Chapter Text
Remus Lupin was– to be direct– lonely. It’s not like he really minded the loneliness, or became bitter from it. He was plenty friendly and polite when he was with people, but it was plain to see that he didn’t have many friends. Truthfully, he didn’t quite mind the time to himself, he was rather fascinated with his studies, always getting high grades and wanting to learn more. Naturally, in a school full of kids who pay for their grades, Remus became target number one for bullies. They didn’t do much more than trying to harm his ego, and they always failed. Remus knew that if he just opened his mouth he could probably have the bullies leave him alone, but Remus also knew that he was far above bullies– far above high school entirely.
He never cared for the people in this school, he never believed that he would really connect with any of them to an extent that warranted caring for the faces in the hallway. If Remus could get good grades and get into college on a scholarship, he believed he would have all the extra time for relationships later in his life. Thus was his plan, to lay low and cruise through high school, impressing teachers and speaking minimally to other students, and to rely on people later in life.
At least he had his Aunt Hope and Uncle Lyall to come home to at the end of the day, but a life with no siblings and no friends is concerningly lonely. That was certainly the belief of Aunt Hope, who would constantly nudge Remus into talking to the neighbors or joining a study group. It took most of his life, but Remus eventually convinced her that he preferred life with the few people he connected with rather than a hundred forced friendships over a chemistry class. It was especially hard for Remus to find friends during school due to the fact that most of these kids were born into more money than Remus– or anyone in his neighborhood– could ever imagine. Now, Remus had nothing against people with money, but it’s self explanatory that any two kids who can afford to go on a weekend trip to the Hamtons together will become closer with each other rather than with the poor kid in their history class who has to stay home and try to make some money if he wanted to go out at all.
You see, in New York City, a good public education can be hard to come by, and the district that Remus lived in was notoriously full of underpaid and overworked teachers who weren’t qualified to handle the behavioral issues of the kids in his town. So that's why Remus, and his Aunt and Uncle, worked so hard to earn the money to apply to a private school uptown. Remus was always in the top of his class, so it wasn’t a surprise when he managed to get a full scholarship to the school. For this reason, Remus worked extra hard so his Aunt and Uncle would never have to worry about his scholarship being revoked, and therefore Remus never had the time for relationships. Or, he told himself that he didn’t have the time.
Even with all of these beliefs, and these justifications of loneliness, Remus couldn’t help but find himself a friend– scratch that, a best friend– by the end of eighth grade. Out of all of the kids in the school, Remus never thought that the son of an infamously rich tech company would end up being the one person he felt he could rely on. But here he was in sophomore year chemistry sitting with Sirius Black.
To be fair, Sirius’ personality would have annoyed Remus, had it belonged to anybody but Sirius. Which explains why Remus wasn’t a huge fan of Sirius’ other friends. But there was something magnetic about Sirius, he never acted like his big personality was a problem, like everyone should be chatting and joking all the time, like everyone should lighten up. Sirius pulled pranks and started fights, he’d dance shamelessly to a song he liked, and sing off key while pointing at Remus as he turned away to hide his smile.
That was another thing, Sirius never failed to make Remus smile. Remus felt like his voice and his words could never be an issue around Sirius, because Sirius was loud enough for the both of them, and most of the time Sirius would scream his mistakes from the rooftop. Remus really– really– liked being around Sirius, however, his friends were just a little too much.
Look, Remus had nothing against the other two, James and Peter, he just thought that they probably needed to be embarrassed a little more often. James was Sirius’ best friend, practically like brothers. From what Remus could gather, Sirius just fit in better with James’ family than his own, so from the moment that they met, they were inseparable.
Then there was Peter, Remus could never really get a feel for this guy, he was quite the people pleaser. He would always do things just to impress Sirius or James, almost as if he was trying to prove himself to them. That was just stupid to Remus, obviously the other two loved him, and Peter should just accept that he has great friends who would stand by him at all times. Remus knew how lucky Peter was to have people like that. Although Remus found comfort in the silence, sometimes he would get upset that others took for granted what Remus never had.
So there they sat, Remus and Sirius, in fourth period chemistry, listening to professor McGonagall talk about some far off project as the two boys dove into their own world.
“Wait, wait, Remus. You can’t be serious right now.” Sirius whispered to Remus with a shocked tone and a matching dumbstruck face.
“You’re right, I’m not Sirius, that's you dummy.” Sirius rolled his eyes.
“So fucking original. But you have gotta be kidding me. Your name literally means Wolf Wolf?” Remus let a playful smirk pull across his face. Any other place in the school they would have been yelled at for talking, but the boys chose the back desk so they couldn’t be heard. Even if McGonagall could hear them, she would never write them up, they were by far her favorites, always getting top scores and keeping her class “interesting.”
“I just can’t believe it took you two years to figure this out.” Remus retorted with a sigh.
“Animal classifications are so not common knowledge.”
“That's funny, I thought you had to be smart to go to this school, or was that just me?”
“Oh come on wolf boy, you know that I use my mommy’s credit card to get through this school.” Sirius said with a mischievous glint in his eyes, it was a very common sight with Sirius, he was always up to something. But it's worth saying that Sirius was joking. He may have been a rambunctious teenager who disregarded rules, and the safety of others, but he was undeniably brilliant. Remus has watched him walk into countless tests having not even looked at a review sheet once and ace the whole exam. Remus couldn’t even be jealous, because it was just truly astonishing.
“Hey, at least I'm not the only one with a weird name. I see Mr. Dog-Star over here is giving out the charity of his presence to the poor scholarship kid.” Remus matched his energy, which would have been shocking to anybody else but Sirius. It was really only Sirius who tried to see Remus as he truly was, so Remus felt no shame in being sarcastic or theatrical.
“Fucking nerd.” Sirius said with a chuckle as he turned his head away shaking. Remus found his stare lingering a bit too long, but he couldn’t help it. Objectively speaking, Sirius was very attractive. He had shoulder length black hair that had a slight wave to it and always looked put together. In a way, you could tell that Sirius’ hair kind of bothered him. His hair was the only “put together” part of him.
The way he dressed was intentionally messy and chaotic. He wore tight fit jeans and worn out t-shirts with some band logo on them, and they were never tucked in. He was always wearing some form of jewelry too, and always playing with said jewelry. Sometimes it was a ring, other times it was a long chained necklace, but something was always glittering on Sirius. Remus knew that if it wasn’t so permanent, Sirius would have his ears pierced in a heartbeat, he just had that vibe.
Then there was the matter of Sirius’ jacket. That jacket drove Remus mad. It was worn in, you could tell from a mile away that the leather on that bomber jacket was two shades lighter than it was originally, and it was covered in pins and patches. Some symbols Remus could recognize from bands and organizations, others he had no idea. Every time that Sirius wore the jacket, Remus couldn’t help but stare and study every detail of it, and he had no idea why. He always just thought it was because it was really cool. And because Sirius Black looked completely hot in it. The thought cut across Remus’ mind and left just as fast. It was weird to think of your friends like that, but Remus also thought that it had to be somewhat normal because he never really had anyone else to tell him it wasn’t everyday you gawk over your best friend. But Sirius was not wearing this jacket today, just his jeans and a raggedy shirt.
Remus was snapped out of his thoughts when Sirius elbowed his arm and nodded at him to look up front. McGonagall was talking about the upcoming field trip to none other than the Black Bio-Corps headquarters, just a few miles from their school.
“We will be touring the facility, learning about all the newest innovations in the biochemical sciences. At the end they will have a discussion on internships for any ambitious students looking to get ahead.” McGonagall said that last part with a keen eye on the table in the back, in particular Remus. Sirius looked over at Remus as soon as she had finished speaking with a smile on his face.
“Oh Remus, you have to come to the Black bachelor pad.”
“Is one of the ‘newest innovations’ a bachelor? Did they clone you and make you actually able to flirt?” Remus made an overly exaggerated shocked face as he watched Sirius’ expression drop into a smug smile.
“What’s wrong wolfy? You don’t think I’m an eligible bachelor? Do you want me to flirt with you? Would you believe me then?” Sirius dropped his head down to where Remus’ was resting on his hand. That definitely should not have stumped Remus the way it did. He racked his brain for a witty comeback, but he was stuck. He was stuck in the way that Sirius’ voice dropped and sounded so laid back. Stuck in the way that his hair fell around his eyes and framed his face so well. The only thing Remus could manage to do was roll his eyes and smile, but before Sirius could open his mouth again, the bell rang and McGonagall yelled out for everybody to take a permission slip as they left. Remus and Sirius grabbed their slips, both of them thanking their professor as they left and headed into the hallway. The next period they shared lunch with Peter and James.
Sirius, Peter, and James sat at their usual table, the one in the middle of the cafeteria against the wall. Every time they got together, no matter how long they had been apart beforehand, it always seemed like they had something to catch up on. Remus was grabbing lunch from the cafeteria line and made his way back to the table. He had mastered keeping a straight, unmoved look as some kid threw a pretzel at him or yelled a name. Remus couldn’t care less, he just had to make it to the table.
Most days the other boys didn’t even seem to notice the small commotion that Remus caused walking past other tables, but today Sirius caught Remus’ gaze and gave him a look that seemed to say, i’ll pummel them if you want. Remus shrugged it off as if it was no big deal but Sirius didn’t drop his guard completely, just dropped the subject as he sat down.
Besides Sirius’ abrupt concern, the rest of the table was in normal operating order. James was worked up over something Remus was far too late to the conversation to understand, while Peter was nonchalantly replying with sarcastic comments.
“No no no, what you’re failing to understand, worm boy–” James started.
“Worm boy?” Remus murmured to Sirius, who shrugged in response. For once he seemed to have fallen out of their conversation bubble.
“-- is that you could crush 100 worm sized deer with a shovel-”
“Absolutely not my friend, the deal is that you don’t get a weapon, you have to fight without any help from the civilized world.” Peter interrupted with some ferocity.
“Wait, I’m sorry, are you guys arguing over deer and worms?” Sirius asked in a truly baffled tone of voice.
“Well the question here is, would you rather fight 100 worm sized deer, or 1 deer sized worm.” James snapped, obviously upset that his friend was not taking this seriously. Sirius and Remus exchanged confused looks, to which Peter rolled his eyes and added,
“Yea, and what our brilliant James seems to forget, is that you are using your bare hands to fight.”
“Okay, yea, I forgot that part, sue me. But now its getting more complicated, because on the one hand, a worm the size of a deer is too slippery and big to really wrestle or choke–”
“Maybe for you.” Peter interrupted again, to which James shooed him off with his hand as his eyes remained fixated on a certain point on the table.
You could almost see his brain analyzing the situation, and evaluating every outcome.
James got like this often. The smallest arguments would completely consume his mind, as long as the question interested him. He would take into account every perspective and possibility before he locked in his answer, then after that point there was no swaying him. However, Remus was certain that if James was faced with a serious question with real, important, consequences– but the question was boring to any extent– James would be willing to flip a coin to answer it. But this argument would fall into the first category, the one that consumes him, so there was always more to debate.
“-- but if there were 100 deer, there would have to be some bucks right? And if I don’t get a weapon then their little… their um… the like prongs on their head–”
“I’m sorry, prongs?!” Sirius barked with a little too much amusement and volume. One of the girls at the other tables shot a look over, to which Sirius disregarded with a shut up Marlene. James tried to move on from the blunder, but Sirius was far too amused to let him continue. “James, stop, no no stop, there's no coming back from this. Did you just call antlers prongs??” James finally looked up from his fixed point with a defensive look on his face.
“What? Prongs are a perfectly fine way to describe the antlers.”
“Yea, fine for a fork, they’re antlers my dear James.” Sirius mocked him with a tone of voice that resembled a mother explaining something to their child.
“Alright Sirius, if you're so smart–” James started, but was cut off, not by his friends, but this time by a rather annoying presence.
Snape was one of the ringleaders when it came to Remus’ bullying. He was some rich kid who definitely gets tutored too much with little impact on his grades. So, instead of applying his brain to his studies, he uses it to come up with new ways to make Remus’ life miserable.
He had never approached Remus when he was around other people, partly because he was almost never around other people, and Snape was almost always occupied by his friends during lunch. Now that Remus thought about it, he wasn’t sure if Peter or James had really seen the bullying happen. However, Remus knew that nobody at the table liked Snape at all. Remus remembered a time when James and Sirius spent a whole period passionately debating whether or not he would get a nose job as a birthday gift. And maybe that explains why Peter was so quick to roll his eyes and sigh when Snape made his way over to the table.
“Hey Lupin, settle a bet for me, does that free lunch taste better or worse than the bottom of my shoe?” Snape had a look of malice behind his eyes, not like the cheery glint the others get when they have a new prank idea. Snape was never into “harmless fun,” he always needed someone to be the butt of his jokes so he could laugh harder at their misery.
“What's wrong Snape? You can’t bribe any of your goons to lick your boots anymore? Such a shame really, how are you ever gonna keep those ugly ass snake boots clean? I guess you’ll have to pick up the slack.” The more Peter kept talking, the more laughter erupted from the table. Remus even let a smile slide across his face. Even if the response came from a place of hatred for Snape rather than an affinity for Remus, it felt good to have someone say what Remus wished he could.
Snape simply cocked his head to the side, his greasy hair following the motion.
“Now why would I do that myself when I have a community service project right in front of me who’s eager to earn some extra credit?” Snape punctuated his sentence by grabbing the back of Remus’ head and slamming it into his lunch. At this, the lunch room had a moment of silence, only broken by the sound of Sirius’ chair screeching as he pushed off of it and started taking off his rings that clattered onto the table.
“Alright Snape, you really want to fight now do you? You don’t want to send one of your little buddies over to do your dirty work for a change? We’re feeling bold now aren’t we.” Sirius’ voice took on a snarl to it, it had a certain power, a power that Sirius was very aware of, and was very cautious while using it. But when it came to his friends, Sirius would not hesitate to protect them by any means.
Snape stood there, his hand drawing out of Remus’ hair, letting him sit back up and start whipping his face off.
“Whatever Black, just train your little dog here to stop panting at the teacher's side begging for attention.” Snape folded his hands over and stuck his tongue out to mimic a dog panting. As he started to walk away, Sirius tried to follow but Remus caught his arm and dragged him back towards his chair. The usual cafeteria ambiance had returned, no doubt already filled with stories of how Sirius defended the scholarship loser who only has one real friend.
Sirius growled under his breath, with many different and creative names for Snape, which probably would have sent Remus’ Aunt into a coma. Sirius looked over at Remus scanning his face to see if he was ok.
“Shit Remus, your glasses.”
“It’s fine Sirius, easy fix,” He lied, Remus didn’t always need his glasses, but he wore them most days mainly because it didn’t do much harm if he was wearing them without need. Also so that he didn’t forget them when he actually needed them. But of course, looking down at the cracked lenses, Remus could already feel the strain in his eyes as he tried to take notes during his next period. “You know, I’m just confused about one thing though,” Remus started, glancing at Sirius, whose brows furrowed in confusion. “I thought that you were the dog.” Sirius cracked a smile that Remus copied and the two broke out in a laughter that Peter and James did not understand in the slightest.