The Devil May Care

The Devil May Care

By Dimgwrthien

Resorting back to his usual ways, Remus began going through the house, checking the spells around it. There was no point, he knew. All three were being as careful as possible about letting others know the address. However, nothing was going to be too safe for Harry.

Another charm was strengthened as Remus hovered around the front room, brow furrowed in concentration, making sure he did not miss a single spot. He could only imagine how hard it would be to charm all of Hogwarts if his small house was already proving to be hard.

Harry continued to sleep on the chair, not noticing Remus. Remus could only suppose he took after James in that, too. His sleeping seemed to be so deep that a blizzard could not wake him.

In fact, a blizzard wasn’t waking him. Whenever Remus looked outside, it looked more and more like they were being snowed in. By the time two o’clock rolled around, the windows were half covered with a white blanket. In fact, it was not so much a blanket as a comforter being thrown over the house. When Remus tried to open the door, he found it stuck within an inch of opening and no amount of pushing helped.

There was time to finish the spells later. Resting his head on the freezing glass and trying to stop the warmness spreading through his head, Remus closed his eyes and remained still.

He had to admit, he had not had much fun in a long time, but when Harry was there, it may have been stressing, but he always had something to do.

Remus sneezed before moving his forehead from the glass. When he glanced back at the clock, it said there had been a ten minute space of when he first stood there. Time seemed to move faster since Harry got there.

The boy slept on and Remus found himself getting an extra blanket from where Sirius was in the other room and throwing it over Harry before sitting by his feet, arms crossed over his chest to warm himself.

By the time Remus found himself opening his eyes again, the clock read four in the afternoon. Figuring he fell asleep, Remus stood up again, rubbing his eyes a few times. Harry seemed to still be asleep, though Remus could only guess for how much longer.

Checking up on Sirius, Remus found that he had woken up again, sitting deep into the blankets, eyes darkened and looking rather pale.

“You got over that one quickly,” Remus acknowledged, taking care to lower his voice as he entered and make exaggerated movements when closing the door.

Sirius merely groaned.

“I told you drinking that much was a bad idea. I have no clue what ever possessed you to.”

“I was miserable,” Sirius answered, voice groggy and hoarse. “Life is hard.”

“And that is why we have chocolate,” Remus answered, smiling as he sat next to Sirius, picking the empty bottle from off the floor and placing it on the edge of the desk. “It cannot get you drunk, have a hangover, or anything else these drinks do.”

“Shut up about the bloody chocolate or you’ll find it lodged halfway up your ass,” Sirius murmured, turning over and squinting his eyes as though in pain.

Remus merely shrugged. “Fine, then. If you’re going to shove chocolate up my ass, you have to explain to Harry yourself why you’re like this.”

“I’m sorry!” Sirius muttered in mock-sorrow and horror. “Please, don’t make me! I’ll take the chocolate out! I promise!”

Grinning, Remus swept the long, dark locks from Sirius’ pale face. He had still not cut his hair and Remus knew that Sirius would be finding it annoying. The man before him had always hated having his hair any longer than needed and no amount in prison could ever change that.

Nestling back into the protective covers of the blankets, Sirius fell asleep once more. Remus glanced at the near-empty bottle on the desk and picked it up, glancing at the amber colored liquid within. He opened the top and was about to drink some when he remembered Harry and placed the top back on.

Harry woke up soon after, yawning and stretching himself out on the couch. The first thing he noticed that was Remus was not beside him anymore. There was a moment in which Harry’s brain tried to register everything, but it seemed so foggy. Instead, he leaned back into the side of the chair, breathing deeply.

There was the sound of a door shutting and Remus walked into the room, rubbing his eyes and still looking a bit tired. When he saw Harry, he smiled.

“Sleep alright?” he asked, stretching his arms out like a cat. “I know it’s the afternoon, but I have a feeling our sleeping schedules are going to be messed up for a long time.”

Harry grinned back. “True. We can hope Voldemort has a weird sleeping schedule.”

Remus laughed. “We can hope.”

In all truth, this reminded him of what Snape had said. He still tried to remember what Voldemort had looked like, but everything seemed to be blurred from that night. Sounds filtered through his mind well and he could remember the strangely cold voice, high and deadly like a snake’s venom.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Remus asked, trying to distract himself from the sudden rush of sound to his ears. Even in his sleep, Voldemort seemed to still be talking.

Harry nodded as he sat up completely, shrugging the blanket off. Remus remembered Dumbledore once mentioning that Harry would share some sort of bond with Voldemort after the attack nine years before. Did the young boy before him go through the exact thing his entire life? It was hard to imagine. Harry appeared happily oblivious of most of Voldemort’s power.

Remus finished pouring out the pumpkin juice from a large jug in the ice box. Harry seemed to develop a strange passion for the drink since he arrived, almost as much as his butterbeer obsession.

“What was Sirius doing last night?” Harry asked. When Remus didn’t answer at once and instead choked on his drink, Harry quickly added, “If you want to tell me. It’s not important to know.”

“He - he wasn’t feeling too well,” Remus answered, smiling a bit. “Decided to… drown his worries.” He hoped Harry would not understand, and by the look on his face, he did not.

“What?” he asked again, cocking an eyebrow.

“You’ll understand it in a few years,” Remus replied. He took a long sip of the pumpkin juice and briefly considered spiking it with whatever Firewhiskey was left.

Harry just shrugged and remained thinking about it. Then, he asked the one questions Remus had wanted to avoid. “Remus, why can’t you remember anything from the other night?”

He sighed and swirled the contents of his cup around, wishing the fire whiskey were in his hand. Would he be able to pull off summoning it and pretending it was something else? No, Harry would be a bit too smart for that.

“Harry, it’s - it’s hard to watch someone die,” he answered, not looking up into the green eyes. “It was Severus, too -”

“You hate him though, right?”

Remus bit his lip and thought before answering. “No,” he answered slowly. “Severus…. He’s helped me, I suppose, and we may not be friends, but… It’s different, Harry. He really helped me out lately and I know that what he said is going to be worth something in the end. He’s human, Harry, you have to remember that. He may not always act like it, but -” ‘It’s the opposite for me.’

Harry did not answer right away. He took another sip and watched Remus carefully before saying in reply, “But if you think enough, can’t you remember what Voldemort was like.”

Remus wanted to rip his hair out. “I can’t. It’s… it’s hard to even remember anything. It’s… like stress, in a way.”

Shrugging, Harry replied, “Isn’t there a way to go back into memories? The Muggle world has things like that, I think, where you can… you can possess a person, kind of -”

Eyes widening, Remus whispered, “A pensieve.”

“A what?”

“A pensieve. They can repeat memories. I saw him, and I still have the memory. Dumbledore had one -” He broke off. There would be no way to get into Hogwarts now that the security was a hundred times stronger. “I think we could send a letter to Minerva….”

“It’s worth a try,” Harry answered, and so Remus crept back into his room, trying not to wake up Sirius (who was sleeping like the dead, he noted) and grabbed a quill, parchment, and a small bottle of ink. He scrawled the letter out quickly, pulling out his wand and tapping the letter, sealing it. It would be easy enough for an outside person to open it, so he made sure the letter was as vague as possible while still explaining what he needed.

He sent it off with his owl, a barn owl with brown wings. He was a bit clumsy and hopped around with the letter tied to him before making the connection and flying off. Remus expected not to see him for a few more days; he always got lost when returning.

“I think it should work,” Harry repeated once Remus was back in the room.

Remus nodded, murmuring, “I really hope so.”

“Once we get it and see who Voldemort is, what do we do?”

“I think that would make it plenty easier to find him,” Remus answered. “I’m sure that seeing it again can figure out where we were.”

“You don’t know where it was? How did you get there?”

“A portkey,” Remus murmured, thinking back to the painful night. “It was dark and that’s all I can remember. Voldemort has to know the place well; he kept plenty of his Death Eaters there that night.”

“And when we track him down?”

“It’s all down to killing him,” Remus answered, sighing and leaning back into the soft chair, wishing he could remain there, worry-free. “I have no clue how that will go, but it’ll be down to that.” He already knew what Harry’s expression would look like as he added, “It’ll take time to get there, however. Until then, we’re fine.”

“What did Snape’s message mean?” Harry asked.

“I don’t know that, either. I think Minerva will have a clue, however. It’s just a clue of searching his house for something. He said she would know.” Remus bent forward, face in his hands. “I wish he had said more!” he muttered angrily. “Nothing makes sense. The only way we could get anything else out of him would be by talking to him and we can’t contact the dead.”

“Unless he’s a ghost,” Harry answered.

Remus looked up, giving Harry an odd look. “What?”

“Unless he’s a ghost,” the boy repeated as though it were obvious. “I’ve seen ghosts at Hogwarts. Wouldn’t he be one?”

Remus could have kissed Harry. Instead, he grabbed the boy and hugged him, refusing to move for at least a minute. However, his face soon fell. “Wait - we would have to find his ghost.” He thought back to a time at Hogwarts when he spoke to the ghosts, looking for where certain rooms where. One of them had told it to him….

“He would be at Hogwarts, I think. He loved Hogwarts.”

“They don’t appear where they died?” Harry asked, frowning.

“They do for a little while,” Remus answered, thinking hard. “Except after that, they go to a place that meant something to them and stay there. They can travel, but they’re based at that place….” Remus stood up and glanced at the hallway where Sirius was down. “Harry, you’re smart and powerful enough to make your own choices. You can come to find Severus or stay with Sirius.” When the boy opened his mouth, Remus added, “I really want to stay here. Wake Sirius, tell him where I am, and then stay with him. It’s safer.”

“I want to go with you,” Harry answered stubbornly. When he saw Remus’ expression, he added, “But I can stay. Alright.”

“Thank you.” Remus opened the door and left, feeling the bitterly cold air hit his cheeks and freeze them quickly. His eyes started to sting as he made his way through a few feet of snow. It had been hard enough to open the door, so he quickly Apparated to the gates of Hogwarts.

It still seemed chilly and cold. No noise broke between the castle and him. Touching the gate lightly, making sure to back away if it burned at his still-raw hands again, he found that he could easily grip them and swing them open. It seemed odd that there was no spell stopping him.

Closing his eyes against the wind and making a small turn as he moved forward, he found he could Apparate to the front hall of the school, inside the warm interior. Something was wrong.

No sounds came into the hall except for his own footsteps.

“Severus?” he yelled loudly enough for the next few rooms to hear. “Severus, please! Where are you?“

There was a sudden chill around his body and Remus found a ghost before him. It was pearly and transparent with slightly darkened hair compared to the rest of his body. The black robes appeared to be a light grey in the reflection of the still-lit candles around the room.

“Lupin,” Severus greeted, watching him. “What the hell happened?”

Remus could have cried in happiness to hear the cold voice angry with him. “You were killed by Voldemort.”

“That is apparent,” he answered in a bored voice. “I imagine I would have a solid body, otherwise.” When Remus did not answer, Severus continued. “Everyone left the school. The spells broke down after a while. It’s been completely empty for about a week, I’d say.”

“Thank Merlin I found you,” Remus murmured, closing his eyes.

“Stop the acting, Lupin. You’re as angry to see me as I am to see you here.” He became a great deal quieter and almost kinder. “Have you managed to reach Minerva? By the time I got here, she was gone, as was everyone else. I need her to know -”

“Can’t you just tell me?” Remus pleaded.

Severus gave him a long look in which Remus expected him to explode and yell, but instead, he answered in a low voice, “At my house, you’ll find a locket under the floorboards near the secret doorway. You know which one. Take it and give it to Black. He should recognize it. Then I want you to destroy it.”

Remus started to ask why when he saw something odd: Severus turned a light scarlet color and the ghost seemed to fade out into a light pink before disappearing completely.

It was a very rare occasion when I ghost manages to do what they stayed on the Earth for. They leave forever and move on to the afterlife once they manage to, though those fearing death can never hope for such a thing.

Remus nodded to the nothing before him and hoped Severus would find some amount of happiness in the afterlife.

It was simple enough to Apparate out of the hall into the street he became familiar with outside of Severus’ house. The house remained the same as ever, as it had not ever seemed spotless from the outside before. Vines were starting to creep up the sides of the building and the door hung slightly open.

Walking inside, Remus made his way to the floorboard and stomp on it once. It appeared heavy and solid, hard to open. He pulled out his wand in a swift movement, feeling uncomfortable in the empty house. A quick charm managed to open the hole in the floor where a glint of gold showed. Remus bent down and pulled it out.

The locket contained a fine gold chain that reflected the light filtering through the dirty windows. A strange light seemed to come from the locket itself, which was heavy with an ornate S printed over it like a snake.

Remus tucked it deep in his pocket and moved to turn and leave when a hand grabbed the back of his neck.

“Drop it,” hissed the familiar voice, “or I’ll kill you.”

Remus did not move but turned a bit to see Peter Pettigrew holding his head in place. “Drop it!” he repeated, starting to sound scared.

“Hello, Peter,” Remus greeted coldly. “If you don’t let go of me right now, I can easily attack you. I’m the one with a wand in hand.”

A thin stick pressed the back of his neck, just over the hand, and Remus found himself laughing. “Of course, Peter. Ready, aren’t you?” Sweeping his arm back in a quick motion, Remus managed to aim a spell at Peter, who threw back a spell in equal time.

Remus found himself thrown forward and felt unbearable pain pulsing through his neck, but Peter had been thrown back, too. The other man was unconscious on the floor, breathing shallowly.

“Damn you,” Remus hissed, fighting to his feet. He kept slipping and noticed blood around him, slippery and wet. It had to be his own. A large cut ran from his ear to his shoulder blade, though he felt no reason to examine the injury closely.

Binding Peter with another muttered spell, he dragged the still man closer to him and Apparated back, landing with gasping breaths. Blood continued to pour along his back, freezing in the cold air and he dragged open the door.

The clock read that he had only been gone for about a half hour, which surprised him. He expected he was gone much longer.

There was the sound of a gasp as Harry ran forward, eyes wide, looking scared. Remus smiled weakly at Harry and opened his mouth to say something, when Harry yelled for Sirius.

Sirius quickly ran out and, seeing Remus, grabbed his friend an examined his neck. Harry, meanwhile, was staring at the figure of Peter on the floor.

“Damn, Remus!” Sirius scolded. “Every time you leave to do something, you manage to get hurt!” A hand pressed hard on his neck and Remus felt as though he would faint. Sticky currents of red dripped into his eyes and into his slightly open mouth. It had a metallic taste over his tongue and he had to keep his mouth shut to block out the taste.

“What are we doing about him?” Harry asked, motioning to Peter.

Remus shrugged and kneeled down on the ground, still held by the soft grip of Sirius. “We can keep stunning him for a while until we can do something. Remus, Harry said something about you going off to talk to Snape - how -?”

“I got into Hogwarts,” he answered, coughing a bit and noticing the fine red mist that covered the air before his face for a moment. “Sirius, it’s empty. No one’s there anymore. Snape’s ghost -”

“Snape has a ghost? What -?”

“Let me finish,” Remus snapped hoarsely, coughing up more blood again before managing to talk. “Snape had died, you know, and his ghost went to Hogwarts. I could Apparate in - the spells were all gone as was everyone. He told me what it was he had been talking about. I went to his house to get it.”

Remus dug deep into his pocket, feeling the cold metal. “I found this. Then peter got me. He said you would recognize it, Sirius.”

Sirius took the gold locket and examined it for a moment. His eyes seemed larger, more frightened, though it could have been a trick of the light coming off of the locket.

“Aw, shit,” he muttered angrily. “I knew Regulus was up to something!”