"James!"
A mother looked up, startled by the pure emotion in that cry. The plump pumpkin in her arms started to cry; she hushed her and hurried along with the little princess and flowing ghost in tow.
"Lily?!"
This time the cry was heartwrenching -- the mother glanced back, torn. Something was clearly wrong, but a mother's first duty was to protect her children. She continued toward the town center, as far away from the dark lane's end as possible.
"James...N0!"
Their house loomed into view, and with that single glance the grief-stricken man fell to his knees, already lost. If he could see the house, then so had their hunter, and all was lost.
***
Remus walked briskly down Tottenham Court Road, his cloak pulled tightly around him. He preferred to enter Diagon Alley through the Muggle world; it reminded him of his childhood. Ever since he had been bitten, his parents had never held out hope that Remus would be accepted in the magical world. They had done their best to incorporate him into the Muggle world -- primary school and town fairs, trombone lessons and cricket practice -- but Remus could never feel like he belonged anywhere. None of his school mates were turning into a ruthless monster once a month, locked in the family barn.
Still, it was nice to reminisce. There had been good times, as well. Remus had always especially loved Halloween, a day when every child's dearest ambition was to pretend to be what Remus actually was -- a creature of the night. Halloween was his night, the one night when he reigned.
But he would never be a part of that world, no matter how hard he wished to cast off the magical world and all its constraints. If the magical world had never existed, he would be free to make friends, to make a living, to make a life for himself with a woman who loved him... But it did exist, and it had coming knocking on his door incontrovertibly one cold night some fifteen years ago, and now he would never be free again.
With that final thought, Remus pushed open the door to the Leaky Cauldron. Proof that he couldn't avoid this world even if he wanted to, because here was a building he alone could see among the crowd bustling through Tottenham Court Road; he alone could enter this recluse and drink away his sorrows.
His reason for coming here tonight was simple -- his past had finally caught up with him. Ten years ago, Remus had been dealt a stroke of luck he never could have imagined, and he found himself packing his trunk, heading off to Hogwarts, and making friends who accepted him, even though they didn't know what he was. Finally, Remus had felt like he belonged.
It had always been too good to last. And this morning it had all come crashing down. Sirius had Apparated to their flat, babbling incoherently about how "this was the only way" and "they would never see it coming, not him". Remus had handed him a cup of recently brewed tea and asked him to calm down. Sirius had taken a deep breath, and started with "Moony..." But as Sirius looked into his eyes, something had changed. Sirius suddenly looked afraid, in a way Remus had never seen before. "It's nothing", Sirius had said, "I just had a bad dream". Never once meeting his friend's eyes, Sirius had Apparated from the apartment again, without the slightest explanation.
But Remus knew why. Sirius no longer trusted him. Someone in the Order was a traitor -- that much was clear. The McKinnons, the Prewetts -- none of it added up unless someone among them was leaking their movements, spilling their secrets. James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus had stayed up many a night discussing it, trying in vain to determine who it could be, but to no avail. Nothing made sense. Moody had been the one to save Emmeline from that unexpected raid, Benjy had not even known about the Prewett's mission... There was no explanation. And with that one glance, that shift behind his best friend's eyes, Remus understood what Sirius thought he finally understood -- that their late-night brainstorming sessions had always led to dead ends because the traitor was among them.
Preposterous, Remus thought savagely as he threw his coat down on the bar stool next to him. Absolutely abominable. That I could be the spy. And yet... Sirius's conclusion could not be entirely written off. Why was it that Aurelia Bones, the Potters' personal bodyguard, had been sought out, when no one outside the Order could possibly know of her affiliation? Why was it that James and Lily and Frank and Alice had been confronted by Voldemort himself more than anyone else combined? Wherever the information was coming from, it seemed to be zeroing in...
Remus jerked his head up. He was fairly sure his thoughts were confined to his own head, but he was also fairly sure he had just heard the very name that was most worrying him...
"To Harry Potter, the boy who lived!"
A hushed cheer went up around the bar, glasses clinked, chairs scraped as more elf-made wine was sent for. Remus shook his head, which was only slightly clouded by his first firewhisky of the night. He must have misheard, Remus assured himself, surely there were plenty of Potters in wizarding England, and Harry was not an uncommon name... They could not be discussing James and Lily's son, because his existence was necessarily known to very few people.
Yet, there it was again, a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...
"Yes, yes, that's what I heard, the whole house is gone, Godric's Hollow is completely blown to smithereens, but somehow their son survived, surrounded by Merlin knows what protection..."
Godric's Hollow. No. He must have heard wrong. Remus picked up his coat, grabbed a full glass of water from a neighboring table and downed it in one, and approached the familiar bartender, Tom, who had repeatedly politely refused to serve James and Sirius the summer before sixth year. "Excuse me... What's all the excitement?"
Tom turned, startled, from the customer with whom he had recently been conversing, and blinked rapidly. "The excitement?" he asked, disbelieving, "My dear boy... The news is both most heartening and most terrible... You-Know-Who is dead! But he took two final victims with him -- James and Lily Potter."
Remus swore he heard his heart stop beating. One second, the blood was pulsing in his ears, and the next, all he heard was a distant ocean roaring.
"James and Lily?" he whispered, although he felt like he was yelling down an endless corridor. "James and Lily Potter?
"I'm sorry, Remus, I know how often you were in here with them. But they didn't die in vain -- their son, Harry, managed to stop You-Know-Who."
Nothing was making sense. James and Lily, dead? Harry, stopping the world's most evil wizard? Tom wasn't even supposed to know about Harry... and with that thought, suddenly everything snapped into focus for Remus.
There was no time to question, no time to mourn, only time to act. "Their son -- he survived?" Remus asked. All it took was one look at Tom's face -- both hopeful and stricken -- and Remus was out the door. With a twitch of his cloak and a twist of his head, he was gone.
***
"James...N0!"
The mother was just turning down her garden path when she heard the howl. A lone, long, heart-wrenching, terrifying howl. Almost simultaneously, the pumpkin in her arms began to howl too. She quickly locked the gate and hurried through her front door, turning off the front porch light as she went. The trick-or-treaters would simply have to find another house tonight.
The howl tore at his throat, tore at his mind... But never had it been so important to stay present and whole. Focus, Remus thought, focus... Sirius. Sirius is the one responsible for this. Sirius is the one who sold them out, just like he tried to sell me out in fifth year, Sirius... But the more the hate overtook him, the less Remus felt like himself. It was too late, he was out of control, caught unawares in the midst of weeks spent underground, never knowing the time of day or the pace of the war, much less knowing the time of the month... He had meant to check the calendar this morning, this rare morning he had spent in his own apartment, in his own control and his own mind, but the despair of Sirius's mistrust had driven all such thoughts from his mind...
Remus's last human thought was that he had to get away from here. If Harry was indeed still alive, he had to get as far from here as possible.
***
A loud roar split the sky. A piece of the dark sky seemed to be falling, growing darker and deeper and closer until, with a resounding crash, a jet black motorbike landed in the middle of the lane. There was no time to haul the bike back up -- Sirius left it where it had fallen and ran in the direction of his best friend's house. Ever since he had found Peter's house empty, with no sign of a struggle, he had refused to consider the logical conclusions forming in his mind. Yet, ever since the Potters' address had floated to the surface of his mind, as though he had known it all along but had recently lost interest in recalling it, Sirius knew the wards had been broken.
As Sirius neared the end of the lane, he heard a howl of pain, saw a lone figure fall to his knees. Remus... There would be time to talk later, to apologize, but right now there was only time to get Harry and get even. Sirius picked up the pace, ready to yell at Remus, ask him why he hadn't gone in after Harry yet, when he stopped dead in his tracks, frozen like the man ahead of him.
Remus's limbs were starting to shake, and that howl was no longer a mere man's howl of pain. Suddenly, Remus turned and sprinted away from the house, away from Sirius, but before he had made it more than a few paces he had dropped to all fours.
***
Remus needed to get out of here, far away, deep into the forest... But he could smell death on the air. And blood, and children, and, really, it was such a nice night for a run through this sleeping town... The wolf slowly turned, vaguely aware that he had been running with a purpose, but unable to remember why...
WHAM. The wolf skidded on his back, three times his own length. Howling in rage, he whipped his head around, only to feel it whipped back by a harsh blow. The giant dog was on top of him, he could feel its breath on his neck, and then, just as suddenly, it bounded off him. The wolf spotted the dog running toward the woods, and then it stopped and looked back, almost as if it were laughing at him, and the wolf felt its rage double, as well as an emotion he couldn't quite explain. He bounded after the dog, driven half-mad by its scent, and the two were soon enveloped in darkness once more.
***
Remus rolled over, wondering where the new lump in his mattress had come from. The bed crinkled as he did so. Wait... He opened his eyes. Trees, rays of sunlight falling through them to the forest floor. Evidently, he had spent the night in the woods again.
Groaning, Remus carefully sat up. He ached in muscles he didn't know he had, and his left leg was caked in dried blood. Remus ripped a hunk of moss from the forest floor and bent to clean the wound as best he could, while he struggled to remember last night... There had been a full moon, obviously; Sirius had been there, but where were James and Peter?
James. Dead. James was dead. The memory suddenly came crashing down on him, threatening to suffocate him, shocking Remus at his own certainty. Had that been real? Or was the wolf still present in his mind? Godric's Hollow, the destroyed house... there was no way it was possible. But if it was, if James and Lily were dead... then Sirius was the spy.
Remus fell back on the forest floor. He simply had no more energy to be angry. He only felt betrayed. And confused. How could Sirius have done this to them? And how could he, Remus, have let him? Is that why the Animagus had attacked him last night -- had he meant to kill Remus too? But he was still alive. Maybe something or someone had chased the dog off, or maybe Sirius realized that death would be too kind.
Because merely the thought of living was hell right now.
***
Once he was sure the wolf would not be getting up any time soon, the black dog collapsed on the forest floor, his features slowly melding back into those of a man. Sirius only allowed himself a few moments of reprise before slowly, achingly getting to his feet. A faint pink tinge was starting to color the sky where it was visible through the treetops. He looked down at Remus, regretting the pain he had inflicted upon his friend last night, but it had been necessary to deal with the wolf as soon as possible. If the rumors were to be believed, Harry was still alive and alone in James and Lily's house.
Sirius was torn. He had to protect Harry, it was his duty, but he was every bit as hotheaded as his father had ever accused him of being, and his bones were screaming for Peter to be brought to justice. Peter had to pay, and Sirius wanted to be the one to do it. It was the only way Sirius could see to cleanse himself for suggesting the fatal switch, for giving the secret over to the traitor. The shock of the betrayal was almost too recent to fully grasp the truth of it, but Sirius had long mastered the art of using his anger to focus his thoughts. Dumbledore knew Sirius had been the secret keeper -- it wouldn't be long before there was a warrant out for his arrest. He would go to Harry, make sure he was safe, but he would need to find Peter before he could convince Dumbledore to let him raise his godson.
Glancing at the unconscious wolf once more, Sirius realized Remus thought him the secret keeper, too. That meant Remus thought him the traitor -- but he would understand. Once Peter was caught and Harry was safe, Sirius would explain, and Remus would understand. James and Peter were gone forever, and Remus was the only remaining Marauder. Sirius couldn't lose him too.
***
Remus pulled his cloak tighter about himself, tucking the frayed edges under his arms to keep out the chill. He wasn't sure why he had come here, except that he felt it had held the clues he had failed to see in time. His eyes moved over the boarded up windows, the peeling paint, not really seeing any of it. Sirius had first betrayed him here, turned Remus's greatest shame to his own advantage -- how could none of them have seen it? Peter, ever the smallest and weakest, the terrified rat, what had possessed him to hunt down Sirius, death his only reward for courage? And James...
This was where they had become the Marauders. Sitting amongst the broken and dusty furniture on a night with no moon, they had made a pact to always be there for one another. To protect one another, James had said. To discover the world's secrets, said Peter. To always support each other, vowed Remus. To keep James from making too big of a fool of himself in front of Evans, joked Sirius. There they had signed the Map, and stayed up early into the morning plotting their next big prank. When the dawn broke, they had stolen back into the castle under the Cloak, shushing each other a little too loudly as feet were trodden upon and toes were stubbed.
And just like that, in the span of one day, they were all gone. Two dead at the fault of the third, and Remus was left to pick up the pieces. Tomorrow was the Potters' funeral, Peter's would follow not long after, and at some point Remus would have to sell the flat he had shared with Sirius, because he couldn't bear the thought of ever returning there. He remembered his first year at Hogwarts, fearing his newfound friends would leave him the instant they discovered the truth about what he was -- but he had underestimated what it would feel like to lose them all at once. The war was won, but for Remus, the cost was too great.
Halloween by ginevra715
Chapter Notes: Any references to the Harry Potter world you may recognize are, of course, attributed to the brilliant J. K. Rowling.