wonderland • wolfstar

5| let the world go on

Awake in the dead of night, Sirius was sitting up in his bed, back cushioned by his propped up pillow, as his eyes eagerly flew past the words, swallowing them up whole. The flimsy sheets of paper rustled wildly as he flipped the pages in complete and utter awe. Apart from the occasional sharp snores from Peter and James, he found a comfort in the company of the words written for Nature's Sound; it was really quite a sight to see Sirius so engulfed in something one would class as 'minor'. To be entirely honest, Sirius preferred to spread the reading of scripts over a few days at most, but for this one, something had entirely changed: the twisting story had hypnotised him; the characters' passions thumped in his chest, whether they ranged from a love for the planet or the sweet melodies of a piano; and the dialogue had him almost biting his nails.

It seemed absolutely impossible for such an exquisite thing to be written by a boy who spoke in only sarcastic riddles and memes, hissed out red-hot insults and practically bathed in his own self-deprecation. Yes, Remus Lupin could be quite the character. Not that Sirius had truly experienced most of these things firsthand. Remus only acted like that around his friends, which was basically limited to Frank, Gideon, Fabian and Lily. For someone who could take a whole school by storm with only a poorly made notice, he sure did keep to himself. Sirius had always listened in curiosity at the tales Lily would sometimes tell while they had a girls night together, plaiting each other's hair and stuff, mostly because surely the Remus Lupin couldn't have passive-aggressively roasted a homophobe in public so viciously without even having his parents give a second thought? Well, it turned out he could - Remus really was quite the character.

"I read the whole script last night," Sirius blurted awkwardly one fine Monday evening as he and Remus went through their lines together in the first scene. Remus pricked up at the mention of whole, and his expression clearly showed confusion. No one, no matter how excited they might be, read his script in one night. They instead thought of splitting it up over a series of maybe two or three days, so they had time to grow with their character and understand them better.

"Oh." Remus looked back down at the script, lips parting as he muttered his next few lines beneath his breath.

"Twice." Sirius felt like banging his head against the wall of the dance room they were practising in. He really needed to learn to shut up.

"Why twice?"

Sirius flushed a blotchy pink.

"Well, you know, first time was to read the story, and the second time was to read the story," Sirius blabbed, telling the truth in an extremely stupid way. He fell back down on to the bench after balling his fists in embarrassment.

"I hope you at least enjoyed it?" Remus sounded just as embarrassed and Sirius didn't think he could despise himself anymore.

"I wouldn't have read it twice if I didn't. It was absolutely amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if Professor McGonagall will have to borrow Dumbledore's hankie."

"And I shit you the fuck not, I literally brought up fucking Professor Dumbledore's handkerchief! No, James, I'm being totally Sirius here!" Sirius moaned sadly in to his pillow, furious at his attempts to start a conversation with Remus.

James and Peter shared a look as they patted Sirius' back. Remus was a complex person with words written in print on his skin so small that it was impossible to read. He was the embodiment of speech, so calm and powerful, and as intricate as the patterns on the dresses Sirius would see Walburga Black wear.

"You're not that hopeless, don't worry," Peter assured, rubbing Sirius' shoulder blade sympathetically, eyebrows furrowing in confusion when James' hazel eyes burned with fury as he glared.

Peter would be lying if he said understood Sirius' ways. He didn't. Not one bit. But Sirius was Sirius, his friend who cracked open his shell, who gave off such a wonderfully nonchalant air and really, Peter found Sirius inspiring. Still, he wasn't sure why Sirius chose to sleep with anyone who asked when he clearly didn't like them.

But Peter thought that as his own personal issue: he shouldn't be doubting Sirius anyway. He really should just let the world go on.

Remus threw his pen down in exasperation as Gideon made obscene squelchy noises with his Pot Noodles. His roommates (save Frank as he was helping Professor Sprout that evening out in the greenhouses) were supposed to be catching up on the ridiculously large amount of homework given that evening but instead, Gideon had been complaining about how hungry he was despite having found Frank's stash of Pringles and making his way through about half of them.

Due to Gideon's spontaneous cravings, Fabian had began bringing a kettle to Hogwarts because there wasn't anything he hated more than listening to his annoying brother's complaints about how he needed food to feel happy. It originally started out as a joke, by its turns out that a kettle could be of a lot of use in a dorm of four eighteen-year-olds.

"Gideon, please, for the love of Dan and Phil, please just fucking stop making such repulsive noises with your noodles because I will tell Mum," Fabian warned. Remus scoffed and shuffled uncomfortably on his bed. It seemed as though he was in a never ending cycle of studying, practising, lessons and (if he was lucky) eating.

"I'm Mum's favourite anyway, so it doesn't really matter," Gideon bragged. Fabian looked flabbergasted.
"You? Mum's favourite? You're joking! Mum likes me way more! A blind man could see it!" Remus listened in amusement as his friends squabbled: they really could be quite daft at times.

"If I were your mum, Molly would be my favourite."

the next one will be better i promise. this one is kinda ewwwww and i apologise, really. i had a lot of drafts save for this chapter and i really didn't know what to write about, so i'm just gonna publish this one because it's complete and jsjdjfkfhgieis let me live. school's nearly finished oof. that's cool. you know what, i'm not in a good mood. comment jokes for me please :))))
see you next millennium

(((also, if any one of you say 'my life' as a joke i will personally yeet you out of this universe xx)))