good things fall apart • sirius black

Enough

    "We brought breakfast." James spoke enthusiastically, but there was a hint of seriousness in his tone as he placed the mountain of toast of Remus' lap. The messy haired boy knew his friend wouldn't have much of an appetite, but he needed his strength and James would force the food down Remus' throat if he had too.

    "Tea too!" Peter added, handing over the mug.

Remus, however, had little movement in his arms yet and struggled to lift them high enough for the drink. The majority of is wounds were down his arms this time, both of them being bandaged up tightly and still stinging from whatever treatment Madam Pomfrey had done.

Watching her friend struggle, Ellie took the mug of tea for him instead. If he wanted some, she'd help.

    "Give me the butter..." James turned to Sirius beside him, the two black haired boys fumbling for a moment as to not drop anything else as they passed things between each other. Once James had the butter though, a knife too, he snatched a slice of toast to prepare for Remus. The lanky boy turned up his nose initially, but when James kept shoving it in his face, he eventually gave in and took a bite, "See that wasn't so hard."

    "I don't appreciate being treated like a baby." Remus mumbled through a mouth full of toast, but James just shrugged.

    "If you're going to be stubborn like a baby, I'll treat you like one." He held the toast out once more, forcing Remus to take another bite, ignoring Ellie and Sirius' outrage looks about all the times James had commented on their stubbornness, "Now what do you say?'

    "Thank you." The lanky boy grumbled this time, and it made the rest of them chuckle. James just nodded once in reply, satisfied with his work and continued to feed his friend until the whole slice was gone.

The chaos caused by the four all rushing in, had inevitably alerted Madam Pomfrey to the arrival of visitors and she wasn't surprised to find who she did - it was the same after every full moon. She was very thankful for Remus' friends, for without them, she was convinced the lanky boy wouldn't recover quite as fast as he did every time. But that didn't mean she liked having them around anymore than they were welcome. The group had a tendency to hang around all day, missing lessons and study time to sit with Remus. Whilst it was sweet, she didn't condone them slacking on their education to just sit chatting all day. They kept Remus awake when he needed rest, so she always had to intervene at some point.

    "Why are there breakfast pastries all over my Hospital Wing?" The matron came striding over to the group, a stern expression on her face as she placed her hands on her hips. She very much reminded them of Professor McGonagall, and they were just as cheeky with her.

    "Well, that one's seen better days..." Ellie didn't miss a beat, pointing at the croissant that got squished by Peter, "I'm no Healer, but it looks like it could use some Skele-Gro." The others hid their laughter, even Remus chuckled, but Madam Pomfrey didn't look impressed.

    "No, you are no Healer and I don't expect to find you in here after the end of breakfast." She pointed her finger at them all, her request undebatable, before leaving them be.

She had little patience to deal with the Marauders, they were far too unruly for her liking.

When out of earshot, James told Remus that he needn't worry for too much longer about the full moon, for soon they'd be there with him. Lots of research and planning still needed to go into their Animagus project, but it was well on its way and the messy haired boy was striving to get the majority of it done by the New Year. Soon Remus' worst nights of his life, might actually become somewhat positive.

They also filled Remus in on the incident with Snape in Potions yesterday, Ellie recounting a chronological order of events that had left them in an even worse place with the Slytherin. The lanky boy wasn't surprised something happened, because they were nearly two months into the school year and no major argument with Snape had occurred yet. From what he was told, it did seem like the Slytherin had instigated it all, for he shouldn't have been snooping in the first place. But he wouldn't deny his friends acted brash also. Ellie perhaps shouldn't have been so taunting; Sirius shouldn't have snapped the way he did; and James shouldn't have let Snape wind him up so much. Peter seemed the only one with a sense of self preservation. If his friends kept going down the path they were, something ugly would go down with the Slytherins sooner or later and they might not all come away unscathed.