Summary: "Why exactly do you need chloroform at 2am?" Let's face it, nothing good was ever going to follow that sentence.
Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter. This story is based on a prompt my sister found on Pinterest. Well okay it was a list of one-sentence prompts and she accidentally sort of challenged me into putting all of them in one story so...that happened.
He looks around the neighbourhood he finds himself in, unsure if it's really a safe place to be in the dark. He counts the house numbers until he finds the right one, moves in, and follows the directions he was given. Around the back of the house, up the old oak tree, onto the roof, down the other side of the house, swing in the open window.
"Remus, you're here!" Someone whisper-yells.
Remus looks over and nods as he takes in the dishevelled look of his classmate, "Yes, Lily, I'm here. Now why exactly do you need chloroform at 2am? And why did you ask me?" He whispers back, knowing everyone else in the house is asleep. Honestly, they've spoken on Prefect rounds a few times, but given his friendship with two people she hates, Lily and Remus have never really gotten on.
"Schemes are afoot!" Lily replies, eyes slightly wild as she takes the bottle from him. She walks over to her closet, gesturing for him to follow. He does. She opens the door to reveal…
"Evans, what exactly am I looking at here?"
Lily seems mildly sheepish, "I may have accidentally sort of…adoptedfivecats."
Remus blinks a few times, "This doesn't explain the chloroform."
"Okay look, I think the cats are trying to tell me something. They escaped from somewhere together, and I think they're trying to save the others! But they're a little worked up and we need to transport them out of here without waking my family the second I drop the silencing spell. I know your Mum's a vet so I was hoping you'd know the correct dosage." Remus blinks at her again. "Remus?"
"If there's a silencing spell up, why are we whispering?" Remus asks, then shakes his head, "Why is that my question. Lily are you standing there telling me you want to give a bunch of cats chloroform and then rescue a bunch of other cats from whatever place you think these ones are trying to warn you about?" Lily nods. Remus looks at her for a few moments, "Are you high?"
"No!" Lily tells him, "Look, with or without your help, I am doing this. So either tell me how to do this safely or watch as I accidentally overdose these cats on chloroform."
Remus huffs, "It will kill them. Better to cover them with the rag. The darkness will keep them calm enough to transport. But how are we carrying five cats, unconscious or not?"
"I have a van around the corner, we can take them there one at a time."
The two take the cats down to the van one by one as quiet as they can, going through the house instead of the, in his opinion, unnecessarily complicated way Remus got in.
"What now?" Remus asks, seeming dubious at best to the current course of action.
Lily looks to the cats in the back of the van from where they sit in the front, Remus driving because Lily apparently failed her driver's test…multiple times. "I think they were test subjects of some kind. Locked in a lab."
Remus slams on the brake, the cats sliding forwards as he does so. "Lily Evans, we are not breaking into some stupid drug or cosmetic testing lab and making a jailbreak for a bunch of cats because you took too many of some seriously powerful dru…oh my god Lily, did the lab drug you? Is that how you found the cats?"
Lily glares at him, unimpressed, "No," Her face softens, "Look, I know it sounds ridiculous, Okay? I know, do you think I can't hear it myself? But those cats are leading us, they will lead us, and we have to go. This is far bigger than us, or the fate of a bunch of our furry friends. Please."
Remus bites his lower lip as he glares at her, "Lily, you need help. And not from me. Y-Hey!" Remus calls, cutting off his sentence as one of the cats climbs into his lap, pulls his wallet from his jacket pocket, and jumps out of the driver's side window. "Quick, catch that cat! It stole my wallet!" Remus calls to some passersbys as he gets out of the van and runs after the cat.
Lily looks at the cats still in the back seat. "Should we…?" The cats jump out of the window one at a time so Lily follows after them heading in the direction Remus ran.
Lily comes around a corner, five blocks from where the chase started. She finds a man holding Lupin's wallet, smirking. Remus stands defensively between the man and the cat, clearly unsure what to make of him. Lily squints at the man before her eyes widen in recognition. "Remus! Punch him and run!" She shouts in alarm.
Remus looks up at her, then turns and punches the guy in the face as hard as he can. Hearing the snap of cartilage and bone, Lupin picks up the cat and hurries to Lily.
The two start running back the way they came, ducking into someone's garden and shutting themselves in the thankfully unoccupied shed.
"So, why did I have to punch that guy?" Remus asks, rubbing at his hand after putting the crook of a cat down.
"It's a long story," Lily replies distractedly as she checks over the cat, as though she'd know anything about what a healthy cat looks like.
"We have time," Remus states dryly, clearly at the end of his patience.
"No, you really don't."
Lily and Remus both look to the door and find it open, the man from before standing on the other side.
"H-How did you…?" Remus asks, trailing off when he realises he doesn't know which part he is questioning anymore.
"Get here so quickly? Find you both?" The man suggests, Remus nods. Grinning, the man says, "There are ways, and I always get mine." The grin grows. "It's like…magic."
Suddenly, everything goes black.
When Remus wakes up, he's fairly certain a few hours have passed at least, either that or he got hungry very quickly. He looks around and finds himself in a room, decorated with planets, stars and other stellar objects. And then he sees Lily.
"Lily, what's going on?" He asks, "Are you okay? Where are the cats?"
Lily looks at him, unimpressed but with an edge of panic to her gaze that tells Remus the annoyance is all for show. "Oh, now you care about them?"
"Just answer the bloody question. I'd like to start planning our escape, and I need all the variables."
Lily looks at him in mild confusion, "The cats are a variable in that?"
Remus sighs, "As James always says, 'No man gets left behind.' Or in this case, no feline."
Lily smiles blindingly at him, then her face grows serious, "I'm sorry I dragged you into this. I thought I was doing the right thing, just wanting to save some innocent animals but…this was all far more complicated than I thought and now… now we're in a lot of trouble. Trouble I don't know we can get out of."
"Oh Evans," Remus begins, patronisingly, "I'm a Marauder. Getting out of trouble is what I do, especially when the situation has gotten completely out of hand."
"I can't believe I'm sitting in space jail with you, of all people." Remus flashes her a smile, some middle ground between innocent and mischievous that only the Prefect of the Marauders can pull off. Lily rolls her eyes, "Alright then, Moony, what do we do? How do we get out of here?"
Remus gets up, "We're in the lab you were talking about, right?" Lily nods. "Then we are right where we want to be. We were heading back here anyway. All we have to do is break out of this cell, find the cats, then burn this place to the ground for what they've done. To us and our…what was it you said earlier?"
Lily grins, "Furry friends." They share a determined smile.
"Well, that's a lovely plan but…there are a few holes." Lily and Remus look up to find the man who kidnapped them standing at the door, again. "The first of which, is thinking you are prisoners. You aren't. In fact, I need your help."
Lily scowls at the man while Remus watches in confusion, "We will never help you."
"Why, Piper, you seem a bit angry there," he says.
Somehow, though Remus didn't think it possible, Lily's scowl deepens. "Who wouldn't be angry? You ate all of my cereal and faked your death for three years!"
Remus' brow furrows, "I know this probably isn't the time, but do you think maybe the cereal thing was too high on that list?" Lily glares at him. "Right, sorry, continue."
The man looks between the two for a moment before calmly taking a breath, "Come with me." He turns and leaves the room, not waiting to see if they follow.
Lily and Remus exchange looks. "We don't have many options here," Remus tells her, shrugging and following him out. He hears Lily huff before she too walks out after their captor.
The two unlikely allies follow the man, who Remus is reasonably sure is some kind of mad scientist, through several corridors. Remus tries to remember how they get here, but the building is set up like a maze. It's not until they walk into some kind of laboratory that Remus speaks to Lily, keeping an eye on their captor as he does so.
"So who is this guy?"
Lily spares him a look before continuing her survey of the lab. "His name is Wren Von Dougall," Lily replies, "He's…he was…" Lily sighs. Remus frowns, taking his eyes off of this Von Dougall character and taking her hand comfortingly. She smiles slightly at him, grateful for the support, "He was my brother."
"I didn't know you had a brother," he admits.
His not-quite friend shrugs, "I don't talk about it but…well I'm adopted. The Evans', they couldn't have another kid after Petunia but didn't want her to grow up an only child. I haven't spoken about my biological…relatives, since they brought me home."
Remus bites his lip, nodding as they walk, "Is that why he called you Piper?" Lily's eyes fill with tears that she stubbornly does not allow to fall, and she nods once. "Piper Von Dougall. She sounds like a bit of a prick if I'm honest," he tells her. It startles a laugh out of her, and he grins, "Lily Evans is a far better name."
Lily nods, "That it is."
"Not to interrupt this touching moment but we're here," Wren announces, drawing Lily and Remus' attention back to him. He opens a door with a flourish but both refuse to go in before him. They do, however, follow him in to find the walls lined with cages.
"The cats!" Lily exclaims, rushing over to them and trying to open the first cage she reaches. It's locked so she glares daggers at Von Dougall, "What do you want with them?"
"Results, my dear Piper. I want results."
"I hope you know my name is actually Lily Evans," she says with a steely voice.
Von Dougall rolls his eyes, "Pipe-"
"THAT'S NOT MY NAME!" Lily shouts at him. Somehow, the cats don't seem surprised. "Now what are you doing to them?!"
"Trying to save the world." Privately, Remus thinks that any explanation that starts that way ends badly, very badly. "We're trying to bri-…Excuse me, would you please stop petting the test subjects?" Wren requests in bewilderment. Lily looks over to see Remus with his hand in one of the cages. The Marauder locks eyes with their captor and holds eye contact as he flexes his hand. "Don't." Remus lowers his hand and strokes the cat who purrs loudly. Wren's eyebrow twitches.
"He's like that. The more you tell him he can't do something, the more creative a way he will find to prove you wrong," Lily explains, a fond exasperation in her voice. Remus just grins at her. Lily rolls her eyes, wondering why he went from being all serious to being his usual irritating Maraudering self as he goes around purposefully petting every single cat. "Now what is it you're trying to do?" She asks Wren, attempting to get this odd situation back on track.
"To fix the past, to change our future."
Lily blinks at him, then looks to Remus, "And you think I'm crazy."
Remus looks oddly sad, "There's always a crazier psycho."
Tense and awkward silence fills the room for a moments, "…so someone hurt him, let's move on," Wren says, sounding so like Lily Remus wonders if they may have been close, once. "Pi-…Lily," He begins. Lily frowns but nods for him to continue. "I want to create a drug to end all drugs. One that will flush all other narcotics out of the body without a detox. Give drug addicts a chance to save their own lives!" Remus blinks, freezing in his petting of the final cat.
Lily blinks too, "I don't know what to do when it's not an evil plot."
"Well there's certainly no reason to kill me again," Wren tells her.
Lily looks even more pissed off than James had ever made her which Remus finds rather impressive. "I didn't push you off that building, you jumped, and clearly, you did not die!"
"That would be the whole faked death you mentioned?" Remus questions, Lily nods, "And what was with the cereal?"
"Long story," Both of them say. Remus decides to continue petting the cats.
"These cats are being harmed. They are frightened and trapped and in pain, and I will not allow this to continue," Lily tells Wren who raises an eyebrow at her.
"And how exactly do you plan to stop i-"
"Where'd you get the cats?" Remus interrupts. Wren looks at him in annoyance and disbelief. "What? You have forty-odd cats here, where'd you get them?"
"As I was saying, you've no way to sto-"
"Feeding them must cost a fortune, and they seem healthy so they must be getting exercise. Or, you haven't had them very long," Remus continues.
"Do you mind?" Wren demands.
Remus smiles lightly, "Not at all! Please, continue your evil monologue. This is the part where you say we can't stop you for this reason and that reason, right? Then you'll go on to say your entire plan, turn around to realise we somehow escaped while you had distracted yourself, and finally, we burn this place down around you. So don't let me interrupt."
Wren's face twitches again, and Lily sighs, "Would you take something seriously for a moment, for once, please?"
Remus scoffs, "Take something seriously? This entire situation is ridiculous! What would you care about drug addicts? You sit around torturing cats all day!"
"Our mother died of a drug overdose, that's what landed us in the orphanage," Wren deadpans.
"…oh." Remus stills for a moment, then clears his throat, "Lily, are we helping him or stopping him?"
Lily looks deeply at Wren, then she shakes her head. "People don't hide things they don't consider shameful." Remus can't help but feel personally attached to that statement and fights to bury the feelings it brings up.
"Is that why you've hidden us so well, sister? Why you've left the family behind? You would rather the world believe you muggle-born than the orphan of a pure-blooded family?" Wren demands, clearly losing his patience.
Lily holds his gaze for a moment, then looks to the shocked Remus, "Stopping him."
Remus' shock melts into a satisfied smirk, "Well then, I think it is time we take our leave."
"What happened to no feline left behind?" Wren questions, frowning when Remus' smirk grows.
"Felines? What felines?"
Wren and Lily both look at the cages in shock, they're all empty. Wren pulls out a handgun and points it at Remus who doesn't flinch, "How did you…?" Wren trails off, thrusting the gun in Remus' direction as an indication to answer his unasked questions.
"Get them out of the cages? Do it without you noticing?" Remus suggests, Wren nods causing to Remus smirk. "There are ways, I choose to make my own. It's like…magic."
In the same moment as Wren cocks the gun and turns the safety off, Lily pulls her wand out, "Expelliarmus!" The gun flies out of Wren's hand before he has a chance to fire. Lily runs forward and delivers a flying kick to his face. Wren falls down, unconscious as Lily awkwardly falls to the ground. "Ouch!"
"Evans! You all right?" Remus asks, hurrying over to her.
She winces, "I hurt my ankle. But I'm fine."
Remus nods, helping her up. They hear Wren groan behind them. Remus lifts Lily up bridal style, "Time to go."
Remus runs out of the room, rushing through the corridors at top speed, subtly waving his wand in his hand slightly as he goes.
"Please put me down, it's just a sprained ankle," Lily tells him as he moves from corridor to corridor.
"A sprained ankle that, right now, will only slow us down."
Lily huffs but does not continue to argue, "So I'm assuming you have a plan and aren't just running in whichever direction strikes your fancy?"
"Yes, I have a plan. I'm like 75% this won't explode us," He tells her confidently. Unfortunately, she does not share that confidence.
"I do not like those odds, Lupin!"
Remus would sigh, but he's running while carrying a whole other person, and though lycanthropic strength and stamina help with that, he's still got to pull off his plan. Talking is hard enough without that extra pressure. "If your odds of succeeding are more than 43% you're probably fine, if it's more than 60% then you're practically obligated to do it. Marauder's code section 4C, paragraph 8, line two."
"That is not how probability works!" Lily looks ahead of them to see Remus is running full pelt towards a window, "Remus, no no no, this has got to be waaaay lower than 75% chance of success!"
"I said I was 75% this won't explode us, we're looking more at a 44% chance of success here." Lily's eyes widen, Remus looks at her and grins just before he jumps, twists in mid air, and curls around her to protect her from glass as they go crashing through the window and down three stories to the ground.
Remus blinks his eyes open, looking around he sees everything is moving slowly. Then the pain starts filtering through along with everything else, and he realises he's being dragged. Panicking, he quickly looks up to see Lily is the one dragging him, "Lil?"
Lily looks at him in relief, "Remus, can you walk?" It's then that Remus notices the very pronounced limp she is currently moving with. Looking down, he's fairly certain her sprained ankle is now broken.
"Yes, I can walk," He replies, getting to his feet. He steadies himself on a nearby wall for a moment before he steps out, grabbing her to pick her up again.
"Remus! Your arm, you cannot carry me right now!" She chastises.
Remus huffs, "So what if I broke my arm, I'm still doing it." He carries her as he moves, as quickly as possible given the concussion, shards of glass embedded in his body, and broken arm.
They've made it three blocks away when Remus senses danger and puts Lily on the ground, "You said you know the way to the van, get back there now." Lily goes to protest, "Go!"
Lily hurries off around a corner just as people appear behind Remus, he turns to face them, unsurprised to see security guards. They part, and Wren Von Dougall steps forward.
"Quite the trick you pulled back there," Wren tells him, "I'm impressed. But you won't be getting away so easily, and you have done nothing to stop my plans. Merely delay them."
Remus smirks, his hand twitches slightly and a loud explosion is heard. They see the flames from where they are and several bits of building thrown into the air, "Sure about that?" Remus asks once the raging fire, sounds of panic, and far off sounds of sirens are heard, "What do you think the police will find when they investigate?" The security guards exchange looks before they take off, but one pair of eyes never leave his own, the pair Remus so hoped would remain.
Wren's face twists in a scowl, his eyes still never leaving Remus', "Your corpse." Suddenly, Wren squawks in pain, shrieking as he kicks his leg out, the cat that stole Remus' wallet shanking him with tooth and claw.
"Now kitty!" Remus looks over towards Lily's voice just in time to see two bright lights before, for the third time in a single night, he's knocked unconscious.
"…mus…Rem-…Remus! Remus!" Remus blinks his eyes open to see Lily's face above him. He blinks a few more times, hazy memory flashes of other people and flashing lights appear in his head. They make him dizzy so he lets them fade away.
"What happened?"
"How do you feel?" Lily asks, worrying at her lip.
Remus looks around, seeing he is in a hospital. He groans, dropping his head back onto the bed, "I feel like I got hit by a car…" Remus frowns at the look on Lily's face, "Wait, I did?" She seems even more guilty, "And it was your car?"
"Calling it mine is a bit of an overstatement, but technically I was the one driving it." Remus looks at her incredulously, she sighs, lowering her voice. "After you told me to run off, I heard the explosion. I knew I wouldn't make it to the van in time, not with my leg, so I broke into a nearby car, keys were in the sun visor. Drove back to you. I saw Wren, saw the look on his face and…" Lily bites at her lip, looking away as tears fill her eyes. Remus reaches up and wipes it away when one falls, she smiles self-deprecatingly. "I was aiming for him. And in my defence, I did hit him. I just misjudged the width of the car, got you too. The cat got out of the way though." She nods to the end of the bed where Remus finds it curled up on his bed. "Told them it's your therapy cat."
Remus snickers before wincing at the pain it causes, "What happened to the others? What happened to Wren? What was any of this about?"
"However you freed the cats…well they all went back home. You were right, he hadn't had them long. They were taken from their gardens, usually from the care of the elderly, people who could do nothing to really find their pets. They all had somewhere to go, all but one." The two watch the cat, sleeping soundly, curled around Remus' wallet.
"And Wren?"
Lily clears her throat, "Well I told them we were just walking by and he hit us with his car. Had to smash the windows and vanish several pieces to explain the glass in you. He had been arrested, but the Aurors informed my parents that he escaped, a little over an hour ago. They're hopeful they'll catch him but…" Lily gives a grim smile, "I'd say their chances are under 43%."
Remus blows out a breath, "Those aren't good odds."
"No they are not." Lily fiddles with his blanket for a moment, then clears her throat again, "How did you get the cats out of there? And how did you blow up the building?"
"A year and a half ago, James altered the vanishing spell so that you can control where the vanished object ends up. When I went through, petting all of them, I combined it with a technique Sirius created for putting a time-delay on any spell. Did the same with the blasting curse while we were running," Remus explains.
Lily frowns in confusion, "How? I mean, the cats I get, but the blasting curse?"
"The time-delay, it sort of pauses the spell in time, freezing it, it can't finish. So when I cast some silent confringo's while running through the building, I put the time delay on as I was casting them, they never went off. Not until I lifted the delay in the alleyway."
Lily's frown lifts as understanding fills her, "…that's brilliant, Remus."
Remus chuckles, "I thought so. How's your leg?"
"Healed. So is your arm. Everything else is taking a bit longer but, they say you should be out of here tomorrow."
"I still don't understand what any of this was about," Remus tells her, "Why did he come back after three years? How did you get involved? What was his plan? Why did he need our help?"
Lily frowns, leaning forward and taking one of his hands in both of hers. "When I was a kid, back with my biological relatives, they used to call me 'Pied Piper' because animals would just flock to me, follow my commands, they'd trust me. But especially cats. Truth is…I can understand them. Not words, not really, but feelings and impressions communicated between them and me. The five cats that were in my closet, they found me. I don't know how, but they knew I could help them. That's how I got involved."
"That sort of raises more questions than answers," Remus tells her.
She nods, "For you and me both. All I know is, whatever he's up to, he's not going to give up."
"Then we'll stop him," Remus tells her, "Together."
Lily nods again.
The two sit in silence for a while before Lily takes a deep breath, "Remus, before, when you first met him after the cat stole your wallet, I told you to punch Wren and run. You did it without hesitation, but you'd just been telling me how crazy I am. Why did you listen?"
Remus chuckles slightly, "He was a wild card. For all I knew he was worse than you. Stick to the insanity you know."
Lily smiles mischievously, "There's always a crazier psycho." Remus laughs, nodding and wincing.
"Crazy psychos, and here I thought this visit was going to be a surprise!" Remus and Lily both tense, looking to the door, only to find the three missing Marauders there.
"Oh my god, what are you three doing here?" Remus asks, shocked but clearly happy.
"Evans wrote to me," James explains, looking smittennly at the girl.
Sirius rolls his eyes, "We heard you'd been having fun without us and came to complain endlessly about our boring Easter hols."
"What happened to you two?" Peter asks, "The note just said you were here and asked that we forge a letter to your parents from you telling them that we'd run into each other in Diagon Alley and the four of us are at the Potters for the rest of holidays."
Remus chuckles, thinking Lily had the right idea not bringing his parents into this and thanking his lucky stars that he turned seventeen last month. "Car crash. Never let Lily drive."
"Hey!" Lily complains, swatting him lightly but unable to defend herself.
"Riiiiight," Sirius says disbelievingly, "Well, we went round to your place and got you some of your things," He tells them, dropping a small bag onto the bed, "Told your parents you and Dad are deep in a game of chess when Mum pointed out you need clothes and stuff. We decided that instead of hoping you finished your game before midnight, we'd to take the opportunity and go get your shit ourselves."
"Smart, thanks," Remus tells them, "And thank you for being here."
"Yes, well. You can thank the lovely Evans for that," Sirius replies, nodding his thanks to Lily who smiles slightly and nods back. Possibly the kindest interaction the two have ever had. Certainly the least volatile.
"Well, now that that's out of the way. How are you feeling? Are you cold? Pete, check that cupboard for an extra blanket, would you?" James requests, fluffing up Remus' pillows slightly and covering him with the blanket Peter provides.
"Don't do this, Prongs," Remus groans.
"Have you eaten? Has he eaten?" James asks a discombobulated Lily.
"No, he just woke up."
"Pete-"
"Asking the nursing staff," Peter says, already walking towards the door.
"Something with some vegetables and a high calorie content, he eats too much chocolate and doesn't weigh enough. Now have you slept?" James continues pestering Remus right up until he goes back to sleep. The nurses suggest he should go into caring and largely leave him to it, believing Remus to be in good hands.
Lily watches it all with a fond smile on her face, particularly the toe-rag currently mother-hen-ing his friend.
No man left behind.
Sirius' eyes widen in horror and disgust as he makes an almost dog-like growl and looks about ready to chase something, "…Is that a cat?"