Moonlit Horizons

Moonlit Horizons

Chapter Eleven - In which Sirius is compared to a castrated Lockhart… and Moony broods over his life

By Dizmius.

A Remus Fic for a friend of mine

***

~*~

Remus had been sitting in the corner of the library. He had always felt at home in the cavernous depths of aisles upon aisles of books. Surrounded by knowledge that could be accessed so easily. Knowledge is power Someone had once told him. But you still need to ask yourself exactly what it is that you believe in, in order to use that power without abusing it.

What do I believe in? Remus pondered, absently tracing the ancient graffiti on the table with his thumb. That good shall overcome all wrongs? That sounds too much like a Greek Tragedy. And as far as I've seen, that has yet to happen. There's an awful lot of wrongs to right.

"Oh Remus! Wherefore art thou? Keepeth still my beating heart!" Sirius' mockingly falsetto voice purged Remus of his train of thought.

"Sirius?" Remus looked up to see his friend flounce over, clutching a red rose to his chest.

"Thou hast forsaken my love for another! Oh how foul love treats me!"

"Sirius!" Remus hissed as Madam Pince looked up from her desk. "She'll see you!"

Sirius wiggled his eyebrows wickedly and sat down in a chair opposite. "The coats of armour have ears you know."

Oh god no.

"They've been telling me some wonderfully interesting things…"

Please no… Not now… I don't have the strength…

Sirius let out a mischievous cackle. "Snape had to curse them to shut up."

Snape knows… Of all people… Remus groaned, the day was getting steadily worse.

"Moony has a date!" Sirius said in a sing-song voice.

"Thank you so much." Remus grimaced.

"So…" Sirius took up his falsetto voice again. "What am I going to wear?! I must look simply ravishing for my darling Anna."

"I always had a feeling that you were a eunuch." Remus grinned. "Nice to know Lockhart's started a trend."

"Excuse you?"

"There's a rumour circulating, that our dearly beloved friend Gilderoy Lockhart keeps his wonderfully youthful looks and melodic voice by being a modern day castrato." Remus hissed, aware that madam Pince had an amazing hearing, and was probably listening in to every word they said.

"Oh!" Sirius nodded, then suddenly realised what Remus was implying. "Hey! I can assure you that I have all my bits and pieces and they're in perfect working order, thank you very much."

Sirius paled as he heard a familiar cough from behind him. Remus just grinned.

"Hello Professor." Sirius smiled innocently at McGonagall- "Nice morning for a spot of transfiguration, eh?"

"As much as we are all glad to hear that you are anatomically correct, I would like to alert you that the Minister is due here for lunch, and it might be wise for you to…"

"I'll leave." Sirius nodded, interrupting McGonagall mid-flow. "Maybe write to Harry."

"You could stay- as Padfoot." Remus suggested.

"No, I really should check up on Prongs Junior." Sirius sounded adamant. "He deserves a break."

McGonagall looked doubtful. "It's only two weeks until the start of term, surely a letter will suffice?"

Sirius shook his head. "You don't understand. I'd like to pay a visit."

"They have Ministry security all over the street. Being on the wanted list I would have thought that you'd be in more than just a bit of danger." Remus countered. Always the sensible one, never do anything without playing the devil's advocate first. Same as always, I am.

"Guess who's on the daily patrol today." Sirius grinned, "A certain Auror friend of ours."

"Edea?"

"Ten points to Moony!" Sirius nodded. "Check out the letter I got from her this morning." He handed Remus a piece of parchment, bearing only five words.

Tuesday twentieth. Dawn 'til dusk.

"Meaning?" Remus frowned. He's really going to do this. Talk about suicide missions, this just passed the border into psychotic suicide mission.

"Dear old DuCruet's got me a free ticket to my Godson. She's covering. Call it a favour being repaid." Sirius smiled to himself, obviously full of confidence, as per usual.

"She's treading dangerous water, letting you in. What if Arabella raises the alarm or something." Remus asked, now genuinely curious about the expedition his friend was about to take.

"Dumbledore had a word with both Eddie and Arabella. He convinced them." Sirius shrugged.

"Dumbledore agreed to this?" McGonagall sounded sceptical.

"Well… he explained what was going on, concerning yours truly, I just used my initiative." Sirius shifted guiltily in his seat.

"You! Initiative!" Remus snorted. "This is the same initiative that almost got Snape killed?"

"Erm… yes… I suppose so." Sirius admitted, "But it's foolproof,"

This could go horribly wrong. I just get that foreboding feeling that this is going to blow in his face. Again. There's no point in trying to change his mind once he's got his heart set on doing something.

"Good luck Padfoot." Remus didn't voice his thoughts but simply smiled weakly as Sirius transformed into the great black dog, and slinked out of the aisle, tail held high.

"He's reckless." McGonagall sounded defeated. "I understand that he's not had the best of times recently, but it's no excuse to go prancing off round the countryside on some mission that he's convinced will work." She muttered to herself as she walked away, shaking her head in distaste.

She's not going to say it out loud… There's an undertone to that. She's talking about Lily and James… That was Sirius's last 'foolproof' plan… Look what happened to that. If they had only stopped to think about it first… Not that they actually had the time… They didn't know, how could they… How could they know that Peter had found new friends… dangerous and homicidal friends who he believed would give him the power he so craved… Why did he have to resort to Voldemort? He had never really fit in with our group, but was still our friend, however lacking in magical talent he was. I know that I sometimes wish I could erase him from our entire past, just act as if Peter had never existed, but that's not how it works, you can't just remove him from the history of the Marauders. I could bet you that he didn't even think that he'd have turned out this way when he was fifteen and revising for the OWLs. And it was so perfect. Nobody would have ever thought of him as the spy. We had Snape, and they had Peter. What a comparison. But it's all changed now. Snape is well known that he was a spy, and I'm sure he had a great deal of trouble in being accepted into the fold again. Draezyc probably feigned ignorance, or found some scheme to worm the way back inside. Peter- nobody really knows he exists. As far as Snape knows, Voldemort never calls him Peter, so very few of the Death Eaters can see the link between Wormtail and Pettigrew. He still has the gift of being publicly invisible, to coin a phrase of figurative speech. And to think… he wouldn't have become an Animagus if it hadn't been for my lycanthropy. James would have trusted me more, maybe even considered me as the secret keeper if I hadn't been a werewolf. It all comes back down to me. My fault.

~*~

"Can I sit here?"

Remus was shaken out of his reverie by a dark haired boy looking at him.

"Yes, of course." Remus nodded, taking his feet off the chair opposite him.

"My mother told me to look for you, if I was lost. She said you're a person to trust." Pytheus sat down in the chair, and looked up at Remus.

He looks like his father. He has the same expressions.

"You're lost?" Remus asked as the boy glanced across at the large bookshelves stacked with books.

"Well… I thought I was going down the steps to the dungeons, because Mother told me that that was where Father's office was, but I found myself outside a large classroom, so I walked this way because I was following one of the spiders across the wall." The boy stared up at Remus. "Father came home late last night… He was talking to mother about Lucius Malfoy… I think she's going to kill him."

"Draezyc's going to murder Lucius Malfoy?" Remus raised an inquisitive eyebrow. The boy obviously didn't think it a problem to be telling Remus such things.

"She was shouting about him… and said she was going to deca- decapitate him, and send his head back to the Malfoy Mansion on a silver plate." The boy grinned slightly. "They didn't know I was listening."

"Why would she do that?" Remus asked.

"Father said someone was trying to spy on him, to make sure he was being loyal to someone… They said he was losing his sense of direction and were going to put him straight or kill him trying." The boy sniffed slightly. "I don't want Father to die."

"Nobody wants that." Remus said quietly.

"I've heard Father talk about you… and your dog friend… he said that you wouldn't care, and it would be doing you all a favour."

"He told you that?" Remus sounded astonished. The boy hears so much… I wonder if Snape knows about this.

"No, he was talking to Mother in the Drawing Room after Tea." Pytheus looked slightly guilty. "He doesn't know I listened. But it sounded important…"

Remus suddenly thought of something, who knew the real Snape better than his own son? He could finally find out the answers to some of the questions that had been plaguing him for years. "Does your Father ever talk about werewolves?"

Pytheus' eyes lit up. "Yes!" he grinned slightly. "He gets all stressed and Mother has to brew him some calming tea. He said one played a trick on him ages ago, and they're not very trustworthy… He said some of the Gryffindors were finding as many ways as possible to get him killed when he was at Hogwarts… and then he had to meet him again when he came back to teach the defence stuff."

"Did he tell you the person's name?"

"No." Pytheus shrugged. "But he must have got Father really badly annoyed if Father gets so angry about it when someone mentions it…"

"Did he mention anybody else?"

"Yes, he sometimes talks about the Potter people. And Sirius Black. But he's evil."

"You think so?" Remus enquired, watching the boy obviously become more used to Remus, and fall deep into conversation about Snape.

"Well… Father said he was. He told me that Dumbledore thinks he's a good person so I've got to stay away from him, because he'll do the same to me as he did to my Father." Pytheus hugged his knees to his chest in the chair. "Why do you ask?"

"I know your Father… But he doesn't seem to like me much."

"I like you." Pytheus smiled. "You're friendly to me. And Mother said you were a nice person. But father doesn't like many people… he says they waste his time." Pytheus glanced across at one of the house elves who was passing. "He doesn't like Quidditch either, which is really bad because I never get to watch the matches."

Remus smiled weakly… briefly remembering the few times Snape had ever gone near a broomstick. Most times he had been ridiculed by Sirius and James who would swoop round pulling off dangerous stunts. "Doesn't he want friends?"

"He said that what was the point in friends when you either lose them to an early grave, or they become fanatics of some regime." Pytheus looked like he was quoting the Bible as he said this.

"I should probably take you back down to the dungeons then." Remus sighed and stood up, "Your Mother might get worried."

"She's not here… her and Father. They got called to see this big dark person." Pytheus didn't realise that he was talking about Voldemort, and suddenly Remus realised that he had forgotten about giving that note from Voldemort to Dumbledore. "Come on." Remus started walking quickly. Take Pytheus to the Dungeons… and go see Dumbledore… yes… that's what I'm going to do… should have thought about this earlier. Stupid stupid stupid…