only a half-step behind; Sirius hears his quiet “Oh!” as he cottons on, and then James is looking at them both with a manic sort of grin to match Sirius’s. “Oh ho ho,” he says, tapping the book with his wand. “D’you think we can do it?” he asks excitedly.
Sirius takes a good hard look at the book. It’s complicated magic, explained only in vaguest terms of layers of difficult enchantments and possibly years of hard work. If this book was all they had, Sirius would say it is impossible. But there’s an entire row in the Restricted Section all about ridiculously advanced bits of Transfiguration, and Sirius knows he wouldn’t have to work very hard to convince McGonagall of his interest and talent in the subject. It would be so easy to get her to give him a pass...
Sirius can feel the wheels in his brain turning already, palms itching to whip out his wand and start working on it already.
“Oh yes,” he says, grinning hugely at James and Peter. “We can definitely do this.”
It is at exactly this moment that Remus comes stumbling through the portrait hole, shoulders sagging and the shadows under his eyes showing dark and purple like bruises. He doesn’t even glance in their direction, weary, shuffling steps taking him directly toward the stairs. He pauses at the first step, raising a hand to brace himself against the wall for a moment before disappearing up towards the dormitory.
Sirius watches him go, frown pulling across his face. When he turns back to James and Peter, he sees the same tight, worried expression on their faces. James makes a motion like he’s going to stand, sitting up and leaning forward, hands braced against the arms of his chair.
“Should we...?” he says tentatively, nodding towards the stairs.
“Yeah,” Sirius says, “but not all at once. You know he gets so jumpy when we all ask him about it.”
“Alright,” James says, “you go check on him. Pete and I’ll head down and we’ll see you at dinner. Try to get Remus to come down, too. He looks like he could use some food.”
“Right,” Sirius says, standing. “See you later, then.”
Remus is nowhere to be seen when Sirius pushes open the door to the dormitory, but his robe is lying on top of his neatly-made covers, and Sirius can hear the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. He peers around the door to see Remus leaning tiredly against the sink, his eyes closed and his shoulders sagging. there is a crisp white bandage wrapped around his left wrist, and a large bruise spread low across his collarbone; Sirius can see it reflected in the mirror where Remus has the top two buttons of his shirt undone.
It is a sure sign that Remus thinks he is alone; always modest in the extreme, he has been twice as careful lately about not letting any of them see any more of his body but his hands and face. Sirius thinks it is because of the scars; before, he was just a strange boy with a strange collection of old (or at least, old-looking) injuries; now, they all know better.
Sirius leans against the doorway with his arms crossed and waits for Remus to notice him. “Rough night?” he asks when Remus finally looks up, shoulders tensing when he sees Sirius’s reflection over his left shoulder.
“Same as ever,” Remus says, eyeing Sirius cautiously. “What are you doing here?” he asks, looking away from Sirius’s reflection and back down at the sink, splashing water on his pale face.
“Thought I’d see how you were,” Sirius says, and tries to keep the defensiveness in his voice to a minimum, knowing the tone will just make Remus go all blank and silent and shut Sirius out again.
“Also,” Sirius says, “it’s dinner, you know, and I’m guessing Pomfrey didn’t give you much to eat for lunch, so I thought you’d maybe be hungry.”
Remus grimaces slightly, twisting the tap off and reaching for a hand towel to dry his face. “I do know, actually,” he says, voice muffled slightly by the towel. “Actually, I’d sort of hoped you’d have gone down already so I could come up and get some rest in before you all came back.” He brushes past as he leaves the bathroom, and Sirius follows, moving to sit on the edge of his own messy, unmade bed, frowning as Remus kneels carefully at the foot of the bed next to his, wincing slightly, his back held unnaturally straight.
“If you don’t want to come down,” Sirius says, watching him dig carefully through his trunk, apparently in search of one of the worn Muggle t-shirts he wears when he sleeps. “D’you want me to bring you up something?”
Remus just shakes his head, and Sirius has to admit that he really does look more tired than hungry. He still has yet to actually look at Sirius, and now as he watches, Remus fiddles idly with the shirt in his hands but makes no motions to remove his school shirt.
He doesn’t want me to see, Sirius realises with a start. He doesn’t want me to see the damage. It is a heavy thought, and Sirius fights down the sudden urge to plead with Remus, beg him until he allows Sirius to help him somehow, even if it’s just with sympathy (but not pity, never pity). But Remus gives very little of himself away like that, and when he does it’s on his terms.
“Right then,” Sirius says, taking a few hesitant steps backwards. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Remus just nods without turning around. Sirius sighs and makes his way towards the door. He’s barely taken a step onto the landing before he stops, turning back toward Remus.
“Is it always this bad?” he asks quietly.
Remus finally turns, looking straight at Sirius with a tired, empty sort of expression on his face. “Sometimes it’s worse.”
Thoughts chase themselves around Sirius’s brain, I’m sorry, and I should have known, and Are you okay? but he knows better, somehow, than to voice any of these, so he just nods, swallowing anxiously, and says, “I’ll bring you up something to eat anyway.”
Then he ducks through the door and away down the stairs before he digs himself any deeper. He hears Pete’s voice in his head, saying, ,i>Might help to not be, you know, alone, and Sirius tells himself firmly that he will do everything he can to make Pete’s idea work, because if this is the way to help Remus, then Sirius doesn’t care what it takes. Remus is his friend, even if he doesn’t really realise it, and it is Sirius’s job now to make sure that Remus never has to suffer any more than he already has.
Sirius drops down into his seat beside Peter, sighing as he stares at his plate.
“Don’t tell me you’re not hungry,” Peter says, glancing from Sirius to the laden dishes in front of him, which Sirius has made no move toward.
“No, I am,” Sirius says vaguely, blinking at a platter of rolls and wondering why he isn’t eagerly snatching at them. “It’s just...” He trails off into a frustrated silence, waving one hand vaguely in the air.
“Couldn’t get Remus to come down, then?” James asks, frowning crookedly when Sirius shakes his head.
“No,” Sirius says, “he said he wanted to rest, said he wasn’t hungry.” Sirius reaches for the rolls, feeling his stomach twist, feeling heavy and leaden, and wonders if he really is hungry after all. “I told him I’d bring him something anyway,” he says.
James nods, watching Sirius shred his roll into pieces with a concerned look on his face. “How bad is he,” he asks quietly, rightly guessing the cause of Sirius’s distraction.
Sirius gives up the destruction of the unfortunate piece of bread in his hands, running them through his hair instead, scratching anxiously at his scalp and huffing out a frustrated sigh.
“I don’t really know,” he confesses. “Bad enough, I think. His wrist is all bandaged up,” he tells them, “and he’s got a massive bruise near his neck, but there’s got to be more I couldn’t see. He was moving all stiff and careful.”
“He looked about ready to fall over when he came in,” Peter says, frowning. He is chewing worriedly at his thumb, reminding Sirius of Remus’s hands, all covered in tiny, crisscrossing scars like dozens of paper cuts.
Sirius looks down at his plate, realising he really isn’t the least bit hungry, actually. He spreads his napkin across his empty plate instead, reaching across the table to snag bits of whatever looks the most portable and the least messy, a baked apple, a hunk of chicken, a couple of rolls, and dropping them onto the napkin.
“I’m gonna take this up to Remus,” he says, standing and gathering the ends of the napkin into a bundle. For some reason he finds he can’t look at James or Peter.
“You’re not going to eat anything?” James asks, surprised, the frown deepening across his face.
“I’m just not hungry,” Sirius says, backing away abruptly and hurrying away from the table without looking back.
The curtains around Remus’s bed are drawn, but Sirius can just barely see him through a gap where Remus hasn’t pulled them all the way. His back is to him, but Sirius can still see the way Remus’s shoulders and drawn up, turning him into a curled, tense ball in the middle of his bed. Sirius stares at him for a moment before turning to place the napkin bundle on Remus’s nightstand. He turns back to Remus, who twitches and mutters something under his breath.
“We’re trying, Remus,” he whispers. “We’re going to help you, somehow. You’ll see.” Remus makes another tired, muttered sound, rolling slightly, and Sirius can see that his face is drawn together into a frown, even in sleep.
“You’ll see, Moony,” Sirius says, taking a step back and turning away, although he can’t help throwing one last glance over his shoulder. “You won’t have to do this alone.”
continue
Rating: all ages
Characters: Marauders
Warnings: none
Word Count: 2112
Summary: Wherein Peter has a brilliant idea, Remus is shifty and cautious, and Sirius is fed up with Remus being shifty and cautious.
Author's Note: Part three of What Needs Must Hide.
Part one: It's Always the Quiet Ones
Part two: Truth Be Told
A Friend In Need
It is not the first time that Peter has come up with an admittedly brilliant idea, but it may be the first time he has really done so wittingly (the majority of his ideas have come as the byproduct of a sarcastic tone bespeaking, Yeah, right, like that would actually work...), so it is something of a momentous occasion.
The moment comes when the three of them are sitting round the common room one evening working on the Transfiguration essay due two days later. They are studying not because they really feel they should get it done early, but because it means leaving Remus no chance of slinking away up to the dormitory before they notice him when he comes back from the hospital wing after spending the day recovering from last night’s full moon.
Sirius has been frustrated for weeks now; it has been nearly three months since they’d worked out Remus’s secret, and despite their blatantly sincere show of loyalty towards him, Remus has continued to tread on eggshells around them all. Sirius thinks Remus is waiting for them to give in and reach for their torches and pitchforks, and he is growing weary of telling Remus that no, really, they don’t care, and honestly, for Merlin’s sake, isn’t there something they can do to help him?
It’s this train of thought that they’ve been discussing, having long since given up the pretense of doing any real studying, when Peter suddenly says, “Ohhh...” causing Sirius and James to look at him in confusion.
“I’ve just thought,” Peter says, his fingers fluttering in mid-air in the way Sirius recognises as When Peter has Come To A Conclusion And Now Needs To Work Out How He Got There.
“Maybe,” Peter continues, “maybe we could be there with him. You know, when he changes. Might help to not be, you know, alone.”
“Brilliant, Pete,” James says from where he is slouched roughly equal with his knees, which are bent up against the table in front of him. “Except for the part where he’d either kill us or bite us.”
Peter shoves forward the large textbook in front of him. “Only,” he says, tapping a picture, “if we’re human.”
Sirius leans forward, staring at the picture, which shows a man halfway through becoming a lion. He feels the grin spreading across his face, wide and wicked as he looks up at Peter.
“Oh, Pettigrew, mate, you are a genius.”
James is only a half-step behind; Sirius hears his quiet “Oh!” as he cottons on, and then James is looking at them both with a manic sort of grin to match Sirius’s. “Oh ho ho,” he says, tapping the book with his wand. “D’you think we can do it?” he asks excitedly.
Sirius takes a good hard look at the book. It’s complicated magic, explained only in vaguest terms of layers of difficult enchantments and possibly years of hard work. If this book was all they had, Sirius would say it is impossible. But there’s an entire row in the Restricted Section all about ridiculously advanced bits of Transfiguration, and Sirius knows he wouldn’t have to work very hard to convince McGonagall of his interest and talent in the subject. It would be so easy to get her to give him a pass...
Sirius can feel the wheels in his brain turning already, palms itching to whip out his wand and start working on it already.
“Oh yes,” he says, grinning hugely at James and Peter. “We can definitely do this.”
It is at exactly this moment that Remus comes stumbling through the portrait hole, shoulders sagging and the shadows under his eyes showing dark and purple like bruises. He doesn’t even glance in their direction, weary, shuffling steps taking him directly toward the stairs. He pauses at the first step, raising a hand to brace himself against the wall for a moment before disappearing up towards the dormitory.
Sirius watches him go, frown pulling across his face. When he turns back to James and Peter, he sees the same tight, worried expression on their faces. James makes a motion like he’s going to stand, sitting up and leaning forward, hands braced against the arms of his chair.
“Should we...?” he says tentatively, nodding towards the stairs.
“Yeah,” Sirius says, “but not all at once. You know he gets so jumpy when we all ask him about it.”
“Alright,” James says, “you go check on him. Pete and I’ll head down and we’ll see you at dinner. Try to get Remus to come down, too. He looks like he could use some food.”
“Right,” Sirius says, standing. “See you later, then.”
Remus is nowhere to be seen when Sirius pushes open the door to the dormitory, but his robe is lying on top of his neatly-made covers, and Sirius can hear the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. He peers around the door to see Remus leaning tiredly against the sink, his eyes closed and his shoulders sagging. there is a crisp white bandage wrapped around his left wrist, and a large bruise spread low across his collarbone; Sirius can see it reflected in the mirror where Remus has the top two buttons of his shirt undone.
It is a sure sign that Remus thinks he is alone; always modest in the extreme, he has been twice as careful lately about not letting any of them see any more of his body but his hands and face. Sirius thinks it is because of the scars; before, he was just a strange boy with a strange collection of old (or at least, old-looking) injuries; now, they all know better.
Sirius leans against the doorway with his arms crossed and waits for Remus to notice him. “Rough night?” he asks when Remus finally looks up, shoulders tensing when he sees Sirius’s reflection over his left shoulder.
“Same as ever,” Remus says, eyeing Sirius cautiously. “What are you doing here?” he asks, looking away from Sirius’s reflection and back down at the sink, splashing water on his pale face.
“Thought I’d see how you were,” Sirius says, and tries to keep the defensiveness in his voice to a minimum, knowing the tone will just make Remus go all blank and silent and shut Sirius out again.
“Also,” Sirius says, “it’s dinner, you know, and I’m guessing Pomfrey didn’t give you much to eat for lunch, so I thought you’d maybe be hungry.”
Remus grimaces slightly, twisting the tap off and reaching for a hand towel to dry his face. “I do know, actually,” he says, voice muffled slightly by the towel. “Actually, I’d sort of hoped you’d have gone down already so I could come up and get some rest in before you all came back.” He brushes past as he leaves the bathroom, and Sirius follows, moving to sit on the edge of his own messy, unmade bed, frowning as Remus kneels carefully at the foot of the bed next to his, wincing slightly, his back held unnaturally straight.
“If you don’t want to come down,” Sirius says, watching him dig carefully through his trunk, apparently in search of one of the worn Muggle t-shirts he wears when he sleeps. “D’you want me to bring you up something?”
Remus just shakes his head, and Sirius has to admit that he really does look more tired than hungry. He still has yet to actually look at Sirius, and now as he watches, Remus fiddles idly with the shirt in his hands but makes no motions to remove his school shirt.
He doesn’t want me to see, Sirius realises with a start. He doesn’t want me to see the damage. It is a heavy thought, and Sirius fights down the sudden urge to plead with Remus, beg him until he allows Sirius to help him somehow, even if it’s just with sympathy (but not pity, never pity). But Remus gives very little of himself away like that, and when he does it’s on his terms.
“Right then,” Sirius says, taking a few hesitant steps backwards. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Remus just nods without turning around. Sirius sighs and makes his way towards the door. He’s barely taken a step onto the landing before he stops, turning back toward Remus.
“Is it always this bad?” he asks quietly.
Remus finally turns, looking straight at Sirius with a tired, empty sort of expression on his face. “Sometimes it’s worse.”
Thoughts chase themselves around Sirius’s brain, I’m sorry, and I should have known, and Are you okay? but he knows better, somehow, than to voice any of these, so he just nods, swallowing anxiously, and says, “I’ll bring you up something to eat anyway.”
Then he ducks through the door and away down the stairs before he digs himself any deeper. He hears Pete’s voice in his head, saying, ,i>Might help to not be, you know, alone, and Sirius tells himself firmly that he will do everything he can to make Pete’s idea work, because if this is the way to help Remus, then Sirius doesn’t care what it takes. Remus is his friend, even if he doesn’t really realise it, and it is Sirius’s job now to make sure that Remus never has to suffer any more than he already has.
Sirius drops down into his seat beside Peter, sighing as he stares at his plate.
“Don’t tell me you’re not hungry,” Peter says, glancing from Sirius to the laden dishes in front of him, which Sirius has made no move toward.
“No, I am,” Sirius says vaguely, blinking at a platter of rolls and wondering why he isn’t eagerly snatching at them. “It’s just...” He trails off into a frustrated silence, waving one hand vaguely in the air.
“Couldn’t get Remus to come down, then?” James asks, frowning crookedly when Sirius shakes his head.
“No,” Sirius says, “he said he wanted to rest, said he wasn’t hungry.” Sirius reaches for the rolls, feeling his stomach twist, feeling heavy and leaden, and wonders if he really is hungry after all. “I told him I’d bring him something anyway,” he says.
James nods, watching Sirius shred his roll into pieces with a concerned look on his face. “How bad is he,” he asks quietly, rightly guessing the cause of Sirius’s distraction.
Sirius gives up the destruction of the unfortunate piece of bread in his hands, running them through his hair instead, scratching anxiously at his scalp and huffing out a frustrated sigh.
“I don’t really know,” he confesses. “Bad enough, I think. His wrist is all bandaged up,” he tells them, “and he’s got a massive bruise near his neck, but there’s got to be more I couldn’t see. He was moving all stiff and careful.”
“He looked about ready to fall over when he came in,” Peter says, frowning. He is chewing worriedly at his thumb, reminding Sirius of Remus’s hands, all covered in tiny, crisscrossing scars like dozens of paper cuts.
Sirius looks down at his plate, realising he really isn’t the least bit hungry, actually. He spreads his napkin across his empty plate instead, reaching across the table to snag bits of whatever looks the most portable and the least messy, a baked apple, a hunk of chicken, a couple of rolls, and dropping them onto the napkin.
“I’m gonna take this up to Remus,” he says, standing and gathering the ends of the napkin into a bundle. For some reason he finds he can’t look at James or Peter.
“You’re not going to eat anything?” James asks, surprised, the frown deepening across his face.
“I’m just not hungry,” Sirius says, backing away abruptly and hurrying away from the table without looking back.
The curtains around Remus’s bed are drawn, but Sirius can just barely see him through a gap where Remus hasn’t pulled them all the way. His back is to him, but Sirius can still see the way Remus’s shoulders and drawn up, turning him into a curled, tense ball in the middle of his bed. Sirius stares at him for a moment before turning to place the napkin bundle on Remus’s nightstand. He turns back to Remus, who twitches and mutters something under his breath.
“We’re trying, Remus,” he whispers. “We’re going to help you, somehow. You’ll see.” Remus makes another tired, muttered sound, rolling slightly, and Sirius can see that his face is drawn together into a frown, even in sleep.
“You’ll see, Moony,” Sirius says, taking a step back and turning away, although he can’t help throwing one last glance over his shoulder. “You won’t have to do this alone.”
continue