Remus Lupin had never felt sicker in his life.
That was saying a lot. Remus Lupin was a sick boy…. but searching up and down the Hogwarts Express for an empty compartment was worse than anything he’d experienced. Almost. He shouldn’t be here, pretending to be the normal child he so desperately wanted to be.
Remus had already been up and down the train twice. He still hadn’t found a compartment for he and the mousy boy named Peter that he’d acquired on his second trip.
When he was just about ready to give up and go back to the compartment with a very angry looking teenager, he looked up to see a red headed girl slamming open a compartment door.
She was pretty angry, and pulling a boy with black hair by the wrist down the hall away from the compartment they’d just been in. He could hear laughing behind the doors as they slowly slid shut again. The laughter felt unkind, but from the sound of it they were at least closer to his age.
Remus took a very deep breath. He didn’t want to have to interact with any more people, he was already a loose bundle of nerves. He felt like an imposter surrounded by all these normal kids. A wolf in sheep’s clothing…. He caught himself rolling his eyes at his own use of the phrase.
“You want to risk it Peter?” He turned to look back at the boy who was seemingly hiding behind him. The boy looked up at him and shrugged with a grimace on his face.
Remus slid the door open and found two impeccably dressed boys sitting across from each other. They tried, and failed, to contain their laughter.
“Sorry, are these seats taken?” Remus was suddenly very aware of how shabby he looked. He was also very aware of his mother’s Welsh accent, which liked to slip out when he was nervous.
“No, please join us gentlemen.” The boy with the glasses and messy hair flashed him a brilliant smile. He was still trying to stifle what was left of his laugh, which wasn’t working, but Remus could appreciate the attempt at politeness.
“Hopefully you guys will stay longer than the last two.” Remus shifted his gaze to the boy dressed in almost entirely black who had just spoken. The clothes he was wearing were surely worth how much his mother spent on groceries in a month… probably more. There was something intimidating about him, like how he managed to look like a young aristocrat while casually slumped back in his seat.
“Wait, we should do this properly this time.” The boy with glasses stood up and straightened the front of his equally expensive looking robes. He flashed that smile again and stretched out his hand. “James Potter.” Remus reached out and shook his hand.
“Remus Lupin.” He shifted so that Peter wasn’t half obscured behind him. “ And this is-“
The smaller boy raised his hand. “Peter Pettigrew.”
The boy in black sat up straight in his seat, he had done a much better job of stifling his laughter than the other boy had. Something about his grey eyes made Remus want to shrink back on himself until the boy’s face broke into a smirk.
“Sirius Black.” He gestured as if he were bowing from where he remained seated.
“So! Now that we’re all mates,” James plopped down next to Sirius who grinned broadly at him, “-what House do you guys want to be in?”
By the end of the ride the four of them couldn’t contain themselves. James and Sirius couldn’t stop making each other laugh. Their energy was so infectious that Peter had completely broken out of his shell.
Even Remus, who had grown to the habit of trying to remain forgettable in a room, couldn’t help but take every chance to make them laugh. His quips brought them to tears several times, and Remus caught himself beaming each time he did.