Chapter 9: Remus Lupin

Remus looked around, unusually wary of his surroundings. He'd been feeling so since, since...

Since Sirius had gotten out of Azkaban, leaving a message – a taunt, truly – for him. Since one of his best friends – who had caused the death of another and murdered the third one – had murdered his lover, the abusive mother of his son, and had walked out of the worst wizarding prison of all times. Since a traitor by the name of Black had started going around, being seen, yes, but never enough for the aurors to know what was really going on, threatening people and forcing them to make potions for him or stealing their son's – his own friend, his own victim – death box.

Since things had stopped making sense – the little sense it still made, which wasn't much, truthfully, but Remus had had eleven years to get used to it.

There was no one in the corridor, except for Remus himself and Dumbledore coming behind him, as they left the headmaster's office. The castle, at this hour, was seemingly deserted – though not quite really so, as Remus knew from three years as a prefect, patrolling until midnight once a week. Somewhere in those corridors, a few professors and prefects were surely making rounds, busting up – or missing entirely, in some cases – teenagers who'd stayed out after curfew, while everyone else had rejoined their quarters.

But apart from that...

It was close to eleven, and curfew was at ten. The only exceptions were astronomy classes, between eleven and midnight, and now that Remus thought about it, that actually meant at least four classes were out and about in the Astronomy Tower right now – to accommodate for the growing magical population, Hogwarts used complex time enchantments since the nineteenth century, which meant all professors had to sign magically binding time agreements to be able to hold several classes at once without resorting to actual time travel with all its disadvantages, and the castle itself had been modified to duplicate the space in some classrooms so that it could be entered up to five times in the same pocket of time, something the werewolf had absolutely not researched in seventh year while meekly dreaming of teaching there himself one day.

One of those days, Remus thought as his eyes wandered in the empty corridor, they'd have to let go of that organization and start hiring more professors instead, but for now the board of governors seemed unwilling to finance the changes and additional hires. Maybe, that day, he could...

Remus sighed, and shook his head. There was no point wondering about that right now.

He wasn't in the castle for a job interview, he was there because Sirius had escaped from Azkaban and was out there doing dubious deeds and endangering people.

He was there because he'd revealed a truth he'd held secret – dear to his heart despite the bitterness and the knowledge that the loyalty which had brought it to him, the loyalty between the Marauders, meant nothing anymore. Because a few days ago, he'd told Dumbledore and McGonagall and Moody – and Snape of all people – that Sirius was an animagus who was most likely using his unregistered ability to get away with – well. Not quite murder, not this time, not specifically, but the equivalent, certainly. Because now, the Auror Office knew about Sirius – and James, and Peter, but they were dead and the truth changed nothing for them. Because he'd told them.

Sirius had betrayed the Marauders first, Remus kept reminding himself. He'd gone and gotten James killed by Voldemort, he'd killed Peter. He'd left Remus alone – so it didn't matter, did it, if Remus had betrayed a trust, a secret that Sirius and the others had achieved through personal endangerment and illegal dealings only to be able to help him, the werewolf, because they didn't want him to continue and tear himself apart every full moon?

Remus had spent the last one hundred and forty full moons – or so, he hadn't been keeping count exactly – alone, tearing himself apart, because Sirius had changed his mind and ruined everyone's lives. And perhaps, perhaps... Perhaps he hadn't done it on purpose, perhaps something had happened and his friend had lost his mind, perhaps it hadn't been a choice so much as plain brainwashing, but it didn't change the fact that Sirius had done what he'd done and – however it had come to be – he now believed what he believed.

There was nothing, nothing at all which could excuse Remus keeping a secret which would then endangers others, out of loyalty to a man who had scorned his own loyalties. Who had condemned other people to whom Remus had been loyal, too.

Remus had been in Gryffindor, which meant he was loyal to his ideals foremost, not to people – and even if he had been in Hufflepuff instead, conflicting loyalties would still ensure that his support of Sirius would have vanished after... After James, Lily and Peter. After the other Order members who'd died because of Sirius' spying.

Sirius was out there, threatening people – Peter's mom, Lord Bones for some reason – and who knew what he'd do to Harry and Altair?

Who knew if Sirius hadn't murdered someone already, while Remus had been wondering if he should tell the Order about his friend's animagus ability?

Not that knowing about it necessarily meant the aurors would be able to catch him – Sirius was intelligent, dangerous, and slippery. He'd been so before switching sides, and now that he didn't care about the set of morals he used to have... But at least, at least, telling them about his ability to turn into a dog at will – without a wand, without a potion, only his sheer force of will, and Godric did Sirius have a lot of that – would make things harder for the escapee.

"I'll walk you out, if you don't mind, Remus."

The werewolf started out of his thoughts, and his eyes fell back on Albus Dumbledore, standing right next to him. True, he'd been... He'd been going back, after his meeting with the head of the Order of the Phoenix – about Sirius, of course, always Sirius.

More speculation as to his motives, his moves, his scheming.

They'd said so much about Sirius, and yet, there were so many things they hadn't spoken about...

They'd barely talked of Altair, for one.

Remus didn't really know what to say about the boy, anyway. He couldn't take him in – just like he couldn't take Harry in, because he was a werewolf and because he had barely enough to feed himself, which, in the end, was also because he was a werewolf. He didn't think he'd manage to go and see the boys – both of them – not until Sirius was caught again – killed, perhaps, and despite everything he didn't want to think about it – not while one was the escapee's son and the other was an orphan because of the very same escapee, not while everything was still underway.

If they got Sirius... Harry would still be an orphan, and Altair would be just the same – or close enough, if Sirius survived this all only to be chucked back into Azkaban – and it would still be as complicated to take both their losses into consideration. But at least it would be dealt with.

Sirius' cousin, Andromeda Tonks, had agreed to take Altair in her home. Maybe Remus could visit, then – maybe she'd let him, despite everything. Remus didn't know her that well, but she and her husband would most likely be more open to him visiting Altair than the Dursleys would ever be.

Maybe Remus could tell Altair about the man Sirius used to be. Before.

Or he could try and explain – what little he knew – about how Sirius had changed so much in the last year of the war. About how no one had really seen anything – anything like that, at least.

He didn't know – he had no idea what Altair needed.

Remus tried to offer a smile to the headmaster, as they started to walk down the stairs and towards the castle's entrance. It was tentative at best, and the werewolf felt there was so much to say – and still he had no idea how to talk about any of it.

Dumbledore was the one to speak first, as it turned out.

"If I understand correctly, Remus, your friends used the summer break between fourth and fifth year for the part of the process during which they had to keep a mandrake leaf in their mouth for a month?"

Ah, well. Of course there could always be more to say on the matter of the other Marauders becoming illegal animagi by the age of sixteen, without any help but their own.

Remus grimaced at the reminder – not that he regretted it, but his friends had endangered themselves back then, and the fact that nothing had gone wrong changed nothing to the fact that a lot could have.

"Yes... We thought it would be a bit too obvious to do it here, at school, especially with McGonagall as our head of House. The three of them, barely speaking up for fear of people noticing that they sounded a bit weird, trying to keep a disgusting leaf in their mouth? People would have questioned it, and then McGonagall would have figured it out, definitely. At home, though?"

Remus thought back to the end of his fourth year, the other three boys lounging around their dormitory as they planned how to get away with learning a very dangerous piece of magic without supervision.

Peter had been a bit fearful, but still excited. Transfiguration was one of the few subjects where he'd managed to get excellent grades, as long as he worked on it a lot – nothing quite like James or Sirius and their easy perfection on the matter of school work, of course, but Peter still averaged an E, with the occasional O thrown in. The others helped him, true, but in the end, Peter had gotten those grades on his own.

Becoming an animagus asked for a deep understanding of transfiguration, and it had been a challenge for Peter – much more so than for James and Sirius, who averaged an O in class and still had to push themselves past their limits to succeed – but the look on his face, as he'd contemplated the possibility that, maybe...

And Peter had done it, almost a year after James and Sirius, but he'd done it nonetheless.

But – a bitter taste invaded his mouth, and it was a taste he'd gotten used to after all those years – Peter was dead. Because Sirius had killed him.

Remus shook his head, trying to get rid of those thoughts – for the moment at least.

"James had his parents believe he'd lost a bet, that he couldn't speak for a month and was too proud to go back on his word. Peter... He turned out to be surprisingly good at speaking without letting the fact that he had a leaf in his mouth be heard."

Remus gritted his teeth, then.

It wasn't just James and Peter, of course. There had been Sirius, too, and denying it wouldn't make it less true, especially not as the whole situation – the headmaster even knowing about the fact that the three teenagers had become animagi behind the professors' back – had come about because of Sirius.

"What could they care, anyway? They'll probably appreciate not having me talk back, for a change."

"...As for Sirius... His family didn't care much for conversation with their eldest son, back then."

At those words, a disturbing silence grew, only interrupted by the sound of their shoes clapping on the castle's stone corridors.

Sirius had never truly told them any of what had truly been going on in Grimmauld Place – not to Remus and Peter, not even to James – but he'd made comments, occasionally, letting it slip while speaking of something else. His mother, always watching, always judging – how, sometimes, she'd go into a rage and his dad would wisk her away before... His dad sometimes looking sorry that it went so far, that Walburga Black reacted like that, but who still thought that what had angered her was a legitimate concern. Sirius' younger brother, Regulus, who wasn't fundamentally mean but still believed everything his family told him – that Sirius was wrong, that he needed to be saved from himself, that they were better than anyone else, that it didn't matter if terrible things happened to their inferiors, because, after all, why would Father and Mom lie, Sirius?

James, Peter and Remus had noticed, of course, how it was always "dad", how it was always "mother". How, whether it turned out to be "dad" or "mother", it was never about something Sirius had enjoyed.

James would tell the other Marauders where he'd gone for the holidays, and Peter would talk about how he played games with his parents on saturday evenings. Remus would speak of the afternoons he spent with his dad and his mom, going through muggle and wizarding culture, and comparing one to the other or wondering where one had inspired the other.

Sirius would come back to school and not say a word at all about the holidays.

Remus wasn't even sure he'd heard the teenager talk about anything he did with his brother at home.

Eventually, Dumbledore hummed – a useful way not to comment, when nothing could really be told – and moved on.

"I must say, of all the things I did not see while managing hundreds of students a year, this is by far one of the most surprising. Three students, all of them animagi by the time they reach sixteen... Even with two of them being prodigies, it sounds preposterous."

Remus winced.

Of course, it was an impressive bit of magic for anyone – especially teenagers with a shorter attention span and developing magical powers – but it was more the fact that they'd handled it so well, no one had noticed. Sure, there were about eight hundred students in the castle at all times, which meant there was always something the teachers didn't see, but the Marauders hadn't been – by choice – the most discreet group of friends.

So no, it wasn't only that his three friends had succeeded in becoming animagi by the age of sixteen. Uagadou, in Africa, offered the possibility of additional animagi classes to exceptionally gifted transfiguration students from the moment they turned fourteen, and when Peter had looked into their program, he'd found out that a handful of these children had done it in fifteen months – most took between two and four years, of course.

James, Sirius and Peter, on the other hand, had done it alone. No help, except their own. And they'd succeeded, and no one had noticed.

Said like that, it was astounding.

Remus heard the headmaster sigh, and ad:

"Thinking about what could have happened to them, had anything gone even slightly wrong..."

The memory of various illustrations in the books they'd used – disturbing, to say the least – to figure out all the steps to becoming animagi came back to Remus' mind. The animagus transformation – the road to achieving it – was a long and complex one, but it was also very dangerous. The warnings alone had made the werewolf try to dissuade his friends. Not that it had worked.

James had been so certain – "It's the right thing, Moony, we'll be able to help you, of course we're doing it" – and Peter, so determined – "I'm a Gryffindor too, you know, I, I'm not afraid!"

And Sirius.

"I didn't have to argue about Gryffindor either, Remus. Might have been easier at home if I hadn't."

"I still did it."

The danger had been real, though. It could have gone so very, very wrong.

Remus had nothing to say on the matter – nothing he hadn't already told his friends, back then, nothing he hadn't considered over the years.

Dumbledore shook his head slowly, as if chasing away an unwanted memory.

"Then again, you were young, the four of you, and children will always make choices and attempts we adults would rather not let happen. I would better not tell of my own exploits as a student, lest I lose all credibility. Sometimes the best we can do is being present for advice, giving warnings, and being ready for some emergency damage control."

Remus snorted a bit at that – Albus Dumbledore had always been an extraordinary wizard, and even if it sounded weird, he guessed the man had done his fair share of experimenting outside of school lines like any gifted child always ended up doing, for good or for bad – and started wondering.

How many students, right this year, were doing things behind the professors' backs? Be it sneaking into the restricted section at night out of curiosity, or using spells in a slightly unconventional manner to see what would come out of it, or going for actual illegal activities – maybe without ill-intent – like becoming secret animagi or importing restricted substances for fun and enjoyment – they'd tried a bit of that, the Marauders, of course they had, but they'd found it wasn't as great as being in complete control of the chaos they sometimes spread through pranks and secrets.

Sirius had been the only one who wouldn't even try – and when, for once, James had insisted, he'd gone and said that he'd seen enough of that during pureblood parties. Oh, not the same substances, maybe, but the results were the same. People out of control, who thought they knew exactly what they were doing and sometimes let the ugliest part of themselves show – and barely anyone present who would say anything about it afterwards, because what, no, of course it was normal, they'd been a bit more open than usual and so what?

"I'm a Black, James. Do you really want to see what happens when I'm out of control?"

James had almost scoffed, but he'd stopped at the last moment, a different look on his face all of a sudden. Remus had thought it was probably for the best, because Sirius wouldn't have changed his mind on this – and no one wanted him to, not really.

They all knew, now – after the Whomping Willow incident, after...

No one wanted to see Sirius Black out of control – and for a long time, the wizard hadn't wanted it himself, but apparently that decision hadn't withstood the test of time.

"...I've always wondered, to be honest, how exactly we managed to do... everything we did back then, relatively undetected."

The Marauders had gotten caught, occasionally. Not so much in the latter years, in fact, but they'd been busy through their whole schooling at Hogwarts. The pranks, studying, general boarding school drama, the map, becoming animagi, the feud with a few select Slytherins, quidditch for James, prowling after bullies for Sirius, keeping up with his absences for Remus and working hard for Peter. Only a few of those activities were standard student behavior.

Remus turned around a bit, looked at the headmaster who had a small smile on his lips.

Of course the teachers had known, in the abstract, that Remus and his friends were getting up to a lot of things, but most of the time, they hadn't had proof... And sometimes, like with the three others becoming animagi, they hadn't known at all.

"...How much you saw. How much you knew."

It wasn't only James, Remus, Sirius and Peter.

There were also the few Slytherins who'd become Death Eaters even before leaving school. The thing was, no one knew for sure – even if you were certain of it, you didn't know, you had no proof. Some asshole purists never became Death Eaters, some people who seemed absolutely alright did, because it was also about keeping a mask, about being willing to go further than simple bullying. The only reason they actually knew that some Death Eaters had been recruited while still at school was that someone had fessed up during the trials of 1981 about scouting while in seventh year – and because Sirius had recognized his brother while out with the Potters in the summer of 1977, talking with people who'd later been outed as terrorists near the location of a future attack.

Of course, there had been suspicions while in school, and a few students who didn't quite hide what they meant to do after graduation – but they hadn't all been let in for all that, and some had later confessed they'd been talking big but would never have done anything about it.

Regulus Black had barely left Hogwarts that Sirius' father had come to see him at his flat near Picadilly Circus Station – Peter and Remus had been there, too – and told him that his younger brother was dead.

Orion Black had gotten a nosebleed the moment Sirius had heard the words "no one knows where Regulus' body is". The older wizard had taken a moment to breathe, then had stared at his older son.

"Will you stop that."

Orion Black had died two months later, and sometimes, Remus wondered if it was because of his son's death – because his other son wanted nothing to do with the family.

But sometimes, he wondered if Sirius hadn't been the one to kill his own father, that evening, with his outburst of accidental dark magic.

Sometimes, when Remus was really, really down, he wondered if it had been all that accidental.

But to get back to the matter of the few slytherin students who'd already been recruited – and, on a lesser scale, those who were being looked into, for latter recruitment, after graduation – yes, Remus wondered, how much did the teachers – and more specifically, the headmaster himself – know.

There were the things the old wizard had told the Order, and those he never had.

Had he known, then? Hadn't he? What had he known, what had he not? No one had said everything they knew, back then – it wasn't safe, to begin with.

Dumbledore gave a quiet laugh, and a vague answer.

"More than some know. Less than some believe."

The old wizard paused, there, taking a moment to contemplate a more precise answer.

"...There are many more things I suspect than outright know, to be honest. I am rarely wrong on the matter as it turns out to be, but it is still not knowledge."

Remus frowned, about to ask for an example – he had a general idea of what the headmaster meant, of course, but an example would make it much more concrete, and Remus always worked best with facts to examine under all angles than with pure theory, like James or Sirius sometimes breezed through as if it all was obvious back when they were in school.

But in the end, the werewolf never asked – a rat had flashed by, running down the stairs as if its life depended on it, and that, that stopped Remus short.

It was quick, and fast, and blurry – it could only be nothing. A rat amongst hundreds of others, and if Hogwarts wasn't known for its rodent population, well. Maybe there were one or two hidden away in a corner nonetheless.

But Remus and Dumbledore had been talking about his friends, and the thought of their animagus forms was still fresh in his mind. A big, black, grimesque dog; a stag almost as dark in fur as the death omen standing next to him; and a rat, hidden behind his two massives companions, with mousy brown fur and watery blue eyes.

Remus' mind went back to the howling he heard coming from the forest, not twenty minutes ago.

He blanched – the picture wasn't there, not quite, he didn't know what it meant but he had suspicions, and if they all tended in different directions, it didn't make them disappear for all that.

A howl in the forest, not belonging to a wolf – he should know – and a rat scurrying in the castle.

"Sirius is here."

The headmaster stopped his steps, and stared at his former student.

"...What makes you say that?"

"The howling. It was him. And that rat..."

"You think...?"

"I don't know! It doesn't make any sense! But if he is..."

They hurried down the stairs, looking for – for the rat who'd just passed them, for Sirius Black prowling outside the castle, for the truth, once and for all. For an end to all this.

But before they could do any of this, Remus stumbled on John Dawlish, one of the aurors working on Sirius' disappearance. The wizard had a piece of paper in his hands, but his eyes immediately latched on the headmaster.

"What..."

"Scrimgeour sent me. Sirius Black has been seen in Hogsmeade, but he apparated away before anyone could do anything. We're putting caterwauling charms on the whole village, and a team is staying on watch, but we need you to come and discuss the situation at the Auror Office."

Dumbledore remained silent for a moment, Remus noticed, then the old wizard nodded – and he looked like something had caught his attention, but the werewolf had no idea what exactly.

"Let me warn Minerva, and we'll be going."

There was a moment of silence from the auror, who frowned before asking:

"Both of you?"

"Both of us."

Remus blinked – about as surprised as Dawlish himself, especially as they'd just established Sirius was just out there, somewhere – but said nothing and decided to follow. The headmaster knew something, he'd seen something Remus hadn't, and he couldn't say it with the auror present.

With an emergency portkey courtesy of the headmaster – the only one who could allow a portkey through the school wards – and a seal on the piece of paper Dawlish had with him allowing their destination inside the Ministry's wards, the three wizards got to the Auror Office in no time.

Another auror arrived at the same time, a cage covered with a clear fabric in her hands.

Dawlish frowned, again.

"Balrock? What are you doing here? Isn't it your day off?"

The witch shrugged, looking a bit tense but mostly uncertain of what was going on.

"Someone left this on my doorstep, with a piece of advice to use veritaserum. Not sure what it's about, but considering..."

Remus, once again, couldn't let go of the idea that...

Behind him, Dumbledore spoke with a jovial tone:

"Well then. Let's go and get Rufus."

Remus felt like he was falling inside himself.

I made a whole document of notes (69 pages and counting) about what I consider a base for all my HP fics (though centered around Unclaimed Darkness) and I've put together a google doc (6 page) about Hogwarts if you're interested. There's also a link to another google doc (sheet) with the timetables I've designed for all the years, all the houses (I haven't finished the one about the teachers' timetables).

amongst other things:
- Hogwarts' magical population (and how it translates into the wider wizarding world)
- timetables, as I said (the link is in the first doc)
- details on each subject, how many hours in a week, etc

can be useful for worldbuilding, if it can give you ideas, but mostly if you want to understand what I work with

document/d/11Imqw-Yx46VCNzNl0XMZLFiWT_C2vJtHdSRYOuMTX3w/edit?usp=sharing

(of course, this being fanfiction point net, the https part got swallowed, so you have to add -https-:-/-/-docs-.-google-.-com-/- without the dashes to get the address)