Eleanor Potter ~ My Brother's Best Friend

Sleepless Nights

So far throughout their year and a bit at school, the four boys hadn't had any arguments or fallings out or anything else of the sort. Until February when Ellie came to James concerning something she had noticed about Remus.

"Hey Jamie can I ask you something really quick?" Ellie asked her brother as she ran up to him in the corridor one afternoon.

"Course you can Nora I'm your big brother I have all the answers you may ever need." James responded with a smug look on his face achieving laughs from Sirius and Peter, Ellie didn't look quite as impressed though.

"We are literally twins James! Not the point but I actually need to talk to you in private sooo..." Ellie said very obviously looking at the other two boys who hadn't taken the hint yet to leave the siblings alone, "That means you two need to get lost."

"Woah Ellie no need to be so straightforward." Sirius said as he placed a hand on one of Ellie's shoulders who did not look impressed at all so removed his hand from her shoulder herself very forcefully.

"Don't even Sirius I'm not in the mood for your bullshit right now I just need to talk to James!" And with that Ellie gave Sirius one last annoyed glance before grabbing James's wrist and dragging him away from Sirius and Peter.

Once the two had got a good distance away Ellie stopped, let go off his wrist finally, and turned to look at him with a dead serious face.

"What's wrong with Remus?" She asked getting straight to the point, genuinely concerned about the tall, lanky boy she considered her friend.

"What do you mean what's wrong with Remus? There's nothing wrong with Remus. Why would there be something wrong with Remus? What do you know that I don't?" James asked very quickly suddenly sharing concern for his friend, he hadn't realised up until this point that there was anything out of the ordinary with Remus.

"That's the whole reason I'm asking you James, I don't know what's wrong with Remus and I was hoping you would."

"Well why would there be anything wrong with Remus?"

"Don't stand there and tell me you haven't noticed. Merlins beard you haven't!"

"Noticed what?"

"Noticed how once a month he seems to disappear for 24 hours at a time either with some kind of illness or family emergency or who knows what."

"Alright so he gets ill a lot, happens to loads of people. And besides it's not once a month, is it?"

"Well tell me James, where is Remus right now?"

"I umm.... I'm pretty sure he's in the hospital wing,"

"Your pretty sure? Because I'm 100% sure."

"How is it that your 100% sure?" James asked Ellie suddenly becoming very suspicious of his sister and one of his best friends.

"Because I was in the hospital wing first thing this morning getting something for a headache, and Remus was lying in a bed in the corner of the room. He looked awful James."

"How awful?"

"Well to start with he had cuts all over his face and he was bleeding like a lot, and then to add to that he was shaking loads, and when he saw me his face got even paler, which I didn't even think was possible, to the point where he was practically translucent!"

"You mean he's really ill?" James now asked extremely worried that Remus had some kind of deadly disease and he never knew.

"Maybe, I mean there is one other thing that it could be. But I don't know I could be completely wrong and then we would be accusing Remus of something awful and I'd never forgive myself for accusing him of such a thing." Ellie said quietly and slowly, not wanting to believe her thoughts herself.