Another Persective
The 5th-year boys' dorm had an unnatural silence thrown over it. It had been about a week and a half since Sirius had been cast out of the dorm, of their friend group, of their lives, and all three of the boys felt the change in atmosphere because of it. Hell, all of Gryiffndor tower felt it. Their group had felt broken, like it had a piece ripped out of it, like part of their group was missing, but that was probably because it was.
Remus had come back from the hospital wing around 8 days ago; that was the last time they had all really seen Sirius. Of course, there had been a few glimpses of the older boy; he had been spotted once for part of their transfigrations class a few days ago, but other than that, nobody had actually seen the boy.
The worst part, at least to Remus, was that the last thing he did was yell at him. He had told him to leave and that he didn’t want to talk to him, and he meant it at that moment, but now, now all he wanted was to see the older boy, to talk to him, ask him why, what happened. He needed to know, and he needed to see him to know if he was ok because even after this, he still cares about him. Even though he knows he probably shouldn’t, he still loves the older boy and that, that makes him even more upset, not at Sirius though at himself, because for some reason, he still can’t believe that Sirius would do that to him, which is crazy because he did.
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Remus woke up with the same twisted feeling in his gut that he had had for the past week now, he had become familiar with the deep, uncomfortable feeling of betrayal and loss. He rolled over to see the empty bed across the room, another reminder of everything that had happened.
His thoughts were interrupted by the loud banging on the door, it was too early for this. A glance at the clock confirmed his thoughts. Who would be at their dorm at 8 am on a Saturday morning? A part of him hoped it had been Sirius, but a part of him also knew it wasn’t. The banging continued until Peter, whose bed was closest to the door, finally got up to see who had decided to grace them with their presence this early in the morning.
It took only a moment from when Peter opened the door for Regulus to come barreling into the room yelling, “James Fleamont Potter!”
Oh, James was done for now.
“Wha.” the brown haired boy quickly sat up. His hair was even messier than usual, and there was a drowsy, half-asleep look on his face; he wasn’t even wearing his glasses yet.
“I have no idea what happened between you all and Sirius, but that is no reason for you to be isolating yourself. I let it slide for the first couple of days because I understand you may have needed space, but I’m sick of watching you moping around, I’m sick of watching all of you mope around. And I’m not the only one worried about you guys, ok, Barty and Evan have noticed aswell, and don’t even get me started on the girls, Marlene just about cornered me on my way up here-” Regulus was rambling as he paced their dorm as James walked over to the younger black brother an wraped him in his arms.
“I’m sorry, my star, I- I shouldn’t have done that. It's just, it's been a lot. Fuck I’m so sorry.” James said as he started to tear up a little.
“Oh, Jamie, I’m not mad at you,” Regulus melted as soon as he saw that James was upset. “I’m just worried about you. I’m worried about all of you. We all are.” Regulus said while turning to look specifically at Remus.
The werewolf just rolled back to over, so he was no longer facing his friends. He didn’t want to talk about this, he just wanted to spend the day laying in bed moping. If Sirius had been allowed to do that, so should he.
Remus heard the other boys start to mutter to each other, but he wasn’t listening. He didn’t want to hear any of it, unless it was Sirius apologizing and explaining what had happened. He had no interest in hearing anything.
Unfortunately, James did not seem to care as he dragged the other two boys over to Remus’s bed, plopping himself down next to Remus and gesturing for the other two boys to sit down as well.
“I’m so glad you decided to join me, Prongs. I don’t know what I would do if you hadn’t.” Remus said sarcastically as he glared at him.
James shrugged sheepishly. “Regulus said he wanted to talk to us, all of us, and I knew you weren’t getting up anytime soon, so I figured the best thing to do was to join you.”
“Wow, Prongs, that's so kind of you.” he grumbled back.
“Anyways, um”, Regulus said, in an attempt to get the boys back on topic, he was here to discuss. “I’m not going to try and force you to talk about whatever happened between Sirius and I’m not going to pretend I know what happened, but I do know that I’m worried about you guys. Especially after overhearing Snape brag to Avery about how he was able to break up the Marauders. I’m just. I care about you guys a lot, and you’re my friends, regardless of whatever happened between the lot of you and my brother. ”
Regulus' rant made Remus sit up quickly in shock. “Wait, Sirius hasn’t told you what happened?” he could hear the mix of confusion and concern in his own voice.
“No, I haven’t seen or spoken to him in over a week; that's one of the reasons why I’ve been so worried about you all. I mean, it's been complete silence from all of you, especially Sirius.”
“Wait, so, Sirius hasn’t been staying with you?” Peter asked the question the all three of the Marauders were thinking. They hadn’t had any confirmation, but they had all just assumed he was bunking with Regulus after he hadn’t come back to the dorms that first night.
“No, why would he be staying with me? This is his dorm room.” Regulus said back; now it was his turn to be confused. “Has Sirius not been sleeping here?”
“No, that's why we thought he was sleeping with you.” Remus snapped back, shit Sirius had been alone, he had been alone for days and nobody seemed to know where he was. He never does well on his own, especially if he's in the headspace Remus thinks he might be in. Yes, he was mad at Sirius, but he never wanted anything bad to happen to him. He still loved him even if he was angry at him at the moment; no matter how upset he was at Sirius, he would always love him more.
“Fuck”, Regulus looked like he was about to panic, “so none of us know where Sirius is. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this is so much worse than I though,” he rambled as he ran a hand through his dark curls. “I just thought you lot weren’t speaking I didn’t, shit. And with what Snape said, I just.” the younger boy's breath became ragged and uneasy.
James placed his hand on his boyfriend's shoulder. “It's ok, love, we’re gonna figure this out, yea.”
“Wait, Regulus, what did Snape say?” Remus asked nervously. This was the second time he had mentioned it, and both times he did it filled Remus with fear and concern.
“I didn’t hear him completely, but he was saying something about how he forced Sirius into revealing some secret.” Remus swore he couldn’t breathe for a moment, but still Regulus continued, “he didn’t say what the secret was, just that its reveal shattered your whole group.”
Remus looked up at James and Peter; they both had the same look on their face. None of the three marauders could speak; none of them knew what to say or do now. After a few moments of silence, Remus gathered himself to ask a question he wasn’t sure he really wanted the answer to.
“What, what did he say he did to Sirius?” Remus asked in a broken voice, fuck, he shouldn’t have pushed him away that night. He should have let him explain himself, he should have known that Sirius was as loyal as a dog, literally, and would never betray him; he should have known.
“I don’t know; he didn’t specify, and I didn’t stick around to find out. I kinda ran straight here.” Regulus responded like it was obvious.
“Shit” Remus, cursed to himself has he felt angery tears start to fall down his face, he was going to end Snape for whatever he did to Sirius. He was going to curse him till he didn’t know what day it was, and then he was going to get his boyfriend back. He wants to hold him and tell him that he’s so so sorry, that he loves him so so much, and that he means the world to him.
“When was the last time you guys saw him?” Regulus asked with a slightly shaky voice.
“Two days ago, in Transfigrations, he showed up for the second half of the class.” Peter responded, “I tried to talk to him after class, 'cause I was kinda worried about him. McGongall did, too, but he sprinted out of the room. I haven’t seen him since.”
The silence in the room was felt by an uncomfortable thickness in the air. Until Regulus's voice finally broke it. “Maybe, maybe McGongall found him right. We could go ask her,” the younger boy's voice that was usually posh are reassured, was shaky and uncofident.
“Yeah, yeah, let's go ask Minnie.” James responded as he quickly got off the bed that all four of them had been huddled on just a moment before. “She’ll know; she always knows.” James said, trying to reassure them, although he himself didn’t sound so sure himself.
“Yeah, ok.” Regulus followed his boyfriend, getting up from the bed. The other two boys scrambled up after them; the four boys walked quickly passed through the old hallways in a rushed pace until they were standing in front of Professor McGongall’s office. Remus quickly raised his arm and knocked aggressively on the door.
A few quiet footsteps were heard and then the creak of the old door, and then they were met with a slightly annoyed-looking head of house. “Mr.Potter, Mr. Lupin, Mr.Pettigerw, Mr.Black, how may I help you boys on this fine morning?”
“Hi, MInnie, um, we were wondering if you had spoken to Sirius in the past few days?” James asked on behalf of the group.
“Mr.Potter, why would I know where Mr.Black is if you're the one who rooms with him?” McGonagall responded, her voice tinged with worry. “Mr. Potter, are you telling me that you are unaware of the whereabouts of Mr.Black ?”
“Um… well, I just know where he isn’t,” James responded.
“So, you don’t know where he is.” McGonagall said sternly. “Wonderful. I was planning on heading to your dorms to speak to Mr.Black this afternoon about all the classes he's been missing, but based on this conversation, I’m assuming he’s not there. Is he.”
“That assumption would be correct.” Regulus muttered back to the older women.
“And when dare I ask, was the last time he was there?” the older Scottish woman asked, becoming more frustrated with the group of boys with each passing minute.
“The last time he was in the dorm was last Friday night…. And then we saw him in your class on Thursday.” It was Peter's turn to answer on behalf of the group. Those words caused Remus to let out a small whimper at the verbal reminder of the neglected boy.
“So, you boys have been unaware of the location of one of your roommates for over a week and are only just bringing it to my attention now?” The Gyriffndor head of house looked at all of the boys with frustration and disappointment.
“We thought that he just wanted space, hell, we needed space; we didn’t know that he had disappeared,” James stressed.
All McGongall did in response to that was let out an exasperated sigh. “I know you boys most likely had good intentions, but right now, we need to focus on finding Mr.Black.” The older women reassured them all. “I will speak to the other professors, and you boys need to let me know if you hear anything from your fellow students.” She looked at the four leaving no room for disagreement.
“Yes, professor, thank you.” Peter looked back at the woman.
“Good, now I must go look for your friend.” The older woman gestured to the door, and four boys proceeded to walk back out into the hall, quickly followed by the older woman before swiftly making her way down the corridor.
“Remus,” Peter called to the taller boy. “What's going on? You’ve been really quiet; what are you thinking?”
“McGonagall did say we should see if we hear something from one of our fellow students, and I know exactly who we could start with.”