The absence of Remus's mother at the platform was noticeable, but he put it aside as the steam from the train engulfed the crowd of students and he searched avidly for his friends. He found Lily first, who hugged him and helped him onto the train so the two could find an empty compartment. She was waiting for Severus, and he was waiting for the others, so they sat together on their own for a bit, catching up on the holidays. Remus didn't mention his mum; he had already decided not to tell his friends about it, if only to avoid thinking about it himself. Although, he didn't know if James had told Sirius or not. He didn't think he would. Despite James's chattiness, and his tendency to speak before thinking, he never gave up important information about his friends. Remus trusted him to never tell anyone about his lycanthropy, or him being trans, so he was sure James had already worked out that this may have been a secret that Remus didn't want to be talked about. At least not yet. Owain joined them a few minutes later, with Jethro behind him. They said hi, and asked if they could sit.
"Of course you can," said Lily, and the two boys joined them. "We're talking about summer. What did you two do?"
"Nothing much," replied Owain. "Stayed at home, but we did have a bonfire and Anwen and I made a rope swing on this old oak tree above a lake."
"That sounds cool," said Remus.
"It was! Until it snapped and Anwen fell in and got wet." He struggled not to laugh at the memory of it. "It was hilarious, she was so annoyed."
"Did you fix it?"
"Yeah, dad made it strong again with magic, impossible to break, but Anwen still refused to go on it." He shrugged. "More turns for me."
"What about you, Jeth?" Jethro was fairly quiet, and they weren't sure how much to ask him. This was his first year back without Tobin, after all, and the summer had begun with Tobin's funeral. They weren't even sure if talking about their holidays at all was a good idea, but he smiled lightly and didn't mention it.
"We stayed at home too, but we had some nice days out. I rode a steam train!"
"You're already riding a steam train."
"I mean a muggle one, where you can actually go into the driver's carriage and see the fire lit in the engine and the coal being shovelled in. Took you around the countryside, it did, with the whole window area open so you could stick your head out."
"It'd be cool if you could stick your head out of this train," said Owain. Jethro nodded in agreement.
"I expect it'd be too dangerous," said Remus. "It's too fast. How fast did your train go?"
"Oh, not too fast, just normal speed. Did the trolley lady go past yet?" Remus was now used to Jethro's speed at changing the subject in every conversation had with him, so he only took a moment to reply with "not yet."
"What did you two do?" asked Owain.
"We went to Ireland," said Lily. "Belfast. It was nice!"
"Why'd you go there?"
"It's near? Not too expensive either. Petunia wanted to go somewhere like Spain as usual, but who the hell can afford to go to Spain? I only knew one person who went to Spain. A girl who lived in my street called Fiona, and her parents were bankers so they were loaded."
"My dad said Ireland's just cold and wet all the time."
"How's that any different than here? Besides, it's summer. It was lovely. We went to the beach.
"I went to the beach too," piped up Remus. "With James. He lives in John O'Groats."
"Oh yeah, I know that. It's very nice." Remus nodded. As he did, the compartment door slid open and James and Sirius practically bounced in, grinning.
"Hi! We almost missed you!" greeted James, out of breath as usual. He seemed to be unable to walk through the train's corridor, preferring instead to run and possibly bowl over a few unsuspecting students. Remus jumped up when he saw Sirius and couldn't stop himself from hugging him. He'd missed him more than he'd realised. Sirius returned the hug, apparently thinking along the same lines because he squeezed extra hard. They lingered slightly, before pulling apart awkwardly and sitting down opposite each other. Remus studied Sirius for a moment, trying to work out what was different.
"Your hair," Remus began. "It's really long." It was certainly longer than it had been before, right past his shoulders. Sirius fiddled with a few stands absent-mindedly.
"Yeah, I grew it out." He looked a bit shy over it. "It looks weird, doesn't it?" Remus shook his head quickly.
"Not at all! I like it," he added for good measure.
"Really? My parents kept calling me a girl and said I should cut it off."
"Don't listen to them, mate," said James. "Bloody hypocrites anyway. I've seen plenty of wizards with long hair, especially purebloods. They think they look so sophisticated, and I don't see your parents complaining about them. "
"Yeah I know," Sirius sighed. "I guess it's just me they've got a problem with." Lily pinched the end of his hair.
"Christ, Sirius, it's nicer than mine. Lucky bugger." She wasn't wrong. His hair wasn't as straggly as it usually was, messed up from his hands running through it and his refusal to use a hairbrush for weeks on end. It was still wavy, but it had a shininess to it. Remus struggled to stop looking at it, but he soon tore his eyes away when he realised it was making him feel weird and he didn't like that. He stared out of the window instead, and waited for the conversations to start up again. He didn't notice Owain staring at Sirius just as hard, with an almost wistful look on his face.
"What'd you do for the holidays then, Re?" Sirius asked, looking at him expectantly. His expression answered Remus's question on whether James had told him about his mum or not. Sirius had no idea.
"I went to James's house."
"Yeah, James said! You two built a den or something." James smiled and launched into his own retelling.
"Yeah and I told you about pirates, right Sirius?" Sirius nodded. "We should play pirates together, it'd be fun. Swords are more fun than wands."
"I've never been to someone's house before," said Sirius. "At least, not a friend's house. I've been to plenty of houses with my parents before, for... meetings and stuff." He didn't elaborate on what sort of meetings, but Remus could imagine.
"Wish you could come to my house," said James.
"Why can't you?" asked Lily. "Seems to me you could just tell your parents you're going to someone else's house, and then go to James's instead. You've got a floo network, haven't you?"
"Yeah, but it's too risky. My parents will find a way to check on me, plus they'd only approve of kids who are kids of the twenty eight, and they all talk with each other all the time. They'd work it out immediately." He was starting to work up a mood, so Remus tried to divert his attention.
"Hey Sirius, have you ever read Treasure Island?" Remus asked, knowing full well that Sirius hadn't. Sirius curiously shook his head. "It's about this boy who finds a treasure map and sails to an island with a few other people, but one of them forms a mutiny and kills two of the guys. His name's Long John Silver and he's a pirate." Sirius– as well as James– was intrigued. James was already excited at the mention of a pirate.
"Does he have a sword?" asked James. Remus nodded.
"Yup! And probably a pirate hat as well. They all try to find the treasure, but when they do, the original pirate crew ambushes them and fights them. There's a lot of sword fighting in the book, in fact most of it's just sword fighting."
"Cool!"
"I wish I had a sword," said Sirius. "I'd be great with a sword. I'd swish it all over the place and no one would dare come near me." He raised his wand as a demonstration, and everyone had to duck out of the way in case he accidentally blew one of them up.
"Merlin, Sirius, put that thing away!" Owain yelled, his arms covering his head. "No one would already dare come near you with that."
"You could kill someone with that," remarked Remus, slowly returning to his sitting position once Sirius had put his wand away.
"Or at least take someone's eye out," concluded Jethro. Sirius just shrugged. The compartment door slid open, and Peter stood there in the doorway. The carriage fell silent as everyone turned to look at him.
"Hi. Er... there's nowhere else to sit. Do you mind?" Everyone immediately turned to look at Remus, except for Jethro and Owain, who didn't actually know what was happening, but were certainly wondering why no one was saying anything. Remus felt uncomfortably scrutinised. He didn't care where Peter sat, but he didn't want to make things awkward either. He'd had enough of that already.
"Yeah, you can sit here," Remus said, giving him nothing with his tone of voice. Peter sat next to Jethro, fairly away from Remus, and pulled out a book to read. He had clearly decided that he didn't need to speak to them, as long as he could at least be near them. Remus decided he preferred that as well.
"What's er... what's going on?" Owain asked, looking between Peter and Remus.
"Nothing," replied Remus. "We just fell out a bit over the holiday's. It's fine now." Peter looked up at him, silently wondering if Remus was telling the truth, and things actually were fine now. Remus was neither telling the truth nor lying, because the truth was, he didn't know either. He could share a compartment with him at least, so there was some sort of progress he supposed. Maybe they'd be able to conduct an amiable enough conversation eventually.
He really did hate how much their friendship had been ruined in such a short amount of time, but he was moving as fast as he was prepared to. If Peter cared enough, he could wait until Remus had reached a point where he didn't immediately flashback to Peter's hurtful comments every time he saw the boy, leaving him with a painful lump in his throat.
"What did you do this summer, Pete?" asked Jethro, attempting a conversation with someone he didn't realise half the compartment was still conflicted with.
"I went to Blackpool again," said Peter, quietly. "Like we always do. It was fun." He glanced once more at Remus, thinking back again at their time on Blackpool pier together. Remus held his gaze.
"Did you go to the circus again?" Remus asked, surprised at himself for being the one to continue the conversation. Peter looked just as surprised as he did.
"Yeah, I did. Charlie Cairoli was still there, you know, the clown."
"Yeah, I remember him."
"What's a clown?" asked Sirius, which– unbeknownst at the time– ended up being the catalyst for Remus and Peter's mending friendship.
"A clown is someone in circuses who falls all over the place and gets buckets of water thrown on them," explained Peter.
"Unless they're throwing buckets on the audience, then it's just confetti," continued Remus. "And they have pies thrown in their faces."
"Yeah! And they ride tricycles and have big red cheeks and funny hats."
"I hate clowns," interjected Lily. Peter gaped at her.
"How can you hate clowns, they're the funniest things!"
"No they're not, they're terrifying! They have horrible face paint and creepy smiles and big red noses and they laugh like... like... well, they're scary, alright?"
"I don't think so. Besides, the clown at Blackpool doesn't look like that, he's nice." And before anyone knew it, they were all discussing whether or not clowns were scary or not. Lily took the stance that they were, Peter took the stance that they weren't, Remus was neutral on the matter (he agreed that clowns could definitely be scary at times, but Charlie Cairoli wasn't one of them). Jethro hated clowns as well. The others, who didn't know what clowns were, chose sides purely based on the biased opinions they heard. James said he liked the sound of clowns, as did Sirius– who really just liked anything muggle– and Owain wasn't there because he had gone to find the trolley lady.
Their discussion was never resolved because there were too many voices talking at once, and too many points being thrown around to even be properly considered. But the point was, they were having fun. Remus caught Peter's eye at one point, and nodded at him. Peter nodded back with a smile. It wasn't exactly an "all is forgiven" nod, but more of a "we can move on from this" sort of nod. And Remus really hoped that they could.
***
Remus had forgotten that each new year began with a Sorting Ceremony. He was bored of them by now, impatient to get to dinner since all he'd eaten so far was a pumpkin pasty on the train ride there. Now he had to sit for over half an hour, watching student after student sit down on the stool for a few minutes before the hat shouted out their house name.
He yawned.
"Lovegood, Xenophilius!" A little boy with long white hair wandered up to the hat as if he were in a dream. Only a minute later was he sorted into Ravenclaw. Remus looked at his watch, which stopped working the second he entered into the Hogwarts grounds. The hands were stuck at six o five pm, but he looked at it anyway, if only for something to glance at.
The last students made their way to their assigned tables, a few Slytherins, a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff. Remus watched the empty plates, trying to conjure the food up himself with his mind as he ignored Dumbledore's welcome speech and instructions towards first years not to go near the Forbidden Forest– Remus still wasn't sure how much that rule applied to him.
At last, when Remus was at the risk of alerting the table with his empty stomach growling, the plates were finally filled with the mounds of food they had all missed. Remus spooned out a pile of roast potatoes, some slices of beef, and drowned the whole thing in gravy. He tucked in.
"How's your mum by the way?" James leaned in and whispered to him, inaudible to the others over the noise of the Great Hall. They had already been eating long enough, so conversations were starting to re-open now that they weren't focused solely on satiating their hunger.
"She's alright," he replied, equally as quiet. "She should be coming back from hospital soon. I'll be talking to dad tonight."
"I take it you don't want to tell the others?" Remus shook his head.
"I don't see the point. It's not really anyone's business anyway." James nodded, and dropped the conversation, in case he was considered one whose business it wasn't.
"Pass the potatoes will you, Re," piped up Lily from a few seats down. "You're hogging them." Remus passed the bowl over and drank up the gravy from his plate like it was soup. He wasn't the neatest of eaters, especially when it came to anything meaty. He didn't know if that was part of being a werewolf or if he was just like that, but he did know that he'd never be able to be a vegetarian (he'd tried it once when he was younger, guilty as he was about his wolf form, but after a week with no meat he started to feel terribly weak, and he was forced to give up. Nowadays, the only thing he refused to eat was lamb).
The common room usually filtered out early on the first night, with first years instructed to be in bed by eight, and the older kids not wanting to risk missing their first day back. This was good news for Remus, because it meant he could talk to his dad fairly soon after he returned to the common room from the hospital wing after a brief check up from Madam Pomfrey (everything seemed to be in order, and she was pleased with the progress of the morfosis potion; as was Remus, who had even noticed a small Adam's apple forming recently and was ecstatic for the rest of the day afterwards).
The common room was quiet, and lit only by the soft glowing of the embers from the fireplace. Remus sat in front of it with a blanket around his shoulders and threw a handful of floo powder into the grate.
"House six, Masters Grove, Gwynedd." The embers turned to green flames, and Remus waited for his father to notice. It didn't take long.
"Hello, Remus. How's your first day going?" Lyall's head appeared in front of him, smiling in greeting.
"It's hardly a day, is it? Just the Sorting Ceremony and dinner."
"But dinner was good?"
"It always is." Remus changed his position until he was in a more comfortable one. "How's mum?"
"She's doing okay," replied Lyall. "She's still in hospital, but they think she can go home in a few days."
"So her liver's alright?"
"Well, it's not alright. But it's recovering. I'll have to keep an eye on her, and she has to change how she eats and go for check ups all the time." He sighed. He looked as exhausted as he did during the beginnings of his and Hope's split up.
"It sucks," said Remus. Lyall nodded.
"It does."
"How did this even happen? It's not fair."
"I know, but... hey, as long as we've all got each other, right? We'll be fine."
"I suppose. Tell mam I said hi, and that I love her and all that."
"I will. You have a good day tomorrow. You get to choose your new subjects, don't you?"
"Yeah," Remus brightened a little. "Can't wait."
"Have you decided what you're taking?"
"Of course! I couldn't leave it that last minute. I'm choosing Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes."
"Oh good, I was worried you were going to go with Divination."
"What's wrong with Divination?"
"It's useless, believe me. Seeing the future?" He blew the breath out of his nose. "It's a flimsy practice at the best of times, and at the worst of times it's downright bullshit."
"Well, I don't know. Seeing the future might be useful." He could see if his mother would be alright, and if not then he could try and change things to make sure she would be.
"Yeah, if it worked. But it doesn't."
"Well, maybe you're just too much of a sceptic. I'll ask Owain, he's taking Divination. And I think Lily and her friend Marlene are too."
"Exactly, it's a girl's lesson." He grinned as Remus rolled his eyes.
"That's sexist. Besides, Owain's not a girl. So you're wrong."
"Alright, alright. I'd better go. Stay out of trouble, yeah?"
"When have I ever been in trouble?" Remus had never been in trouble, because he'd never been caught. His dad had nothing to worry about.
"I know, you're a good boy. I can trust you. I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Uh huh. Bye, dad." Lyall waved, and disappeared. The green flames died down until they returned to the orange glow of the dying fireplace fire. Remus was about to stand up, when he heard a small cough behind him. He turned his head, and saw Sirius standing there in the darkness.
"Hi," said Sirius.
"Hi... what are you doing here?"
"I didn't mean to spy or anything, and I wasn't!" He walked over until he was more visible in the dim light. He was half dressed and his hair was all over the place as if he'd been running his hand through it again, like he usually did when he was nervous. James did that too, but for the opposite reason; he seemed to be under the impression that girls liked when boys messed up their hair because it looked more "rugged" and "handsome" (his direct words). As Remus looked at Sirius he thought that perhaps James had a point, but then quickly ignored the thought.
"I was just wondering where you were," Sirius continued.
"I was just talking to my dad." Sirius sat down next to him.
"How come?" Remus found that he didn't really mind telling him as much as he thought he would. He almost wanted to tell him.
"My mum's ill. I'm just getting updates."
"She is? I'm so sorry. Is she...? Is she going to be okay?"
"I expect so. She's coming back from hospital in a few days. But, she's gonna need check ups and stuff, so... I'm not sure if she'll ever be fully better." He lowered his head, suddenly realising the enormity of the situation. Would his mum ever be the same as she had been? It didn't seem likely. For the rest of her life she might be ill, going in and out of hospital. Remus hadn't even thought about the future, and he soon changed his mind about Divination. Knowing wasn't so good after all.
Sirius put an arm around him, noticing the crack in his voice that indicated he was trying not to cry.
"I don't know what to say except I'm sorry. That's sad." Remus nodded.
"It is sad." And it was. There wasn't much else to say about the matter except that it was sad. Sirius took one half of the blanket and wrapped it around his own shoulders. They sat there in silence for a bit, which Remus liked. He wasn't quite ready to go back to the dorm room, which he assumed would still be fairly rowdy. He liked the quiet, with Sirius right next to him. So close to him. Their knees were touching, and Sirius's hair was resting over both of their shoulders.
"Hey, um..." Remus began. Sirius looked at him. "Don't listen to your parents, by the way." He said it quietly, awkwardly. But he meant it nonetheless.
"I don't."
"I know but... calling you a girl and all just cos of your hair. They... they're arseholes.
"They are, but to be honest I didn't really care. I like my hair."
"It looks pretty." Sirius cocked his head to the side like a dog, and Remus quickly regretted what he said. "I didn't mean pretty, I meant like... it looks fine, you look... It's fine." He fell silent, staring at his hands and feeling himself start to blush.
"No one's ever called me pretty before," Sirius eventually said.
"Er... really?" He shook his head.
"No. It's.. quite nice actually."
"Oh. Well, then. Um... you look pretty."
"Thanks."
The fire finally died away completely and the two picked up the blanket and left for the dorm room. It was surprisingly quiet when they returned, with everyone fast asleep. Remus checked the time. It was only nine o'clock. But it had been a long day. He was soon fast asleep himself, the image of Sirius in his mind's eye for a brief moment before he fell into a dreamless sleep.