Runnin' With The Devil
Remus
Remus has never been one to pry. If anything, he’s made an art of not paying attention. Comes with the territory—growing up in New York teaches you real quick how to look away. Mind your own. Pretend like you didn’t hear the guy screaming about the end of days on the subway. Pretend like the couple screaming at each other in the middle of the platform isn’t your business. It’s a survival skill. But Sirius Black is a whole different breed of impossible to ignore.
It’s been a week since he handed him the mixtape. One full week. And even though Remus brought stacks of tapes and CDs from home—because there’s no world where he travels without music—he’s spent the last seven days trying not to cave. Trying not to ask. Did he listen to it? Did he like it? Did it make him feel anything? Did it sound like him?
Finding out Sirius didn’t have a favorite band—hell, didn’t even have a favorite genre—felt like finding out someone had never seen the sky. It was criminal. If Lyall were here, he’d have sat the boy down, strapped him to a chair, and made him listen to Springsteen’s entire discography until he felt something. Then followed it with Bowie, just to balance the cosmos.
Every note Remus knows is because of his dad. Road trips, record shops, late-night guitar lessons—music was the language they spoke when words failed. His childhood was scored in stereo: city lights flying past the car window, Dylan humming through the speakers, Hendrix bleeding into the skyline. His first words were lyrics. His first religion was rhythm.
And now here he is, sitting cross-legged on a bed in a British boarding school dorm, chewing on the inside of his cheek to keep from blurting out something pathetically obvious like, “Did you listen to Track 4? That one’s yours.”
James is mid-rant, pacing like a man unhinged while Peter showers and Sirius scribbles in a notebook like his life depends on it. None of it has anything to do with Remus, and yet every part of it pulls his focus like gravity.
“I can’t just go up to her and ask her out now! Thanks to Regulus,” James groans, dropping dramatically into a chair beside Sirius’ bed like the world’s most distressed bachelor.
Sirius doesn’t even look up. “As if you had a shot before Regulus punched him.”
James shoots him a wounded glare. “Wow. Incredible support, really. What are you even doing?” He points accusingly at the paper in Sirius’ hand like it’s a cursed object.
Sirius beams. It’s the kind of grin that suggests he’s been waiting for someone to ask all morning. “I thought you’d never ask. Jamie, if you would—”
He passes James the parchment like it’s an official decree from the gods.
James frowns as he scans it. “The Syllabus?”
“Go on. Keep reading!” Sirius is practically vibrating now, pacing like a mad professor waiting for thunder to strike the lightning rod he’s built from pure ego.
James squints. “Code name: Lumos, Wolfsbane, Nightshade, Felix, Black Ink, Pumpkin Juice… Chocolate Frogs? Okay. What is this?”
“Think harder,” Sirius says, delighted. “It’s a drop sheet.”
“You’ve lost me.”
In the week he’s known him, Remus has learned that Sirius Black might just be the most chaotically brilliant person he’s ever encountered. He wears unpredictability like a fashion statement. And today, that statement has a sparkle.
“Listen up, boys, ‘cause I’m only explaining this once.” Sirius snatches the parchment back like it’s priceless. “Wolfsbane’s weed. Nightshade is downers. Felix? Uppers. Black Ink’s acid. Pumpkin Juice is alcohol. Chocolate Frogs—edibles.”
Peter emerges from the steam of the bathroom at just the right moment to blink in confusion. “Why are we renaming drugs?”
“Open your minds, Pettigrew!” Sirius twirls dramatically, arms wide like he’s unveiling a masterpiece. “This is how we build an empire. No more back-alley deals. No more whispered transactions. Just a clever little form. Pass it out. They place their order. We deliver discreetly. No suspicion. No paper trail. No heat.”
He collapses back onto his bed like he’s just dropped a winning hand in poker, smug as hell.
James stares, then blinks. “Wait. This is actually kind of genius.”
Remus raises a brow. Back home, he’d seen plenty of dealers working out of backpacks and cracked apartments, not prep school dormitories. Theo once sold weed to help the band replace a busted amp, but they’d never coded it like it was a secret language. Here? One wrong move and they’d be crucified in front of the school board. Bold doesn’t even cut it.
Sirius is basking in the moment. The boy thrives on attention the way flowers need sun.
“But… Sirius,” Peter says, forehead scrunched, “you are rich.”
“Correction.” Sirius’ grin sharpens like a blade. “My parents are rich. I want my money. The kind they can’t trace. The kind that’s mine.”
James squints. “And you think a teacher’s just gonna help you photocopy your drug menu?”
“I’ve got that sorted.” Sirius waves him off.
Shifting nervously, Peter tugs on his sandy blonde locks that are still wet from his shower, “What if someone rats?”
“They won’t. It’s just a piece of paper with fake names. Worst case, we call it creative writing class.”
Remus leans back on his bed, lips twitching at the corner like he’s trying not to laugh. They’re absolutely ridiculous. All three of them. James, mid-gesticulation and looking like he’s delivering a war speech. Peter, blinking at Sirius like he’s just revealed the secret to immortality. And Sirius himself—Sirius, with ink on his fingers and that infuriating gleam in his eye, as if he’s five seconds from flipping the whole room upside down just to prove a point.
But the thing is—Remus has to admit—it’s kind of brilliant. Insane, chaotic, borderline illegal… but brilliant.
“Boys,” he drawls, swinging his legs off the bed and standing with a stretch that pops his spine, “if you’re going to plot your debut as Tonbridge’s very own cartel, you’re gonna need a proper soundtrack.”
James raises an eyebrow. “What, you gonna sing us a ballad about black-market Pumpkin Juice?”
“No,” Remus says, deadpan. “I brought gear.”
Three heads swivel as he crouches beside his bed and hauls out the crown jewel of his limited worldly possessions: his JVC RC-M70 boombox. It’s a beast of a thing—shiny silver, chrome edges scuffed from years of love and travel, with twin speakers and a cassette deck so smooth it still clicks like a dream when you pop it open. It had sat like royalty in his old bedroom, perched on the windowsill, overlooking Brooklyn rooftops and late-night sirens.
He sets it on the dresser with the kind of reverence usually reserved for religious relics. This baby made it through customs, through train stations and cobblestones, wrapped in two sweatshirts and a prayer. He hadn’t dared to use it yet. Not until the moment was right.
The moment is right.
“What the hell is that thing?” James asks, half-skeptical, half-intrigued.
“This,” Remus says, tapping the top like a mechanic showing off his favorite engine, “is a boombox. Two-tape deck. Built-in speakers. Portable sound system. A gift from the gods. Also my dad.”
“A boombox,” Peter repeats slowly, like it’s a spell he’s unsure he should say out loud.
“Americans and their bloody weird names,” James mutters. “Next thing you’ll be telling me your toilets sing lullabies.”
Remus snorts, already digging through his battered crate of cassettes. “Keep talking and I’ll introduce you to New York pizza. You’ll never recover.”
They watch him with varying degrees of curiosity now—Peter tilting his head like a puzzled cat, James circling the boombox as if it might suddenly sprout fangs. It’s clear none of them have seen anything quite like it before. Sirius, though… Sirius stays perfectly still, elbows braced on his knees, his gaze steady and unreadable. Not bored, not impressed. Just focused—like he’s trying to piece something together without knowing exactly what it is.
Remus finds what he’s looking for—Eagles, 1976—and slots the tape into the deck with a satisfying click. He hits play. A low hiss spills into the room, the briefest pause of tension, and then—
The bass slams through the dorm like a train hitting the tracks. Thick, unrelenting, vibrating the floorboards. The sound is full-bodied, raw, heavy as a heartbeat. It makes the windows shudder in their panes and the old beams overhead creak like they’re protesting. Books quiver. Peter’s toothbrush rattles right off the sink and lands with a sad little clatter on the tile.
They all stare at him, half-horrified, like he’s committed a cardinal sin against the gods of quiet British boarding school decency. But Remus just grins. This is what he lives for. That rush of noise in his chest. That pulse under his ribs. The kind of sound that clears a space and fills it all at once.
“He was a hard-headed man, he was brutally handsome—” he belts, pulling his air guitar into an unapologetic strum, already in character.
He strides straight to James, pointing dramatically as he sings the next line right in his face. “He had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude!” James flinches, then cracks up, falling backward with a choked laugh as Remus twirls away toward Peter.
“Said he was ruthless, said he was crude!” Remus grins, brows waggling, and Peter joins in with a mock bassline strum, biting back laughter.
Then—too suddenly—he’s in front of Sirius.
It’s instinct more than anything. He doesn’t plan it. Doesn’t think. Just steps in close enough that Sirius has to tilt his face up to meet his gaze. Remus breathes in and the lyric catches on his tongue.
“They had one thing in common,” he murmurs, voice suddenly husky, “they were good in bed…”
He hesitates, just for a second. Sirius is still looking at him—really looking, like he’s never seen him before. Remus can’t tell what he sees reflected in those dark eyes. Curiosity? Surprise? Heat?
He barely gets the next line out. “She’d say faster, faster, the lights are turning red.”
It nearly knocks the wind out of him.
The space between them is too charged, the air stretched thin like something’s about to snap. But before Remus can unravel completely, James and Peter explode back in—James slamming out an invisible drum solo on the desk, Peter cranking the tempo on his pretend bass. The room swells again with movement and sound, breaking the tension like a tidal wave over glass.
“LIFE IN THE FAST LANE!” they shout in chorus, half-wild and totally off-key.
Remus lets himself fall back into it, into the chaos, grateful for the escape. “Come on, Black,” he calls, laughing as he spins toward Peter and James. “You know you want to.”
For a second, he thinks Sirius won’t join.
But then Sirius rises—slow at first, then with the flair of someone born for a spotlight. He snatches the broom from the corner like it’s a stage mic and spins it with dramatic flair, nearly wiping out James’ rucksack. His curls whip with the motion, catching the slant of morning light in waves of shadow and sheen. And then he’s moving—dancing, prowling the floorboards like it’s Wembley Stadium, hips loose, mouth wide, eyes wild.
James whoops, battering the windowsill in rhythm. “Lupin, you’ve corrupted us!”
“I didn’t do anything!” Remus yells, turning the volume even higher, grin splitting his face. “The Eagles did all the work!”
Peter’s fully committed now, headbanging with the intensity of someone possessed, tongue sticking out as he nails every imaginary note.
“LIFE IN THE FAST LANE!” Sirius howls, voice cutting through the room like a lightning bolt.
And it’s not just the sound. It’s what’s happening beneath it. The entire dorm is humming—not with electricity, but something looser, freer. Like static turned gold. Laughter ricochets from wall to wall. The music climbs into the beams, crawls under the floorboards. The four of them are no longer just sharing space—they’re sharing rhythm. Breath. Pulse.
Remus feels something blooming under his skin, too big for his chest. Joy, yes. But also something tender. Something sharp. When he glances up again, trying to catch his breath, Sirius is still watching him.
This time, it isn’t part of the show.
He’s slouched casually against the bedpost, broom mic forgotten at his feet, gaze locked. There’s no flash in it. No smirk. Just an intense, quiet stillness—like Sirius has stumbled into something he didn’t mean to find, and now he’s trying to decide if he wants to pick it up or run.
“Everything… all the time.” He sings along as stormy eyes pin him to the spot.
Remus feels the heat crawl up the back of his neck. His heart lurches painfully in his chest. He drags a hand through his hair and looks away, pulse hammering in his ears.
What the hell was that?
Before he can think, before he can spiral, James launches a pillow across the room that smacks Sirius in the ribs with a satisfying thwack.
“Get back to your solo, Black!” James calls, breathless. “You’re falling behind!”
Sirius blinks like he’s surfacing from underwater, then grins and hurls the pillow at Peter. “Fine. But only if Hollywood does that ridiculous little guitar move again. You know, the hip thing.”
“I do not have a hip thing,” Remus says, voice strained with laughter.
“You absolutely do,” James crows. “It’s like Elvis meets a seizure.”
Remus flips him off, but his face is burning, his cheeks aching with the force of his grin.
The song barrels toward its final chorus. There’s a knock on the wall from the dorm next door—probably a complaint—but none of them acknowledge it. The room’s still buzzing, still warm, still alive with whatever just happened. Whatever they just became.
This wasn’t just music.
This was the moment everything shifted.
When the final chords fade into static and the tape clicks off, the silence doesn’t feel empty—it feels earned. Like something holy just burned itself out, but left behind enough glow to last.
Remus lets out a slow breath, like exhaling a spell.
He hadn’t expected this when he arrived. He hadn’t expected anything, really. But now, standing in this room, barefoot and breathless and full of something bigger than himself, he feels it clear as anything.
He’s not just here anymore.
He belongs.
“Alright,” Sirius says at last, stretching long and slow like a devil caught in the sun. “That was… a wild way to start our Saturday morning.”
Remus doesn’t even think. “It was perfect.”
And when Sirius looks at him this time—really looks—it’s like he’s been caught off guard. Like he agrees.
Remus wonders just for a moment, that maybe this is what it feels like to belong.
Everything. All the time.
***
Monday rolls in soft and slow, like fog over the quad. The light outside is dull, barely awake. The kind of morning that makes you want to burrow deeper under your blankets and pretend time doesn’t exist. And that’s exactly what Remus is doing—curled in the sanctuary of his four-poster, curtains drawn, his Walkman cupped gently in his palm like something sacred. The cassette is halfway through Side B. Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” crackles through his headphones, a little warped from overuse, but still golden.
He’s got one leg kicked out of the covers, socks mismatched, the smell of cheap soap and ink drifting in from the dorm bathroom. This is how he likes his mornings—quiet, private, slow to unfurl. Back in New York, this would’ve been the time he hopped the subway, hoodie pulled low, stopping for coffee and smokes with Rudy, or Theo if he was awake before noon. Sam wouldn’t have bothered getting out of bed before 10 unless there was a guitar involved. They’d loiter on stoops, argue about which bodega sandwich was supreme, trade new blends of weed like baseball cards.
They were reckless. Not stupid—just always toeing the line. Theo could charm a cop and lie through his teeth without blinking. Rudy had fingers like magic tricks; he could roll a perfect blunt in under thirty seconds with his eyes closed. Sam was the quiet one, the heart—he only ever sold to fund their music equipment. Broken pedals, cracked amps, missing cables—they always had a reason. Remus was the brain. The guy who figured out weights and pricing and coded text messages. Who made sure no one was getting shorted. Who double-counted the cash before stashing it in a hollowed-out copy of The Great Gatsby.
So yeah, he knows a thing or two.
Which is why, when his curtains rip open with a violent flourish and James Potter’s head appears like the herald of doom, Remus doesn’t even flinch. He just pulls one headphone off with a raised brow and a mumbled, “Can I help you?”
James looks ecstatic. “We’ve got our first round of orders to fulfill!”
Behind him, Sirius and Peter hover like backup dancers. Sirius is holding a sheaf of papers in both hands like he’s presenting a newborn child. “Feast your eyes, Lupin. Proof of concept.”
Remus sits up, squinting at the papers. “You guys actually pulled it off?”
He takes one from the stack, squinting at the messy scrawl. “John Winthrope wants… 3.5 grams of Wolfsbane?” He huffs a laugh. “You used the code sheet.”
Peter nods proudly. “And people actually filled them out!”
“And we shall deliver,” Sirius declares, spinning dramatically and dropping to his knees. He lifts the loose floorboard beneath James’ bed with a magician’s flourish, revealing a stash of neatly bagged weed and a few other mystery items Remus chooses not to investigate just yet.
“Do you guys even know how to weigh this stuff properly?” Remus asks, mostly to be snarky. He’s already got one foot out of bed and the beginnings of a smirk tugging at his face.
The effect is instant.
James freezes mid-celebration. Sirius’ triumphant expression falters. Peter’s eyes dart between them like he’s just realized they’ve forgotten to turn the oven off.
Remus blinks. “Wait… you do know how to do that, right?”
Silence.
“There seems to be a fatal flaw in your plan, Siri,” James groans, rubbing his face.
Remus cannot stop the laugh that bursts out of him. “Oh my God. You act like you’re Al Capone and you don’t even know how to measure out a gram?”
Peter frowns. “Who’s Al Capone?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Remus waves a hand. “Focus, Peter. This is a disaster. How are you gonna divvy this up if you don’t even know how much to give?”
Sirius is pacing now, hands in his hair, which only makes him look more like a deranged rockstar and less like a criminal mastermind. “We were so focused on the delivery system that we forgot the basics!”
“I was promised this was foolproof,” James mutters.
“And I said we’d figure it out later,” Sirius snaps back. “This is later!”
Remus should let them crash and burn. He should lean back on his pillow, put his headphones back in, and watch them spiral like doomed little rich boys. But something stops him.
Maybe it’s the sheer absurdity. Maybe it’s the way they look at him—not like he’s the celebrity new kid, but like he’s already part of the blueprint. Maybe it’s that damn look Sirius keeps giving him lately. Whatever it is, it keeps dragging him deeper into this chaos.
He sighs, cracking his neck, and folds his arms. “Alright. Calm down. I have an idea.”
James’ head snaps up. “Go on.”
“All you need is a scale.”
Sirius throws his hands to the ceiling. “Oh, brilliant. A scale. Wow. Thank you, Hollywood, for that blinding stroke of genius. If only we had one.”
“You don’t,” Remus says slowly, letting the silence stretch, “but the science wing does.”
They stare at him like he’s just announced the meaning of life.
“Are you serious?” Peter breathes.
Remus shrugs. “It’s not like they lock up the equipment during the day. They’ve got trip scales, digital if you’re lucky. We sneak in during lunch, borrow one, weigh everything, and put it back.”
James lunges for him in an overzealous hug. “I knew bringing you into this would pay off.”
“Technically, you didn’t bring me in. I just… never walked out.”
He laughs, but his eyes flick to Sirius before he can stop them. Sirius is grinning, but there’s something else behind it. Something unreadable. Something heavy. Remus looks away.
They gather around the stash like a bunch of kids dissecting a frog in biology. Remus kneels next to them, eyeing the bags. “Okay, rule number one: you don’t eyeball. That’s how you get screwed.”
Sirius scoffs. “We weren’t going to eyeball—”
“You were absolutely going to eyeball,” Remus cuts in. “And it’s not happening. You’ve got twenty-four hours to figure out who’s on watch while we raid the science wing.”
James is already scribbling furiously onto the nearest scrap of parchment like he’s been waiting his whole life for this moment. “Alright, hear me out—we’ll call it… Operation Ex-SCALE-ibur.”
He looks up, beaming, clearly thrilled with himself.
Silence.
Three blank stares meet his grin like a brick wall.
James falters. “You know… because it’s a scale. And Excalibur. The sword. From the stone.” His voice trails off into the void, hopeful and pathetic.
Still no reaction. Sirius doesn’t blink. Peter looks mildly concerned. Remus just raises an eyebrow.
James’s smile droops. “Right. Cheers. Lets make fun of the guy brave enough to put himself out there creatively. It’s fine.”
Remus snorts, finally breaking. “You’re not naming our drug operation after a medieval kitchen pun.”
Sirius lets out a bark of laughter, nearly falling off the bed. “Did you think we were pulling grams out of a lake, James?”
“I’m just trying to add a little drama,” James mutters, hugging the paper to his chest protectively. “A little flair.”
“We don’t have to call it anything,” Remus says, still laughing. “You absolute dork.”
“But what if it’s a legendary scale,” James insists, eyes gleaming with renewed conviction. “What if—”
“No,” they all say at once.
James flops back dramatically, groaning like a fallen hero. “Philistines. No respect for artistry.”
Remus grins as he shakes his head, because honestly what else can he do.
That night, the science wing feels like enemy territory. The place reeks of antiseptic and cheap industrial floor wax, with a faint chemical burn underneath that smells like something exploded and no one ever cleaned it properly. The hallway buzzes with the dim, low hum of fluorescent lights, flickering like they’re just waiting for an excuse to go out. Every footstep echoes with criminal volume, like the walls themselves are ready to snitch.
James, naturally, hums the Mission: Impossible theme under his breath as they creep down the corridor—growing increasingly loud until Sirius jabs an elbow into his side and hisses, “You’re gonna get us caught, you bloody trumpet.”
Peter clutches a stolen janitor’s keyring like it’s the nuclear codes. The thing is massive and jangly and makes him look like he’s cosplaying as someone twice his size. And Sirius—because he apparently thinks this is an audition for The Italian Job—is wearing fingerless gloves and a long black coat like he’s casing the bloody Louvre. He keeps making theatrical finger gestures, like they’re mime performing a bank robbery instead of boarding school students.
“You look like a rejected extra from Miami Vice,” Remus mutters from the back, hoodie up, hands jammed into his pockets. His sneakers squeak faintly with every step, and he’s regretting every life choice that led him here.
“It’s called a look, Hollywood,” Sirius whispers without turning. He wiggles his gloved fingers dramatically. “Jealousy’s an ugly color on you.”
“It’s not jealousy,” Remus says flatly. “It’s disbelief. And I’m only here because you promised I wouldn’t have to run.”
“Correction,” Peter whispers gleefully. “You volunteered.”
Remus glares. Peter just shrugs, the keyring jangling like a wind chime in a hurricane. “I call dibs on unlocking the door.”
“Dibs don’t apply when you’re committing a felony,” Remus mutters.
At the end of the corridor, they all stop in unison like idiots in a cartoon. James throws himself against the wall like a secret agent, Peter tries and fails to hide behind a fire extinguisher, and Sirius presses himself flat against the lockers with all the flair of someone pretending this is a spy thriller and not a stupid teenage drug scheme.
Remus watches them with something that might be secondhand embarrassment. Or pity. Or awe. It’s hard to tell.
“You guys are so fucking loud,” he mutters. “We’re breaking into a storage closet, not a federal prison.”
“We could be,” Sirius says, dead serious. “Gotta think long-term.”
And then, just to make things worse, James stage-whispers, “Alright, lads. Operation Ex-SCALE-ibur is a go.”
Remus physically cringes. “If you say that name one more time—”
“Don’t,” Sirius cuts in, already rubbing his temples. “Just… don’t.”
“I’m just saying,” Remus mutters, “it sounds like a failed board game.”
James looks personally offended. “It’s clever. It’s layered. It’s got a mythic tone.”
“It’s got the comedic value of a dentist appointment,” Sirius says.
“Rude,” James whispers dramatically.
“Can we just focus before you get me arrested and deported?” Remus snaps, glancing nervously toward the far end of the corridor.
Peter starts fumbling with the keys. There’s got to be fifty of them, and not a single one is labeled. He tries one. Then another. Then three more. They all rattle and clink like church bells. James leans over his shoulder like a backseat driver, whispering, “Try the copper one. No, not that one. That one.”
Peter swats at him. “Do you want to do it?”
“God, no.”
After what feels like a geological era—truly, entire mountain ranges could have risen and crumbled in the time Peter spends fiddling with that damn key—the lock finally gives. There’s a soft, blessed click. Then the door creaks open with all the grace of a haunted opera house, a long, drawn-out screeeeee that ricochets off the sterile tile like a confession. They all freeze.
Four boys. Zero escape strategy. One disaster waiting to happen.
Remus doesn’t breathe. James actually gasps. Sirius squints at the ceiling like he’s waiting for the wrath of God to descend in fluorescent light. But nothing happens. No sirens. No angry teachers. No divine punishment.
So, naturally, they take this as permission to proceed.
They slip into the lab like shadows with poor coordination. The kind of shadows that bump into chairs and step on each other’s heels. James nearly takes out a desk on the way in.
Inside, the science wing feels like a church for the chemically devout—cold and humming with ghost-light. Moonlight spills through high windows, striping the lab in bars of silver that stretch across polished black counters and rows of glossy beakers. Everything gleams in glass teeth and chrome edges. Cabinets line the walls like quiet sentinels. The silence is surgical. Sterile. The kind that makes your pulse sound loud in your ears. Like you’re trespassing in a place that’s never meant to be touched.
It feels like stepping onto a set that’s been abandoned mid-scene.
They creep forward.
James makes it four whole seconds before catastrophe.
His foot collides with a metal tray perched precariously on the edge of a bench. A box of pipettes spills onto the floor like rainfall—thin glass skittering in every direction, the sound impossibly loud in the hush of the room.
Remus nearly has an aneurysm. He turns, slow and sharp. “Are you for real right now.”
“It’s dark,” James hisses, flailing for justification.
“You have functioning eyes.”
“Don’t fight in the crime scene!” Peter stage-whispers, throwing his hands up like they’ve walked in on a murder investigation and not just knocked over a science supply.
But Sirius is unfazed. Already halfway across the room, he strides toward the counter like he’s walking a runway. There’s no hesitation in him, no second-guessing—just the kind of grand, theatrical confidence that belongs to conmen and rockstars.
He stops in front of the scale. Lifts it in both hands with the slow reverence of a priest handling the Holy Grail. The moonlight catches on the metal, casting a white sheen over his face. His eyes go wide.
“Behold,” he breathes, holding it aloft like it’s a prophecy fulfilled. “Our noble Ex-SCALE-ibur.”
“Oh my God,” Remus mutters. “You’ve been waiting all night to say that, haven’t you.”
“I have dreams, Lupin,” Sirius says solemnly. “And you mock them.”
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m hilarious,” Sirius counters, flashing a grin that could probably get him out of jail if they got caught.
They test the scale quickly—Remus pulls a half-empty pack of Juicy Fruit from his pocket and plunks it on the plate. The needle jumps to life.
“It works,” he confirms, trying not to sound impressed.
Then Peter steps forward, unzipping his backpack like he’s unveiling something sacred.
It’s… floral.
Pink roses. Gold stitching. Monogrammed on the front in delicate cursive: P.P.
Sirius wheezes. “Peter. Peter. You absolute lunatic. You brought your monogrammed schoolbag to a heist?”
Peter hugs it to his chest protectively. “It’s padded! You want me to carry a fragile scientific instrument in my hands like some street rat?”
James lets out a choked noise that might be a laugh or a sob.
“That is exactly what we are,” Remus says. “You idiots.”
They tuck the scale into the floral backpack with the kind of caution normally reserved for bomb disposal. Sirius zips it with flair, slings it over Peter’s shoulder like a squire receiving his sword, and claps him on the back. “Godspeed, you beautiful bastard.”
They’re halfway back down the hallway when the world turns on them.
The overhead lights flicker. Once. Twice.
Then blaze to life.
They freeze mid-step—four deer caught in a very unholy headlight.
There’s a metallic click down the corridor. Then footsteps. Fast. Hard-soled. Coming closer.
“Shit,” Remus breathes.
“This is it,” James whispers, frozen. “Tell my mum I died stupid.”
“Plan B!” Sirius hisses.
“There was no Plan B!”
“Then make one up!”
“DISGUISES!” Peter screams, feral.
“What disguises?!”
“Split up!” Sirius barks, snapping into action like this is a military op. “Greenhouse. Ten minutes. Go!”
What follows is chaos. Absolute, undiluted chaos.
James vaults a mop bucket like he’s clearing a hurdle at the Olympics. Peter drops the keyring, trips, recovers, and then crashes into a locker with a clang. Sirius slams into a cart of test tubes and mutters something Remus is glad he doesn’t catch.
Remus runs. Doesn’t think. Just runs. His shoes skid against the linoleum as he takes the corner. A light at the far end of the hall swings slightly, casting long shadows down the corridor. Someone’s yelling—somewhere behind him, footsteps pounding. He dives for the nearest door handle, yanks it open, and hurls himself inside a supply closet.
Slams the door.
Darkness swallows him whole.
His chest heaves. His lungs burn. There’s the unmistakable scent of bleach and rubber gloves and something vaguely decaying. His forehead presses against the cool metal shelving as he counts out a hundred heartbeats in the dark.
Footsteps pass. Slower now. Then the jingle of keys. A muttered curse.
Then nothing.
Silence.
He waits a minute longer, just in case.
Then—carefully—Remus opens the door a crack and peers out.
Empty.
He slips out. The hall is quiet again. Still humming, still eerie. But uninhabited.
By the time he makes it to the greenhouse, he’s the last one there.
The others are already collapsed on the grass—muddy, breathless, and shining with sweat and adrenaline.
Peter drops the backpack onto the ground like it’s radioactive. “I hate everything.”
James lies flat on his back, arms flung dramatically over his head. “I think I peed.”
“I know you did,” Sirius groans, brushing something foul off his jeans. “You landed on me.”
“I tripped!”
“You screamed!”
“I panicked!”
Remus stumbles into the clearing, wheezing with laughter. It starts low, then builds, chest shaking, stomach aching. He nearly topples over as he collapses beside them, wheezing helplessly into the grass.
Peter tries to explain how he got stuck under a hose reel. James reenacts his own death with the dramatics of a silent film actor. Sirius stretches out like a fallen martyr and moans, “Tell the papers I died handsome.” It’s completely unhinged.
They collapse fully now, a heap of limbs and sweat and near-death comedy, the scale resting triumphantly between them like a jewel plucked from the jaws of hell.
And when the laughter finally dies down—when the silence sinks in soft and sweet—Sirius is the first to speak.
He rolls onto his side, props his chin on one hand, and smirks down at Remus.
“Well, Hollywood,” he says, voice warm and rough around the edges. “We’ve got the gear. Now we build the empire.”
Remus exhales. His lungs feel too full. His face hurts from smiling.
“You’re all gonna get me expelled,” he mutters, but the words hold no real weight.
James grins through the moonlight. “Worth it.”
And for the first time since setting foot in this damp, cold country—since dragging his life across an ocean in tape-wrapped boxes—Remus believes it.
The greenhouse is quiet around them. Warm with leftover sun, thick with the scent of earth and green things. A cricket chirps nearby. Somewhere distant, an owl hoots. The boys lie sprawled across the grass like kings who just pulled off the dumbest coup in history.
They’re all talking over each other, laughing like idiots, passing the scale around like it’s made of gold. Remus watches them with a faint smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. It’s loud, messy, half-baked—and it shouldn’t work. None of it should. But somehow, it does.
He thinks back to when his mom first told him they were moving. How quiet the kitchen had gone after. How he’d nodded like it didn’t matter, like he didn’t already feel the train pulling out from under his feet. He hadn’t been scared, exactly. Just… tired. Tired of starting over. Tired of being the new kid. Tired of pretending like that was ever easy.
But this?
This doesn’t feel like starting over. This feels like falling in, fast and unplanned. Like getting dragged into someone else’s scheme and realizing you kind of like the view from the middle of the mess.
He leans back into the grass. Lets the damp of it cling to his hoodie, lets the sound of Peter’s dramatic reenactment and James’ wheezing laughter rise up around him. Sirius nudges his shoulder with the toe of his boot—light, casual, like a full sentence in a gesture.
The scale, absurd and floral in Peter’s lap, glints under the greenhouse light like a trophy no one saw coming.
And maybe that’s it, Remus thinks.
Maybe this whole thing—the botched break-in, the awful codename, the fact that they actually pulled it off—isn’t about proving anything.
Maybe it’s just about saying: we did this. Together. Somehow.
And for now, that’s more than enough.