- Text Size +
The Attitude


When Remus stepped into the dormitory, it was empty. He stood in the doorway a moment, trying to decide where to go and look for James when he heard a sniffle and he realized that the center of James’s bed was curved in.. and he walked over and put his hand on what appeared to be empty air. James was there beneath the invisibility cloak, crying. At Remus’s touch a gasp of air escaped him and Rey felt James shake with the tears. “Aw… Prongs,” Remus whispered and he started to pull the cloak away.

“No don’t, please,” James choked the words, “I just want to be invisible right now.”

Remus sighed. “But --”

“Please.”

He patted James’s back, “Alright.” He stayed sitting on the edge of the bed though so his back pressed to James’s side. He could feel James shaking every now and then with tears and unreleased sobs that trembled through him, but he never said a word.

When Sirius and Peter returned a few minutes later, Sirius looked about the room, “Where’s Potter?” he asked as he stepped inside, frowning.

“I haven’t seen him,” Remus replied. Then, silently he mouthed, We’re being invisible right now, and pointed to the air behind him meaningfully.

Sirius nodded, his eyes softening, then went and sat beside Remus, feeling James’s weight and warmth behind him, too, and he put his hand on James’s back also, but without saying anything at all. Peter joined them, sitting on the opposite site. Together they all waited silently.




Lily tried to apologize to James a couple times, but he would duck away the moment she turned toward him and his mates were no help - not even Remus, who could barely look her in the eye. Sirius flat out refused to talk to her and Peter would look timidly about and maybe give her a hullo if none of the other Marauders were around, but that was about it. And news travelled fast. The whole of Gryffindor seemed to know exactly what happened and they all seemed quite keen on taking James Potter’s side over Lily’s - even Alice and Frank.

“He’s always fancied you so,” Ali said sadly, “Poor boy…”

She felt so very alone - and that feeling was only compounded when she snuck out to see the stag later that week and he wasn’t there. She sat in the woods alone, crying, because even her beloved stag was gone from her side. She would’ve done anything to feel the deer kisses about then, and she sat on the log, her palms to her eyes, crying in the dark.




Regulus Black sat at the Slytherin house table, staring at Maryrose Jenkins over at Hufflepuff. She was talking with another boy - a Hufflepuff - and he felt a jolt of jealousy burn through him. He looked down at his dinner plate and pushed his peas about with his fork. He would like to be a Hufflepuff, he thought. They had it so easy... They got to be themselves, they got to be kind to everyone, and, most importantly to him right that moment, they got to sit by Maryrose.

“Are we feeling things?” Severus Snape whispered, suddenly sitting down across from Regulus, carefully placing himself directly in his line of sight of Maryrose. “Really, I don’t recommend it - it’ll only end up poorly.” Severus picked up his fork and started collecting food from the serving platters around him.

Regulus shifted on the bench to look over Severus’s shoulder.

“I feel like you’ve been avoiding me, Regulus.”

“Maybe I have been.”

“So you’ve given up on your quest to protect your mind, then?” Severus’s voice was low so that his words would be lost beneath the boasting voice of Evan Rosier along down the table.

Regulus shook his head.

“You’re too easily penetrated,” Severus murmured, “Your practice makes no difference. You need someone to guide you and that’s exactly what I aim to be, Regulus. Your dear mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about, fancying herself helping you. She helps no one unless it benefits herself. She never has.”

Regulus’s eyes went to Severus’s.

“She told you to go to Slughorn, but you still haven’t done it. Why?”

Regulus looked away, shifting a bit more as Maryrose moved over at the Hufflepuff table, standing up with a cluster of girls surrounding her.

“You don’t trust him.” Severus was just shifting about through Regulus’s thoughts like an old woman at a rummage sale, and Regulus gripped the edge of the table and closed his eyes, trying to block him, trying to stop him, using every ounce of energy that he had inside to give it a go at doing the legilimency…

“Regulus?” the voice was quiet, timid, and there was a tap on his back and he looked up and his breath caught in his throat as every defense he had fell. “I promised I’d return this to you.” Maryrose Jenkins held out his handkerchief, folded neatly into a triangle.

“Thank you,” he breathed.

Severus stared up at her from across the table.

Maryrose stood there awkwardly a moment, then took a deep breath and asked, “You’re a - a third year, right?”

“Yes,” Regulus stammered, eyes wide as his heart banged about like it was trying to escape from his flesh.

“Well, then this will be your first Hogsmeade weekend, yeah? I was thinking that maybe you’d like someone to - to show you about, to tell you what the best sights are?” Maryrose smiled shyly.

Severus started eating, watching this unfold with dark eyes.

“Bugger off, you unnatural filth,” came Evan Rosier’s voice from down the table. “Blood traitors, the lot of you.”

Maryrose looked up. “Shut it, Rosier.”

A rush of ooohhhh went up the table like a shiver down a spine as the others all about turned from Maryrose to Evan with expectant eyes.

Evan Rosier stood up. “Say it again.”

Maryrose rolled her eyes and looked back at Regulus. “What do you say?”

“Choose wisely,” murmured Severus rolling his eyes slightly toward Rosier.

“Apologize, muggle-lover, for dirtying our air with your toxic breath,” snapped Rosier.

“Regulus?” Maryrose pressed, her jaw firm, eyes carefully avoiding Rosier’s.

“I --” he wanted to say yes. He wanted to go to Hogsmeade with Maryrose and see everything with her for the first time. He wanted to leap from the table because she’d asked him and dance on the bench. He was so bloody happy! But he could feel Severus staring at him and he could feel Evan Rosier staring at him, and the others, too, and he knew if he said yes, he’d end up in a good deal of trouble. He closed his eyes, drawing strength from inside somewhere, and he said, “Sod off, Jenkins,” and turned away.

She stared at him, dumbfounded, and she said, “Well… fine. I thought you were different than them. Guess I was wrong.” Maryrose walked away.

Evan Rosier sat back down, murmuring to his friends, “Bloody gonna teach her a lesson… talking back like that… needs to learn her place…”

Regulus looked up. “She’s not a mudblood so shut your face, Rosier. Her blood’s as pure as yours.”

“I’m of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, Black. She’s not as pure as I am.”

We are,” reminded Regulus. “My family draws a line a lot further back than yours. Centuries further. Which is why the Dark Lord has chosen me over you to be more closely involved in his plans. So if I were you, I would stay out of my business. You may have just destroyed a very important political move that I was in the middle of forging. You don’t know what orders the Dark Lord has given me.”

Rosier glowered. “Yeah, ‘cos the Dark Lord ordered you to flirt with the useless Hufflepuff girl?” He snickered.

“She is useful,” snapped Regulus. “Just because you do not see her worth, does not mean that I am as blind as you. You’ll be in right big trouble when the Dark Lord hears what you’ve done - that you’ve messed up my contact with the girl. He needs her in order to fulfill his greatest desires - she’s the key to his plans.”

Evan Rosier said, “You’re a liar.”

“Am I?” Regulus asked, “Or am I telling the truth?”

Rosier hesitated, then turned back to his dinner, ripping a dinner roll in half and slapping butter across it quickly, refusing to so much as glance back in Regulus’s direction.

Regulus grabbed his book bag.

“Where are you going?” Severus asked, though he already knew.

“Damage control,” muttered Regulus, and he turned away from the table hurriedly.

Severus rubbed his chin, deep in thought.




Across the hall, the Marauders were sitting at their table, carefully placed so that Remus and Peter each sat on a side of James while Sirius sprawled himself across two seats worth of space on the other side, his legs on the bench as he ate so that Lily Evans wouldn’t try to sit there. He looked over at James’s plate.

“Prongs, you’ve got to eat,” Remus was begging.

“I’m not hungry,” said James.

“You’ll feel better if you eat.”

“I’ll feel like throwing up if I eat,” James replied.

Peter spoke up, “Maybe having the food in there will help make your stomach less ill - because it’ll have something in there to weigh it down a bit.”

“Don’t be stupid,” James said rudely.

Peter blinked in surprise. “I - I was just making a suggestion.”

James rubbed his forehead and took his glasses of, tossing them onto the table before him. “Sorry Pete, I didn’t mean to snap at you, it’s just I’ve got a headache and I haven’t the energy to put up with you today.”

“To… to put up with me?” Peter flushed, “Sorry.” He looked down at his breakfast.

“Alright, enough with the attitude, James,” Remus said, “You can’t be taking out on us what Evans said. We’re on your side, remember?”

James just kept rubbing his forehead, scowling at his untouched bacon.

Sirius spoke up, “Yeah, we aren’t the ones that broke your heart, so stop --”

“MY HEART ISN’T BROKEN,” James said, louder than he meant to. Several people along the table turned to look. He flushed, and jammed his glasses back on, “My heart isn’t broken so stop saying that. You make me sound pathetic. And maybe I am, but I don’t need you reminding me of it. Why don’t you lot just leave me alone? Bloody hell.” He pushed off from the table and stormed out of the room.

Remus sighed and flicked his wand to produce a small paper box and he started putting James’s breakfast into it carefully. “He’ll be hungry later,” he said.

“Bastard can starve then,” Sirius said, “Blimey, we’re only trying to help him and he goes on the attack like that --”

Peter looked ‘round the other two, “You lot don’t think he just puts up with me right? He was just saying that because of his headache?”

Sirius rolled his eyes, “We all just put up with you, Peter.” He’d intended it to come off as a joke - even though it was at least half true - but Peter was already in a sensitive place on it and his eyes looked at Sirius like he was a wounded animal.

“Right. Well. You don’t have to then.” And he got up and rushed out of the Great Hall.

Remus looked at Sirius with a raised eyebrow.

Sirius took up a strip of bacon.

“Are you quite finished? You’re two for two. Are you going to try to make me rush off, too, then?” Remus demanded.

“No,” Sirius said, “I didn’t really try with them, either.”

“Well, you needn’t have said that to Peter. You know how fragile he is.”

“Which is precisely my problem with him.”

“And your problem with Potter?” Remus asked.

Sirius replied, “He’s wasting his heart on somebody that doesn’t bloody deserve him.”

“Less than a week ago you were all over the idea of The Jily and now you’re acting like a prat about it,” Remus reminded him.

Sirius answered, “That was before she turned out to be an absolute bitch.”

There was a clatter and Sirius looked up. Lily Evans was standing behind him, talking to Frank Longbottom and he’d just made her drop her cup of pumpkin juice on the floor. She stared at him, then turned and ran out of the Great Hall as well.

“Three for three,” muttered Remus.

Sirius rubbed the back of his neck as he stared after Evans’ treating back, “Well fuck me with a Filibuster.”

Remus shook his head, conjuring another box for Peter’s breakfast and starting to fill it, too. “No thank you.”