Snitches get Stitches

Remus was woken from a deep sleep much too early on a Saturday morning by Hermione Granger throwing clothes and shoes at him.

“Harry’s gone,” she said when Remus opened his eyes. Hermione looked stressed, just as stressed as the teenage girl behind her.

“Harry’s never home,” Remus grumbled as he rolled over to try and chase the comfortable dream he had been having. It had involved cake and icing being licked off a firm set of abs…

“Remus John Lupin, get up,” Hermione snapped. When Remus sighed dramatically and opened his eyes, Hermione was glaring at him with full-force.

“Harry’s heirloom from James is gone and he left his phone here,” Hermione said slowly. “Will you get up now?”

Yeah… yeah… Remus would get up.

The girls went next door to check in with Kevin and Veronica while Remus went to lightly knock on Fiona’s front door. There weren’t any lights on, because no rational human being was awake at six am on a Saturday, but Remus let himself in to check for Harry.

Lip was asleep on the sofa with his leg in a cast stretched across the sofa. Remus was torn between wanting to kick the cast for Lip striking Harry and wanting to heal the damage from the bullet wound Hermione left.

Remus left it for then. Hermione went overboard, but Remus wasn’t soft enough to care about Lip’s discomfort either. With just a small amount of poking about, Remus determined that Harry wasn’t there.

Though Nymphadora was, and it took quite a bit from Remus to not wake her up and request her help in looking for Harry. It also took quite a bit from Remus to not wake her up merely to tease her for the way she spooned behind Fiona and slept with her nose buried in dark curls and a smile on her lips.

Hermione shook her head when Remus slipped back outside and saw her leaving the opposite neighbors house.

“Maybe he’s just like walking around?” Mandy suggested, standing just behind Hermione. “Harry sleeps like shit, maybe he just went for a walk.”

Remus hummed and looked at Hermione as he debated the likelihood of that. Harry going for a walk at six in the morning on a Saturday… with his invisibility cloak?

There was the hopeful possibility that Harry was attempting to commit a crime. Perhaps he knew early mornings would be the best time to do so.

No… that was wishful thinking.

Harry had been entirely too despondent recently to be plotting a grand coup of some sort.

Remus sighed and looked longingly at the house where there was a warm bed, warmer coffee, and forty-one essays that needed grading.

“Let’s split up and look around the neighborhood,” Remus told the girls. “I’ll go… check to see that he hasn’t been arrested.”

Hermione nodded, perfectly serious, and Mandy shot Remus a smirk over her shoulder as she set off with Hermione.

“Tony’s still on shift,” she sang irritatingly. “Tell him I said hi.”

Remus would it be telling him that because if Remus were a lucky man then he would check for Harry at the police station and avoid Officer Markovich altogether.

Remus was not a lucky man.

“Remus!” Tony had been standing outside the police station when Remus strolled up. He turned his boyish and earnest smile on Remus and Remus only kept from rolling his eyes to get information on Harry.

Tony excused himself from the conversation he had been carrying on with two other officers and jogged to where Remus stood. The two men have Remus such searching looks that he had the impulse to growl at them.

“That’s Jimmy and Pete,” Tony told Remus when he stopped just in front of Remus. “They’re on my basketball team. You play?”

Remus was excellent at basketball.

“No,” Remus said curtly. He inclined his head toward the police station. “Is my son inside?”

“What?” Tony was too earnest to be manipulative as he blinked at Remus with surprise in his blue eyes. “Harry? No, I don’t think so. Hold on.”

Remus waited with feigned patience as Tony spoke in the radio clipped to his shoulder. He asked for a list of current inmates waiting to be processed and while Remus recognized the name of Fiona’s father, there were no John Does or Harry Blacks.

“I see, thank you,” Remus said courteously. “If you do see Harry, I would appreciate a call.”

“Wait! Wait!” Tony reached out and grabbed Remus’ elbow when he turned his back to him. It only took a short look from Remus to be unhanded by him.

Tony held his hands up and scrunched his brows down when Remus gave him a questioning look.

“Is Harry missing?” Tony asked, suddenly a professional. “I can file a report, get the guys to keep an eye out for him.”

It was tempting to add two dozen extra sets of eyes out for Harry, but Remus imagined Harry panicking if stopped by the police and the subsequent drama that would happen if he ran from them.

“As helpful as I’m sure they would be, no,” Remus said firmly. “Harry is… likely out for a walk. I only wanted to ensure that you had not carried on with your vendetta against foreign teenagers.”

“Vendetta?” Tony chuckled and rested one hand on his belt while the other dropped to his side. “Your son was picked up for questioning, your niece shot a kid.”

“Your friends arrested an unarmed fifteen year old at gunpoint,” Remus hissed, infuriated again by both the police department and his own over-confidence. “If you’re not against them, you’re with them.”

“I’d like to be with you,” Tony said, smiling as if Remus hadn’t just accused him of being scum. “I can help you look for Harry.”

“No.” Remus turned his back and began striding away with purpose. Remus forgot the depth of his disdain for law enforcement, he doubted if he would get through coffee the next morning with any civility at all.

And while disdain made for an interesting bedfellow, it did nothing for conversation.

Remus walked the streets for an hour with his wand just up his sleeve, occasionally casting a silent charm to reveal any invisible teenage boys. When Remus finished checking the bleacher stands at the high school, he was once again accosted by Tony.

“Your stalking has caused me significant emotional distress on two or more occasions,” Remus said as he walked past the police cruiser parked on the curb. “It is now considered a Class Four Felony, Officer.”

Tony chuckled and drove the car at the same pace that Remus walked.

“You know who memorizes laws?” Tony asked, his head half out the drivers window. “Lawyers and criminals.”

“Not cops?” Remus asked, peering at him balefully as he twisted it back on him. “I suppose it’s to use the ignorance plea in court.”

“Nah, it’s because people love quoting them to me, so why bother learning them?”

It took Remus a moment to recognize that as a jest and his lips twitched against his better instinct.

“So I checked the Greyhound Station, Starbucks, and the library. Where else do you think he might be?” Tony asked, cajoling Remus to speak with him.

It worked. If only because that was a truly absurd set of places to look.

“Why would you look there?” Remus asked, pausing in his steps to glance at Tony curiously.

“That’s where I hung out at when I was a teenager,” Tony grinned sheepishly. “Starbucks has free wifi, the library is quiet. And if you’ve never sat at the bus station just to people watch then you’re missing out.”

It was a mark of how Tony grew to become a police officer and Remus - who spent his time shift watching outside police stations and innocently loitering in parks to sell drugs - grew to become a criminal. Maybe Remus would have spent more time in a library or coffee shop if academics had not always came easily to him. If Remus had to work for it, maybe he never would have joined the Sabinis.

What a tragic thought.

“You wanna ride with me and we can check out the park?” Tony offered. He looked at the radio in the dashboard of his car. “If I flip these lights on, we could get downtown in no time if you think he’s headed for one of the bigger stations.”

Remus had no idea where Harry was or why he would even disappear. He had been so thoroughly depressed, did Remus miss some sign that he planned to abandon the fetus he wanted so badly? Or was Remus catastrophizing and Harry had only gone for an early morning walk beneath his cloak for privacy?

“The park, yes,” Remus caved. It would be giving in to the voice that suggested worst case scenario to go searching all the major transportation stations for Harry. There was still every chance that Harry had only went for a walk.

Though that voice became louder and louder when Remus and Tony drove through the park and walked a few trails on foot with no luck. Remus would smell Harry, even if he couldn’t see him, but it seemed as if Harry had not been there.

Tony drove Remus back to his house where Hermione and Mandy waited on the porch. Mandy spoke quickly on the phone to someone while Hermione paced and pulled her hair.

“Nothing?” Remus asked Hermione.

“Nothing!” Hermione exclaimed loudly. She narrowed her eyes past Remus when Tony stepped out of the car. “He wasn’t in jail, was he?”

“He is not, no,” Remus said. It was nearly noon and Remus couldn’t imagine where Harry would be.

Dear Lord, don’t have let Remus have lost the bloody Boy-Who-Lived.

Mandy hung up the cell phone she used and pulled anxiously on a lock of her hair.

“Iggy hasn’t seen him, but they’re gonna go check around,” she said. “Harry only has like five fucking friends. Where the hell would he go?”

Unfortunately, in their particular scenario, Harry was incredibly resourceful. It served him well when he was a hostage of Voldemort, not so much at present.

“Mandy, would you go wake your brother and see if he or Ian has heard from Harry?” Remus asked her. “Hermione, perhaps… perhaps Harry has reached out to the old crowd,” he said, staring at Hermione intently as he willed her to understand him.

“Like Ron?” Hermione asked, cottoning on immediately. “I have a friend uptown who has Ron’s number, shall I go there and call him?”

Remus smiled faintly in approval. Hermione was a smart girl.

“Nymphadora is in Fiona’s bed, it may be quicker to ask her to call on Fred,” Remus suggested. “Would you mind?”

“Not at all.” Hermione offered Mandy her hand and pulled her to her feet. “We’ll be back.”

Remus waited for the two girls to disappear in the Gallagher house before he let out a breath that was mildly shaking.

Harry could be dead beneath his cloak. Remus knew he was depressed, Remus knew his similarities to James were more than skin deep.

The voice that suggested Harry had ran away morphed to a darker and more morbid whisper, suggesting that Harry - who would be considerate even in his own misery - left the house to kill himself in some manner.

“Remus? Hey, here. Why don’t you sit?”

Remus was too wrapped up in the absolute worst case scenario to notice that Tony guided him to the steps of the porch. It wasn’t until Remus sat on the concrete that he blinked and realized everything was blurred.

“Shit.” Remus wiped his eyes on his shoulder and pulled a cigarette from his pocket to defuse his embarrassment at having a miniature meltdown witnessed by Tony of all people.

“Need a light?” Tony must have recognized the ‘cigarette in the mouth, pocket pat down’ that Remus was doing. He pulled a blue lighter from his pocket and bent down to light Remus’ cigarette for him.

Remus nodded instead of thanking him and then focused very hard on the act of smoking to keep from shedding any tears over ‘maybes’ and ‘possibilities’.

“Kids run off all the time, you know?” Tony said, leaning against the pillar at the base of the stairs. “Harry seems like he’s got a good head on his shoulders, maybe he just needed to go blow off steam.”

“Piss off,” Remus muttered. He blew smoke directly at Tony’s face. “You arrested him for murder, you bloody muppet.”

Tony chuckled again and looked entirely too relaxed, it was beginning to irritate Remus.

“You know you have more of an accent when you’re stressed out?” Tony asked casually. “I sort of forget you’re not from here until you’re stressed out and swearing. You blend in here.”

Remus looked around the neighborhood. The rundown houses, the ones with the boards that blocked a bystander view of activities completed inside… the general air of disrepair with a spark of something.

In neighborhoods like theirs, something could happen. Anything. It was untapped potential and that was what Remus enjoyed.

Not that he would have shared that with Tony, even if they weren’t interrupted by Hermione’s shrill voice screaming at Remus the instant she opened the neighbors door.

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT LIP AND MANDY DID?!” Hermione screamed at Remus from their porch. Remus rose to his feet, already grimacing as he expected that the two of them had sex.

Hermione stormed from the porch and had Fiona and Nymphadora following behind hastily. Nymphadora winked cheekily at Remus, but he was focused more on Hermione’s pure rage and Fiona’s frown.

“LIP PAID MANDY TO KEEP THE BABY!” Hermione yelled, the perfect look of indignant fury on her face.

Remus’ heart sank in his stomach and he looked past Hermione to Fiona for confirmation.

“Lip was fucked up on morphine last night and said it,” Fiona admitted to Remus. Fiona crossed her arms and glanced warily at Tony before shrugging at Remus. “Harry heard him say it.”

Remus’ cigarette burned itself to the filer as he found himself, for the first time in his life, absolutely struck silent.

“Lip, you ungodly fucking idiot.”

Lip grunted when someone kicked him in the hip, waking him from the narcotic sleep he’d been languishing in.

Narcotic sleeps were great, they didn’t have bullet wounds in the knee or neighbors that caused him to feel fucking guilty over nothing. They also didn’t involve pissed off older sisters and chicks with pink hair glaring at him while Lip struggled to place where he was or what was going on.

“What’d I do now?” Lip groaned, wincing when he tried to move his left leg.

Hermione was a bitch, plain and simple.

An eye for an eye didn’t include a fucking 9 mil for a punch.

“Did you fucking pay Mandy to not get an abortion?” Fiona demanded as she hit Lip’s hip with her knee again.

“That sounds like heresay,” Lip said, shifting around on the couch to get more comfortable. The waist to ankle cast was a bitch and it was going to ruin Lip’s… fucking everything.

There was no running or fucking or anything with a cast that covered his entire leg. Lip planned to cut it off soon, just suffer the fucking limp, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to do it too soon.

“Lip, this is fucking serious.”

Lip hummed and turned his face in the couch with his eyes closed. Yeah, it would be serious, if Lip admitted that he paid off Mandy. Lip had a fuzzy recollection of maybe shooting some shit off the night before, but Fiona wasn’t going to come after him over some morphine-driven bullshit.

“Hey, fuck face.”

Lip yelped when Fiona’s pink-haired chick smacked his left knee on top of the cast.

“Jesus fuck!” Lip lifted his leg and shifted to try and protect it from the fucking psycho. He looked up and saw that the chick was pissed. She had her arms crossed with some butch-ass leather jacket on, a sequined crop top beneath it, and skinny jeans to finish the slut-chic look.

“What the fuck?” Lip demanded.

“Harry is rather important to me,” the chick - fuck, Lip could not think of her damn name - said calmly. “Did you pay for the bloody baby?” She raised her fist over Lip’s left knee in a clear threat. “Yes or no, fuck face.”

“No, bit— GOD DAMN IT!” Lip yelled when the chick slammed her fist against his casted knee again, causing him to actually see fucking stars.

What the fuck was wrong with all the British chicks? And why the fuck couldn’t they choose a different neighborhood to stay in?!

“Tonks, don’t hit him. Lip, don’t fucking lie to me.” Fiona dropped to one knee beside the couch and made her ‘I’m so fucking serious’ face. “Lip, Remus is pissed. Harry is missing. Did you pay Mandy off to keep the baby? Just tell me.”

“I…” Fuck. Lip couldn’t lie right to Fi’s face, not when she gave up everything for every single one of them. Lip hated the wrinkle Fiona got on her forehead, she was too damn young for forehead wrinkles.

“Look, I offered her some cash if she didn’t get an abortion,” Lip admitted to Fiona. “Harry doesn’t know.”

Fiona’s eyes closed as if that was the stupidest thing she had ever heard of.

“Bloody Mother of Mary,” Tonks groaned behind her. “Fi, is he bloody brain dead?”

“Lip, you’ve lost your fucking mind,” Fiona hissed. She reached out to smack him upside the head and Lip swore he’d cut the fucking cast off as soon as he could. Nobody had the fucking balls to hit him when he was able to swing back.

“Who the fuck cares?” Lip asked. “Mandy makes some cash, Harry keeps the kid. It’s a win-win.”

“Except you blabbed it while you were high last night and now Harry’s missing,” Fiona said. She stood up and looked down at Lip with more disappointment than Lip had ever seen from her. “You fucked up this time.”

Tonks reached out to run her hand down Fiona’s arm and gave her a tight smile.

“I’ve got to run, I’ll be back,” she said. “Don’t let Remus seduce you while I’m gone. I’m quite fond of him, it would be a shame to kill him.”

Fiona’s face turned as pink as Tonks’ hair when she bent forward and kissed Fiona square on the mouth, raising Lip’s eyebrows and confirming what he had been suspecting for a while.

Gay was a fucking plague.

Lip pretended to be asleep when he heard Ian, Mickey, and Mandy storming out of the house. Mickey was bitching that Mandy was an idiot and Harry was a pussy. Ian told him to shut up and Lip vehemently agreed.

As soon as it sounded like everyone who would stop him left the house, Lip grabbed one of the crutches the hospital gave him and pulled himself to his feet.

“Carl?” Lip yelled up the stairs. “Yo! Carl!”

Nothing.

“You want to grab the saw and help me cut my cast off?”

“I’M COMING!!”

Lip bit down on the strap of his belt while Carl went to town on the cast with the handsaw. The little psycho wanted to use the power saw but Lip preferred to keep both fucking legs.

It was a bitch though and every vibration caused by the saw cutting through the plaster made Lip want to scream.

As soon as it was cut enough to be torn off, Carl helped Lip take the wrapping off his leg.

“Cooool,” Carl breathed, looking at the nasty red area that used to be Lip’s kneecap. “Can I touch it?”

“Do it and die,” Lip said. He had a roll of gauze and he bent the leg enough to start wrapping just the knee with enough loose gauze that he could still bend it.

“You’d have to catch me first,” Carl said with a grin. “And I bet I could outrun you.”

“Forever?” Lip asked deadpan. “Because I’d find you eventually and kill you.”

“Could we call a truce for thanksgiving?” Carl asked seriously. “Fiona bought a real turkey.”

“Then don’t touch my fucking knee so you can taste it,” Lip warned him. Carl was a shit head, but not as much of a sadist as he made himself sound like. Carl was extra careful when he helped Lip tie off the gauze and he even offered to go grab Lip some jeans from his bedroom so Lip didn’t have to tackle the staircase.

As soon as Lip was dressed, he snatched the bottle of percs that the hospital sent him home with. He took one then pocketed the bottle.

If Lip was going to join the search party, he’d need bus fare.

Lip stopped by his buddy Jeremy’s house and sold five of the percs to get some cash to travel with. Lip didn’t know where anyone else looked at, but there were a few spots that Lip knew Harry liked to smoke at.

There was the underpass by the school where Hermione fucking shot Lip at. There was still a bloodstain on the concrete, but no Harry.

There was the bridge where Lip and Harry had celebrated winning the Bot Bash, no Harry.

Lip paused there to have a cigarette when he saw the broken glass from the bottle he smashed after… after he fucking hit Harry.

It hadn’t been a conscious decision. Lip didn’t do it because Harry was queer. Lip had just been right on the fucking edge of coming when Harry looked up at him and Lip felt his entire stomach flip.

Harry was a dude.

And Lip let him put his mouth on his dick.

Worse than that though, Lip had been twenty seconds away from the best orgasm of his life and he just… he didn’t want it to be from a dude.

It was fine for Ian to be gay, Mickey too. They probably knew their whole lives that they were gay. Even Fiona probably fucked around with V a time or two after a few drinks. But Lip? Lip started getting laid when he was thirteen and not once did he consider fucking a dude.

Then Harry fucking Black showed up and ruined everything. Harry fucked Mickey and he knocked up Mandy. He wouldn’t date Ian and he fucked with Lip’s head.

And Harry was missing and Lip knew it was his fault.

Lip stayed out until it was late, counting on Ian calling him if anyone else found Harry. When Lip returned home, limping like a mother fucker, he slunk in the back to avoid seeing Remus or Fiona out front.

Except instead Lip found Tonks sitting on the back steps.

Tonks had a distinct cop look and feel. Even the way she sat, with her legs spread and one of her hands too tense on her knee, looked like a cop. It didn’t matter if Tonks was smoking a joint with her pink hair hanging limp in her face, Lip didn’t trust her.

“Give me a hit or get the fuck out of my way,” Lip said with a grunt. His knee was fucking dying and he needed to catch a couple hours of sleep before he went back out on a search.

“Here.” Tonks picked her head up and held out the joint to Lip. She looked fucking beat, with eyeliner smudged and no sarcastic looking smirk to be seen.

“Thanks.” Lip leaned against the rail, taking the weight off his left leg, and hit the joint hard.

They passed the joint back and forth a couple of times before Tonks spoke up. Lip was part of the way on an inhale when she launched in some story.

“When I was thirteen, I got my arse kicked by some prats at school,” she said conversationally. “You met Fred, right?”

Lip’s exhale came out more forcefully than intended.

Tonks smirked, like she knew something she didn’t fucking know, and swiped her hair behind an ear before reaching for the joint.

“His older brother Charlie is my best mate,” Tonks explained. “We dated once, terrible experience. But when I got ganged up on by a lot of ignorant kids, Charlie beat one of them so badly the next day, right at breakfast, that he was suspended for a week. And, for the record, mate, it’s bloody hard to be suspended from our school.”

Lip raised a single eyebrow at Tonks’ oh so important story.

“Is this some sort of folksy story about how everyone should be themselves even if they get beat up for it?” Lip asked seriously. “If so, I’m touched. I’m a changed man, really.”

“Not at all.” Tonks laughed lightly and stood up, suddenly towering over Lip with her height. She smiled and Lip could see Fiona’s attraction to her, she was hot even if she was a bitch.

“That was me telling you that if you ever put your hand on Harry again that I’ll beat you so badly that it’ll make Charlie Weasley look like a fairy. Goodnight, Lip.”