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Unwanted, Pesky Guests


Despite having been intending to return to Gryffindor Tower after leaving the Headmaster’s office, Remus was lost in thought about Dumbledore’s words of wisdom about the Shiva and he found himself getting off the stairwell and walking along the sixth floor corridor toward the hospital wing. He hesitated in the hall directly outside of the ward, gnawing a bit on his lower lip, his fists deep in his pockets as he stared at the door of the room.

Suddenly, it creaked as though to open, and Remus shuffled quickly, wincing at the movement, behind one of the suits of armor near by to take cover, not wanting to be caught loitering about. The door opened, but even though he squinted quite hard, he could see no one there in the hall. He hesitated, “James?” he whispered, thinking of the invisibility cloak. “Sirius?”

There was a pause and then, like a shifting in the air, a shimmery movement and the cloak was lifted off, revealing Lily Evans, her red hair shining lavender under the moonlight coming in the high windows. “Remus?” she whispered back, “Is that you?”

He came out from behind the armor slowly.

Lily’s eyes went soft. “How are you feeling?” she asked, remembering how awful he’d looked on the Durmstrang ship on the way home.

“Still sore,” he replied.

“Are you here to see Pomfrey? Perhaps she can see you get some of that special tea and --”

Remus shook his head, “I’m here to see James,” he answered. He paused. “I reckon that’s why you’re here as well?”

Lily nodded.

“How is he?” Remus asked, a bit afraid of the answer.

Lily answered, “Asleep at the moment…” She stared down at the invisibility cloak hung over her arm and she sighed, poking at the silver fabric as she stared at the way it seemed to reflect the light of the flickering torches lining the hall. “He’s quite down.”

“Even with you there visiting him?” Remus prodded.

Lily said, “Perhaps especially. I don’t know.”

“Come now, you know better than that. It’s James Potter, of course he’s happy to see you,” Remus said, consolingly.

Lily shook her head.

Remus touched a hand to her shoulder and she looked up at him. He could see the tears glistening in her eyes, only just holding onto the edges of her aqueducts. “Who in bloody hell would be anything but happy to see you, Lily?” he asked gently, “They’d be right out of their mind.”

Lily smiled ever so slightly at these words, her heart warmed by the well-meaning behind Remus’s words. But her smile was sad. “I reckon, Rey, that he’s realized that I am a jinx, and it’s my fault for what happened to him - for all the time he’s spent suffering like he did…” She cast her eyes downward at her feet.

“Sorry, but unless you’ve Voldemort under an imperius curse, you’re not to blame for what happened to James Potter,” Remus said sternly.

“If I hadn’t suggested we go out to that bloody dock --”

“Then they would’ve done whatever it is they were actually planning to do just the same,” Remus inserted.

“But they would’ve had a harder go of it, wouldn’t they?”

Remus raised an eyebrow, “Evans,” he said sternly, “Stop trying to make yourself guilty of a crime you didn’t commit. James is in a bad place because of what You-Know-Who did to him, not because of anything you’ve done. And furthermore, you bloody saved him from that! You’re a rescuer.”

Lily didn’t perk up. Instead, she began to cry.

Remus sighed and, groaning from the motion of it, he scooped Lily closer to himself and petted her hair gently. “Oi, Lil. C’mon, let’s get you a cup of tea,” he suggested, reaching into his pocket and drawing out a handkerchief, which he used to daub her face carefully as he led her away down the corridor.




For the next week, it was Remus and Lily that would go and visit James Potter in the hospital wing. Peter took to following Sirius about the castle as Sirius found various ways to keep himself busy and full with excuses for why he couldn’t join them in visiting James. Despite Remus’s persistence that James wanted to see Sirius, Sirius seemed to simply ignore the advice. It was quite frustrating to Remus because time and again James would ask where Sirius was, if he was coming along on the visit, and Remus was running out of excuses for him until finally, James just stopped asking.

Most days, the hospital ward was near to silent, as they sat and just kept each other company. Sometimes Remus would bring along a book and he’d read a passage or two outloud now and again when he came to something interesting he thought that either Lily or James would enjoy, but little else was said.

This, Remus reckoned, was sitting shiva.

“Do you s’pose that what we’re doing is helping at all?” Lily asked one evening as they walked back to the corridor, having just left James after he’d fallen asleep. It had been a particularly quiet visit, James hadn’t spoken a single word beyond hello and goodbye. “I feel like all we’re doing is sitting there.”

“That’s what Dumbledore said James would need,” Remus said with a shrug. “Somebody to just sit there.”

Lily sighed.

“We’re doing all we can,” Remus said as they came to a stop in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady. “He’ll come around… when he’s ready to. Raspberry scones.” The portrait swung open.

Lily shook her head. “We ought to be doing more.” At that very moment, as though on cue, Sirius Black came up the corridor, carrying a stack of books that teetered and leaned about on his outstretched arms. “And you,” Lily said turning on him, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Sirius looked surprised, having not been privvy to any of their conversation prior, “And what have I done now, darling, that’s pissed you off?”

“The one person that ought to be there for him most and you’re off - wasting your time in the bleeding library!” she said, and she hurried on through the portrait hole and into Gryffindor tower, the portrait hole slamming shut behind her.

Sirius looked at Remus, “Did Evans just scold me for reading?” he asked.

Remus reached for some of the books Sirius was carrying. “Shockingly, it appears so.”

“Well bloody hell,” Sirius said, and he looked up at the Portrait of the Fat Lady, “Raspberry Scones.”

“I do wish you’d make up your minds!” the Fat Lady scolded them.

“Yadda-yadda, just get on with opening up, woman!” Sirius said, rolling his eyes at her admonition.

Remus was looking down at the textbook in his hand that he’d just taken from Sirius. “What’s this for?” he asked, his brow furrowing in concern at the title - Muggles Cleansing Rituals.

Sirius hesitated.

“Padfoot?” Remus shuffled through the books he’d taken quickly, reading off titles. “Repelling Potions: Ridding The Mind, Heart, and Body of Unwanted, Pesky Guests... 100 Proven Muggle Methods To Clear Off Insects: What To Do When Insecta Repelleo Fails? Sirius? What’s going on? What’s with these books?”

He leaned closer, his voice a whisper, “It seems that… perhaps… the Durmstrang prison may have been a bit infested with fleas.” And he reached up and scratched his scalp just behind his ear. “I haven’t found a single spell to be rid of the bleedin’ things and -- Remus -- they’re murder.”




The day of James Potter’s release from Madam Pomfrey’s care came quickly, and it found the Marauders, including Lily Evans, in the corridor outside the hospital wing hours beforehand, awaiting their specky friend’s first steps from the ward. Peter came hustling up the stairs from the kitchens as the sun was rising, casting long shadows of the suits of armor and the turrets of the towers that lined the East side of the castle through the window and across the carpeting. Peter was carrying a sack from which he withdrew bottles of pumpkin juice and egg sandwiches that filled their bellies as they sat and waited.

“Do you s’pose he’s different?” Peter asked.

Sirius lowered his sandwich from his mouth. “He best not be too different,” he said. “Is he?” he looked toward Lily and Remus, who were the only two that had spent much time there.

“Utterly and completely different,” Remus replied, “Used a reconfigurating spell to attach all his limbs in different places. Has an arm growing out of his forehead now. Just here.” He held his arm up to hi forehead and wagged his hand in Sirius’s direction.

Sirius snorted at this in derision, but Peter asked, “You’re joking?”

“Of course he’s bloody joking,” Sirius said before Remus could speak, “What would they possibly have done that for?”

“Dunno,” Peter replied, and he hastened to eat his sandwich.

Sirius rolled his eyes, then, remembering to be nicer to Peter, he said, scratching his head, “Sorry Pete. I’m just a bit tense is all. Blame it on the fleas, mate.”

“Sh’kay,” Peter mumbled, his mouth full of egg and biscuit. Several crumbs fell over his lips and onto his jumper and he swept his palms over his chest to clean off.

The hospital wing door creaked opened and all four of them looked up to see Madam Pomfrey holding it open for James, who walked out of it clutching two small bottles of potion and a little scroll with Pomfrey’s seal holding it shut. “...and come back to see me if you’ve a single question at all,” she was saying sternly, “And for bloody hell’s sake, don’t allow Sirius Black or one of the other ones to try any spells to heal you before you do. If you turn up sprouting feathers, I’ll know exactly who to blame!” Her eyes flitted to the cluster of students in the hall and she cleared her throat before ducking back into the ward.

James stood there awkwardly, his spectacles a bit crooked, his body sort of limp looking with the hunch of his shoulders. The other Marauders and Lily Evans stood about, equally quiet, and they all spent several moments looking at their shoes, all waiting for the others to say something…

“So, got any righteous scars to show us, then?” asked Sirius, his voice breaking the silence.

James looked up.

There was a trembling moment, where his reaction could’ve gone either way. He might’ve laughed or he might’ve cried, as he stared into Sirius’s eyes, and then, without doing either, he simply turned and walked away down the hall, leaving his four friends behind as he tucked his potion bottles into his pocket and hurried away.

The four of them stood in continued silence for several awkward seconds, Peter glancing up at Sirius’s paling face and back down the corridor to James’s retreating back… “Well, he seems different to me,” he murmured.

Sirius turned without speaking and ran off the way opposite from how James had gone - scratching his arm like mad man as he went.

Remus sighed and so did Lily and, their paths crossing, they each hastened to follow after - Remus after Sirius, and Lily after James. Peter stood in the corridor, surrounded by their abandoned Pumpkin Juice bottles, and unsure what to do with himself. He sighed and drew his wand, waving it to clear up the mess that they’d left behind before returning to the dormitory, alone.