The Chain

The Chain

The sun burnt his eyes. No matter how many times Remus readjusted his curtains, the sun always found its own way in. Like moths to a flame, the bright light hit Remus in the face, always around about ten, and when he wanted the room to stay dark most.

Two years ago, Remus would have paid no mind to the light. And four years ago, Remus would’ve practically embraced its entry. But now its warmth was no longer welcome. Remus wanted nothing but cold.

Remus was stuck to two rooms in his house. Bedroom, and its connected bathroom. There was no reason to venture further into any other room. Besides the basements, but that was only because it was necessary. Currently, he’d not left his house in nearly four weeks.

He was sickly. Pale and exhausted despite doing nothing but sleeping. Every day was the same as the one before, sleep, lay, sleep. He no longer paid for electricity, or heating. All he really needed was a pile of blankets and water.

Remus was skinny, incredibly skinny. Like an animated skeleton with paper skin. He was always hungry yet he lacked any and all motivation it took to walk to the kitchen to fix himself something to eat. Making the entire need for food obsolete in his opinion. He had bottles upon bottles of countless vitamins on his nightstand, and he’d been living just fine off of those. Along with a list of healing spells he’d created which were probably taboo in the eyes of the ministry.

Two years ago, Remus lived a life of luxury when it came to wellness. And what his life was four years ago was practically royalty. However now, he looked like a skeleton, ate like a slave, bathed like a serf, moved like a sloth. He was in no way living for bliss. He often found himself wondering, why live a life at all? However, before he could explore that thought deeper, he’d distract himself, in most cases with sleep.

There were times however, more specifically the first waning gibbous every month, the morning after a full moon, in which he would lay on the floor of his basement and wonder, what stops him from simply remaining there? Why does he feel the need to crawl across the room to grab his wand, causing him extreme pain as his broken bleeding body was in no shape for his own weight. So really, he’d wonder, what is the point? Why not just bleed out on the floor? It would be easier, it would be more satisfying.

Then he’d remember the guilt. He had no right to give up his life, when the lives of his friends had been so aggressively ripped from their hands. He was the one left, and he can’t leave it all behind just because he was too weak to handle it.

So he’d crawl. And he’d cry. And he’d prepare himself to do it again.

Remus rolled in bed. It hurt. His bones always hurt. If not from the constant lying down than from the most recent night of being a wolf that he’d yet to recover from.

It was that morning, roughly 9:58am, in which Remus Lupin heard a knock on his door.

He ignored it. Assuming it must be some muggle, maybe here to convert him to christianity. A practice that had never done him well before. He assumed the muggle should be gone once it’s been too long with no answer.

There was a second knock. Which was unusual for muggles who typically gave up after one and even weirder for Wizards who’d normally just apparate into his living room as if it’s not intrusive at all.

In the past two years, only three people had ever shown up to his house, on two occasions it was Dumbledore, once to inform him the order was disbanded, and the second time to suspend him from the ministry as a whole. Four times Mcgonagall stopped by, three of those times because of an order from Dumbledore to insure that Remus wasn’t up to anything suspicious since his departure from the ministry, and once on her own accord to make sure he was doing well. The other fifty or so times were all done within the first year by Mary Macdonald. However, by the middle of 1982, Mary had Obliviate herself, and Remus had not seen her since.

Since then Remus had not directly talked to anyone. A recluse would be an understatement, and would also seriously be neglecting attention to his current mental and physical well being.

The somebody knocked for a third time. Remus shouted simply, “Go away!” And for a moment everything was silent.

That was until Remus heard the distant sound of the door unlocking, and being opened. He knew it was a wizard.

Remus cursed to himself. Slowly, and painfully, he sprung up, grabbed a loose shirt and jeans that were now three or four sizes too large. He wanted everything but to approach whoever had just broken into his house, but he could only assume it was another wizard and they would find him sooner or later.

Hesitantly, he opened his bedroom door. The door faced the kitchen and Remus saw a man standing a few feet in front of him. Facing away from him, the man was not immediately recognizable.

The man had shoulder length dark hair, slicked back and well kept. He was wearing a suit, and was currently looking around Remus’ house as if searching for clues. Remus stepped forward, and finally managed to figure out who the man was, “get out.” He demanded, quietly.

The man turned around. “Lupin.” It felt as though Remus was seeing a monster in his kitchen. In Front of him was former Hogwarts classmate and current Death Eater Severus Snape.

“What the hell are you doing here? Get the fuck out.” Remus repeated, Snape moved not an inch. “I will call the whole fucking ministry on you, you dirty-”

“Just wait, Lupin. I have a question.” Severus cut him off. Remus stopped, although his mind was rushing through plans to get Severus out. “Were you a part of the Tres Pavus Case back a few years ago?”.

Remus paused. Fear sunk in. “How do you know about that?”

The Tres Pavus Case was a code name for a mission that Remus was a part of during the year of 1981. It involved three members, Crus, Penna, and Coda. All three members were kept secret from one another, however it was necessary they communicated to each other any and all findings they had. Penna focused on gathering information as far as weapons and incoming threats, mostly focused on tearing down innovations within magic and weaponry advancements inside Voldemorts army. Crus tried to screw over finding new members for the dark army, they also focused on specific members and ratting their location out to Dumbledore's army. Coda, which was Remus’ code name, tried to ruin any and all plans for specific attacks on muggles and wizarding empires. It was hard work for the entirety of the team.

At the time, Tres Pavus was the army’s most secret mission. In fact, there were only five people who knew of it, Dumbledore, Mcgonagall, and the three members. All members were forbidden to speaking about it whatsoever. Special meetings even had to be arranged if Remus needed to ask Dumbledore a question. Eventually, Remus was let go from the group at the same point that The Order disbanded, and honestly, Remus assumed that the entire mission had been abandoned due to the war being over. So the fact that Severus Snape, a supposed Death Eater, had caught any wind of its existence was threatening.

“You were Coda, yes?” Snape looked over to Remus’ kitchen table, he slowly began to walk over to it and have a seat. Remus’ heart was nearly beating out of his chest.. “I was Penna, although I was rather jealous of the work Crus did.”

Remus froze. Confusion set in. Not only was Severus admitting to being a part of the army, but he was admitting to having been working right alongside Remus the entire time? It made no sense.“But we were told—“ He didn’t know a kind way to tell the man in front of him that he’d been specifically instructed to fear him. “But Dumbledore had told us—“

Snape squinted his eyes, “yes, somehow word got out about me working for the other side. What Dumbledore said was to protect me. Despite my own opinion… he honestly probably wanted you and Crus to go down the same path too.”

Remus was silent as he slowly processed the information. “Why should I believe that… that you just so happened to be Penna?” He slowly asked, Severus didn’t respond for a moment.

“Because I know everything that happened to you... Remus Lupin, lived alone ever since the fall out of October 1981, hasn’t been observed inside the ministry since November 7th-”

Remus hummed, “—that could mean anything.” Remus couldn’t allow his trust to creep up towards the black haired man. His former bully, his enemy, his co-worker? No. It didn’t make sense. “You’re either a Death Eater here to kill me, and that’s why you know that or I don’t know why you know that but you’re here, and you’ve been keeping tags on me… which may be worse.”

Severus crossed his arms, his dissatisfaction was clear with the way he positioned his body. “If I was a Death Eater what master would I serve?”

“Perhaps just here on your own accord. Or maybe to finish Sirius’ job.”

“Lupin.” Snape said suddenly, and stiffly. “I am here to help you.”

“Help me?” Remus laughed coldly. “I don’t fucking need your help”

Snape raised an eyebrow. “Look at yourself, you can not be living like this. I can help you.”

“Well thank you Snape, aren’t you such a fucking angel, sent by the lord himself..”

“I don’t know what that means.” He crossed his arms.

“It means you can go fuck yourself and get out of my house!” Remus threw his arms up, stepping backwards with the power he released in his voice.

Snape paused before switching his demeanor somehow now looking more serious than before, “Lupin.” He hesitated, “I can bring them back.”

Chronicle I

Listen to the Wind Blow, Watch The Sun Rise

Those words switched the air in the room, like the explosion to a bomb, the sky turned red. Remus’ expression changed, “who?”

“All of them.”

Remus thought. Images of his former friends flashed through his head, quick bursts of lightning that electrified every nerve in his body. He felt like that simple sentence rerouted every wire that connected to his brain. The currents sent waves of hope he hadn’t felt in ages.“How?” He said quietly.

“Okay.” Severus inhaled, “ever since the end of the war, Voldemort’s army has been in complete shambles. But, they are still planning and producing, fortunately because of the mess they’ve been in, it's been easier to climb the ranks. Recently, I was given clearance on the biggest project they’ve been working on.”

Remus tried to keep his face still, although his thoughts were a jumbled mess of everywhere this conversation could go.

Severus continued. “They’ve been working on a weapon” Severus pulled something out of his pocket, and set on the table a palm sized gadget, no bigger than a walkman. “This has been charmed with enough powerful spells that it can bend back time to whenever you want to go. They call it Aion.”

Remus’ expression faltered. “And the Death Eater’s made it?”

Severus nodded, he looked deeply concerned, an unusual expression from the former Slytherin, “they plan to go back and bring him back.”

Remus slouched in his chair. “How many of those do they have?” He gestured to the gadget, Aion.

“Just one.”

“And you took it?”

Severus sighed, “stole it. And they may already be after me.” He leaned in towards the table. “The date on this one has already been set. October 28th 1981. There isn’t much time before I am hunted down. I give them 2 hours. I knew immediately once I got my hands on this I should come to you.”

“Why not the ministry?”

“The ministry is falling apart. If I give them this they won’t do anything about it. The dark army has already begun creating more copies of this, and if we wait any longer there will be no chance for us. We should go now and destroy this timeline before they have the opportunity to invade time all together.”

“Why me? Why not Crus or the new Coda? Or anyone you trust better.” Remus started to feel sick, sick to his stomach. He was nerves and sweat twisted together in a tight, uncomfortable knot.

“Because you deserve a chance to fix everything that happened to you.”

He wanted to puke. He wanted to throw Severus out the door, and continue his life of misery. He wanted to go back into his messy bed and not leave for many hours.

But he knew he shouldn’t do that. Not only was it unfair to himself, it was unfair to them. Unfair to Lily who had died trying to protect her child, trying to serve a war that gave her nothing. Unfair to James, Marlene, and Peter who Remus had known since childhood and who had given their life to orders and commanders that never even tried to protect them. And unfair to Mary, who now lived a life and has no recollection of how she got to it.

It was unfair to Sirius, because maybe, Remus hoped, he could stop him.

Remus brought his eyebrows together. Until he muttered a simple, “okay.”

Severus looked thrilled for a split second, “is that a yes?”

Remus paused before nodding, “yes.” he looked at the gadget that Severus was gripping tightly. “But I need to know how that thing fucking works before I get anywhere near it.”

Severus placed the contraption on the table, “It is quite simple.” He turned towards Remus, “It takes advantage of the structure of time.”

“The structure of time being..?”

“A line. A long line with different segments and events on it. Constantly moving from left to right.” Severus looked around the room until his eye caught on a dog tag necklace that had been sitting on the kitchen counter for the past 2 years.

Remus winced slightly as Severus gripped it. Remus had been strategically avoiding the tag since he’d found it sitting on the counter on November 1st, 1981. There had been one time in which Remus had attempted to pick it up, but the silver that made it up burned his hand. He dropped it back onto the counter immediately, and lacked the motivation to find an alternative way to dispose of it. Remus eventually decided its presence made sense, Sirius really had made a turn for the worse, so it really wasn’t surprising that he had left silver in the house. The more perplexing thing however, was what the dog tag said.

On it were engraved lyrics, ‘it was alright, the band was all together,’ and was also engraved with a signature, ‘to Sirius, from James.’ Remus assumed it must’ve been a birthday gift, but Remus didn’t understand why James would have given Sirius silver.

Severus swiped the necklace and held it up, “however, similar to this necklace, these events, these segments, they are not strung on like beads on a rope of ‘time’” he grinned ever so softly at that, as if the idea was entirely insane. “These events are what make the line. They are the links, they don’t fall upon a pre-created string that goes on for infinity, the line gets longer with each new event. Like right now, the chain gets longer with every syllable I say as more links are created.”

Remus tried his best to follow along, although Severus’s demonstration was definitely lacking… or maybe it was Remus’ understanding that lacked.

Severus fiddled with the ancient necklace until he found the clasp in the back, “the spell takes advantage of getting rid of just one link.” He unclasped the necklace, holding the two ends at a distance from each other, “this was a relatively easy portion of the spell, if we can dispose of just one link the whole right side of the line falls into nothingness. Now the difficult aspect was getting the people on the right to get to the left.”

The facts then clicked, all of the wizarding information Remus read about in his youth came to the front of his mind. “You twisted an apparition spell, yes?”

Severus snaps his fingers, “Yes. The spell apparates just your memories, but puts them into the head of your past self. And because your memories are what make up your personality, your opinions, your consciousness, it’s basically like transporting yourself.”

Remus considered this. He considered everything really. “Has it been tested?”

“Apparently yes. I hadn’t been on the project yet, but they had tested it and it brought them back to the day before. So we definitely know that it works for short amounts of time.”

Remus understood the small little bit of unimportant information that came from that fact. In some timeline, he had lived a day that never existed. This understanding led to the unfortunate thought that it probably didn’t matter if he’d lost a day anyway, there was no way he had done anything of significance. It’s not like there had been any day for the past two years that proved any remarkable content, or experience. Maybe if he still had people in his life then losing a day would be meaningful.

Maybe in an alternate timeline, he would have the people in his life again, and it would be meaningful.

And possibly, he could be there, he could be in that timeline.

“Okay, Snape.”

Snape, who had been staring at his watch with concern shadowing his face, looked up immediately, “okay?”

“I’ll go to 1981”

“Great,” Severus stood up. He took another concerned look down at his watch and bit his lip. “We should go now.”

“Now?”

“Yes. We need to cut them off before they come anywhere near creating a new one.” Severus picked up the gadget and flipped the switch on it. “Once we are there, in 1981, find me as soon as you can.”

It was then that things started to move very fast.

“How will I do that?”

“You know that I’m Penna. You’ve always had contact with Penna.” Severus set the Aion on the table. “Okay stand opposite to me.”

Remus stood up and did as told.

“Okay.” Severus pulled out his wand. “I’m gonna finish it’s spell, and it’ll take us where we need to go.”

“And what about what’s here?”

“It’ll cease to exist. Me and You will be the only people to have lived it.”

“Isn’t that destructive?” Remus grew more worried.

“Perhaps.” He paused, then shook his head. “Hardly matters given the alternative.” Severus held his wand out in front of him, and yelled with great strain on his face, “Tempvertovetus!”

And Remus’ world went black.

The sun shot directly into Remus’ eyes. Like an alarm clock of golden rays, and yet Remus for once didn’t feel immediately groggy.

His bones didn’t feel weak and he didn’t feel one bit cold. His head wasn’t pounding and his stomach wasn’t growling. For once in a very, very, long time, Remus didn’t feel helpless at all.

Just as he questioned why he felt so brand new, his memories came flooding back as if the dam that was blocking them had completely shattered.

Remus sat up. His bedroom was clean. Not spotless, but not a mess. He looked to his side and it was obvious that somebody had to have been just sleeping there.

He sprung out of bed. Excitement bubbled. Betrayal bubbled.

Remus wandered around the house, but Sirius wasn’t there.

He wanted to call Sirius. He didn’t know if he would be happy to hear his voice, break down in tears, or scream with all possible rage he could muster up. A part of him wanted to walk down to the ministry right that moment and say everything necessary in order to get Sirius taken into custody. Remus wanted to call Lily, to warn her. To tell her that everything Sirius had ever said was a lie. Then again Remus didn’t fully believe that himself.

Remus landed in the bathroom. The bathroom from 1983 wasn’t nearly as pristine as the one he now stood in. He looked into the mirror, and oh how he had changed. Remus’ hair was short and brushed, it was a nice golden color again and it had loose curls where it was longer on the top. Remus hadn’t cut his hair in months, and the last time he’d seen it it was nearly to his neck. His skin had also changed, it was now tanner and softer. Most of Remus’ worst scars happened after the 31st, but now they were gone. Remus felt rebirthed, youthful and for a split second completely hopeful.

That was until Remus remembered what he had to do.

And so, Remus called one person.

Remus called Penna.

Dumbledore had given Remus a phone that only had the ability to call Crus or Penna immediately. He acted like it was revolutionary compared to the slow owls wizards were used to. Clearly he wasn’t up to date with muggle discoveries. The rotary phone was black, and had a picture of a feather and a picture of a bird’s foot where the 8 and the 2 would be. In addition to its groundbreaking charms, the phone was spelled to distort voices to make them unidentifiable, as well completely unable to trace.

When Remus slid the dial to the feather and picked up the phone, Penna was on the other side immediately. “Good.” Severus said once he was on the line. “We need to talk.”

“In person?”

“In person.”

Remus was silent. “Where?” he stood hunched over by the phone. He never before had felt so nervous and so ready at one time.

“Somewhere nobody will recognize us.” Severus paused, “You know any good muggle places?”

Remus thought. “Uh, there’s Tricheurmus. It’s on the corner of Hill and Holles. It's a café.”

Severus mumbled, “Be there at 8:30.” He hung up.

Remus looked down at his watch, it was already 8:10.

He arrived six minutes late. Severus was wearing an unhappy face once Remus got there. But honestly a face of iron was typical for Snape.

Remus took his seat and for a moment all was silent. “This place closed down.”

Severus nodded, “hm.”

“Closed down a few months after halloween.” He paused, “Mary would sometimes drag me here, I hated it, but I loved this place. When it closed, I didn’t go anywhere. Mary gave up.”

“What ever happened to Mary?” Snape asked, genuine interest in his voice.

“Obliviated herself.” Remus said calmly. “Or at least I assume. She told me she wanted to do it, and I thought I’d talked her out of it, but she never came back.”

Severus didn’t feel like the evil teenage boy Remus had thought of him as. Severus just felt like a more serious, more put together version of every other scared person in the ministry. “Have you talked to a lot of people since she stopped coming?”

Remus looked down, “Grocery workers here and there. At the beginning her leaving made me feel motivated, but that all slowly came crashing down. I haven’t gone to the stores in months now.”

Severus nodded once again, and once again it was quiet. “We should discuss the plan.”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Okay,” Severus looked at his watch. “We will both live our lives for the next few days doing the tasks we did when we were here before. However we both will also be working on our special missions. What I want you to do is to stop the October 31st massacre taking lives. ” Severus’ expression changed.

“I need to work on taking down Sirius?” Remus said quietly, and anxiously.

“No,” Severus said very quickly. “There is something you should know.”

Remus raised an eyebrow.

“Two weeks after the massacre and two weeks after Sirius was taken into custody—” he paused, and breathed “— Peter Pettigrew was seen.”

“But that’s impossible. Peter Pettigrew is—“

“Is dead.” Severus interrupted, “yes, but our Crus had spotted him with other Death Eaters being ridiculed. A few moments later when Crus checked again, a rat scurried by but Peter was gone.”

Remus inhaled sharply, concern and anger resting on his tongue he furrowed his brows and bit his lip. “Why wasn’t this investigated? How come I never heard about this?”

“We went to Dumbledore, but Dumbledore just said they had found Peter’s remains—“

“Just his finger.”

“—Yes. So Dumbledore didn’t listen and by then you were already off the team.” Severus crossed his arms. “But, Crus did some digging, looked through records and found files in the deatheater’s system on Peter. Apparently, he had been working as a spy for over 16 months before the massacre happened. Dumbledore ignored us. He told us we were wrong, that we’re focusing on the wrong things. He told us our jobs were on the line if we told anyone else.”

Remus leaned back in his chair. All of the betrayal, all of the anger and hurt he had felt towards Sirius was now completely unjustified. He felt all his emotions fizzling out and relighting, stronger and directed towards Peter.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to run out of the café and hunt down Peter. He wanted to kick and punch Peter until he knew Peter felt guilty. And he desperately wanted to find Sirius and apologize. Apologize for ever having believed that he was a traitor. For believing for over 2 years that Sirius had been the one responsible for murdering their entire friend group.

To be fair, Remus really never fully believed that Sirius had done it. But after a while he knew he had to. Hope had begun to hurt more. Thinking Sirius was rotting in a cell unrightfully hurt more than knowing that he was rotting in the cell where he belonged.

Remus tried to fight it for the first week. He pledged that Sirius wouldn’t betray him and he begged Dumbledore to give him a trial. At first Dumbledore seemed understanding, he had told Remus “I know it’s hard to take, go get some rest.” And every time Remus returned spewing the same spiel he had the day before. The last time Remus spoke to Dumbledore in the ministry and coincidentally the last day Remus had willingly left his house to go anywhere beside the necessities, Dumbledore had said, “he’s Black after all, Remus! It’s what they do.”

For the past two years that quote had lived in his mind and for the past two years Remus has given his all in agreeing with it. And it all meant nothing. Peter had always been the betrayer, always been the cheat. He is a rat after all, it’s what they do.

And then another realization hit him. Another bit of betrayal stabbing him in the gut. “Peter was the Secret Keeper wasn’t he? Not Sirius.”

“Yes. We assume so, but that’s what it sounded like. They must’ve at some point switched. Probably Peter’s idea.”

The three of them had never told Remus that. He didn’t understand why not.

Remus nodded, to show Severus that he heard him and accepted this truth. But also a signal that he did not exactly want to say anything about it explicitly. It was silent again. A familiar sound for this get together.

“So what is your plan?” Remus piped.

Severus sat up straighter. “Right. So we will both be working on different things. I will be working on keeping the Death Eaters from ever getting the idea of making Aion. I can’t just kill the people involved with making it, but I can stop those guys from being a part of the design process for weapons in their army. I plan on teaming up with Crus, although I’m unsure if he’d want that.”

“Who is Crus?” Remus drew an eyebrow. Remus had always been curious.

“Probably best I don’t say. But I know that he doesn’t quite like being a part of Tres Pavus. He was glad when he was kicked off the team.”

“What happened to him after?”

Severus shrugged, “I think he went on some excursion and then to work at Hogwarts, I heard he was happy there.”

Remus nodded, “I see. Well, okay. So you’ll be working with Crus. And I… will work with Peter?”

“Yes. You will try to get Peter in custody, however, you can’t reveal to him that you know anything until October 31st.”

“What? Why can’t I just go tell the ministry right now that he’s a fraud?”

“We need Voldemort to go to the Potters on the 31st.”

Remus drew his eyebrows together, “Doesn’t that feel a little counterintuitive? Aren’t we trying to save the Potters?” He said sternly.

“Yes, but we still need Voldemort to die that night. It doesn’t matter how he dies, if you can do it quietly enough without tipping off the dark army you can fill their entire house with Aurors. But we need Voldemort to die.”

“Do we need Harry Potter to get wrapped up in it? Does he need to be the one to kill him? Is he entangled with the prophecy?”

“I hope not. However, I think that the prophecy may be irrelevant now, as it was made only for the former timeline. Since it has already happened, I would hope for it to become obsolete.”

“And leading up to it I just need to live my life like normal?” Remus sighed.

“Be preparing. And make sure that everyone else will be on your side and trusting the night you need them to be.”

Remus chuckled slightly, “Trusting? You think they won’t believe me?”

Severus bit his lip, “I know Dumbledore, so…just be careful.” He looked at his watch. “Okay, I got to go work on my end of the plan. We will check in again tomorrow.”

Remus watched as Severus peered around the room. Clearly eyeing it out before he made his exit. Remus opened his mouth, “Sorry, just one little question.”

Snape looked back at Remus, “yes?”

“You never really explained.. Why include me?”

Snape rolled his eyes, “You had the best connections to the people. That was the biggest thing.”

“And how did you know you weren’t wasting your time? How did you know I wasn’t going to say no?”

Snape slouched in his chair, the wall he always seemed to have put up seemed to have come down slightly, as if he had been caught in a lie. “I have known for a while that you were kicked out of the ministry. A few weeks ago I was having tea with Mcgonagall and she mentioned you in passing. When I pushed the topic she stated that you had gone completely dark. I figured you were probably never going to accept what happened. And I knew that you would do anything to fix the damage done.”

“You just assumed I was desperate?”

“I suppose I did.”

Remus paused before giving a slight nod, “Thank you.” Severus returned the motion and got out of his seat. Remus watched as Severus walked out. He walked smoothly, not confident but put together. Remus once possessed a stride like that. Before the war and back when his only stress was if he’d finish his Charms paper in time.

He envied his younger self. Personality wise, Remus never changed. But he now carried so much weight that it felt like he was swimming two hundred meters to the surface with sandbags tied to his ankles every time he had to have a conversation. That’s why he never did talk to anyone.

Remus sat in the café for a while. He wasn’t quite sure if he was ready to go home and face Sirius. It would be like facing a bull in an arena, however with less rage and more guilt. Remus would have to raise a white flag secretly, as he now had to stare at Sirius and release his former anger and his current remorse.

When Remus finally did leave, which was long after Severus had left, he walked slowly. It was a cool cloudy day, the type of weather he remembered loving so much. And Remus realized that for the first time in years, he was enjoying walking outside. It seemed to Remus the return home was always the part he rushed most whenever he went out to get groceries. He’d speed walk home, ignoring the fact that speed walking did take a toll on his weakened state and he’d come home with the decision that never again would he leave his house until he absolutely had to. But now, back in the past, Remus walked with pep in his step, he felt energized. He felt his stomach twisting not in worry but in epiphany and excitement.

When he arrived back home, he gave no worry barging into his own home. For a split second, as he crossed the threshold and his auto-pilot settings overcame him, he nearly forgot the risk that Sirius could be, would be, standing in his house. He simply looked at the old rug on the floor, and began to wipe the mud off his shoes, a practice imbedded to his reflex. He brought his gaze back up and Remus turned his head to see the second black-haired man in his kitchen in the past two days (or two year period, either way, the sentence remains accurate).

He stopped dead in his tracks. Like a deer in headlights, he stared. Sirius stood in front of him searching a drawer, clearly he hadn’t immediately heard Remus’ entrance.

Remus couldn’t take his eyes off Sirius. It was a welcome from hell. He didn’t know how to speak anymore. He had 2 years worth of anger and guilt caught in his throat. Maybe, he could spill out those apologies and explanations if he began to shout, but what he really needed was for normalcy to find a route around the clog, so he could continue in the role he had been forced to play.

But for now, those words could not find a way, and his mouth was a geyser if he tried to use his voice. Currently, his best option was to think. To find the backroad through his neck and have the right words come out.

Unfortunately, the car can not find the road, if there is no driver or passengers, and currently Remus had no clue what he would even say, therefore there was no way any words could be said at any moment. What would be typical to say, and how would he say it? Did he have a specific greeting in ‘81? Did he have any greeting at all? Did he book it straight past Sirius any time he made it home? Is that why Sirius hadn’t lifted his head? Why won’t Sirius lift up his head? Thank god Sirius wasn’t looking at him.

Remus’ expression kept twisting, he furrowed his eyebrows, licked the inside of his cheek, bit his tongue. He was utterly and completely stuck in a mental and physical web of complexity, and any sound or step would reveal himself to the spider of a man in front of him.

Eventually the simple answer came, a simple, ‘hello,’ and if Sirius didn’t give a topic or reason to continue the conversation he’d shoot it to the bedroom.

As Remus tried, or tried not to, find a route for his greeting. He couldn’t do anything but stand.

Swiftly, Sirius’ head shot up and he looked around the kitchen for another drawer to search, this was when their eyes met.

Seeing his eyes felt like seeing his ghost. Watching him move was fine, but his eyes, Remus had admired those eyes too much for them to not invoke a striking feeling. Sirius maintained eye contact as he shut the drawer.

“Remus.” Sirius said with a tone that Remus couldn’t decipher to be sad or mad or tired or confused, but was definitely in no way happy.

Remus stayed silent, but the path was being built now.

“How long have you been standing there?”

Remus shrugged, still trying to come up with ‘hi’, and Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Where were you?”

“I had a meeting with Dumbledore,” the lie bulldozed faster than the greeting. He hadn’t remembered lying being so simple. Sirius inhaled with an expression that once again, Remus could not read.

Sirius then asked, “what about?”

Remus merely shrugged, Sirius nodded. Remus began to walk out of the foyer, Sirius watched.

“What are you looking for?”

“Ink.” Sirius said quickly.

Remus questioned, “what do you need it for?”

Sirius shrugged, “writing.”

Remus walked into the kitchen, opened the craft drawer and easily pulled out a vile of shiny black ink. “Ink is always in here.” Remus handed it to Sirius.

For a split second, Sirius looked very nervous. “Oh.” He looked away, “I forgot.”

Remus once again didn’t quite understand the tone of voice Sirius used, but he began to remember that that was typical. They had stopped understanding each other a while ago. Remus decided to keep the conversation moving, “Are you going anywhere today?”

Sirius nodded, “There is an Order meeting at five,” he eyed Remus for a split second, “I assume you can’t make it?”

He drew his eyebrows together, “why wouldn’t I?” he asked sternly.

Sirius looked away, down at the ink he held in his palm, “you haven’t been to any order meetings recently.”

Remus felt nervous again, in another way remorseful. Had he really been blowing them all off? “I’ll be there,” He grinned sadly.

Sirius looked nervous, “you really don’t have to.” he said all too quickly.

“No, It really should be fine.” Remus supplied, almost defensively.

Sirius gritted his teeth, “Are you sure? Have you checked your schedule?”

Remus’ heart sank as he remembered the leather back journal, sitting somewhere in his house. Quickly, he spoke, “I’ll check and make sure there are no jobs Dumbledore has for me tonight, but I should be fine.”

Sirius nodded, and Remus darted off to find the journal. Sirius remained where he was as Remus went to search the bedroom.

The thing about the journal was that there were actually two. One, that was entirely legible to anyone that read it, that stated things like, ‘Meeting with Mcgonagall at 2.30pm,’ and one written entirely in latin, that only allowed the words to appear if he said his code-name.

The ‘normal’ one, Remus was instructed to flaunt, to set in easily accessible locations, and show off if anybody asked about it. The ‘secret’ one, Remus was instructed to not mention it one bit, and to not let anybody form a single hunch of its existence. He hid it somewhere new everyday, and wrote in a language no one else around him was entirely fluent in.

Remus distantly remembered the five spots he would alternate hiding the journal. The bathroom drawer, TV stand, Pushed back and on top of the bathroom mirror, the kitchen drawer and the bedside table drawer.

It took three of the five spots before Remus found the book in his bedside drawer. He quickly eyed the closed door to the bedroom before he snatched the leather journal.

Quietly, he muttered a simple, “coda,” and the ink on the pages began to fade in. Quickly, he flipped through the pages entirely written in latin. Latin had always been one of his strongest subjects.

Although most wizards may count themselves as at least being semi-knowledgeable in latin. No one quite lived up to the entirely fluent Remus Lupin, who had been forced to learn the language at far too young of an age.

When Remus was young, in his first year at Hogwarts, many of his fellow peers considered him to be the picture of unsophistication. Now this conclusion was entirely accurate in the viewpoint of the small wizarding world, however in the muggle world, more importantly the religious muggle world, Remus Lupin was the poster child of proper etiquette.

Remus John Lupin, from the age of four to eleven was raised almost entirely within the catholic church. He was three when he was bitten and his father left, and four when his mother died. Now, despite his mother being shunned by almost her entire family for not marrying “a man of god,” Remus’ grandparents took in the young boy with bitterness in their blood.

Remus’ grandparents refused to call him Remus however, due to its pagan origins. This at first bothered him, although he eventually settled into the inevitable “John Lupin.” By the time he went to Hogwarts he had pretty much forgotten that his name was Remus.

Remus’ grandparents also hoped to save him from his fate, as the scars across his body became deeper and more frantic, they prayed that a miracle would come. They begged of god often, it seemed they were more obsessed with praying for the boy that Remus could become than praying for Remus himself. This did not bother Remus when he was young. He knew himself as John, and John was a good catholic boy, who wished to no longer be cursed by heathen ideas. His grandparents said God only helps those who prove themselves worthy, So John tried. He showed up for Mass every Sunday, never lost focus during the rosary, would kneel before God, accepted punishment when necessary, always confessed his sins, and learned Latin to appreciate God in the truest language.

So here Remus was, a 23 year old in a 21 years olds body, reading a language he had not thought of for 2 years, and not appreciated for 12. He flipped to his most recent pages and read what his schedule was.

October 28th 1981, written in latin and crossed out were the words Ignis Avis Conventus, 5:00. They had been replaced with Pullum Puerorum Partium, 5:00. Remus stared at the latin script. He remembered the code name he used for the Malfoy’s, pullum puerorum. He tried to remember what exactly the party would be about. He vaguely recalled what happened at the Malfoy party, there was chit-chat about an upcoming attack against wizards, it was rumored to be a big one. When Remus had reported that to Dumbledore, he had done nothing.

Attendance at Malfoy’s party was not necessary, and was honestly just a social game for Remus to climb the Death Eater ranks. Although Dumbledore may have wanted Remus to attend, Remus didn’t want to have to tell Sirius he couldn’t go to the order meeting.

When Remus stood up from the bed, put the book back into the next hiding spot in the rotation and walked back into the kitchen, where Sirius was now making a mug of tea, Sirius had a suspicious glance. “You can’t come, can you?”

Remus furrowed his eyebrows, “I can.” He stated simply.

Sirius for a moment looked surprised. “Oh.”

For a fairly lengthy moment, Remus had completely no idea what to say. “Is that alright?” He eventually sputtered.

“People won’t be expecting you.”

“Well, a grand entrance is what they will call it then.” Remus tried to joke, but Sirius’ face didn’t move. If anything Sirius seemed vaguely taken aback, as if Remus had lost his spot on the script and was now poorly improvising. “What are we going to discuss at the meeting?”

Sirius thought for a few seconds, Remus waited, Sirius spoke, “We’ve been talking about spies.”

Remus was for a moment confused, “planting soldiers in the dark army?” Wasn’t Tres Pavus the only current ‘spy plan’ Dumbledore had?

“No.” Sirius looked away from Remus, “Not from our side. There is somebody in the Order. Dumbledore caught word of it a couple weeks ago, he wouldn’t tell us how.”

Crus. Remus nodded. “Do we know who it is?”

“No.”

“Who do we think it is?”

Sirius was silent. Remus merely stared. The silence was painful, even Sirius could feel it, “we will talk about it there.”

“Okay.” Remus nodded.

4:51(pm)

For the next 5 hours the two boys had existed together in complete silence. Although Remus had many many questions, he for one, could not bring himself to ask them, for fear that anything out of the ordinary could unveil his current charade.

The two had sat on opposite sides of the couch. Muttering and writing stuff down to themselves. Three times Sirius had stood up to go to the phone, he spoke in inaudible whispers, twice he had gone up to get a snack, once he went to the bathroom. Remus stayed in one place, he had gotten quite good at that.

He flipped through the ‘flaunting’ journal and attempted to make sense of all of his various ‘appointments.’ Although occasionally, Remus would sneak his glances at the boy across the couch from him.

Sirius never seemed to be looking back at him. In a way it brought Remus back to Hogwarts. The fear he had that Sirius would catch him looking, yet the desperate wish to have him look back. However, then, Sirius would eventually look too, and then both boys would immediately set their eyes to the ground, away from each other.

It took five kisses long before they mustered up the courage to stare dead into eachothers eyes, a challenge to see who would look away first. Then they would laugh.

But now there was no laughter. Remus began to wonder when the last time in the 2(4?) years he had laughed at all.

As the clock began to tick closer toward the 12 Remus knew it was time for what would be his hardest feat yet. To make it through an Order meeting.

Sirius looked at the clock and hummed. “We should go.” He said quietly. Remus nodded, that familiar stressful twisting grew stronger in his stomach. It rose to his chest every time he breathed.

Sirius stood up from the couch, and wandered to the rack to grab his long black coat, he grabbed Remus’ brown one. Remus walked over to grab it, Sirius fully extended his arm to hand it off.

Inside the coat was Remus’ wand. The wand that he had not used for the past (2) years. It felt uncomfortable in his hands, he had forgotten how to hold it. He wrapped his hand around it like a toddler gripping a pencil. Sirius didn’t see his adjustments towards his grip.

“See you there,” Sirius said, once again very quietly. Remus nodded and closed his eyes. He envisioned, imagined, thought, and concentrated.

He also forgot, which was probably the most important factor as it made all other factors obsolete. He licked his lips and furrowed his eyebrows, but he couldn’t remember. What did the room look like? Where was it at? Was it in the ministry? Is Sirius watching right now? Why hasn’t he left? Thank god he hadn’t left.

“I forgot.” Remus admitted opening his eyes, which perhaps was already obvious. Sirius probably assumed that Remus meant he specifically forgot where the meetings were located, which was true, but it is also important to note that Remus forgot the actual spell entirely.

“Okay.” Sirius held out his hand, still extended entirely like before. Remus took it, and as the room began to shift Remus felt sick to his stomach.

The first time he had touched Sirius in definitely (2) years and maybe /probably/ more. It brought a surge to his chest like he had been shot by a bludger right in the stomach.

As Remus arrived in the meeting room, dizziness with quite the hold on him, he couldn’t help but notice everyone’s eyes on him.

Everyone else was seated already. Lily, James, Marlene, Mary, Arthur, and every other familiar face seemed to be staring with an unrecognizable emotion sprung across their face. There were 2 seats open. One at the head, one next to James. Sirius immediately took the one next to James, leaving Remus at the head, across the long wooden table was Peter.

Dumbledore slammed his gavel against the table, “as all members seemed to have arrived now, our meeting shall commence. Immediately I will give the floor to Peter Pettigrew.”

Peter stood up, “I would like to talk about our most pressing issue.” He stared Remus dead on, “we have a spy within the order.”