I hadn't realized I hadn't updated for so long! Sorry, all of you amazing readers. :)
Another transition chapter, as the beginning of the end will start next chapter. Dumbledore was odd to write, but quite interesting, and foreshadowing is just the coolest thing ever XD (as you'll see...)
Beehive
By: Nekare
Inklings of the storm,
of the heavy trembling,
are surely what drive
us together.
Inklings of loneliness,
of a creeping frost,
an imminent fall,
a futile cry
-- Tarjei Versaas, "Outside the Wind Whispers"
Snow falls that night, pure white and full of the dreams Remus had to forsake after the first moon he experienced the bloodlust. The world awakes with a layer of beginnings, and it is only irony that makes the school know that morning about the murder of Rachel Thompson's aunt and uncle.
The enchanted ceiling makes the sky look odd, snow falling in thick snowflakes that just don't fall into the awaiting tongues of hundreds of students. Everyone seems to be expecting Remus to comfort the Hufflepuff girl after she runs out of the Great Hall, as if shared grief would make them understand each other. He finds her huddled against one of the suit of armor, sniffling quietly with her eyes unfocused. He sits on the floor next to her, and says nothing at all.
Years later, she would tell him it was the best comfort she got out of anyone.
---
The four boys find themselves sitting in front of Dumbledore's desk at Transfiguration's period, and for the first time in their history, they're not there to get a punishment.
They'd passed the entire morning sending each other notes about this, and after lunch they had all agreed it was their best plan. "Let me know if I understand you, boys." says Dumbledore, blue eyes sparkling with something akin to amusement and pride. "You want to join the Order?"
"That's right, Professor." says Remus, the chosen speaker of the day. They have a code, engraved in their memories since Third Year, and every time one of them wants something especial to be said, they nudge him in coded secret.
"And why exactly is that, if I may ask?" says Dumbledore somewhat cheerily, and Remus feels self-conscious, as if he his words just a show to the elderly man, an interesting trick by some rather well-trained animal.
A nudge by Peter, and he knows exactly what to say. "We reckon something must be done about the incoming war. I know you need all the help as possible, and we just can't sit in here while people are dying out there. Something must be done," He repeats, slightly choked, but he continues steadily with his own words. "I'd be ready to step into my father's position, but I've no contact with Muggles other than my family." His words make it final, and Remus finally acknowledges his dad's death out loud. He feels empty, somehow, bare without his constant advice in letters.
The amusement dies in Dumbledore's eyes, and as he sighs he looks older than ever. "Those are very noble feelings, Mr. Lupin, of all of you." Something in Remus clenches with the expectance, and then it just evaporates with Dumbledore's next words. "But, I cannot accept you in the Order."
"What?" say Sirius and James together, and Peter gasps quite indignantly. Remus just sits there, eyes wide and illusions crushed.
"I am afraid you are too young, and yes I know you're all of age now. Regardless, none of you could enter the Order i at least /i until you're out of school." James sputters protests, but a hand gesture quiets him.
"Live, for now. Then, you can learn how to fight." his tone becomes somber as he adds, "and how to die."
---
"Can you believe it?" asks James for the sixteenth time already, and Peter just rolls his eyes.
Remus can't, really, but he's said it the first time and he won't repeat himself. Sirius is brooding silently on his right, and Remus can't help thinking there's something wrong with him, something akin to dread bleeding into his face, mingling with the anger and fear everyone has felt deep in their skins since the threat of Voldemort had risen.
(Innocence has died, he sometimes thinks, as people around him laugh too hard at jokes that aren't even funny, trying to get back a piece of forgotten childhood).
"He just can't say what we can and can't do! He's not our father or anything-" James stops at mid-rant, looking warily in Remus' direction, but a muttered "thanks Merlin for that," from Peter dissipates his awkwardness.
They walk through the hallways without a definite purpose, and Remus' voice echoes in the stone when he finally speaks, torch light bringing his coloring alive. "I guess we must take matters into our own hands, then."
The other three stop walking with the surprise, and they have to catch up with Remus' determinate strides, worn boots leading them into the library. The others share dubious looks, but eventually shrug and follow.
"We taught him well, Padfoot, we should be proud."
---
The snow keeps falling through the day, a white curtain over dark sky, making the outside world seem blurry and repetitive, although Remus knows no snowflake is the same to another (the same as people, and spells, and feelings). He puts his fingers against one of the tall windows in the library, and the too thin to be noticed layer of ice covering the glass melts under his warmth.
He wants to become snow too, soothing and white, scattered to the winds and tied down to nowhere. Then he thinks about Wormtail buried in a pile of socks, of Prongs shoveling snow with his antlers for the lack of anything better to do, Padfoot chasing cats in Hogsmeade.
And then, then he decides his life isn't as bad after all.
---
There's little in the Restricted Section they haven't experienced with already, but they hide some books in their packs anyway, to be revised when Madam Pince isn't around to yell at them. Remus had told them to search for both attack and defense spells, and for once, they listen to him.
Remus won't accept Dumbledore's excuse for not letting them in, even when he still isn't able to see himself in the mirror and see an adult in his place. He won't disobey him, though, since every lie he tells the man is a heavy weight on his shoulders, and trust is the only thing that has kept him alive so far.
(Trust in decent survival from distraught parents, trust in a bright future for a scared child, trust in a friend that didn't turn out as tamed as he looked. He doesn't trust Sirius with his heart though.
He knows he'll break it.)
They're lacking in practical matters, and Remus makes a mental note that if he ever were to teach DADA, as strange at that sounds, he would make it as practical as possible. Years of running wild in a forest have given them a good grasp in reflexes and survival instincts, though, and they speak of what-if's and dreadful scenarios, trying to gain a tactician's mind. They Charm their quills to act as them, and Peter invariably ends up moving the feathery Death Eaters. Sirius' quill dies when he doesn't see an attack coming from a different angle, and he sulks in the corner of the table, making his eraser dance a gloomy tango.
Two hours, fourteen minutes and three seconds later, Sirius suddenly slides his foot along Remus' calf, and the gasp that comes out of Remus' lips makes him smile with sin carved on his skin. There's something else going on inside his skull, Remus knows, but for once he puts it aside and gets his quill singed as Sirius strokes and fireworks light behind his eyelids.
The storm rages outside, and the inklings of something too warm to be lust move in time with Remus' breathing and Sirius' rhythm.
---
"All right, out with it." says James just before going to bed. Everyone stares at him, and everyone knows what he's saying at once.
"What do you mean?" Sirius says, trying to feign innocence, avoiding his eyes in that way that means he's lying. Remus knows that only happens with them, that whenever he lies to someone else he does it with his eyes locked into the other's and with such certainty not even him can sometimes tell between his lies and his truths.
"There's been something eating at you all day. Spill it."
Sirius averts their eyes, and they suddenly know it's something serious. Déjà vu makes Remus' blood run cold, the night of The Prank re-playing in his mind. Sirius looks at him, shoulders hunched and head lowered, and his words make Remus' world stop once again.
"I think I know who killed your father."