Could it Get Worse?
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"James, I hate to inform you that I will have no choice but to murder Remus come fall term," Sirius groaned, holding the mirror up as he lounged on his bed. It was soooo dull being good all summer, resulting in a tedious period devoid of any excitement. The fact that they hadn't heard from Remus once this past month and their owls had returned without the letters delivered pushed him to the brink of his patience. The inability to communicate with Remus was a source of neverending frustration, and he was sure he would start losing his mind soon.
"I hear you, mate. Might I suggest the age-old method of locking him in a safe room and just never letting him out again," James suggested, trying to inject some humour into the situation. But the weariness in their voices betrayed their true feelings. They were both utterly drained, their concern for Remus weighing heavily on them.
"Thanks to his furry little problem, even a safe room won't keep him safe." He had meant it more as a jest, but the crushing, undeniable reality left him sounding bitterly regretful.
"You should have been there, mate. I don't think his dad was there at all. And Remus wouldn't talk to us. And then bloody Patricia showed up and started shoving us out," James lamented. Sirius knew that James didn't blame him for Remus leaving. It's not like he could have convinced the impossibly stubborn boy to go with the Potters or, at the very least, be honest about no one coming for him. But it felt like the blame had been thrust upon him, and he wasn't about to resist hurling it back to where it rightfully belonged.
"Yes, James, do tell me about the train ride again. You know, the one you let me sleep through like a lousy friend," Sirius hissed. It had been nearly three weeks, but he was still sore about it. The train ride had been the last chance before the summer to talk to Remus, and part of him felt that if he had been awake and had experienced more time to try to talk sense into the git, there could have been a different outcome, a better one.
"Look, how many times do I have to apologise for that, Black? You were ruddy exhausted, and it seemed like a kind notion at the moment," James huffed, clearly a little bitter about how the topic kept coming up.
Well, Sirius didn't care. The wrongness of how the train ride from Hogwarts ended left him ready to burst. And yeah, part of that was his fault... He should have made the most out of the few minutes left rather than fly off the handles and storm off, but going home had put him in a foul mood.
"As often as you need to apologise for letting Remus-Liar Liar Trousers on Fire-Lupin somehow convince you that slipping the mirror into my bag rather than letting him take it was a good idea. How the hell did you manage to muck it up so badly?"
"You can just drop the connection if he keeps yelling at you," a muffled, much further-sounding voice drifted through.
"Oi, don't you hang up! What arsehole told you to hang up?" Sirius snapped, despite having a pretty good idea who.
"You know Peter's here. I told you this is Operation What the Fuck do we do about Remus." None of them had slept the night before or very well with their friend being MIA. At least Sirius was sure Peter was in the same boat as them. Two nights ago, it had been the full moon, and they still had no idea where Remus was or if he was safe, at least as much as the werewolf could manage to be this time of month.
"Could he really be home, and his dad just isn't letting him receive letters?" Peter suggested with timid hopefulness that resulted in Sirius taking a brief interlude from the conversation so he could thoroughly beat up his pillow. Not that it made him feel much better. As a result, he only caught the tail end of James reiterating how, after a week and a half of no contact, he had tried to floo to the address they had gone to when Sirius had, the admittedly dreadful idea of confronting Lyall himself.
"I told my mum I couldn't get a hold of my friend, and she even helped me go through the floo registry...do you lot have any idea how massive that manual is or how boring--"
Trapped in the dictator's (aka his mum's) house, Sirius hadn't heard this vital information yet. He could only speak to his friends in more than a hidden-in-the-attic-whisper about once every four days when his parents vacated the house for some mysterious reoccurring meeting of theirs. The nature of this meeting was unknown to Sirius, but its regularity and secrecy piqued his curiosity. However he dared not ponder the reason for his parents' absences for long, instead seizing the fleeting moments of freedom, provided he cast the necessary spells to ensure secrecy even from the house elves.
"Well? Did you find him?" he blurted, his voice trembling with a mix of anger and desperate hope. James' crumpling face told him everything he needed to know. He resisted dropping the call, his heart sinking with the realisation that this 'operation' would be another fruitless endeavour.
"Well... no... I guess they moved? When I searched the address, it showed that the premises had been removed from the floo network and most likely vacated. Of course, my mum said sometimes people do that even when inhabiting the place. So she apparated us over the other day, and it took hours of hiking, and I was so tired that-"
Once more, Sirius was on the edge of his seat, wishing James would get to the point. Maybe there was some clue to unearth? He would take anything to prove Remus was alive because owls not finding their intended target was almost unheard of. The magic of owls was a bit lost on him; it was complicated and ancient, and yada yada.
"-But anyway, they were really off the grid. It makes more sense why Remus had hypothermia after getting lost...like it is strictly wilderness and--"
"James, please focus," Sirius pleaded, voice cracking with desperation.
"Ah...well, I mean, obviously, they weren't there."
"Did you go in?"
"My mum used to be an Auror," James sounded deeply offended, "of course we went in."
"And?" this time Peter was asking. Sirius would have thought James was enjoying stringing them along if not for several signs pointing otherwise. First, James' hair was a raging mess from him anxiously running a hand through it repeatedly. Second, Sirius knew all of his best friends' tones, and this was the earnest and hesitant one used when James didn't want to deliver bad news, evident by the long pause before he attempted again.
"...Uh, it was...mostly empty..." the nervous boy proceeded with hair-raising caution.
"Potter, I swear if you--"
"There were beer bottles everywhere," James exclaimed, voice pitching upwards several octaves as his hand again went to his mess of hair. "Like everywhere. And not just beer...there were wine bottles, empty flasks, and cans. I'm not kidding, mates. If there was a container alcohol could be found in, there was one strewn about the place. It reeked, there was mouldy food, and...well, Lyall didn't seem like he was taking adequate care of himself," James finished awkwardly.
"Or Remus," Sirius seethed.
"If Remus is even with him," Peter pointed out unhelpfully. Sirius wanted to shout at them, but he was trying to improve. He didn't want to be like his mum, and he had gotten plenty of practice not shouting at the old hag or Regulus this far into the summer. "Hey, James, I was wondering...do your parents know it's Remus we're looking for."
Sirius narrowed his eyes. He hadn't even considered that! Glaring had not been his intent, but by how quickly James turned away from him to face Peter, he must have been doing so.
"I can proudly and honestly relay that they don't. They might've, but Lyall is a paranoid wanker who had his property listed under a different surname; Denhew, I think. Plus, I've purposely mentioned, no joke, twenty names, even though I don't even have that many friends. AND I said it was my friend Frank for good measure."
"Then why don't you sound proud?" Sirius asked suspiciously.
"Because I bloody well hate lying to my parents, okay?" James' shouted, unusually angry, though he collected himself quickly. "Look, I'm sorry, yeah? I just...genuinely think I'm losing years of my life worrying about Remus. And he either isn't in a safe enough place where he can contact us or--"
"Or he's not thinking about us because his life is falling apart..." Peter fretted.
"Or he's somehow convinced himself we shouldn't hear from him because he'd just be a bother or depress us or some nonsense," Sirius grumbled.
They all sat silently for a few tense moments, taking the realisation in.
"We really aren't going to even know he's alive until school starts, are we?" James said in a small voice, tears filling his eyes. Sirius ducked his head, unrelatedly scrubbing at his suspiciously wet face.
"Okay..." Peter began hesitantly but quickly grew confident. "So there's a good chance he's been alone all summer. What about his uncle...not the bastard one...the werewolf one? Could he be with him? Maybe some sort of barrier makes it difficult for owls to reach them...or maybe it works differently for their kind."
Sirius hated how repulsion was his knee-jerk reaction to hearing Remus might be living with some clan of werewolves all summer. He was glad he had kept his face ducked, his shame made worse by James' outraged yelp of "Peter!"
"What? I'm not trying to be an arse here. I'm genuinely curious! I'm just saying we might as well consider it," Peter whined. "Have any of us ever gotten a letter from him...or know one of ours was successfully delivered?"
"We didn't bother sending him letters last summer, remember? He practically begged us not to because that dick of his dad didn't know he had friends," James snapped, though it was clear his anger lay with Lyall and the situation, not Peter. The amount of hostility James had towards Lyall still took Sirius aback.
He would have expected it of himself but not James, not after the man had acknowledged Remus having friends. Sure, the change hadn't occurred until after Sirius had hollered at him, but it still seemed like a significant start. Better than he could hope to obtain from his parents anyway. "Woah, you okay there, mate? I'm surprised you seem to hate the man so much. He seemed...I don't know...more sad than bad when we saw him."
"I don't hate him, I--"
"You do too!" Peter shouted in disbelief, going so far as to snag the mirror from James, ignoring the "hey" so he could emphasise his point. "Sirius, I've been here for...well, since the other day," he faltered, and Sirius felt a twinge of bitterness that he couldn't have been there with them. But Sirius supposed that nearly reaching the halfway point of summer could have gone much worse.
Regulus had been largely absent, busy jumping through whatever hoops Cissy ordered him to. Yet, even in his absence, Reggy somehow managed to get their mum to genuinely back off Sirius, as long as he didn't cause more trouble. It made Sirius love his little brother for making it happen, but also resent the imp who, for some reason, could get Mum to listen and love him.
"But James has already ranted about Lyall multiple times and I haven't even been here that long."
"Give me that back!"
"Hey!"
"It's mine, sod off," James snapped, whacking Peter on the head by the sound of it.
"You're in a right sour mood, aren't you? Is it cuz of all the bottles you hate him?" Sirius questioned, both of them having ignored Peter's indignant "ow." A tense silence stretched, broken only by Peter's heavy breathing. Sirius held his breath, unsure what to make of the weighty anticipation and worry clawing at him.
"No, well, yes, well, part of it..." James admitted. When hazel eyes met Sirius' grey ones, he could see the guilt in them.
"James," Sirius warned, an arrow of cold dread shooting through his heart. "Tell me what it is?" It couldn't be something of significance, right? Remus had been opening up to him in leaps and bounds at the end of last year, right? Right?
The tension in the air was suffocating as James hesitated, his eyes avoiding Sirius'. "I didn't want to tell you, but--"
"James, what is it?" Peter pleaded, sounding scared. Sirius wasn't sure whether to be less or more nervous that Peter didn't know whatever it was either.
"So...." the chaser began slowly, the conflict plain as day across his face.
Sirius swallowed his pride with incredible difficulty. "Look...At this point, it's clear Remus...still has secrets." Stating such a truth made him want to cry. "I'm not...I don't think he's told me everything....not anymore." Oh, it burned to admit. It hurt his pride as much as his heart. The taste of betrayal sat heavy on his tongue.
James' gaze searched his for a long moment. The vital moment was made less so by Peter's eye occasionally appearing in the upper left corner as he kept trying to see. "When we were at Sluggclub's party...well, you guys didn't question why I was walking back by myself--"
"Because you're a raging moron," Sirius teased, the bitter note stuck in his tone from the no-doubt devastating information still to come despite his trying to ignore the fear that this revelation would change everything.
His friend gave a weak grin, solidifying Sirius' prediction that this explanation was going to be absolute shite. "Not as big of one as you." Before Sirius could point out that his brand of idiocy had never led to him being badly injured, not counting his family, James hurried on. "It wasn't just because Remus doesn't like crowds or parties or anything. It was my fault! He was doing quite well for himself, talking to Mihaela, of all people. I don't know how he knew the Digore champion, but it sure seemed like they had spoken before and--"
Sirius knew his friend was rambling to delay the inevitable. While he was vaguely interested, despite the sting of something darker stirred up over why Remus was chatting up some girl at the party, his concern for his friend was most pressing. "Potter, what did you do?" He kept his voice steady, knowing James would never purposely hurt Remus.
Besides, Sirius, out of anyone, didn't have room to judge about accidentally hurting the werewolf, having done so the most by far. However, that wasn't going to stop him from being upset if Potter screwed up big time. And the fact that they were just now learning about whatever this was did nothing to help James' case.
"So Slugghorn approached us and-" Sirius repressed the urge to roll his eyes at how long it was taking James to just get to the damn point already, but he could tell his mate was getting there now, so he summoned every ounce of the remaining dwindling patience he possessed. "-So, you see, I shouldn't have said anything... Only, he referred to Remus as Lurin or Lunin or something that wasn't his last name, and Slugghorn's tone was just so....well, condescending. As if Remus isn't one of our year's cleverest wizards."
Sirius privately thought Remus was the cleverest, kindest, and bravest.... anyway... He ignored his heart-clenching. He was just worried...that was all.
"But uh...I guess it turns out Slugghorn knows Lupin...as in Remus' dad. Uh...." James' voice cracked, and tears started spilling down his cheeks. "First, he started talking about how he thought Mr. Lupin's son was dead as if that isn't bad enough...but it uh...well...."
"James, please," Sirius' voice cracked as well. His eyes burned from holding back his grief.
"Lyall Lupin is, or was, I think, employed intheDepartmentfortheRegulationandControlofMagicalCreatures. And I think, well, I hope this was before...you know...Only I don't know how young Remus was when he got bitten, and I don't know if I want to know from the sound of it. Just keep in mind Lyall...might have changed since then. I guess he was all for classifying werewolves as beasts and carrying one off to Azkaban and---"
"WHAT?" Blood rushed through Sirius' ears, his heart thundering in his chest. He was pretty sure he was seeing red, barely registering James breaking down into desolate sobs. Sirius had grown up a little since he ruined the train ride home by blowing up at his friends. Sirius had gotten a bit better, at least when choosing to try, at recognising when his anger was boiling over. It had been that way since he started talking to the DADA professor, Corbyn, last year.
With the professor's advice ringing in his ears, Sirius didn't start cussing James out. Nor did he start screaming about how stupid the boy was for possibly thinking Remus would be safe to go home. Instead, he chucked the mirror across the room, curled tight into a ball, and screamed incoherently until all the rage and tears left him drifting off into a stress-filled sleep where he dreamed of dementors surrounding his Remus trapped in a cell.
.......................................
Peter was not as brave, handsome, or bright as his friends. His practicality, a trait his mum admired, only seemed to cause him grief with James and Sirius. Peter often worried he must not care as much as his other friends. Sure, he had cried with James, not even faking it. How could he not be devastated by Remus' suspicious absence and learning how awful Lyall was-is? But why Peter hadn't found it in himself to sob for hours like James had, he couldn't understand.
He had tried to help his friend, but the boy had seemed inconsolable. It got so bad that James only showed a hint of slowing down when his mum came and wrapped him in her arms. Peter feared she would start crying too, even after he had managed to excuse himself from the room.
Should he have stayed with James? Would that have made him a better friend? Perhaps he should have mirrored Sirius' screams, echoing the pain they all felt until Peter couldn't bear it anymore. In a rare decision to take matter into his own hands he had severed the connection and James had been too distraught at the time to even protest.
But Peter wasn't that good of a friend. So he didn't sob, he didn't rage, he didn't stay. Instead, he was taken back home by an unusually stoic Mr Potter, who hugged him goodbye and talked briefly with his mum before leaving. Instead, Peter started writing letters, one to Lily, one to Patricia, and one to the Prewett twins. He sent the little barn owl to Lily first. She seemed the most likely to have heard from Remus. And maybe the fact she hadn't written asking about their friend was a sign that, for some reason, he had kept in contact with her. Peter knew it was probably stupid; he knew it was a long shot, but he was desperate; they all were.
Then he went downstairs, curling up beside his mum without a word, grateful it was too late for Cooper to steal their mum's attention. He felt too scared to cry yet was also somehow too numb. Peter was pretty sure there must be something wrong with him for not responding like his two friends. But when he finally folded after his mum gently asked what was going on and filled her in on the bare minimum, she reassured him with all her heart. She explained that Peter was neither bad nor broken, and her words soothed some of his anger. She reassured him that he was just practical and "a tough cookie" and that he was as good a friend as James and Sirius.
He desperately clung to his mother's encouraging words, hoping she was right. But deep down, he couldn't shake off the nagging doubt. He wasn't entirely convinced. Yet, he fervently hoped, that's all someone like Peter Pettigrew could do.