Left-handed
September, 1971
“Can I borrow your Charms notes, Rem?” Rem? Remus Lupin had only known Sirius Black for a few weeks, but he could already tell he was not one for boundaries—and quite insistent when he wanted something, which is why he was unsurprised when Black accio’d the parchments straight from Remus’ trunk before hearing the answer.
“What kind of handwriting is this? Were you raised by hippogriffs?”
Remus could feel his cheeks get hot. This is normally the moment he’d spit out something harsh about Sirius’ mum, or maybe even throw a punch—that’s how Remus dealt with the local boys back in Wales—but Lyall had warned him to stay out of trouble. “Don’t give Dumbledore a reason to send you home. Your lucky to be going at all,” he’d said with a tight grip on Remus’ shoulder just before the 11-year-old stepped on the train.
“Oi! Don’t be such a prat, posh boy,” James Potter cut in with an elbow to Sirius’ ribs. The black-haired boys were practically attached at the hip but James has been calling Sirius out on his pureblood bollocks since he asked Remus if he was a mudblood on their first night after spotting the copy of Don Quixote on his bed. “Not everyone had private tutors to rap their knuckles if they don’t write in perfect cursive.”
“But you did, young master Sleekeasy,” Sirius shot back with his trademark smirk, but Remus could tell the boy was embarrassed by the way his face flushed white. Since being sorted in Gryffindor, Sirius had been doing his best to do the opposite of anything he felt was too Black, from keeping his tie undone to purposely slouching at the breakfast table whenever he caught himself sitting too straight—not that Remus was paying too close attention, of course.
This unwarranted attack on James’ character sparked a wrestling match right there on Sirius’ bed, Remus’ notes unfortunately crumpled and torn in the crossfire.
–
Remus had completely forgotten about the insult to his penmanship until a few days later in History of Magic. He’d been sat next to Sirius for weeks with no trouble, but it seemed the other boy was trying to get a rise out of him by knocking their elbows together every few minutes. Remus’ parchment was strewn with blobs of ink from Sirius’ antics and Remus was having trouble reading what had just been jotted down. Frankly, this is just another reason Remus thought he should be allowed to to use biros like a normal person. Fucking wizard ponces.
The fifth time Sirius’ elbow knocked into his, Remus had enough.
“Cut it out, Black,” he snapped under his breath, turning to face the black-haired boy. Except, Sirius wasn’t sporting a cheeky grin or even looking at Remus at all. Instead, he seemed completely focussed on his own notes and only glanced up at Remus’ harsh tone.
“Oh, sorry Lupin,” Sirius muttered before returning to his parchment. That’s when Remus noticed Sirius was writing with his left hand and his notes were even less legible than his own—even with Sirius writing each shaky letter with painstaking care.
“Have you always been left-handed?” Remus asked, confused. Sirius grimaced.
“I’m ambidextrous,” he said shortly. It was clearly a lie and Remus suddenly remembered James’ comments about private tutors and Sirius’ mission to disappoint his parents.
Remus rolled his eyes. Posh boys are so weird.
–
February, 1976
Remus was attempting to follow Professor Binn’s mumbled ramblings, but he was still recovering from the weekend’s full and his eyes were drooping. Suddenly, a piece of folded parchment hit the back of his head. It only took a quick glance at the squiggly “Moony” (which looked a bit more like “MoOmy”) scrawled on one fold for Remus to know who it was from.
Sirius had largely reverted back to his normal, flowery script in second year when he and James began trading off taking notes for Remus when he was stuck in the hospital wing. Sirius even became proud of his penmanship when it was decided that Mr. Padfoot would be responsible for any written word on their secret map of the castle.
But when it came to notes that could be snapped up by a teacher in the middle of class, Sirius figured it would be better for his privacy (and reputation) if only the marauders could make heads or tails of his writing.
“Skiv off potions for a cheeky fag by the greenhouses? Check the box for yes or no,” the note seemed to read. Remus rolled his eyes. He and Sirius had been skipping lessons and other responsibilities for more than a smoke since Sirius kissed Remus at the end of a quidditch party in October but they were trying to be covert about it. James was known to intercept post, the nosy git.
Remus quickly checked “yes” and returned the note back to sender.
I need what happened next and in between for my sake OMGGGG 😱😱😱
