Remus waited, fiddling with his hands as the others entered Snape's memories. With only Wilkes and the other Lily remaining out of the memories, he hoped that he'd have some time to talk things over with his friends.

"What are we going to do?" Lily asked, looking around at her husband and son. "Even if they believe us after this, I don't know how we could get home." Remus nodded at her words.

"Hopefully Bill helps us," he said. "He must know something about it, with his knowledge of magical theory. That was good thinking about the memories by the way, Harry. I wasn't sure what we'd do to convince them."

"I'm lucky I still had them with me. I almost left them in Dumbledore's office," Harry said, shrugging off his quick thinking. "I wouldn't have picked those ones to convince the others, but they're the only idea I had."

"What's in them?" James asked. "I know Snape was protecting you," he started sounding somewhat angry at the admission. "But what did he show you?"

"How I had to die," Harry said. "He gave them to me just before Nagini killed him. I wish I wouldn't have hated him so much. He never treated me well, but he did a lot for our side." James looked ready to protest, and Remus hoped he wouldn't.

"Well, he can count this as a compliment," Remus said. "Stuck in an alternate dimension, surrounded by familiar, unknown faces, and all we're talking about his him." His voice was dry, and Harry looked a little sheepish for starting the conversation.

"So what can we do?" Lily asked again. "Try to convince them, of course, but after that?"

"We can't plan for that, Lily," James said. "It's all in their hands. We're following their plans for now." Remus glanced at Wilkes, who was watching them with interest. He suspected that the man observing them knew more about them then they knew. Normally, his observations would have made Remus nervous, caused him to hold his tongue. But here, he truly had nothing to hide. Even the fact that they had been dead wasn't truly a secret, just something that he preferred trying not to explain.

Suddenly, the door to the office swung open, the thick wood colliding with the wall and causing a loud bang. Regulus reentered. In front of him, looking bruised and confused but not too badly hurt, stood Sirius. Regulus's hand clutched his brother's shoulder, the already pale hand white with the force of the hold. He shoved Sirius, watching him stumble into the room.

Sirius's eyes met Remus's, and relief flooded into them. He had been worried for them and understandably so.

"Harry," Sirius breathed. "You're okay."

"Like you'd care about someone else," Regulus snapped. "Drop the act."

"Regulus," Sirius turned to face the man, face his brother, face this insane hero whom the others treated so carefully. "It's not an act. Harry's my godson. I love him like my own kid." Regulus shook with anger at the words. His jaw set harshly and his eyes burning, he pulled out his wand.

Wilkes stood quickly, making his way over to Regulus.

"Reg," he said, with a quiet voice and a calming hand on the other man's shoulder. Regulus visibly calmed at the touch, and only a moment after Wilkes spoke, he lowered his wand.

"Where is everyone?" he asked. "Why did they leave?" Wilkes didn't speak until Regulus had sat next to him.

"Harry had a memory on him. A memory that wasn't his own and wasn't the one of someone who traveled here. We decided that some should view this memory and see what our next course of action should be." Regulus's face showed growing horror at Wilkes's words.

"They'll be stuck; the memories are tampered with. They won't get out," he murmured. His panicked eyes swept the room before landing on Harry.

"They won't be hurt, Regulus," Harry tried. "I didn't tamper with the memories."

"We thought about that, Reg," Wilkes said. "We analyzed them. And the memories don't belong to someone who traveled with them."

"Why do you believe them?" Regulus asked him, near pleading with his friend. Remus remembered how Wilkes had told him that he certainly did not believe him, but that he needed to counter Regulus's position.

"Because they're willing to do a lot to prove themselves. They have too many answers. Everything's too messy." Wilkes looked around the others. "If this was a trick; it would have to be extremely elaborate. And they seem too all over the place for that."

"But my brother," Regulus spat, sending an angry glare at Sirius. "How can we trust anything that even could be a trick from him?" Wilkes sighed and stepped closer to Regulus. The other man took a step away, keeping an almost wary distance between them. "I don't understand why you're acting like this." Again, Regulus had an almost pleading tone. Remus was struck by the realization that hero or not, Regulus relied on Wilkes far more than he should rely on any one person – especially during a war.

"Regulus," Wilkes started, calm, placating. "If this is a trick from Sirius, then he broke into Hogwarts; he broke past the wards. You know Sirius. His tricks are meant to hurt, but they are meant to quickly throw us off so that he gets the upper hand. Were he able to break the wards, Sirius would not have wasted time with a trick as complex as this. We'd be dead already if this was one of his tricks." As Wilkes spoke, Regulus's face softened a little. The panic in it fell as he realized that Wilkes's point was rather valid. Regulus stepped closer to Wilkes, unconsciously imitating the other man's actions from before. Wilkes, the stone in Regulus's life, stayed still, not reaching towards Regulus nor away.

"How could I ever trust them though?" Regulus asked, his voice hardly above a whisper. His gaze wandered over the newcomers, until they rested on one in particular. Remus knew that despite how Regulus had included them all in his statement, he really meant how could he ever trust Sirius.

Remus observed Wilkes carefully. The younger man didn't trust them, surely not. However, that being said, the man seemed to actually believe them now. Unless, and Remus concluded that this was certainly more likely, the man was good at hiding his true feelings. Sirius, on the other hand, and apparently in both dimensions, could not do that. Sirius stood up, and immediately had three wands trained on him.

"Regulus," he said softly. "I know you can't trust me. I understand. In the world I come from, you were a Death Eater. I feel like I should mistrust you here as well. But even though I feel that way, you've been showing me over and over that you're not the same as the brother I knew. Let me show you the same thing." Regulus turned towards his brother.

The two men looked rather similar. Sirius always was bigger, not just taller but more muscular as well. Regulus's body shape was small and lithe. He didn't fit the idea of a hero. However, despite their initial physical differences, Remus could see the marks, the traditional marks, of a madness which seemed to run through the Black family.

Sirius: The rebellious, the condemned, the revengeful, the loyal.

Regulus: The loyalist, the rebellious, the hero, the friend.

Both brothers, loathe as they were to admit it, leaned towards a sort of malicious cruelty. Remus recognized that in Sirius from back when they were schoolboys and Sirius led Snape to the Whomping Willow, wanting to kill his childhood rival. Regulus seemed to have less cruelty in him, but Remus could see the small bruises and cuts on Sirius left by his time with his brother, and, of course, Regulus had fired that killing curse when he first saw Sirius.

Remus knew that bridges separated the two. He knew that the dimension travelers would need to leave sooner rather than later. He knew that the Black brothers had never truly fit well together. Yet, Remus couldn't help but hope that if some sort of truce was reached between the two, then it would help both of them.

Yes, they were different. But together, perhaps they could recognize their own similarities as well. Remus knew that Sirius missed his brother in the way that he missed almost all of his family: late at night, when alone, and often only when drunk. But that being said, Sirius still missed Regulus, still missed good times. Regulus, on the other hand, could still improve on his flaws. The living man was leading a war, after all, and perhaps smoothing things over with this Sirius could help him so that his friends found him more manageable and respected him more.

The two men stared at each other, grey eyes to grey eyes.

"I still hate you," Regulus said. Despite the harsh words, Remus could tell that something big had just changed. The entire room felt different, less tense.

Regulus, the hero, the madman, had allowed his horrible animosity towards the dimension travelers to shift. Certainly, it still existed. Most likely, some hate would always linger. But the idea that the abhorrence Regulus felt towards them wasn't entirely needed or necessary was a huge step in the right direction.

There was hope, Remus realized. They might make it home in one piece.

As the others emerged from the Pensieve with shock written on their expressions, Remus couldn't help a tiny, near unnoticeable smile. Looking up, he met Wilkes's eyes. The two men stared at each other for a moment. Wilkes wasn't smiling; he looked stoic and unreadable.

Perhaps Sirius helped their situation with Regulus, but their situation with Wilkes still far too complicated to begin to solve.

New Chapter! Yay! For some reason this got lost on my computer, and I just found it! Let me know what you think!