Chapter 3
There was nothing odd about the street. It wasn’t an actual neighborhood though. It was a long road that belonged to the Quinnip Family which is why it had been named Quinnip road. There was a huge dates orchard that sat in front of a white farmhouse that had plants growing all over it.
He walked past it and stepped into the woods. The temperature dropped and Remus felt the goosebumps crawl up his arms and back. It may have been Remus being paranoid but the woods that surrounded him felt off.
He didn’t grab his wand, if he was correct in thinking that he wasn’t alone he didn’t want his follower to know he was aware. He continued to walk through the forest and the feeling grew stronger. He didn’t turn around until he heard breathing from right behind him.
“EXPELLIARMUS!” Remus shouted as he spun around and hit someone with a masked face. For a moment Remus was terrified that Sirius had been right, that he had been set up and in any moment a dozen death eaters would surround him, but the mask wasn’t a death eater mask, it looked like an animal skull. She didn’t remove her mask and slowly held up her hands.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” She said. She spoke clearly and had no fear in her voice. It was refreshing to hear someone speak like that. He hadn’t heard it in years.
“I was looking for my brother.” She slowly got to her feet and brought her hands back down to her side.
“Why were you following me?” Remus asked quickly, still having the wand pointing at her.
“Curiosity got the better of me. Not a lot of wizards come wandering through here, it’s a muggle town after all.” She pulled off her hood and Remus was able to get a good look at her. She had dirty blonde hair and a square jaw. Something about the way she held herself reminded him of how Sirius acted when he first met him.
“What are you doing wandering around in the woods anyway?” Her voice was loud and commanding. Like she had authority of some sort.
“I don’t see how that's your business.” Remus snapped back and she did not take his response too kindly.
“Fine then, I’ll let you be, right after you show me your forearms.” Remus sighed. He knew where she was going with this and he could respect it so he rolled up his sleeves and showed his dark mark free arms. She approached him carefully and brought out a second wand-
Where had she gotten that from?
-And used a revealing spell. There was nothing hidden so nothing showed up, and when nothing changed she put her wand away. She turned around and grabbed the mask off the ground, whipping it of the dirt it had collected.
“Since that’s all done, I’ll be on my way. If you need help finding your way anywhere in here I can help, I know my way around. Just come looking for me.” She said and started to walk away.
“What about your wand?” She turned around and looked at the wand Remus held out.
“That’s a spare. You should always keep a spare wand on you in times like these, so you can keep it.” With that she disappeared back into the woods pulling the mask over her face and the hood covering her hair.
Remus looked at the wand before pocketing it. It wasn’t a bad idea to have a spare wand on him, if someone disarmed him he would still have a back up. Sure it may not be as good as a normal wand but it was still perfectly functional, he would just need to practice with it a bit. He would have to tell this to the order. Especially Lily and Mary, they were more likely targets and Marlene would kill him if he had kept this to himself.
He continued to walk along the path and he no longer felt followed. After another twenty minutes of walking he came across the boulder he assumed would have the portalkey but when he climbed to the top there was nothing. His initial thought was that he had gotten confused and not followed the woman’s instructions properly but then he realized that was stupid and he had probably just gone to the wrong boulder. It was a woods, there had to be more than one boulder.
He was wrong. Well, he wasn’t but he was. He had walked through the woods for another hour and he had found several other boulders but none of them had the portalkey. Remus really hated doing things rushed, he’s not sure how James and Sirius always came out- mostly- unscathed.
Remus kept walking and when he got through a batch of thick trees he stumbled into a clearing and in the center was another cloaked figure. For a moment Remus thought it had been the woman he met before but this person was much younger and a man.
The boy had heard Remus and spun around to see him. He was eating berries and seemed unfazed by Remus’s presence. The boy had a similar mask as the woman but his was the skull of a bird.
“Edgar!” An angry voice called out and the kid whipped his head around the other way just in time to see the woman from before emerge from the woods. She looks at who Remus assumes to be her brother then sees Remus. She deems him not important and starts to yell at the boy.
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you!? You could have been killed and for what a few fucking black berries!?” Remus couldn’t see the boy's face but he didn’t seem to feel all that guilty.
“And what are you doing!?” Remus realizes that he is now being yelled at and freezes for a second. He wasn’t expecting it.
“Are you lost?” To put it simply, yes, but Remus wasn’t too keen on admitting that.
“The directions I was given were shit.”
“So you’re lost and you don't want to admit it?” Remus glared for a mear second and she smirked.
“It’s ok, where do you need to go?” Remus didn’t really want to tell her. It wouldn’t be a good idea, but he also wouldn’t get anywhere by aimlessly wandering around in the woods. If things went south he could obliviate the two.
“I’m trying to find a library called Lotus Walls.” The girl seemed shocked by her answer and her shoulders fell. She looked around quickly and cast a spell that caused the outside world to muffle. It was a silencing spell.
“What’s your name?” She asked quickly and drew a pen and Paper from her pants pocket.
“What?” Remus asked, slightly confused. This woman wasted no time, she was jumping from question to question.
“Name.”
“Remus Howell.” He said quickly and the little boy smiled. Remus knew how funny the name was. Sirius, Peter and James got a real kick out of it when they found out Remus Lupin meant Wolf McWolf and then his other possible name Wolf Howell. The fact that he was a werewolf just added another layer of humor. She scratched it out on the paper and asked another question.
“Why are you trying to get to the library?” Remus snorted it was kind of a stupid question.
“I need a book.” She took the pages she had written his name on and ripped it out and crumpled it up placing it in her pocket.
“My name is Amelia Bones.” She held out her hand for Remus to shake but he was too stunned to do anything. It was just the beginning of seventh year when the Daily Prophet headline was about the Bones Family who had been missing for just over a week. Now just about three years later he was talking to the eldest daughter of a family most assumed were dead.
That was not the only thing he knew about the family though. The Bones Family had ties with the Mckinnons. Marlene had said they were most likely killed because they were “Blood traitors” just like the Mckinnons. They worked with the Mckinnons long before the war but got close to the Potters and Pettigrews just after it started for a reason the rest of them wouldn’t know until just before they graduated.
“You're a part of the Order.” Remus slowly shakes her hand. It felt like he was talking to a ghost. Probably because to the rest of the world she was a ghost. Her whole family were ghosts.
“I was a part of the Order. I suppose you are? Is that why you're looking for the Lotus Walls?” Remus nodded and she began to walk notioning for him to follow.
“What book are you looking for exactly?”
“I’m looking for books on Horcruxes.” Remus said it in a hushed voice not wanting the boy to hear.
“Really? Why’s the Order need to know about those?” She said matching his hushed tone. The kid had seemed to occupy himself by watching the ants crawling on his arm.
“You know about them?” She nods.
“Their dark magic. Very dark magic, anyone who makes one is said to go insane.” He didn’t know that. She must have read the books she has on them.
“But why does the Order need to know about them?”
“Confidental.” Amelia luckily took that as an answer. They walked a little further before she began to talk again.
“We change the portalkey once a week. So the person who told you where to find it wasn’t wrong, we had just changed it this morning.” She paused and Remus took it as a chance to ask a question.
“How do people find out where it is?”
“The sudoku in The Quibbler.” Amelia had said it with great pride, she must have been the one to come up with it.
“What's The Quibbler?”
“It’s a newspaper. It’s still rather new, you should read it though, it’s lovely.” They arrive at a rushing river and laying on the ground are two dowsing rods.
“This is the Portalkey for the week, grab on.” Remus had used a portal key only a few times and he is not excited to use one now, they alway make him so dizzy.
This time was no different and when the world around him stopped spinning he was able to get a good look at the building. It was a large beach and a thin path of sand leading to a building in the middle of the ocean. The other two seemed to have recovered much quicker than Remus and were already walking off to the building.
The Library was huge. It was T shaped but had other smaller parts sprouting off of it, there was even a greenhouse. There were large wooden doors and roman columns that held up the roof. The walls were brick with vines and moss growing on it. There was little grass and you had to take a large step to get from the sand to the grass.
Remus had been expecting the library to look dead considering how isolated it was, but in reality it was far from it. When he took a step inside it was clean and looked well taken care of. The entire Bones family must live here, but the more Remus looked around the more he found random things that were out of place.
Sitting under a chair Remus saw a bucket of green army men and a toy tank to go with it. That was certainly not a Pureblood toy. When the hall split into two separate halls he could hear voices coming from the left hall. He knew he probably wasn’t supposed to hear those voices but his hearing was still rather strong from the last full moon.
It wasn’t a few voices, it was a lot of voices, maybe a hundred, he couldn’t really tell. The voices ranged from little kids to people much older than him. They were using a muffle spell to try and hide the people’s voices that were simple enough, but why were they trying to hide people?
Amelia told her brother to shove off and he reluctantly did. The two of them eventually stepped into the library and she told him to wait as she went to go get the book that would hopefully help Remus. He planned to wait patiently but his eye caught the cover of a ratty old leather book poking out of Amelia's discarded cloak.
Remus wasn’t one for looking through people's personal items but the voices confused him and made chills run down his spine and he wanted to understand it. He quickly grabbed it and flipped to the first page. It was a list of names.
Margaret Fanny- Muggleborn
Theodor Fanny- Muggle
Lucianus Fanny- Muggleborn
Milissa Jones- Muggleborn
Annalise Isadore- Halfblood
Ralph Isadore- Muggleborn
Shelly Isadore- Halfblood
Nora Isadore- Halfblood
Fionna Isadore- Halfblood
Logan Hudson- Halfblood
Justin Knox- Muggle
Skyler Anderson- Muggleborn
Aubree Anderson- Muggleborn
Aaron Anderson- Muggleborn
Norman Jace- Halfblood
What the fuck was this? It was probably the names of the people he heard but why did they need to have their blood statice written. Remus already knows the Bones family aren’t blood purest then they wouldn’t have been friends with the Potters if they were, but what was happening?
“What are you doing?” Amelia had a book in her hand and was looking at Remus with an expression that had both shock and anger in it.
“What is this?” Remus asked, Amelia put the book on the desk and went to grab the book but missed because Remus held it out of her reach.
“How many people do you have here?” She took a step back and crossed her arms.
“Confidential.” She said sharply, glaring at him.
“Why do you have their blood stasis written down?” She didn’t say anything and continued to stare him down.
“Why did your family go missing?” Amelia grit her teeth and shoved past Remus.
“Were still deemed missing? I thought they would have said we were dead by now.” She grabbed the book from before and held it up for Remus to see properly.
“Trade?”
“Are you hiding people here? To keep them safe?” Amelia rested her arms and gave Remus a knowing look, he had guessed correctly.
“Don’t tell the Order.” She says quickly. It catches Remus off guard, the Order could help them send them supplies, and provide them more protection.
“We don’t need the extra attention, and-” She cuts herself off trying to find the proper words.
“Dumbledore has done a lot of good things and continues to do great things, but he’s always achieved those things in very dark ways and we don’t want to be a part of that.” Remus couldn’t say anything so he didn’t.
He gave her the book and she handed him his. He felt it was his time to leave and he went to walk before Amelia stopped him.
“There was someone else who came around asking the same questions as you.” She said and Remus turned to look at her again. There was a desperateness in her eyes that even made Remus worry.
“Their name was Raven Crux. They live in Northern Ireland, they know much more about Horcruxes than anything in that book could tell you.” She was whispering.
“Could you tell me anything else?” Remus asked, matching her tone.
“They live in a small muggle town near Antrim Castle. They’ve got curly black hair, blue eyes and they’re a bit shorter than me.” Remus nods.
“Thank you.” This time when he turns to leave Amelia lets him.
Remus leaves through the portal key and stops by a public library to find out where Antrim Castle is. He leaves with a map and a photo of the castle in his pocket. When he gets to the flat it’s empty which makes his chest tight. It’s been a while since he’s come home to a completely empty flat.
He drops his things off on his bed and goes to his desk to start reading the book noting every detail about horcruxes on a piece of parchment that will be soon added to the pile of parchment scattered around his office.
An hour goes by and Sirius steps in through the front door carrying a dish that smells devine. He places it on the counter and Remus comes out to see him. Sirius turns around to see him and smiles, which is not what Remus was expecting, but today has been full of surprises.
“I was hoping you’d been back by the time I came back.” Sirius links his hands around Remus’s neck and gives him a sweet kiss before pulling away to grab two plates.
“You’ve gone to visit Effie and Monty I see?” Remus says, eyeing the warm dish that was currently sitting on the stove.
“I also got us cigarettes.” He says with a grin holding the pack like it’s a trophy. Remus wasn’t expecting Sirius to be in such a good mood, he was waiting for some way he would fuck it up.
Sirius heats up the food and they eat in a nice silence that eases Remus’s mind for a few blissful moments. After that they went out to smoke but in the middle of sharing a cigarette Sirius brought up the thing that would break the peace.
“Effie and Monty invited us to come over this sunday.” Remus goes quiet and Sirius notices but doesn’t say anything, waiting for Remus to explain.
“I need to go away for a little bit actually. Soon.” The soon is the part that makes Sirius scrunch together like his flinching away from the word.
“Where and for how long?” Sirius spits out quickly.
“Ireland and for at least a week.” He sees Sirius tighten his fist and clench his jaw and Remus is rushed with a wave of regret. He shouldn’t have said anything, he should have just let them have a good day and told him some other time.
“I can’t go with you, but I’m helping you plan and get ready. I don’t need to know everything but I’m helping you get ready. Okay?” His tone left no room for argument and Remus didn’t intend to.
“Okay.” Sirius passed back the cigarette and Remus took a long drag before blowing the smoke into London's grey sky.