Title: She says, she says part 2.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius.
Disclaimer: I wish.
Summary: When a wizard is "outed" to the muggle world, they like to call it "paranoid schizorphrenia". When a wizard is outed by his mother, they like to call him Sirius Black.
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Remus could barely keep his head from crashing against the desk when Charms class rolled around. It was Friday, and the heavy bags under his eyes were folding delicately into the veins, but he still liked to think nobody noticed. James sat to his left scribbling furiously onto a loose leaf of parchment - dotted with ideas of their grand escape plan, no doubt. And Peter was doing nothing short of encouraging him.

But he was tired, they were all tired. Remus had spent the last few nights curled up on Sirius's bed, trying fitfully to fall asleep. But every time his eyes so much as drooped the heady scent of shampoo or aftershave or toothpaste, anything just -- just remotely Sirius locked down his spine and his cheeks went numb.

He'd tried writing to him, tried everything. Sirius, it had read, and it had been damp and messy but just perfect, Where are you? We're worried. - of course, he hadn't intended the message to be anything great, just something that would reach him, something to make sure.

But he knew it would never get there in time; lying folded between the pages of his old arithmancy book under his bed.

James nudged him in the side just before his elbow knocked the inkpot to the floor and he thought, right then, morning would never come quick enough.

--

Regulus often considered writing to his mother and, for the most part, put it down to curiosity. Family ties, he had been told, were to be severed the moment his brother had been sorted into Gryffindor. And, with a sneer, he had obliged. He didn't hate him, he knew that, but it was still just curiosity. He didn't hate him but it was in his blood to carry on as if he did.

"Finally carted him off to the loony bin?" he could imagine Malfoy hissing, "About time!"

He agreed, of course he agreed, but the hasty glares from James Potter and the sullen looks from Remus made his stomach tighten and his anger flare beneath his skin.

He jutted his jaw out then, he squared his shoulders, and spat a snarl right back at them.

But before he went to breakfast, or before the mail arrived, he would always quiet down and think. It could just as easily have been him.

--

"Mr.Black?" a timid voice whispered, but Sirius didn't so much as register it, "Mr.Black?" it repeated and a doctor with long, thinning hair settled on his bed.

"He's been unresponsive for hours," a nurse whispered over his shoulder, her feet tapping spindrels of shadows across the dusty linoleum, "His mother said it was unusual. I tried to ask more but she said she had business to attend to."

"I see."

The blinds shuddered lightly as wisps of sunlight settled in white spots across their faces; the silence punctuated with shrill screams and stumbling hands.

"He just stopped talking?" the doctor asked eventually and she nodded.

"Just stopped."

--

"Remus? Are you okay?" Lily asked tentatively, cornering him before bed and pulling him to the side. Her hands were wringing together and he didn't dare watch anything but their shoes.

"Tired," he replied, nodding, "Very tired."

She didn't say anything at first but she studied his face and the awkward slump of his shoulders and his mismatched shoes and his loose buttons.

"You're a mess," she hissed under her breath, looking around, "Is it--"

"Don't," he snapped before she could say it, and he was almost shaking. He met her eyes then and she stilled and tried to pretend, for his sake, the entire occupancy of the common room weren't turned watching.

He took a step back and his jaw set squarely.

"Just don't."

--

Neither of them slept that night, Remus knew, the uncomfortable shuffling of bed quilts and curtains and the offset grumbling to match his own told him as much. He was dressed, as were James and Peter, well before anyone else even stirred. And it was too quiet.

He watched impatiently as dawn littered the floor. And his heart thuddered with every creeping sound that hit his ears.

"Do you think he's okay?" he asked eventually, when he caught James's movement out of the corner of his eye. He sat, cross legged on the bed, hastily trying to lace up shoes with itching fingers.

"He's going to be," James whispered and Peter didn't say anything; his hair was mussed and for the first time, he looked agitated over something that wasn't school.

Breakfast was a fairly sullen occasion and the plate of bacon was left idly in the middle as they gulped down as much pumpkin juice as they could manage to settle their angry stomachs.

"Invisibility cloak," Remus whispered as students started filing towards the entrance hall and James nodded, slamming down his glass on the table.

"Invisibility cloak."

Peter was nearly sick.

--

For all they'd planned, they hadn't come up with anything to fit around the obvious possibilities. Students staying behind weren't much of an issue as James had pointed out, they could easily claim they had gone for a fly around if questioned later. "But gone a bit too far afield," Remus had added and they'd almost shared a grin until Peter hiccupped a bit too loudly and his stomach growled.

They were late, the students, the trip was late. And they stood clutching brooms tightly just behind the doorway.

Remus had thought up the route and Peter had adjusted it with his knowledge of where people were going to be a rather amazing trait that still rendered them into smiles every now and again. Remus's throat hadn't loosened up since the idea had first been suggested, or demanded, and his hands were twisting into knots around the thick wood handle, aimlessly.

"Come on," James muttered, panicked, and flung his back agitatedly against the wall; "Come on."

"Miss. Hoover," Remus heard Professor McGonagall say, "I do not believe I have yet received your permission slip."

"Umm --" a wiry, sharp shouldered girl replied, thick bushy hair curling around her face as she rummaged in her robes.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," James ground out and they all stilled.

"Now, if you'll please all follow me." they suddenly heard their herbology professor pipe up cheerily in the distance, "In an orderly fashion."

"This is it," Peter whispered and they all looked to one another as the students marched out of the open doors.

--

"Sir," a short, well-weathered boy gasped as he collapsed into a chair before the headmaster's desk, "Sir," he repeated, slightly less breathlessly and a pair of pale blue eyes smiled at him.

"I heard, I know," he stuttered, "James Potter -- and --"

Dumbledore nodded then and held up a hand.

"If," he said calmly, "You are about to tell me that Mister Potter and his friends are about to do something very stupid, then it is no news to me. However, if you are about to tell me that Mister Potter and his friends are about to go and rescue Mister Black then I must assure you I am already well aware."

"But--" the boy started and Dumbledore tried not to grin too fondly.

"I trust them," he continued, "to have their heads in the right place when it comes to their friends. And I trust that they have also accounted on Mrs.Black's persistence in regards to young Sirius."

"But--"

"Thank you," Dumbledore nodded, cutting him off, "regardless, for helping me verify that I still -- what are you calling it now?--" he paused, "oh yes, 'have it'".