Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter Seventeen

"So did you hear? Remus Lupin and Lily Evans spent the night together!"

"Oh really? What did James say?"

"He was pissed, from what I heard."

"Why were they sleeping together anyways?"

"I heard it was because Lupin, you know he's a werewolf and all, it was because he was trying to kill her-"

"Lupin? A werewolf? Why's he still hired?"

"Ministry is short on good Aurors, and from what I've heard, he's pretty good."

"Assuming he isn't a spy."

"If I hear one more person..." Lily growled, sending death threats to the gossipers across the mess hall. She was tearing up little pieces of napkin while listening to every conversation that passed. Remus, who was going over a report and sipping coffee, put his hand over hers to calm her tearing and then removed it.

"It will pass, just like every other rumor. Remember the one about Moody and his fetish with lacy tea cozies?"

Lily snorted.

"You're just noticing it more because it's about you."

"How can you be so bloody calm!" she hissed. "People are saying things and-"

"Lily, people will be "saying things" about me for the rest of my life," he remarked, tiredly.

"But-"

"I know that it upsets you to hear them, but one of these days you'll have to understand that you cannot change the way everybody thinks." He turned the page.

Lily frowned and swept the scatter of napkins into a pile. "Still, I-"

"Drop it."

"Fine..."

It was impossible for Lily to drop, however, when Sirius came barging into Remus' office later that afternoon and yelling at him. She heard the loud voices and wandered down to his end to see what was the matter.

"I didn't sleep with her, Sirius," Remus sighed.

"Oh really?" Sirius said, sarcastically. "Then why the hell were you cuddling with her?"

"We were not cuddling, Black," Lily stormed in, before Remus could retort calmly. "And even if we were, it would be none of your business. You can tell Potter if he wants to dispute those facts, he can haul his prattish arse down here and talk to me himself!"

Remus groaned and put his hands over his face. He had always assumed that Sirius wouldn't jump to conclusions the way James had, but obviously any excuse to distrust Remus was taken without any consideration as to the merit of it.

Stop being cynical, Remus told himself.

"I'm just saying that Remus here has always had a fancy for you, Lily, and that it was quite disloyal of him to go after you when you had just broken up with James!"

"I went over to his house, get your facts straight!" Lily said, snarkily.

"Oh really, well, it's still his fault for consenting to it!"

Remus decided that it was just best for the two of them to duke it out and continue working silently. In fact, it was only when the Prewett twins came by to break them up did they quit yelling at each other.

"I think they're shagging," Sirius remarked, solidly, smothering a piece of bread with mustard. He was making a giant sandwich over at Peter's house, with said owner and James working on their own works of culinary art.

"Me too," Peter squeaked. "He's always fancied her, and she's always been so keen on him."

James picked up his firewhisky and drank it, going back to his sandwich. "It was only a matter of time."

"True," Sirius nodded, placing the final layer on his six layer sandwich.

James and Peter stared at him.

"Taking it light, are you?" James asked.

"Watching my figure," Sirius shrugged. "I'm not as spry as I used to be." And with that, he took a giant bite out of the monster.

"So Pete, how goes work at the bank?" James turned to him, changing the subject. "Dumbledore have any special jobs for you, now that you're in the Order with us?"

"Well," Peter squeaked. "I'm supposed to be the ambassador between the goblins and Dumbledore. He's been owling me near every day..."

"Who knew ouw Petey couwd be sow impowtant!" Sirius smiled, mouth still full of food.

"Proud of you, mate," James grinned, and then turned to Sirius. "Hey, Padfoot, did you hear anything about that Swedish minister coming for a tour next week?"

"Nope."

"Me neither," James snorted, bringing the firewhiskey to his lips.He stared at it, blinking for a second. "What's wrong with this firewhisky?"

"Erm....it's non-alcoholic," Peter whimpered.

Sirius stared at him. "What the hell is the point of firewhisky if it isn't alcoholic?!"

"Mum came by yesterday," Peter hung his head. "Found that in there and told me off for being a professional with liquor in the refrigerator. Then she charmed out all of the alcohol."

"Did she ground you too?" Sirius asked, incredulous. "Are you not twenty years old, mate?"

"Yes...but-"

James rolled his eyes. "If my mum-"

"Your mum isn't speaking to you right now," Sirius reminded him. "She's too busy catering to your ex-girlfriend."

James shrugged. "Dad says that she's concerned because Lily's all alone in that flat by herself and doesn't have a mother." He shifted uncomfortably. "Is it bad that I feel bad?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I'm not the one you need to be talking to right now. I'm biased because she's shagging one of our former friends."

"Former?" James blinked.

"If he's going to lie to us point blank just so we'll keep being his friends," Sirius shrugged.

"Why are you so gung ho against Remus all of a sudden?" James sat up a bit straighter. Peter shrunk back into himself, watching the exchange. "I mean, normally you'd be the one telling me that I'm jumping to conclusions and-"

Sirius sighed. "I.....have a problem trusting Remus. I always have."

"Not because he's a werewolf...?" James said, tilting his head to the side. "Padfoot, you aren't that-"

"I don't know, all right?" Sirius slammed his hand down on the table and Peter jumped. "I just don't trust him... Especially with all of this highly classified information leaking out into the public..."

"I cannot believe they got on board Marlene's boat," James sighed, putting his head in his hands. "She was always so careful with her whereabouts."

"I know," Sirius shook his head. "Horrible sight it was," he shivered. "They didn't even have any sort of....anything..."

"To think, Lily and I were on that very same boat not even a month ago..." James swallowed. "What if they'd gotten that information?"

Sirius snorted and looked out the window. "Well, they wouldn't have because Remus fancies Lily too much!"

James gave him a tired look.

"I'm kidding," Sirius backed off a bit.

Peter took a long drink of his non-alcoholic firewhisky.

James peered out his office door across the hall into Remus' office. He was working diligently, as always, listening to a jazz instrumental on the WWN. He would write for a while, in his tiny scrawl, and then sit back and look at the progress he'd made. Then he would finish with one page and start on a new one, barely pausing in between them.

Sighing, James twirled his chair around to look at the pile in front of his desk. Being an Auror sure was a lot of paper work. He then noticed a great deal of them were death reports and then decided that he wasn't in the mood to deal with dead people today.

Unfortunately, before he could go take his tenth coffee break (he was about on schedule) of the day, Moody caught up with him as he took his first step into the hallway.

"Where are you going, Potter?" he growled.

"Coffee break!" James piped happily.

"I've got a better job for you," Moody said, his eyebrow raising. "Go find your friend Black."

"What for?" James asked.

"We've had some reports that there's some dark activity at the Blackleaf Inn on Knockturn Alley-"

James snorted. "Really? What's next? Books being sold at Flourish and Blotts?"

"DON'T BE SNARKY POTTER!" Moody roared. James jumped, terrified.

"I want you and Black to go there and ask questions-"

"As if they're going to talk to us, Moody-"

"JUST DO IT!"

"Gah!" James jumped again. "Fine...." He turned to go and then turned back around. "Have you had too much coffee this morning or something?"

"GO!"

James took off running, the mad look in Moody's eye was threatening physical violence.

"So let me get this straight," Sirius said, putting his hand on the old, rotting door. "We're supposed to go into a bar in Knockturn Alley that our enemy frequents often and ask questions to people who won't talk to us about things that they're trying to keep from us?"

"Yeah, that's basically the gist of it..." James shrugged, wrapping his cloak around him tighter.

"And Moody asked this if us?" Sirius blinked.

"Yeah..." James nodded. "A bit strange if you ask me..."

"Very strange," Sirius agreed, opening the door.

The bar had been humming with some sort of quiet activity, but once they walked in the door, all the noise stopped and every head turned in their direction.

"This is going to be oh so fun!" Sirius hissed. James ignored him and walked up to the bar, sitting down and looking around. The heads in the darkness were still staring at him, with loathing and distrust. He saw a trollish looking man (or maybe it was a woman) in the corner, a pipe with a purple fume coming out of his mouth. Three shadows were turning their white eyes their way once every few minutes and then would return to their conversation, nodding a few times. The bartender was standing as far away from them as possible, but also staring at them, as if daring them to ask him something to drink. He was polishing a bottle that had a skull and crossbones on it menacingly.

"Do you think if I asked for a goblin water, he'd give me that poison?" Sirius whispered.

"Probably," James nodded. "Who's going to be the lucky guy?"

"I don't know, but those shadows look awfully familiar," Sirius squinted. "Am I crazy or are you getting a bad feeling too?"

"I've had a bad feeling," James looked around. "Moody doesn't hate us that much, does he?"

"I don't know, the screeching that you and Lily do at each other on an hourly basis is enough to drive anyone mad," Sirius gave him a pointed look. James snorted.

"Bloody redhead."

"Those two are moving," Sirius nodded. "Bloody fecking...I thought they looked familiar."

"Lestrange brothers," James sighed, reaching for his cloak where his wand was hidden. He looked to Sirius who was doing the same and the two of them turned around so that their backs were to the bar. The Lestrange brothers appeared into the dim light, smirking.

"Did you get lost, mates?" Rodolphus asked, easily. "Or have you decided to switch sides?"

"Routine question and answer session," Sirius said, just as easily. The smallest of looks that the Lestrange brothers gave each other was enough to tip the two Aurors off.

"Oh really?" Rabastian said, eyeing them. "Well, ask your questions, we'll give you answers."

"I know one you can answer," James said, keeping his hand on his wand. "Go look in the mirror and find us two slimy Death Eaters."

"That's a pretty serious charge," Rodolphus shook his head. "Especially in this part of town. You don't want people to think we're angels or something."

"You?" Sirius snorted. "A saint?"

"Good and evil are in the eye of the beholder," Rabastian sneered.

"Or in the eye of the man in charge," Rodolphus said. "And we all know who that will be quite soon."

"You could say he's already there," Rabastian smirked. "He's picking you off one by one, McKinnon first, you next..."

James brandished his wand, angrily. Sirius had done the same.

"I think you'll find a bit of trouble with that plan," Sirius snarled. "James and I don't lay down and die like you want us to."

"Oh, Sirius," Rodolphus said, a gleam of mad happiness in his eye. "Regulus sends his regards. He will be leaving school at the end of the term to join us."

James was quick to put his hand on Sirius' arm to calm him; the other man was about to curse the gleam out of Rodolphus' eye.

"We'll see about that," Sirius said, apparently doing his best to stay calm.

"Is that all you can say?" Rabastian tutted. "I suppose it won't matter much in the end. You'll be dead in five minutes."

"I do believe that we are on equal footing," James said. "Two against two, don't you think?"

"James," Sirius said, seeing the third shadow move out of the corner of his eye.

But before that shadow could start the first word out of his mouth, the lights from outside came spilling in and a loud 'STUPIFY!' rang from the steps. Remus came running in, wand raised, looking around.

If James and Sirius thought they were going to get a fight, they were wrong. Rodolphus and Rabastian seemed more keen on keeping the identity of the third person a secret than doing any sort of arm to James or Sirius. They rushed over to help the shadow up, and then disappeared.

"Thanks mate," James said, feeling a bit sheepish. "How'd....how'd you know?"

Remus finished his survey of the bar; everyone was ignoring them now. Then he turned to James and Sirius and gave them a half-smile.

"After 'Moody' finished screaming at you, the real Moody walked by, complaining of hip pain," Remus said. "So I came over here as soon as I could to make sure everything was all right."

"Erm...thanks..." Sirius grumbled.

"Look," Remus rolled his eyes. "I have not nor will I ever shag Lily. If you want to know, she came over the other night because she was horribly upset over Marlene's funeral and spent half the night talking about how much she missed you, James."

James blinked. "...oh."

Remus folded his arms in front of him. "And furthermore, before you came barging in, she was about to go over and find you to apologize and to get you to marry her."

"Now, don't you feel stupid?" Sirius turned to him.

Remus gave him a pointed look. But weren't you saying the EXACT same thing?

"A bit..." James rubbed the back of his hair. "Sorry mate."

"It's all right," Remus nodded. "Let's get out of here, though, hm?"

"Not a word to Moody?" James said, cautiously.

"Not a word of what?" Remus said, innocently.

"That was some serious knight in shining armor, though," Sirius sniggered as they walked out. "Pity you didn't ride in here on a white steed, that would have made my day."

"You weren't up in a tower though," Remus said, seriously.

"And Prongs needed to be singing sweet lovelies," Sirius jabbed him with his elbow.

"I'll have you know, I have a lovely singing voice..."