Bless the Beasts and the Children - 6. Chapter 6

First class of the new school year—and a class Remus usually enjoyed—and yet Remus was unable to concentrate on the lecture. He knew he wasn’t missing much, first day and all, but that wasn’t the point. He was too focused on Sirius, trying to figure out what he was up to, and having no luck in doing so. The end result was a distracted Remus Lupin.

Whatever Sirius was doing must have something to do with that stupid bet he made with James. When would those two grow up? If this was how they were planning to start the new school year, Remus had serious concerns for what lay ahead of them. He was a prefect now, and that title came with responsibilities. The trouble was he didn’t know if he could tell his friends no when they were doing wrong. He’d never been able to before.

He cast a surreptitious glance at Sirius, who sat beside him. Sirius was paying no attention to the teacher. He was furiously scribbling something in a notebook, but Remus suspected whatever it was bore no relation to herbology. Just a hunch. Plus he knew Sirius fairly well, having spent most of the past four years in his company.

He took advantage of Sirius’ distraction to study him, albeit in profile. But such a handsome profile. Even if Remus hadn’t known Sirius’ lineage, knew that he was a member of the pureblooded Black family, he would have known he was patrician. Sirius had a noble, lofty brow, high cheekbones, and well-shaped soft lips which Remus was well acquainted with. He had the deepest midnight blue eyes Remus had ever seen, and they fairly sparkled with energy, life, and intelligence. Every time he looked into those beautiful eyes, Remus fell in love with him a little bit more.

The end of class came all too soon. Remus glanced with dismay at the few notes he’d taken. He’d have to ask Lily if he’d missed anything, and hope that wouldn’t entail making an admission of what—or who—had been holding his attention that shouldn’t have. At least it was break time now, they’d have time to talk before they had to go to Care of Magical Creatures.

But those hopes were quickly dashed when Sirius leapt up, announced he had to do something rather urgent, and bounced out of the classroom before Remus had time to respond, James hot on his heels.

“Hrrmph.”

Remus glanced at Lily, who was standing beside him now. He wasn’t sure if she was more disgruntled or suspicious—or a combination of the two.

“I don’t supposed you know where those two are swanning off to?” she asked, her gaze softening as she turned to Remus.

“No clue,” Remus replied honestly, “but I suspect it has something to do with that stupid bet they made at breakfast.”

“You mean they’re actually going through with that?” She quirked a red brow.

“Hello, have you met them?” Remus blurted out without thinking.

That produced a small smile.

“I guess that was a stupid question,” she admitted, then sighed.

“Well, while we have time, why don’t we do some patrolling. I’m sure there are some first years in need of our assistance somewhere. Hopefully none we have to take points from.”

Remus was pretty sure he’d be bad at disciplining anyone, even with reason. He’d have to learn, though, since it came with the territory.

Remus threw himself into his prefect duties to keep his mind off of Sirius. A lot of the first years were rather confused as to what was going on, where they were and where they were meant to be. That was the part of being a prefect which Remus didn’t mind. He felt useful, especially when he and Lily were the recipients of such grateful, heartfelt smiles from those they helped. He knew firsthand how confusing and overwhelming Hogwarts could be. He’d been lucky to have fallen in with the best group of friends a guy could ever have. Not to mention the best boyfriend.

As they roamed the halls together, Remus caught sight of Sirius, still forging ahead on his mysterious errand. He seemed to be talking to everyone he could, male and female alike. Remus had to push aside his natural jealous streak. Whatever was going on, he knew it wasn’t anything of a romantic nature. The way he was acting, Sirius reminded Remus of a muggle politician he’d seen once at a political rally he and his father had run across on a trip to London. The politician had worked the crowds who thronged to see him in much the same way as Sirius was doing, shaking hands with everyone, offering big smiles. His father had referred to it as gladhanding, and Remus had filed the term away for future reference. That word seemed to fit Sirius’ activities perfectly.

Sirius made it on time to their next class—Care of Magical Creatures— but he offered no explanation of his behavior and Remus was too timid to ask for one. At least this time he didn’t take off-topic notes which bore no relevance to the subject at hand, and he actually listened attentively. Remus wished he paid as much attention to his other classes. Not that it mattered. Sirius got good grades no matter what he did.

At lunch time, Remus was dismayed when Sirius ate quickly, made a quick apology, and disappeared again, James following suit. Lily was equally aggravated, but she hid it better than Remus did. The two prefects patrolled the halls once more. Remus kept telling himself this nonsense would all be over at dinner. Then someone would win, the loser would pay up, and things would go back to normal.

Hopefully.

After lunch, they had Transfiguration, and when Remus unaccustomedly attempted to pass Sirius a note during class, he didn’t even notice, his attention riveted on Professor McGonagall. Remus was mortified and gave up. He’d find out when he found out, he supposed. And he’d ask Sirius why he liked Transfiguration so much. Personally, he’d just as soon never transform again in his lifetime. Then again, his transformation was hardly voluntary.

A dejected Remus Lupin walked beside Lily Evans as they made their way to the Great Hall for dinner.

“Whatever it is, I hope they get it over with soon,” Lily muttered, and Remus silently agreed. He took his usual place at the Gryffindor table, automatically searching for Sirius. He hoped nothing had gone amiss, or that Sirius was avoiding them, perhaps fearing an unhappy outcome to their bet. Surely not. Sirius never cared about winning or losing, it was the game he enjoyed. Although he did prefer to win, given a chance.

There he was. He and James were approaching now, each taking their accustomed seats. Sirius glanced around the Hall, almost as if he was doing a headcount. “I think everyone’s hear now, or close to it,” he told James.

James nodded. “Seems to be. But you still haven’t explained how you’re going to prove anything, have you? Or do you intend to simply hand me my money?” James held out his hand expectantly, and Sirius slapped at it.

“In your dreams, Potter.” He laughed.

“Care to share with us?” Lily asked sarcastically, “or is this a private conversation? In which case, perhaps you should take it somewhere else?” She locked eyes with Sirius, who didn’t appear fazed by her manner.

“Of course I’ll share, that’s the whole point.” He turned toward Remus and gave him a quick wink, which melted his heart just a bit, and helped to lighten his mood. Just Sirius being Sirius, no matter how it turned out.

“If you’ll recall,” Sirius began,” the conversation at breakfast, you’ll remember that Mr. Potter called my looks into question, and hinted that I am unattractive. The upshot of the matter is that a wager was placed in the sum of five pounds. Am I not correct, Mr. Potter?”

“You are indeed, Mr. Black,” James replied. “However, the burden of proof falls on you, and should you not be able to do so, I win the wager, ipso facto. Only fair, don’t you think, Mr. Lupin?”

Remus wasn’t about to say anything that might mean speaking against Sirius, so he held his tongue. Luckily Sirius forged ahead, not really giving him a chance to reply.

“So then, here’s what I’ve done today. I worked out a simple but complex charm, which I have been applying over the course of the day to as many students as possible, while asking them to consider the question at hand, that is if I am or am not attractive. The results of that inquiry have been cloaked until now.”

“And how do they become uncloaked?” Lily asked. Remus had the feeling Sirius’ experiment had intrigued her, even if she tried not to let on how much she was interested.

“All I have to do is perform a simple revelation spell. It won’t last long and it’ll quickly fade away. But while it lasts, the results will be plain to see.”

“What results?” Remus asked.

“Using the color red as the scale of my attractiveness,” Sirius replied, and Remus could see the amusement dancing in his eyes, “I have enchanted all the robes to briefly turn some shade of red if they think I am attractive. The redder the robe, the higher the degree of handsomeness.”

“And if someone doesn’t find you all that good-looking?” asked James.

Sirius shrugged. “No red, of course.”

“So you want me to count how many red robes there are in the Great Hall?” James asked skeptically.

“I don’t think there will be any counting involved,” Sirius replied with what Remus considered a complete lack of modesty.

“Okay, then, do it,” James challenged him.

“Very well, I shall.” Before Remus knew what Sirius was about, he’d climbed up onto a bare spot on the Gryffindor table. “Peter, tap your spoon against your mug,” he instructed, and Peter dutifully did as he was told. Remus wasn’t sure if it was the sound of Peter’s tapping, which seemed rather tame at best, or the sight of Sirius standing perilously on the table, but everyone fell silent.

“I want to thank everyone who took part in my little class experiment today,” Sirius said, his voice somehow reaching to all parts of the Hall. “Now for the results.” Remus watched as Sirius drew his wand and muttered a few words to himself. Not a sound could be heard, all eyes on Sirius.

“Ha, I don’t see a single—” James began to gloat, when suddenly robes began to glow all around the Hall. Many of them, in varying shades of red. Some barely red, all the way to some very bright reds. Remus looked around the room, his mouth falling open in awe at what Sirius had done. And then he realized why Sirius didn’t feel the need to count. The red robes far outnumbered the non-red ones. Sirius was the clear winner.

Merlin, almost everyone found Sirius attractive. Remus’ heart plummeted at the knowledge of how much potential competition he actually had.

Sirius hopped off the table, even as the spell quickly wore off and everyone returned to the business of dinner. He held his hand out to James, who petulantly laid a fiver on Sirius’ palm.

“Nice spell,” he conceded. “Where’d you learn that?”

“Just something I figured out myself. Thank you, James.” He pocketed the money and turned toward Remus. Suddenly he began to frown.

“Remus, what’s wrong? You look like someone just punched you or something. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Remus mumbled, fighting to keep his voice even, determined not to reveal how jealous he really was. Even if he really was jealous. Then he noticed something odd.

“Your robe isn’t red, and it didn’t turn red. Why not?” He knew Sirius well enough to know he considered himself attractive. So why….

Sirius leaned in to Remus, close enough to whisper in his ear. “I did a different spell on me. Want to see the result?”

Remus nodded, in spite of himself, curious to see what Sirius was talking about. Sirius muttered a few words, and his robe began to briefly glow blue. Then he pointed at Remus, who looked down at himself only to find his own robe the same shade of blue.

“What does this mean?”

“This shows who I consider to be attractive,” Sirius said simply, just as both their robes returned to normal.

Remus was speechless. He met Sirius’ gaze, and his heart swelled, and suddenly everything was simply wonderful once more. He was head over heels in love with the most brilliant wizard ever, and he knew Sirius loved him too. Life was good.

“Very interesting experiment, Mr. Black,” came a voice from behind them. Remus’ eyes widened when he beheld the head master standing there. How could he have forgotten, even for a moment, that he was in the room, as were most of the staff? Sirius was in for it now, no doubt.

“Thank you, Professor Dumbledore.” Sirius grinned shamelessly.

“I will see you in my office in an hour. Don’t be late. Don’t want to set a bad precedent on the first day of classes, do we?”

“No, sir, we don’t,” Sirius replied with alacrity. Dumbledore walked on, and Sirius took his place next to Remus. “I don’t know about you, but I’m famished,” he said.

Remus found he actually had an appetite. They began to fill their plates, as the hall buzzed once more with the sounds of conversation.

Remus had a feeling this would be a very long school year indeed.