Apart
December 19th, 1975
Regulus
Lupin isn’t in the library when Regulus gets there, like he always is. He looks around at the other tables, but none of them are occupied by the other boy. He hates the fact that he feels disappointed. He hates it even more that he can’t seem to focus on studying without Lupin. The older Gryffindor’s presence has become a consistent part of his routine, and now that it’s been taken away, his whole mood is thrown off.
He gives up altogether after less than half an hour, packing his things back into his bag and leaving the library in a moody stride. It’s out in the hall that he overhears a voice that’s all too familiar.
“Please, Professor,” Sirius is pleading. “Remus is in the hospital wing, and I was just going to visit him for a few minutes before going to class.”
Regulus pauses. He’d intended to walk as quickly as possible right past his brother and Professor Flitwick, but now they’ve caught his attention. He ducks behind a pillar to lean against the wall and listen, hating the concern he feels for his… for Lupin.
Flitwick tsks. “Mr. Black, you have plenty of time in the day to visit him later. Get on to class, and then you can collect Lupin’s homework for him as well.” Sirius tries to object once more but the man isn’t hearing of it. He shoos Sirius along, assuring him that he’ll know if he skips class.
Before Regulus knows what he’s doing, his feet are taking him in a sharp turn the opposite direction that he usually goes after leaving the library. He isn’t sure what he intends to say once he gets to the hospital wing, but he feels the urge to ensure that whatever Lupin has come down with, it isn’t serious. Only because it would be terribly inconvenient for any more of his study sessions to be messed up, of course.
He's pushing the door to the hospital open before he can even think about what he’s going to say to Lupin. Surely, he can’t just sit at his bedside and chat. That would be horrifying. Luckily, he’s saved from the embarrassment of approaching the boy in bed at the far end of the infirmary when he sees Potter and Pettigrew both lounging around on either side of Lupin.
The sight of the other two boys gives him a brief pause and allows him to come back to his senses. Acting like he doesn’t even notice them, he goes over to Madam Pomfrey’s office and knocks on the open doorframe.
“Excuse me, Ma’am. Could I have something for a headache?”
She stands up from her desk and briskly walks to the cabinet where she keeps an array of different potions, nodding. “How bad is it? A tension headache? Migraine?”
“Er- tension,” he lies. “It’s not too bad.” Pomfrey selects a large bottle of some reddish colored liquid and pours a few milliliters into a small cup, handing it to him.
“If you’ve a free period right now, then you can stay and lay down for a bit,” she tells him, leading him out of her office and striding over to Lupin’s bed. Regulus is tempted to take the offer, but it’s no use staying around Lupin if the other two are there to be obnoxious. Then he’ll really get a headache.
“Potter, Pettigrew,” Madam Pomfrey calls sharply. “Your fifteen minutes are long up by now. Remus needs his rest. Out you get.”
Regulus takes an abrupt U-turn from where he’d been on his way out, passing by the two grumbling Gryffindor’s, and settling himself onto one of the beds a few down from Lupin.
He should’ve known better than to hope that the distance would not invite Lupin to speak to him.
“Miss me?” he teases.
“I have a headache.”
“Ah, right.”
Regulus ignores him and his smug tone. Finally able to focus on his homework, he takes a book back out from his bag and starts his Transfiguration reading.
Pointedly not looking up from the pages, he doesn’t notice the curious gaze of the other boy on him.
He leaves only after Potter and Pettigrew come back sometime later, with Sirius in tow.
February 2nd, 1980
Regulus
“So, for the record, Voldemort split his soul into pieces to become immortal.”
“Right.”
“And we have no idea where these pieces are, or even what they are.”
“Except for this one.” Regulus reaches up to touch the chain hanging around his neck, the pendant tucked under his shirt. “Correct.”
“Jesus Merlin.”
Regulus face twitches in a way that’s almost a smile. Remus remains to be the only person he’s ever known to mix magical and muggle phrases, and perhaps it’s a strange thing to miss, but oh how he did. Not that he’d be caught dead admitting it aloud. He clears his throat.
“I have some theories, at least. I believe these horcruxes may be items that were important to him, either personally or symbolically.”
“Right. Slytherin’s heirloom makes sense.” Remus frowns, deep in thought. “If he’s all about blood purity, then I suppose that’s the type of thing that would grab his attention. But how do we find out the others if we don’t know who he is?”
“Well, that’s the starting point, really. Figuring out his identity,” Regulus hums. “Then, we find all the horcruxes. In the meantime, we also figure out how to destroy them.”
“Right. Because of course, you don’t know that either.” It’s not said maliciously, at least, not by Remus’ standard. But Regulus has been fighting a losing battle with his temper for weeks now, and he’s finally got something to take it out on that’s not an inanimate object.
“Listen,” he snaps. “I’ve already gotten farther in destroying the Dark Lord in less than three months than anyone else has in years. If you’re not happy with what I’ve got, then by all means, go crawling back to your pathetic order and join them in kidding themselves that they’ve got a chance at winning this war.”
“You wouldn’t let me go after telling me all this,” Remus grumbles. Regulus can read between the lines. I told you I’d help, so I’m staying. He appreciates the lack of hesitation in the response.
“I wouldn’t stop you from leaving, but I’d have to curse your tongue so you couldn’t breathe a word of any of this to anyone.” Not obliviate you, because I’d want you to come back, even if you wouldn’t.
“Right,” Remus blinks, breaking the stare down that Regulus hadn’t realized they were having. “So, what do you have to go on?”
“Voldemort, the name, it has to be an alias.” Regulus shuffles across the room to pull a heavy book from a shelf. “My thoughts are that its French. Vol de mort. It could mean flight from death, or theft of death, though my guess is the former, given his obsession with immortality.”
“Right, sure.”
“In any case, my point is that he’s probably French,” Regulus continues. “And he’s got to be pureblood. And he must have gone to Hogwarts and been in Slytherin. So-” he raises the book to show off the cover to Remus. A Complete Record of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, from 1750 to 1950. “We may as well start by searching for any French pureblood Slytherins and checking out their history, see if anyone matches up, or has gone missing without explanation, or anything else otherwise suspicious.”
That book in Dumbledore’s office that keeps a record of Hogwarts students would probably be more efficient,” Remus notes. “Least of all because he might not even be in that monstrous thing.”
Regulus nods. “True, but unless you want to break into Hogwarts and steal that book, this is the next best thing. There are other volumes dating farther back, each going over two hundred years of history, but if the Dark Lord had gained his immortality prior to this volume, I can’t imagine he’d have waited this long to start a war and take over.”
February 9th, 1980
Remus
He can’t stop thinking about Sirius. He hates the way they left things, hates how Sirius expected him back the next morning, same as always. He hates that he doesn’t know if the ‘see you tomorrow’ was Sirius wanting to see him come back, or if it was just a factual statement because he always came back.
Remus isn’t an idiot. He knows there’s a spy in the order, knows that everyone has their own suspicions as to who. Everyone, it seems, except for him. He doesn’t know who it could be, even still, and it’s eating away at him that he isn’t there to make sure Sirius and the others are safe from the threat.
He also knows who Sirius thinks the spy is. That Sirius is probably thinking, right now, that Remus’ disappearance is only confirmation. Remus wonders if Sirius was sad when he realized he was gone, if he feared what had happened to him. Or if he’d scoffed at the fact that he’d been betrayed and thought good riddance. He hopes Sirius hasn’t let his guard down around the rest of the order now that he likely thinks the threat is gone.
Did Lily and James and Peter think he was the spy too now? Or did they think he’d been killed by the wolves? Would they think badly of the species now? Become like every other bigoted, antiwerewolf asshole if they thought their best friend had been killed by them, despite having been one?
Was… was it because of his lycanthropy that Sirius hadn’t been able to look at him the same since they realized there was a traitor in their midst? Was it because of the beast that there was always a shadow of doubt between them in those last few months? Was it because of the monster inside him that every time Remus said ‘I love you’ to Sirius since late June, the silence afterwards hung between them as thick as the blanket of suspicious that Remus could see in the other man’s eyes?
Remus prefers to spend as much of his time as possible researching horcruxes and trying to find Voldemort’s real identity. He hates the minutes in the morning when he feels unable to move from his bed as he spirals through these questions.
Regulus has given him a rather large and comfortable room to call his own on the second floor of the manor, but Remus spends little time in it when he’s not sleeping.
A sharp knock on the door pulls him from his thoughts, and he gets up to go open it.
“Yeah?”
Regulus is already dressed in his usual pristine robes that he wears every day, fit for business though he never leaves the manor or sees anyone else. Over the past week, Remus has taken notice of several compulsions that his family beat into him from a young age, figuratively and literally, that he may never be able to shake. Mamy of them, he already knew of, from their short time as friends at school. Sirius shares some of them, like the perfectly straight posture, formal speech (though for Sirius this is only when he’s speaking to strangers), the table manners when eating, and their perfect handwriting, to name a few.
Another one is the mask of indifference always on his face, though around Remus, it cracks ever so slightly on the occasion. Like now, when his nose wrinkles just barely at the sight of Remus’ bedhead and disheveled pajamas.
“It’s nearly nine o’clock.”
“And?”
“You’re wasting the day away.”
“Okay, James.” Remus rolls his eyes in fond annoyance. “Should I have been up at five? Did you want to take a turn around the Quidditch pitch on our brooms before practice?” The teasing words send a pang to his heart, though Regulus’ doesn’t need to know that. If he could go back, knowing what he knows now about what would become of the world, he would have gladly been up at the crack of dawn with James every single morning. He wouldn’t have complained about being woken up, or refused to race around the pitch with James and Sirius during their free hour because he hated flying. He might have even tried out for the damn team if he could just go back to those quiet and peaceful days when they could still be kids.
Regulus looks unamused. “If Potter thought that waking early and getting a productive start to the day was important, then I’m inclined to agree.”
Remus snorts. “He’d drop dead from the horror if he ever knew the two of you agreed on something.”
The younger’s lips quirk up at just one corner. “Then that’s two things we agree on. Despising each other.”
“Three,” Remus corrects. “You both love me.” And Sirius, he thinks, but he isn’t going to push his luck this early.
Regulus scowls, but all he says is, “we need to get to work.” He turns sharply on his heels and begins to walk quickly but gracefully down the hall. Remus follows quite smugly.
It’s a lot like their Hogwarts days, sitting across from each other at a table that’s piled with thick books and parchment that’s covered in writing, both neat and untidy. Regulus’ side is well organized, his research set out in a way that keeps everything put together and in order. On Remus’ side, it’s more chaotic. Papers are scattered in no particular order, ones that should go together are on opposite ends, and his books are dog-eared and stacked on top of each other while open.
He's sure that if it were any other library, Regulus would be shouting at him for the torture he’s inflicting on the pages and spines. A shame for the poor books that Regulus no longer gives a solitary fuck about anything belonging to his family.
While Regulus pours over the volume of pureblood history, Remus has spent the last week compiling very little new information, and combing again and again over the old. It is notable that neither of them have had any luck so far.
Kreacher comes and goes, offering snacks and tea, dusting the room repetitively, and asking Regulus periodically if there is a task he should need done. The younger man shows remarkable patience with the elf. Remus is aware that Kreacher is merely anxious to leave Regulus alone after he’d nearly died, a story that Remus still doesn’t know the details of. Regulus must realize this as well, and also have some fondness for Kreacher, or Remus is sure he’d have forbidden the elf from entering the room and bothering them while they’re working days ago.
While Kreacher has been sure not to acknowledge Remus first, he has not refused a task that Remus has asked of him. He doesn’t think that Regulus ordered him to serve Remus as well, though Remus has only asked him for a few miniscule things, like more blankets for his room, or a certain food item when he goes out for errands.
Regulus also treats Kreacher with a kindness that he has only seen people like the Potters show house elves. Saying please and thank you with requests, offering Kreacher conversation while they work in each other’s vicinity, making sure not to overuse Kreacher’s time and energy. All things that are the bare minimum, but that very few wizards think to offer to any magical creature that they deem below them. All reasons that Remus is sure are why Kreacher is so fond and protective of the youngest Black. No doubt that no one else from the family has ever shown him any decency.
Truth be told, Remus struggles somewhat to relate the Kreacher he sees here with the one he knows vaguely from stories that Sirius has told. Though, he can understand why the two might be different. He doubts Kreacher was ever fond of Sirius if Walburga’s attitude ever influenced him. Nor did Sirius probably ever treat him with the same kindness that he does the Potter family’s or Hogwarts house elves.
He has, however, heard Kreacher’s mutterings to himself about the Black family’s values and legacy and whatnot, most of it pretty unpleasant. He supposes that a friend of Regulus’ must be a friend of Kreacher’s, or he isn’t sure that he’d be treated with indifference, so much as disdain.
The hours tick by painfully slowly.
February 9th, 1980
James
Sirius looks up the second the door opens, eyes wide. His whole face drops when he sees Lily and Peter coming in, carrying a weekend bag. He goes back to staring blankly at the floor, and James shares a pained look with his girlfriend.
She sets the bag filled with Sirius clothes and shower items down on the other end of the sofa before sitting directly next to Sirius, pulling his hands into her lap. Lily takes her time with the healing charms she casts on his bitten fingertips, bloody cuticles, and shallow cuts in the palms from his nails. James winces. He’d been so busy monitoring Sirius’ face, trying to get him to speak or eat something that he hadn’t noticed his best friend hurting himself.
Lily finishes and brings a hand to his head, running her fingers through his hair. She looks over to James, and smiles sadly, silently asking if he’s okay. He returns the smile to say No, you? She shakes her head slightly.
Through all this, Sirius gives no sign that he even knows Lily is there. James has been sitting with him since he showed up at Potter Manor around three in the morning. He’s terrified of the state of the man.
He had already been awake when Sirius came through the front door rather than the floo. After spending the better part of the night in the bathroom, soothing Lily as she continuously vomited from both the pregnancy and the stress, James had just about lost it when he saw Sirius.
Standing in the entryway, the older man wore nothing but a t-shirt and sweatpants, both soaked from the snow melted on them. His face was bright red, and his hands were purple.
“Couldn’t sleep with the flat empty. Went for a walk, and then…” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely around. “Came here.”
It had taken James a moment to break out of his shock, but then he’d quickly lunged forward, grabbing Sirius and dragging him into the living room. He’d wrapped Sirius in three of the thickest blankets he could find and shoved the sofa closer to the fireplace to sit him down on it.
That’s still where it is, where the three of them now sit, Lily hugging Sirius close while James is perched sideways on one end, watching the two closely. All Sirius has done in the hours since arriving are sit there as still as a rock, only moving to look up anytime a person enters the room, and then look back down with disappointment when its not Remus.
Like now, when Effie comes around the corner with a tea tray after hearing Lily get back.
“Everyone’s favorites,” she announces softly, handing them around. “Jasmine for James. Earl Grey for Sirius.” She brushes a hand against his forehead after giving him his cup (James is grateful that he at least took it), to check for a fever. She’s been worried sick all day that he’ll come down with something after last night. “And for you, Lily dear, I brought you some vegetable soup with your chamomile. Don’t think I didn’t hear you losing the entire contents of your stomach last night, so don’t even try to tell me you’re not hungry.”
Lily makes a face, but Effie is not a woman to be argued with, so she takes the whole tray with the remaining cup of tea and the soup. “I really can’t even think about eating without getting sick again,” she still says.
“Then I’ll bring you another cup of tea, ginger for the nausea,” Effie rubs her back affectionately. “But you’re going to eat that soup.”
There’s a pause, the elderly woman debating with herself. Then, she says, “Sirius, are you hungry?”
“No, thanks.” It catches them all off guard. It’s the first thing he’s said since getting there. “I should probably go home, actually. If Moony turns up I don’t want him finding an empty flat.” What little hope James had gained a second ago is promptly crushed.
“You’re staying here,” Lily tells him. “I brought your things so you can stay a few days. You shouldn’t be alone.”
Sirius lip wobbles. “He’ll come home,” he whispers, barely audible. James scoots over and rests his head on Sirius’ shoulder.
“He’d better,” he says. He doesn’t voice the fact that he doesn’t think Remus will.