Chapter 1: Of Idiots and Interruptions

Note: Thank you for checking out my fic; I hope you enjoy it. This is currently being cross-posted from AO3. While 9 chapters are currently written there, I will be staggering my posts on FFN. However, if you don't feel like waiting for updates, I encourage you to go there to read all that has been written so far. My AO3 username is BW_James_4100, and the work title is the same. Enjoy!

No. God no. Please. Please.

This wasn't happening. It wasn't real. It couldn't be. Not after everything. The world couldn't be that cruel.

But Remus knew that was a lie.

The world had always been cruel to him.

He had been a fool to think that could ever change. To think that it ever would.

Before.

Remus woke to a bang.

A loud, disruptive, obnoxious bang. Remus, shockingly, was not a fan of loud, disruptive, obnoxious bangs under the best of circumstances. He liked them even less when they had the unfortunate consequence of stealing away his rest and causing his sleep-addled brain to pump unwanted adrenaline through his limbs. Especially when this occurred all too early on a Saturday morning.

Saturdays were sleeping days.

However, having already spent the better part of a year and a half sharing a room with James Potter and Sirius Black, bangs had long-ago become a predominant presence in his life.

A great testament to this fact was that, after the initial shock that startled him awake, Remus merely groaned and slumped back into his warm pillows. It didn't even occur to him to check on his roommates' or dormitory's well-being; he knew that there was perhaps a ninety-nine percent likelihood that the source of the irritation was one of the idiots he roomed with. The minuscule chance that there was some serious danger behind the noise was, he decided, not nearly great enough to warrant getting out of bed.

Besides, the full moon was coming. Soon.

He needed all the rest he could get.

So he merely let his head bury itself in his pillow while he tried to tune out the shouts that had followed the bang, hoping they wouldn't last long.

No such luck.

In fact, what had started out as worried murmurs seemed to be growing in both volume and concern.

"Is that supposed to happen?"

"Oh, yes Peter, 'course it was supposed to happen. That's definitely what James was trying to do. He said he wanted to learn to transfigure some flowers to impress Evans, but he really wanted to turn the floor into a bloody swamp, because who wouldn't be impressed by that?"

"Well you don't have to be a prat about it."

"Oh I'm sorry. Our lovely dormitory looks like it's going to grow deadly goo and eat us, but that doesn't make your question stupid, noo. It was a logical inquiry. My mistake, you bloody wanker."

"Oi, would you two shut up? We have bigger problems here."

"Oh no, James, I didn't realize."

"Not the bloody time for your sarcasm, Siri-"

The last line was cut off by a strangled yelp. Then a frantic pause before-

"I think it's getting bigger, mate-"

"We can see that, thanks,"

"Oh not good, not good!"

It was this, coupled by a frankly disturbing bubbling sound, that finally prodded a disgruntled Remus out of bed.

He shoved the scarlet hangings on his four-poster bed aside as he stuck out his rumpled hair and groggy face.

"Oi! What the bloody hell is going on?"

Then he froze. His amber eyes blinked once, twice, three times as they scanned the Gryffindor second year boys' dormitory and three of the said boys that inhabited it.

Boys who were currently also frozen in place, all scattered around the room as they stood or crouched on various pieces of furniture. The cause for this being, of course, the slimy green-grey goo bubbling up from the center of the floor. Goo that certainty didn't seem to be harmless, if it's noxious stench was anything to judge by, and which seemed to be spreading. The trio stared up at the interruption from their respective sanctuaries.

"Oh, sorry mate. Did we wake you?"

The question, complete with an awkward chuckle, came from a sheepish James Potter, who stood closest to the death goop. At another time, Remus might have found the image of him, precariously perched on his trunk while clad in his snitch-patterned pajamas with lopsided glasses nestled in his wild hair, comical. He might have, that is, if not for the aforementioned swamp of death that was slowly creeping closer and closer to Remus' bed.

"What," he seethed, "Did you do?"

"Heh, well, you see-"

Whatever James would have said was cut off by a particularly loud pop. The gazes of all four boys shot to the floor again, where the slime seemed to be moving faster.

Peter squeaked, and Sirius ordered, "Explain later. Fix now."

Wordless agreement shot through the group as they set about bombarding the strange substance with spells, praying one would succeed in banishing it from their room.

Two hours. It took the four of them two hours to finish clearing the dormitory of the last of the slime.

It had been Remus who finally stopped its steady spread, and Sirius who had managed to clear it away.

By the time the last of it was gone, they were all exhausted, sweaty, and dirty. James in particular had managed to get some of the goo stuck in his already unmanageable hair.

They four of them slumped onto the ground, completely worn out.

"How," Remus wheezed, "did you mess up the spell that bloody bad."

From his heap on the floor, Peter nodded vigorously, while Sirius grunted in agreement.

James flushed red, muttering something about how it wasn't his fault; the book's instructions had been unclear.

"But you were trying to make flowers, " Peter whined. "Flowers. You could have killed us!"

At this Sirius let out a snort his mother definitely would have reprimanded him for.

"Please. Potter couldn't kill anything. More likely his brain would have combusted out of pathetic pining for Evans, and he would have jumped into the slime himself."

James' scowl deepened.

"Oh, shut up you prat."

Sirius sat up; "I'll shut up when you stop being a prat, you prat."

The two boys glared at each other halfheartedly before Sirius cracked a lazy grin, eyes rolling in their sockets.

"Flowers, Jamie. How do you mess up flowers that bloody bad?"

And suddenly the panic of the last two hours became utterly hilarious. Sirius and Remus began to chuckle, then laugh, then roar, dissolving into throbbing laughs. James scowled a little while longer, until he could no longer hold back a sheepish grin, and even Peter let out a few weak chuckles.

Eventually the laughter began to subside. The boys washed away the worst of the slime (though there remained some in James' hair that no one bothered to tell him about), Sirius challenged James to a game of gobstones, and Peter stood eagerly at their side, ready to spectate. Remus, meanwhile, crept back to his bed, intent on milking a few more hours of blissful sleep before heading down for breakfast.

Not bothering to draw his hangings shut, he collapsed on top of his covers and shut his eyes - but not before catching one last bleary image of the dormitory, and of three laughing boys crowded together on a floor that, only two hours previously, had been enveloped in who-even-knew-what.

A sleepy smile drifted across Remus' face at the sight of the Gryffindors.

Of his friends.

Idiots, the werewolf thought fondly as he surrendered to oblivion.

Absolute bloody idiots, the lot of them.

God, I'm lucky.

But he wasn't lucky.

Remus had never been lucky, and his monthly disappearances, the myriad scars he concealed with glamour charms and long sleeves, his secrets and nightmares and lies were proof enough of that.

He was a fool to have forgotten.

He should have remembered, should have realized, should have known.

Luck was never on his side.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you did (Or if you didn't), please consider reviewing! I'd love to hear what you think, and constructive criticism is always appreciated.