Chapter Twenty-Eight- Halloween Headache

                                    

                                          

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Sirius stayed awake in bed long after everyone else had fallen asleep, even Remus whose soft breathing comforted him more than it should.
How was he supposed to survive a whole year of not knowing what was going on, when he feared for his friend's life every time he disappeared?!
Sirius wasn't even being dramatic about it. He literally feared Remus wouldn't come back. Everytime he was afraid that Remus' uncle or dad, or whoever or whatever was hurting him so badly would, either on purpose or on accident, go too far and that would be that. Then there would be no more Remus, which wasn't a thought Sirius wanted to entertain.
Still, there was that nagging feeling that had grown from the tickle in the back of his mind on occasion suggesting he was missing something, an itch he couldn't scratch. He was still missing pieces of his friend, important pieces. Perhaps he had gotten another piece earlier today in class. The problem was he couldn't figure out what it meant!
He closed his eyes trying to sleep, trying to see anything besides the purple and blue bruise on Remus' jaw. Instead, he saw Professor Corbyn's reaction when he had noticed Remus was missing a few days prior.
"Missing again," their professor murmured under his breath. It was the day after Remus had disappeared, yet again, when Corbyn's eyes widened slightly, as if he had just realized something. The whole thing would have been missed if Sirius hadn't been paying close attention to their professor.
Sirius wasn't sure why he had been paying such close attention to their professor in class, especially not when he could have been coming up with ideas on how to become the champion for Hogwarts with Peter and James. But Sirius had been watching their professor very closely, as if waiting for confirmation on something. But confirmation of what, he couldn't understand. Only Professor Corbyn had responded in a significant way, a way that somehow Sirius hadn't been surprised about.
He didn't have the pieces to the puzzle?
No, Sirius was sure he had them all, knew it in his gut that the answer was there right in front of him. He just had to actually put the puzzle together, had to get the little pieces to fit without breaking the rounded bits off as he did with real puzzles.
But Remus was worth much more than a real puzzle, so he wouldn't break or lose any pieces. He knew the answer: it was there, it was right there! But it wasn't there, so Sirius fell asleep confused and disheartened. The next morning he woke with a headache and the faintest recollection of something howling in his dreams.
But frustrating friends and infuriatingly mindbending yet not complex puzzles were put on the back burner. Today was a day of great importance. Today was Halloween, and was also the day when the visitors better be arriving so that people would finally stop whispering about Sirius. Otherwise, he'd personally hex each and every one of the visiting students when they got their sorry arses here. But they'd be here, apparently, there had been some sort of trouble according to Dumbledore and all the professors were being very hush-hush about it. Even a 'casual' trip to Hagrid's during the weekend had left them with nothing besides pockets full of comically un-edible scones.
"Wake up!" Sirius shouted, launching himself onto James' bed, tackling his friend who woke with shouts and attempted to punch Sirius twice before he properly pinned him down. Annoyed hazel eyes looked up at him, though his friend's lips twitched slightly.
"Are you gonna let me up or not?" James protested, sticking his tongue out at his attacker.
"Aw, don't be so sore, Potter. You know you love waking up to see me first thing in the morning," Sirius teased, grinning at James' continued attempts to hold back a smirk.