Mischief Managed | 𝘚𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬

Chapter 27

Jenna gritted her teeth together as she glanced at where James stood with his three friends near one of the telescopes. The fact that she had waited for her brother in the common room, but he hadn't even bothered to do the same for her made her feel horrible.

Although Jenna was snapped out of her thoughts when the Professor called after her, "The class is about to start."

"Right. Sorry." Jenna shook her head, walking inside and moving toward where Alice was standing with Lily and Marlene, all gathered around a telescope.

Alice gave Jenna a sad smile when she reached them, and looked at her sympathetically, as if she could tell what she was sad about.

"Okay, let's begin," said the Professor as he clapped her hands together once, catching everyone's attention. "In this term we will be covering the name of the most well-known stars and study their movements. Now before we start, who can tell me what is the known brightest star in the night sky?"

"The brightest star is called 'Sirius' of course," said Sirius, a playful grin playing at the edge of his lips.

Lily rolled her eyes at that, thinking that he was trying to be funny. But they all took aback when the Professor said, "Correct! Well done! And what is your name?"

"My name is Sirius," he said, while James, Remus, and Peter sniggered behind him.

As if not sure if he was being sincere or not, the Professor checked her list which had the name of the students on it.

Her smile once again widened. "Ooh, Mr. Sirius Black! What a fortunate name for this class!"

"Thanks. It's actually a family thing." Sirius shrugged, looking rather smug.

"Well, take five points for Gryffindor for your right answer, Mr. Black," the Professor said cheerfully before turning to face the others again, and continuing with her questions in order to test her students' beginning knowledge.

As always, Lily was one of the students who raised her hand to answer most of the questions. But she was growing more and more irritated whenever Sirius answered the Professor without even raising his hand, and beating the other students into it.

"Okay, class," the Professor said after a few minutes, "please pair up with a partner and use a telescope together. I want you to create a star chart and write down the names of those planets and stars that you can recognize, using your books. We'll be studying their movements from next week."

Lily and Marlene took a telescope to themselves, and Jenna paired up with Alice. The students took turns to look through their telescopes and try to complete their star charts. Alice kept dazing off, staring dreamily at the clear sky, and watching the stars as she hummed a song under her breath.

Although Jenna soon found herself distracted as well, when her eyes suddenly caught sight of Remus. She realized that he looked paler than usual and seemed even sick. The dark circles beneath his eyes were worse than ever, and he seemed too tired to go on with the rest of the class.

"Hey, Alice?" Jenna whispered, her eyes still fixed on Remus worriedly.

"Yes?" Alice answered kindly, looking away from the sky and back at Jenna.

"Do you — do you think Remus is all right?" Jenna muttered with concern.

"Oh..." Alice pursed her lips together as she turned to look over at him. "He does seem a little ill, doesn't he?"

"That's what I thought, too." Jenna nodded, turning to face Alice. "Why doesn't he go to the hospital wing, though?"

"I don't know... maybe he doesn't want to miss a class?" Alice suggested unsurely, shrugging.

"Yeah..." Jenna whispered under her breath, glancing one last time at the boy. "Maybe."

***

James was the first to wake up in the boys' dormitory the next morning. Yawning widely, he sat up on the bed and stretched out his arms. He then reached out and took his glasses off the nightstand beside his bed and put them on, blinking a few times.

Sirius and Peter were still asleep, although James saw that Remus's bed was already empty. Assuming that Remus was in the bathroom inside the dorm, James got up and made his bed. But when he saw that Remus still hadn't come out of the bathroom, he started to wear his Hogwarts robes and pack his bag.

Although after five long minutes, James started to grow impatient. He went by the closed bathroom door and knocked.

"Remus? What are you doing in there? We need to use the bathroom too, you know!" said James, knocking again. But nobody answered.

At the sound of his knockings, both Sirius and Peter woke up as well, yawning as they looked over at James.

"What is it?" Sirius asked James sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

"Remus has been in there for over a decade!" James retorted, rolling his eyes.

Frowning in confusion, Sirius got out of bed and Peter followed his actions, both of them walking toward where James was standing beside the bathroom door.

Peter knocked again at the door. "Remus?"

Sirius listened carefully, his brows knitting together. "Not a single sound is coming from the inside. Should we go in?"

"What!? No! Of course not!" James shook his head briskly. "He could be naked!"

"He could be dead!" Sirius tried to reason.

"I-I think we should go and see what's going on," Peter suggested.

"My thoughts exactly!" Sirius nodded, and then before James could protest, he reached out to open the bathroom door, only to see that it wasn't even locked.

But when the three boys peered inside, they found the bathroom completely empty, and Remus was nowhere in sight.

Sirius folded his arms and raised a brow at James. "Good to know Remus has been in there for over a decade.

"What? I thought he was in there!" James said defensively, shrugging.

"Well, clearly not!" Sirius retorted.

"Then where on earth is he?" James mused, frowning thoughtfully.