CHAPTER THREE
Bad Schedules
The first day of Remus Lupin's classes for his fifth was not a good day for the teen from the second he opened his eyes. He had been woken to his dorm mates scrabbling around their already clutter filled room, James looked to be searching through his yet to be unpacked trunk for his school books. Sirius seemed to be completely ready, bag and all except for his lack of pants, Peter was pacing at the door fully ready biting his fingernails looking all too guilty.
"James, give me a pair of your pants." Sirius stood in front of the kneeling boy with pleading eyes.
"No! You were wearing yours at last night's feast, just take a pair of Moony's" James suggested not looking at Sirius. Hand in his charmed suitcase to hold far more than the size of the box, throwing out clothes at random. "Ah ha." Holding up a brand new fifth year potions book that's cover was now bent in half.
"I can't take his pants. He's already going to murder us and besides his Mum tailors them to be like twenty centimeters taller than me." Sirius whispered out pacing the room for a sign of the black slacks, his eyes on the floor before looking up, spotting them hanging on one of Remus' four bed posts. Grabbing the pants quickly, jumping into them as James and Peter whisper yelled at him trying to get the Black boy to hurry up before they met the wrath of their stupidly tall best friend.
"Why are you all up so early?" The groggy voice of half lidded eyed Remus came out. When he could see the fear stuck in his three friends' faces. Sharing a room with them since he was eleven he knew they'd done something wrong and the fact the looks were directed at him was only worse. "What did you do?" His voice no longer horse in with tired tone but stern.
"We're soooo starved for breakfast. Thought we'd just get an early start to our first day. Setting goals for the new term." James rushed out grabbing onto Sirius' hand pulling him roughly to the door.
"Yeah. Remus you should try it to lots motivating." Peter tried to pull the evident lie coming from James' mouth into a pretty bow for Remus's mind but only received a wack in the head from James at his suggestion forgetting that they were trying to get away from Remus.
"Right, well better get going." Sirius started moving to open the door and make a run for it. Though his movement was cut off by Remus.
"What have you done?" Remus repeated now fully sat up on his bed.
Before James could rush the boys out of the room to avoid the wrath of their dear now awakened friend Peter opened his mouth, partially spilling a truth into what they had done in this early morning. "It's really not that bad, suits you well if you ask me. Really nobody could pull it off like you're doing right now." Still holding the back off his head while collecting a second hit from James at his new comment.
Remus rushed to the bathroom mirror met with the sight of his hair colored with bright pink highlights. "What have you done?"
Remus pulled at all the boy's ears to keep them in the room and Sirius's very tedious explanation as to the situation of his hair came about. Remus learned that James had dreamt the night before of getting made fun of all day in classes because his hair had turned bright pink. His so-called nightmare woke him up early, struck with the great idea of their first prank of their fifth year dyeing all the Slytherin's hair bright pink. Because of the early hour and his lack of sleep James may have considered his idea slightly more great than it actually was, which caused him to try and wake all him dorm mates into completing the prank, successful on two regards of waking Sirius and Peter but failing when it came to Remus who was a very much a deep sleeper. With the work of a simple 'multicofors' spell and the fact that Remus was not awake in their schemes he became the delegated experiment for their trial having never used the spell before. It being their first time attempting the spell it only left Remus with the streaky coloring of pink not dominating his brown hair. Only after trying it did Peter question what the reversal of the spell meant to last twenty four hours (there isn't one) did the boys decide it was best to start their activities for the day extra early.
Which led him to the great hall where he was met with lots of attention to his new look, a few snide comments from Slytherin's finest and jokes made from his house. Not all were bad; he had to send a few grimacing smiles to giggling girls. The day only got worse when times tables were handed out for their school year and he only shared two of his five classes with his fellow marauders silently cursing his pureblood dorm mates for wanting to take muggle studies. It also didn't help that two of the classes he stood alone in was his potions class that he had double on every Wednesday and care for magical creatures which he had done so rubbish in for his fourth year Mcgonagall forced him to take it again this year.
After leaving breakfast early to get away from the constant looks and the fact that his hair was the current topic in everyone's breakfast chat he decided a early start to his third and final class he shared with none of the marauders Transfiguration arriving 15 minutes early pulling out his book with the background sound of student slowly filling in the room only finally turning away from his book at the louder sound of the chair sat next to his being pulled out looking up met with the sight of Anastasia hair fashioned messily in ponytail, a piece of toast in her mouth while one hand pulling out her chair and placing her textbooks down and the other working to pulling on her long black robes onto her shoulders. Sitting down and taking the half eaten toast out of her mouth, head quirked to the side to examine Remus's new look.
"New hair I like it Lupin" She smiled comfortably in her new seat, leaning forward and touching one of the many pink stripes in Remus's hair. Causing the boy to lean forward slightly and smooth out his hair after her hand fell off the bright stripes, turning to face the now fully filled classroom muttering a small thanks to his compliment on the ghastly hair.
Anastasia noticed Remus lean forward in his seat, straightening his back and looking ten times more tense after she made her presence known next to him. Anastasia felt embarrassed after she had already put all her books down and touched his hair unsolicited without even asking if he was saving the seat for someone. Though in her defense she had gotten to class a second before the bell and nobody had seemed to be sitting there. "Sorry, are you saving the seat for someone?" Ana asked, tilting her head at Remus.
"No, no... I wasn't" Remus replied awkwardly. Watching Anastasia nod silently taking a bite out of her toast.
"Miss Fox, food is to be eaten in the Great Hall strictly." Mcgonagall stated her voice sounded not even the slightest riled by the sight of food in her class in a way she sounded slightly chipper though that was most likely because of the two unlikely Gryffindors sitting together.
"Professor, you can't expect students to wake so early. You should read the fascinating stuff its proven people of my age should be sleeping 12 hours a day. How can that be expected when I have class at seven in the morning?" Ana dramatically stated.
"Well you seem to be very awake this morning Anastasia." Mcgonagall raised her wand, sending the piece of toast into the bin.
Anastasia pouted at her loss of food but quickly recovered with a smile. "I missed you over the summer Minnie."
The rest of the twos first class was spent with Mcgonagall forcing them to write outlines for the school year curriculum. Remus spent his time watching Anastasia doodle small stars across her pages of notes. They had started a unspoken game made when Anastasia drew a star on the corner of Remus' page causing him to draw a significantly more messy star on hers and back and forth and onwards until they had missed half of the notes and Anastasia laid her head on her non dominant arm and Remus had his turned to the table with a slight hunchback. Their game went on until both were started by the sound of the bell and rushed to pack up unlike the rest of the class who were well on their way out the door.
After a silent walk to the Defence classroom Anastasia and Remus were reunited with their friends who were already situated in their seats in the two three person tables which consisted of James Sirius and Peter in the first table and Lily who had saved two seats for Remus and Anastasia. Ana rushed over to the three boys wrapping her arm across their shoulders placing a kiss to Sirius' cheek.
"Hello boys." Anastasia greeted them. James and Sirius took a moment to notice the arrival of their friends that had walked in union together to the Defence classroom.
"You too walked to class together?" Sirius asked his question more directed at Remus rather than Anastasia smirking, sending knowing teasing looks to the boy who stood meek now to his friends not wanting to be jested in front of Anastasia for his confidential crush on his now seatmate.
"Yeah we are seat buddies now in Minnie's class." Anastasia boasted sending a nudge with her elbow to the Welsh boy's side causing Remus to stumble back, falling into Lily's table slightly, the push harsher than the small girl seemed capable of. The two took a seat at Lily's table with the red head left most, Remus in the middle, and Ana at the end.
The teacher this year was Sir Snow, a knight in the 1500s who died in Hogwarts after drinking sleeping draught, unfortunately the potion had been brewed wrong with four blobs of flobberworm mucus rather than the usual two. Their last teacher was a young wizard in his first year of teaching. He quit when the second exams were over that year; apparently his fourth year class full of Slytherins and Gryffindors sent him over the edge.
The potions class after this was Officially Remus' least favorite class . He usually succeeded in class and had fun besides the weird comments and disturbing presence of Professor Slughorn. Though every year before this he shared a table with his fellow marauders. This year his four person table was shared with Anastasia and the Prewett twins. Remus never had an issue with the twins though at the moment he could sense a bitter dislike for Fabian Prewett forming. Remus hated that the whole class he grabbled with the green eyed monster of jealousy watching Anastasia and Fabian flirting shamelessly over Slughorn's annual start of a new class speech.
The boy had never packed up and left class so quickly making it to lunch sooner than all his fellow marauders and most of the students. His day more abysmally when caught in his jealousy he had forgotten the state of his hair and apparently in the first three classes of the day nothing interesting enough had occurred to lead away the stares and comments he was receiving. His lunch was eaten with miffed bites and harsh chews.
After lunch came divination all the marauders and most Gryffindors had signed up for the class hearing it was a easy O and a professor who had sounded as if she has been hit with a few to many jinxes in her lifetime never payed attention to the students in her classes activities. He shared a seat with Sirius, finally being able to sit with one of his best friends.
The last class of the day was Care for the Magical Creatures and Remus was dreading it. After he had departed from the marauders he could hear the footsteps chasing him out of divination. When the mystery follower caught up and was revealed to be Anastasia they waked toe and toe in what felt to Ana as a comfortable silence contrasted the unspoken tension Remus had felt to their walk outside.
Academics never came hard to Anastasia. Most classes bore her and the lack of challenge lost her interest. Fox passed her classes with Os and Es with minimal effort on her part. She held two exceptions to her rule of disinterests, Charms and Care for Magical Creatures. Remus didn't have school come as easy for him he had to study before every test, his notes had to be good enough for him to look back on. Though Remus never minded, he enjoyed learning and was one of the top students in his whole year. He held one exception to his yearn to learn, Care for Magical Creatures. In theory the class sounded fun other than the fact that all animals seemed to hold a dislike for Remus which he theorized their aversion was them being cautious due to their apprehension and sense of his lycanthropy. He hated not succeeding at something and this class was a lost cause when it came to him improving.
The twos last class of the day was spent with Remus trying to raise his hand to any question about creatures asked. He could say any fact about unicorns or hydras but when Kettleburn brought out a common hob to show the students the second Remus took a step closer the creature screeched and bit a Ravenclaws hand causing them to drop it and fall onto the pine straw grass floor and run far into the forest. Kettleburn sent a glare Remus' way. He could see the poor on his report card now.
Authors note:
Hi!!, this chapter is actually crazy how long I have been writing it I started it January 10th. This month has been so busy I just back from my cousins bar mitzvah and have had a fever for a week and started new classes. Super sorry if there was a lot of grammar errors I re read this chapter like twice so idk.
Date Posted: February 3rd, 2023
(I litterally love ruby sparks Sue me I loved paul dano before you)