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Remus was in a rush, even with Apparition he couldn’t go back to Grimmauld Place soon enough: the Patronus, a shiny blob in which he could recognize the vague shape of a huge dog, sounded desperate enough as it was, but something deep in his bones, closer to the wolf than to himself, was pulling at his guts, begging him to just hurry the fuck up.
He opened the door in a haste, ignoring Walburga’s screams when it closed behind him as the portrait started to curse the entire bloodline which led to the birth of her ungrateful son; he never thought he’d get used to it but, apparently, somewhere in between the first time he got into that damn mausoleum of a house and that day he did.
“Sirius!” He screamed, rivaling her screeches and going straight to the upper floors. “Sirius!”
The house was silent, deadly so, which was weird in itself: if Order members weren’t around, Sirius would have had vinyl playing just to feel less alone. And if there wasn’t, Sirius would be up moping in Buckbeak’s room. But when he realized the other man wasn’t there; he tried each of the bedrooms hoping to find him and came up empty handed. The echo of the Patronus played in his mind, filled with doom: I’m getting mad inside of here. Wait… don’t go there, don’t come after me!
The second part was weird, like a Muggle phone call that never got cut off. The first part was the usual, Remus had that very same conversation with the Black heir so many times he could play it by heart, but the second bit was concerning and Remus just wanted to find him and discuss the fact that he had to stay inside. That would have meant that Sirius was at home, losing his mind, but safe. With the situation he was facing, he hated the insecurity of it, especially of Sirius’s whereabouts since he’d known him for so long to know he wasn’t unknown for his reckless acts.
In the complete stillness and silence of the house, he heard noises coming from downstairs, flames and steps and someone rummaging around. He jumped down the stairs three by three, knowing his articulation would have killed him the day after but not really caring at the moment as pushed the dark figure which just entered the kitchen against the wall behind them; his left arm pushing against a throat and his right one with wand in hand joining at the same instant as a well oiled mechanism, too used to fighting. It was an instinct he didn’t have, not before the first was, not after finding himself in the second one, older, wiser, and yet still surprised of how violence seemed to be the first choice for him. It had been an alien feeling, once, now it came to him as a second skin.
“Lupin,” The dark figure spat, the voice somewhere ticking on as both ally and enemy at the same time in the depths of his brain. Hadn’t he been both, sometimes even in the same spare second, for as long as he’d known him? “Charming as always, I see.”
Remus’s left arm lowered, his right didn’t follow. The sound which left his lips was more growl than word: “Severus.”
The world shifted in front of his eyes when the name of the intruder registered: he didn’t trust the man, even less so after what happened at the end of the school year two years before, but Dumbledore trusted him and, despite everything, Remus was still willing to cut some slack to the Headmaster; so he decided to give the benefit of the doubt to the Potion Master, as far as he could threw him, or as far as he could push him against a wall and curse the air out of his lungs. Hence why he didn’t lower his wand. “What are you doing here?”
That, at least, was a fair question. Snape was supposed to be at Hogwarts because despite the fact that he had been a Death Eater he was still allowed to teach to vulnerable children, not in Grimmauld Place, where Albus decided to close and hide from views the spares and broken pieces of his previous chess game.
He tried not to let it linger, he tried not to let it rot from inside, but it still burned how the man played each and every card at his deck to keep Snape in his school when all he did when Remus resigned was telling him he could have found a way to fix the mess Snape himself made, without offering any real solution.
He told Harry Dumbledore had done enough for him, and maybe he really believed it, back then, before Crouch Jr and Umbridge, when saving Sirius seemed to be the only option he had left. Two years later, he could admit, at least to himself, that he would have wanted more. More effort, more solutions, more he didn’t even know what.
Still, Remus was good at hiding stuff under the rug, and while he was by now walking on a very bumpy one, he knew that wasn’t the moment nor the place where to have that conversation with the man in front of him. Though, he could still be petty and he had to check if the man was really who appeared to be before he could provide an answer to his question - as if the first thing he said wasn’t enough to prove that yes, this really was Severus Snape.
“When did Lily Evans stop to talk to Severus Snape?” He asked, and not only to hurt him, but, because, all things considered, he doubted someone pretending to be him would have known.
“Fifth year,” He said, and the complete emptiness in his voice told Remus all he needed to know: it still hurt, despite everything, and this was the Potion Master. A sly smirk appeared on his thin lips. “Who sold Remus Lupin’s secret to me when we were students at Hogwarts?”
That was, apparently, a game two could play. Remus bit his lower lip. It hurt less than he’d like to pretend, but he was good at faking; and making Snape believe it still pained him was better than letting him in on other, more painful, things. “Sirius Black. But that’s a security question most people would know the answer to; E for effort, though. - He answered, stepping back from the other man, but not lowering his wand just yet. - Why are you here?”
Snape looked at the stairs behind him, as if expecting someone to come down, as if, if Sirius was in the house, he wouldn’t have walked in already; they weren’t exactly being silent. “Just checking on the housewife, Lupin. Where is he?”
And wasn’t that the question he was pondering? But if he took the time to come all the way from Hogwarts then, maybe, antagonizing him more than he already did wasn’t the best way to continue that debacle. He was too busy studying the other man’s face to keep his own in check, apparently, because, a moment later, Snape’s dark eyes brighted up and the ghost of a terrible, scary and dark smile crossed his lips.
“He’s got Padfoot at the place where it’s hidden,” He said, a vein of mockery in his tone. “Surely we know who Potter’s got his brains from, don’t we?”
Fuck! If the wolf wanted to tear apart each and every limb of the man in front of him, Remus would have let it. Being the moon far from full and being the middle of the day, he settled for the next best thing: he took a handful of Snape’s robe, pulling him dangerously close to his chest and then slammed him into the wall for good measure.
Anger was something he’d learned to suppress since he was four, because it was dangerous and showed the creature inside of him even if he wasn’t a raging, murderous wolf. When Remus had been a teenager, this had always been his greatest flaw, but with age he learned how to get a better grasp on it.
Not at that moment, though, at that moment he wanted to scream and hit and break things, whether it be House Black’s cutlery and glasses and chinas older than magic itself or Severus Snape’s bones - the wolf definitely had a preferred option among the two.
But, at least, his anger, which was in equal parts worry, had someone against who directed it, and it wasn’t the man in front of him, not this time, not in the great design of things. He let go, growling so low he could feel it vibrate through his chest, and then stepped back, wand grasped tighter in his hand. “I’m going.”
He wasn’t even sure why he was telling that to Snape, and the only answer he got was a shrug. “I won’t be the one to stop you, especially if your suicidal mission includes taking on the Dark Lord alone.”
How could he be so smug? He had to remember very carefully to himself that they were fighting for the same side, or so Dumbledore was sure of, at least. And if he decided that was enough to repeat each and every time to Sirius, he must believe it himself, in the slightest, at least. “Try to stop who you actually can and, for once, do your fucking job!”
He didn’t stop to make sure that he understood. He knew Harry, maybe better than Sirius did, and he had known James, and while he knew they weren’t the same person - that definitely more than Sirius was aware of - he was sure that the son would have run into danger to save Padfoot exactly like the father had so many times back then. Still, that was a rebus for Severus to solve, because Remus was already in the fireplace, flames turned green and the words to mark his destination were spoken loud and clear.
—
There had always been the false belief that Gryffindors are, at core, impulsive witches and wizards; this happened mostly because people tend to confuse the mix of courage, determination and bravery as impulsiveness, or they had met one of the Marauders - or the four of them together.
Because yes, even Remus who had always been the less impulsive of the four of them, had to admit that running headfirst into the Department of Mysteries without knowing what to expect and with the very real and present threat of Voldemort and some of his most ferocious Death Eaters without an exact plan which isn’t take Sirius and fight everyone else can be written off as impulsive behaviour. And possibly suicidal. But still, better than any other option he could think of in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place.
So, the moment the hall of the Ministry of Magic appeared in front of his eyes, he pushed yet another thought under the rug and started to run toward the lifts on the opposite side. A part of him thanked how he had spent the previous year, because at that moment his feet dragged him where he needed to go, thought hallways which all looked the same in their pitch black walls, but he didn’t really care and he didn’t have time to consider the decor either, not when the door of the Room of Prophecies opened in front of him.
The room wasn’t different from the last time he had been there, the same darkness which seemed to go on and on without interruptions, and the eerie, blueish light of the prophecies creating shades where there were none, and pale figures similar to ghosts even in the emptiest of places. And, despite everything, the place was silent, deadly so.
The werewolf knew where the prophecy they’d guarded for the entire year was, but he also suspected Voldemort couldn’t know and the place was so big that, for the first time since he jumped into the fireplace, he regretted being alone. It lasted only a brief second, though. Maybe it was the darkness, maybe it was the pull he felt in his guts, but the instant that the thought needed to form into his mind the wolf took over, guiding him on pure instinct and with a cold calm in between the high shelves; corner after corner, Remus could hear his heartbeat drumming in his ears, and yet the fear he was sure he’d feel in any other similar situation was subdued to something else, something different, something which he wasn’t sure he could or wanted to name.
And then he heard it, he heard him. The scream was closer to a whimper than anything else, and for a moment the image of Padfoot being kicked in his stomach appeared, uninvited, in his mind, and the wolf roared, low and protective and willing to just set itself free despite the fact that the Moon was far from being full that night. He knew it wasn’t possible, and yet he knew that that knowledge wouldn’t have stopped him. Because despite everything, on something he and Moony had always agreed: whoever dared to touch Padfoot deserved to suffer.
He closed his eyes and let all of his instincts and other senses guide him; he moved silently, his wand at the ready, and surprised by how he didn’t meet any Death Eater on his path. Maybe he was too far, maybe they were expecting someone else, someone he really hoped was still in the safety of Hogwarts, maybe they’d made the same mistake many others had during the first war and underestimated what Remus Lupin was capable of. Not that he was proud of it.
He took a long breath the moment he turned the last corner and something around him shifted. He wasn’t out in the open, he was smarter than that, but from where he stood he could see the small crowd of black clad people and, in the center, on his knees, his handsome face bloody but a smirk on his broken lips, Sirius Orion Black.
Remus really, really hoped, his first reaction to having been taken prisoner by Voldemort himself wasn’t the same he had when Aurors got to him, but something in the way he was holding his gaze up, meeting the one of the Dark Lord in front of him told Remus he was a fool for hoping something like that. There was a reason why he loved that man - many reasons, if he had to be honest, and most of those were the little things Sirius hid from everyone else - but his absolute lack of self-preservation wasn’t one of those. If anything, it was something which had always got to the werewolf’s nerves and that was, somehow, also a lucky occurrence in the situation they were in. Because Remus wanted to save him so that he could punch Sirius in the face.
Still, that had to wait. Remus knew he couldn’t take on so many Death Eaters and Voldemort alone and he could see Sirius’s wand on the floor, behind the Dark Wizard’s bare feet which meant that if he wanted his lover’s help he would have to at least make the closest of Voldemort's supporters from where they were standing in a circle around the two wizards, but he couldn’t really think about a way to achieve that which wasn’t stepping into the circle himself, except…
It was a dumb, idiotic, reckless idea, something he would have never considered in any other situation, but that wasn’t any other situation. They made a promise to each other, a whispered promise when Sirius went back to Remus’s cottage almost one year before. The promise of never leaving the other alone, of never doubting each other as it had happened during the first war. Because that was what broke them, all of them, to begin with, the moment they started to see shadows and traitors in the other’s eyes.
But not that time, because they were older, and because, despite everything, it was still the two of them, together, always, hiding in dark corners to share secrets and kisses, and more. It was them in Orion’s office going over and over an amount of Dark Magic texts, trying to find a way to protect everyone, trying to find a way to prevent them to be separated again, and it was the two of them, alone against Voldemort and at least seven of his Death Eaters, except that Sirius didn’t know he was there, not yet.
Remus smirked, from the shadows, feeling the magic pooling under his skin, not knowing, for once, where man ended and the wolf began and not caring to make the delimitation clearer, for once. Because, despite everything, in that moment he needed all the magic he could ask for and there was something, in being their Defence Against the Dark Arts expert while also being a Dark Creature, and that was learning how to control and contrast the Dark aspects of it, and use and direct them for his own aims.
He flicked his wrist and Sirius’s wand moved toward him. Nobody noticed, too focused on what was going on in front of them to pay attention to a discarded wand. Another movement of his wrist and the hope that Sirius could remember the plan James insisted to use on every Order mission what seemed like an eternity ago. Always keep their Legimancy sharpened, because there were times when the Patronuses were too flashy to be used and messages needed to be delivered.
Pads, He sent, into the void between them. I’ve got your wand, I’m going to find a way to get to you.
And then he focused really on what was going on in front of him, trying to find the best moment to make his move.
He had always hated the side of him which he learnt to associate with the Wolf but there were some instances in which that was useful, and that was, for sure, one of them. Because that creature which lived inside of him, which was that deep, shameful shade of darkness Remus couldn’t shake off, was used to fighting and was used to being vicious. And while he hated it, that was what he had always needed while fighting against the Death Eaters.
And so he let his senses really take in what was happening in front of him. He tried not to, only focused on Sirius’s face, how he snarked and bit his lower lip not to let Voldemort realize the pain he was inflicting to the man, but, apart from that, he didn’t let anything else breach his brain, but he needed to. If he wanted to save his partner he needed to focus on everything that was surrounding them.
And the first thing he noticed was the dark figure, the only one not wearing a mask pretty much leaning against Voldemort. He’d recognize her anywhere: Bellatrix Lestrange who was positively chackling in front of the Dark Wizard torturing her own cousin.
“You shouldn’t waste your time with blood traitors, My Lord,” She said, and while coming from someone else it might have appeared as a desperate attempt to save a relative, Remus knew that she was just trying to find a reason to hurt him herself.
He couldn’t see Voldemort’s face, from where he stood, but he could see his shoulders tense and Bellatrix step back from the other man before he turned to look at her.
“I appreciate it, Bella,” He said, and he sounded terribly human, for a creature such as the one he had turned into. “But we are no longer alone; would you mind bringing our guests here? Lucius, you too.”
And Remus’s blood froze, wondering what he did to make himself known to the man. He stilled, pocketing Sirius’s wand and tightening the grasp on his own, ready to fight as a part of him wondered if it wasn’t smarter to abandon the relative safety of the piece of furniture he was hiding behind. A low growl threatened to leave his lips, and then he registered the sound of steps echoing through the dark walls and corridors of the room.
“My Lord,” One of the masked figures said, something told Remus it was probably Malfoy. “What if it's the boy?”
“Let me take care of him,” The man said, and Remus could tell he was smirking when the expression which crossed Sirius’s eyes for the smallest of instants was of pure terror. Still, it didn’t even take time to be noticed by the Dark Wizard because his smug smirk was back on the Black heir’s lips.
“You’ve proven yourself more useful than I thought, Black,” Voldemort said, and Remus barely noticed that the Death Eaters left, probably chasing after whoever just arrived - and Remus really hoped it wasn’t Harry. “I’m half tempted to let your old friend dispose of you, but I’m afraid we won’t have time for that.”
He raised his wand and Remus knew that he was on borrowed time. The next curse which would have left the Dark Wizard’s wand wouldn’t have been to hurt him. He knew he wasn't a match for Voldemort, but, maybe, he could slow him down for some moments, enough for Sirius to get to his wand and then they could’ve fought the man together. But he needed to think rapidly so he swung his own wand, a Stupefy clear in his mind and without even stopping to check if the spell hit its target he crossed the space between his hiding spot and the corridor where Sirius was kneeled.
Voldemort was on him in seconds, not that Remus really cared, he thought, as he threw Sirius’s wand into the mix the moment the Dark Wizard pushed him off balance. For a second, the world in front of Remus’s eyes was confused, as he hit once again the hard and cold ground, his grip thigh on the wand despite everything. He turned, casting rapidly a Protego before gathering once again his balance so that he could face the other wizard on his feet. And then he did something which he spent most of his time doing, but was well aware it would have made a difference between walking out of there with Sirius both alive and mostly unarmed: he let that raw and ancient magic which he always associated with the wolf run free.
He spared one single glance to Sirius, just to be sure that he was fine, or as fine as someone could be after enduring the Cuciatus Curse for so long. He was shaking, in a way Remus had seen him shaking so many times when they met again at the Platform 9 ¾ in September, and was staring at him, trying to get on his feet. The werewolf felt the corner of his lips curling up as he left the magic which was frizzling under his skin free.
He barely had the time to think about the spells he threw toward Voldemort, the other man matching one by one. And, for a brief moment, he was thrown back to the first Order of the Phoenix.
He never had the occasion to duel the Dark Lord, back then, that having befallen on Dorcas, Frank and Alice and James and Lily, yet he came close to it many times. But none of those had ever had Sirius as the hurting part. Usually, the Animagus tried to get up and close to his relatives, specifically Bellatrix and that one time Regulus. Moony never had a reason to show up as it did in that moment, not that far from the Full.
He knew, rationally, that no all of his spells hit the Dark Wizard, and could feel more than his wand arm burning, a clear sign that he wasn’t parrying as many curses as he wished, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter when he heard Bellatrix screaming something the moment she came back and realized someone had attacked her Lord, it didn’t matter when he saw Sirius laugh at his cousin, and, despite the torture he had endured, crossed wand with her. It didn’t matter because Remus could feel the ancient magic cursing throw his body, begging to be released as he shouted spell after spell, the prophecies on the racks trembling and thrilling all around them.
Remus’s focus was all on the face of the man in front of him, and yet he could feel everything, the sparking of electricity of magic against his skin, the noises from deep into the Mystery Department, more spells yelled from somewhere, the crack of Apparition, and Sirius’s body, his back pressed against Remus’s and their free hands intertwined as they fought against Voldemort and Bellatrix. And then they saw two figures coming rushing towards them, and Sirius laughed, hitting Bellatrix square on her chest and using their joined hand to spin them around so that Remus could catch his breath as he casted a Shieling Spell against Voldermort’s next curse aimed at the both of them.
“Padfood, Moony!” Harry yelled, wand thigh in his right hand as he came to a halt in front of them. Voldemort’s laugh reached Remus’s ears and he pushed both Sirius and the boy behind him, the buzzing of his magic still loud and electric in his ears, his hand trembling and ready.
He felt Sirius squeezing his hand before letting it go, wrapping his arms around Harry’s shoulders and shielding him from whatever the Dark Lord was about to throw at them with his body. The only thought which crossed Remus’s mind was that, whenever the Killing Curse would have hit he’d at least died protecting the two people who meant the most to him.
But the green light never reached him as the three of them got wrapped in a bright white light and the figure of Albus Dumbledore appeared in front of them in the otherwise completely dark room.
The Headmaster turned to look at Remus and nodded just once, confirming maybe a question he didn’t dare to ask or giving him permission to take Sirius and Harry and leave he couldn’t tell and didn’t mind to stay to ask. He turned, grasped tightly onto Sirius’s arms, making sure he was there and was real and was alive, despite everything and dragged him towards the exiting door. Except that only in that moment he noticed that his partner’s icy eyes were focused on another figure, the one who came following Harry moments before: Peter was staring at the three of them, blue eyes lost and confused, clearly unsure of what or if he had to do or say something. Sirius was still holding Harry close to his chest, but the boy was staring at the man who sold his parents with a coldness which never belonged to either James or Lily.
Someone told Remus that that was the moment when the Aurors arrived, the moment when Kingsley explained to the Minister for Magic that Sirius Black had been wrongfully detained for a crime he didn’t commit, the moment when Tonks arrived in a rush and pushed the three of them towards the closest fireplace before the press finds out about this mess because she realized neither of them was in the right place to speak. Remus, Sirius and Harry would have heard of that all the next morning, while the Prophet plastered the three of them on the front page with a huge title that tried to put in the same sentence the fact that Harry and Dumbledore had been right since the summer before, Sirius Black was innocent and Remus Lupin had single handedly duelled against Lord Voldemort and survived to tell.
And yet, all they could see, in their empty, blinking eyes was the shocked expression of Peter Pettigrew from the night before, as if he couldn’t believe the three of them were together and he was not. An expression Remus felt guilty to admit, he had seen many times during the seven years of Hogwarts and never recognized for what it was.