Revelations
As they trudged deeper through the passageway, it seemed to somehow get darker and darker, and soon the group was stumbling over each other trying to get through.
After the third time Barty fell on Remus he finally snapped, “Just fucking tell me if you want a cuddle, ya nancy.”
“Oh shut up you slag, we all know you like it,” Barty clapped back, purposefully shoving Remus to the side.
Remus scoffed and swiftly stalked forward, catching up with Pandora and Regulus, who were leading the group.
“Hiya LuLu,” smiled Pandora
Remus rolled his eyes affectionately at the nickname, hurrying to keep up with the two. Somehow they were the fastest walkers of the lot, even though their legs were far shorter than Remus’.
“Do you have any idea where this leads to, Pandora?” grumbled Regulus, who somehow still managed to look aloof after tramping through dust and grime for a half hour.
“She already said she didn’t, have some patience Black,” retorted Remus.
“Be quiet, I wasn’t asking you,” Regulus sneered good-naturedly.
They continued walking briskly down the path, the only sounds being Evan, Barty, and Dorcas’ banter behind them. After about fifteen more minutes of walking the tunnel started to climb upwards, towards the surface. Soon, the group reached what seemed to be a cellar of some sort filled with barrels and other bits and bobs.
“It smells sickly in here,” said Regulus
“It smells like sweets, Regulus,” retorted Dorcas.
“Well it’s disgusting.”
“There's simply no way you think that sweets are disgusting, I mean seriously, at some point you have to be faking all this loathing towards everything,” Dorcas mused.
“Shut up Meadowes,” scowled Regulus.
Suddenly a bright overhead light flickered on, and they all ducked behind whatever box or barrel they could find.
After a moment, Remus peeked his head out from the stack that he had been cowering behind, only to see Barty standing by the light switch with an impish grin.
“Merlin, Crouch, you scared the shit out of us,” he breathed, beckoning to the others that it was safe to emerge.
Barty simply shrugged. Remus took a moment to look around the cellar and realised that what he had ducked behind was a large stack of Fizzing Whizbees. They were, indeed, surrounded by sweets just like Dorcas had implied.
“Are we in Honeydukes?” Evan asked incredulously as they all surveyed their surroundings.
“Merlin…” muttered Remus, “I wonder if anyone else has found this passage.”
“Pandora, I could kiss you right now, my sweet angel,” Dorcas grinned,
“Well alright,” Pandora giggled, “If you insist.”
Barty stepped between them, “Alright let's save the kissing for later,” he sauntered over to a wooden staircase in the corner of the room, leading upwards.
“He has no sense of safety,” grumbled Regulus, who had suddenly appeared next to Remus.
“Aw, look at you, fretting like a concerned mother,” cooed Remus.
“I swear to Merlin, one day I will murder you Remus Lupin,” Regulus snapped.
“I’m so very sorry, but it is extremely difficult to feel threatened by someone a foot shorter than myself,” Remus teased, flitting forward as Regulus lunged towards him in a feeble attempt at an attack.
“Oh, you’re going to have to try harder than that, darling,” Remus taunted.
“D-don’t call me that!” Regulus spat, his face reddening.
“Are you lads planning on standing around all day?” Evan shouted from where he and Barty were standing near the top of the stairs.
“You know we're supposed to be sneaking around,” Dorcas winced, “you two are about as silent as elephants.”
“Oops,” Evan whisper-yelled.
The rest of the group started up the stairs as Barty pushed open the trapdoor. He clambered through, and the rest followed soon after.
Remus emerged, and found himself inside Honeydukes. By then the sun was low on the horizon, but luckily there were still a few customers mulling about the store, and somehow the old wizened shopkeep hadn’t yet seemed to notice the six slightly dusty adolescents that had popped out of the ground.
“Holy shit,” Remus muttered under his breath.
“Too fucking right mate,” Evan responded from beside him.
“Do you know what this means?” asked Barty as he spun on his heel to face the rest of the group.
“What, that we just tramped around in muck and grime for an hour only for Lupin here to get a chocolate frog and leave?” retorted Regulus, looking pointedly at Remus, whose eyes had already wandered to the surplus of chocolate lining the shelves.
“No, Regulus, it means that we can now come to Honeydukes whenever we want, and have practically a guarantee of never being caught!” said Barty gleefully.
“No shit, Barty”
“Well you didn’t seem to be catching on,” his expression soured as he turned away from Regulus with a huff.
“Boys, boys, boys,” tsked Dorcas, “Think bigger. Why limit ourselves to Honeydukes? We don’t have to stay here, I mean think about it, now we can go to the Three Broomsticks and grab a pint whenever we want.”
“Er, well, yeah, I suppose you’re right Cas,” replied Barty, “why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you’re a fucking idiot.”
Barty opened his mouth to rebuff the statement, but closed it again when he couldn’t think of a comeback.
Remus snickered, “Well now that we’re here…”
“Remus I swear to Merlin, if you get more chocolate,” Regulus trailed off before looking around, “Where did Pandora go?”
They all quickly scoured the room for the blonde girl but she was nowhere to be found.
Increasing in alarm, they all swiftly left the store, and as Remus looked back at the old vendor he saw a look of extreme confusion on his face, as if he were wondering where on Earth five children in green robes had come from, and how he hadn’t noticed them enter the store.
They emerged from Honeydukes to see Pandora standing alone in the middle of the street, her blue eyes trained on the horizon. They all crowded around her, attempting to see what she was so transfixed by.
After a tick of silence, Regulus tentatively placed his hand on her shoulder.
“Pandora, are you alright?”
She whipped around, and for a split second, she locked eyes with Remus, as if trying to decipher something in his gaze.
“Yeah, just…” she hesitated, now eye to eye with Regulus, “lost in thought.”
She shared another glance with Remus, but when she smiled it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Alright,” grinned Barty obliviously, “Shall we go for a pint?”
“Bartemius, no one is going to believe we’re eighteen when we’re quite literally in our school uniforms,” Dorcas rolled her eyes.
“Won’t know until we try, will we?”
“It’s not like we have anything else to do,” Evan mused.
“That’s the spirit, Rosier!” exclaimed Barty, clapping Evan on the shoulder heartily.
They started towards the Three Broomsticks, Evan muttering obscenities under his breath and rubbing his shoulder.
They entered the building and strode over to the bar, sitting down side by side.
“Ey Rosie, get us a round of firewhiskey will you?” Barty said confidently.
Rosmerta, the owner, gave them one look and laughed.
“Yeh really think that I’m going to serve a group of schoolkids?”
“We’re not! We just… er… are wearing our old robes- yeah! You know, it’d be a complete waste if we bought these only to never wear ‘em again,” Barty rambled.
From the seat next to him, Remus heard Regulus let out a disappointed sigh at Barty’s blatant lie.
“Let me tell you what,” laughed Rosmerta, turning around to face them and throwing her dish towel over her shoulder, “You come in here and come up with a halfway decent lie… then we’ll talk. Until then, it’s butterbeers for the lot of you.”
“Told you it wouldn’t work,” grumbled Dorcas, as Rosmerta busied herself with the butterbeers.
“Wearing our old robes? Seriously, Barty?” Regulus asked, smacking the other boy across the head.
“OW! Tell me, Black, what would you have said, oh righteous one?”
“That we were seventh years perhaps?”
“Oh”
“Idiot.”
Rosmerta appeared again, this time with their drinks and they sat, relishing in the way the warm liquid comforted their insides.
Remus stopped drinking for a moment when a realisation sat in.
“How are we going to get back?” he asked no one in particular.
“Shit”
“Bollocks”
“Right”
“Fuck”
“Didn’t think of that”
They all responded at once.
They quickly stood up, leaving their halfway filled glasses at the bar. Pandora reached into her pocket and dumped a pile of assorted coins, not bothering to count out the money, as they hurried out to the now-dark street.
“Shit, do you think the old man’ll notice if we pop back into Honeydukes?” asked Evan.
“I think he’s gonna notice if a group of six goes in and never comes back out,” Regulus responded snarkily.
“Shut up we have to try or we’ll be spending the night on the streets,” said Remus, who was a few strides ahead of the rest.
“Slow down, beanstalk,” breathed Dorcas.
They reached the door of the shop in mere seconds, and Remus pushed open the door as silently as he could, but as he crossed the threshold, the sleeve of his cloak snagged on the doorframe. As he was about to fall and surely alert the shopkeeper of their presence, Regulus jumped forward and grasped Remus around the waist, hauling him up.
Just as Remus was about to breathe out a sigh of relief at having avoided the tumble, the man at the counter gasped.
The group froze in place, holding their breath, awaiting for the man to do something.
But the moment never came.
If by a twist of fate or simply the old man’s lack of vision and hearing, he squinted directly at them, then shook his head and turned away.
There was a collective release of tension from them all, and as if remembering that he still had his hands on him, Regulus shoved Remus away and straightened his own uniform.
They creeped slowly towards the back of the shop one after the other. They reached the trapdoor and slowly opened the wood panel, the hinges creaking loudly in the otherwise silent room.
They slipped through the opening one by one, Remus the last to go. He lowered the door with a thump and the group turned to each other silently.
Barty, unsurprisingly, was the first to speak.
“I cannot believe our fucking luck.”
“We aren’t back at the castle, let’s not celebrate quite yet,” grumbled Regulus.