The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Remus Lupin's Homework

Remus Lupin's Homework

Remus lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling in the dorm. Sirius was asleep beside him, curled up in his dog form, and Remus absently stroked the soft fur behind his ears, staring at the moonglow coming in the high vaulted windows. Peter snorted in the next bed and rolled over and Remus looked to the side, over Peter's round form beneath his duvet and, beyond him, James, laying the wrong direction in his bed, his feet up on the headboard, his Quidditch playbook open across his bare chest, glasses still on and askew. Remus struggled to sit up and the dog beside him rolled onto his back, kicking his legs languidly and yawning widely, his long pink tongue lolling out and then hanging sideways from his wide open jaw. Slowly, Remus slid away from the dog, propping him up with a pillow so as not to disturb him, and he crept across the room to the desk, lifting his wand, and a couple of the books and his parchment, and sneaking to the door slowly, wincing with every step as pains shot up his legs and lower back.

Downstairs in the common room, Remus stoked the fire and lit a couple of the lamps about the room and eased himself onto the floor before the coffee table onto a cushion from the couch. He'd made a cup of tea and he pulled his brown sweater 'round his shoulders, shivering as the ticking of hailstones on the window panes echoed about the room. He sniffled and took up his quill and, with a shaking hand, started working on writing the Defense Against the Dark Arts paper that was due the next day. Even if he wasn't going to class, he didn't want to give Gaunt any reason to be cross with him, so he'd send the homework along with the others when they went to class at least... His arm swept around the top of his parchment as he wrote, his wrist getting ink on it like it always did - (ah the hazards of being left handed!) - and he grit his teeth each time he had to lean forward to dip the quill into the ink bottle - the small motion a big deal with moon-knotted muscles.

"Moony?"

Remus looked up to find James coming down the stairs from the dorm, his jogging pants slung low 'round his waist - still no shirt, rubbing the hair on the back of his head and squinting across the room at him. "Hey Prongs," Remus answered.

James wandered over and threw himself onto the carpet, crossing his legs up like a pretzel, and looking at Remus with the sort of squinty eyes that comes from being still half asleep. "What're you doing, mate?"

"Homework," Remus replied. "It's not going so good."

"No?" James glanced at the paper. Remus had only managed to get a paragraph into it and there were smears from where his wrist had smudged the wet ink, too weak from the moon cycle to lift up off the page. The quill shivered from Remus's trembling. "Here. Lemme have that." James reached over and plucked the feather from Remus's fingers and slid the parchment to himself, scootching closer to the table. "Defensive spellwork is driven by the determination of the caster, and like how no two wizards are the same, so too the Defensive tactics used against Dark Magic cannot be the same between two wizards. One wizard's motivation to defend themselves will be different from any other's, and the drive to defend is what will determine the best spell for use in any duel. For example, ---" James looked up, "Excellent start."

Remus said, "I s'pose."

"This is Exceeds Expectations work if I ever heard it," James said. He licked the quill tip and dipped it into the ink pot, cleared his throat and hunkered down over the parchment. "Alright, go on, dictate the rest and I'll write it down for you."

Remus stared at James a moment as the quill hovered over the parchment... a drip of ink fell onto the page, spreading out through the porous paper. James raised an eyebrow. Remus hesitated, then, "For example, one wizard may find motivation in the drive for power, or fame..."