In Your Eyes

Prologue

With New Eyes

Remus Lupin knew that it would be hard to see Sirius Black again. In the Shrieking Shack, it had been pure joy to meet his old friend again. The radical change of his perception of him had been a relief at the time. Seeing the drastic changes in his appearance had not fazed him, really. The pain that Sirius had caused him was forgotten in the happiness of seeing him again and the burning anger and purpose they both shared to destroy Peter.

Now, the light of reunion and the fire of purpose had darkened and cooled. He would face a man of whom he had thought the worst for twelve years and who had thought worse of him than anyone else in his life. The fact that they had both made the same colossal mistakes did not make it any easier to get over them. It made it harder. They could understand how the other had made the mistake, but that only made the wall between them wider. They knew how hard it had been initially to believe that their lifelong friend had betrayed them. They also knew that when they had stopped believing in their friend, they had taken the easy way out.

Yes, this meeting was entirely different from the first, where the things that they had done to each other could be so quickly and easily swept aside. Sirius's mistake had killed Lily and James, and had been the final nail in the coffin of the Marauders, had been the reason that none of them came to the funeral of Remus's wife. Remus's had doomed Sirius to Azkaban without even a trial in which to try to clear his name and warn about the terrible danger to Harry. Remus's mistake had put Harry Potter in almost continual danger for three years. Remus's mistake had allowed Voldemort to return again, witnessed by the son of Lily and James.

They had both made the same mistake, so they knew that it had been made not because they had no choice. They had taken the most obvious choice, the easiest choice, the path of least resistance. In the process, they had chosen not to believe their friend.

That was why Remus brought Mundungus Fletcher with him. Partially, it was because he knew that Mundungus deserved to know the truth about Sirius and what had really happened to Lily, James and his sister and because of whom. It was high time that he was told the truth, and it might even help to get him to join the Order. Mostly, however, Remus didn't know if he dared face Sirius alone, especially this first time. This first meeting when their sole purpose would be to see if the bonds that they once thought death could not break had been shattered by distrust.

They had both delayed a full year. At first, it had been because Sirius was in hiding and Remus knew that he would be watched - very closely. He sometimes amused himself by losing the tail that the Ministry had set on him. More often, he would walk right up to his tail and engage the awkward Auror in pleasant conversation. At first, it had been old hands that almost convinced him that it was just a coincidence, or would have if he hadn't grown up around perhaps the five most skilled liars of their generation. They had, individually and collectively, fooled Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, Albus Dumbledore, Alastor Moody, and each other. Eventually, the Ministry set rookies to watch him, realizing that if he knew where Sirius Black was, he was too smart to visit. Those were entertaining. Remus found it endlessly amusing to be the first beat for new Aurors.

Remus and Sirius had exchanged messages. For those, Remus used Mariella Goring exclusively. He and Sirius had both taken to the fellow unregistered Animagus, a snowy white post owl. Dumbledore also used her as an undercover guard for Harry Potter and to send any communications that he didn't want the Ministry to intercept. Mariella Goring knew how to lose Ministry owls, and ever since Hagrid had given her to Harry as a "pet," Ministry goons usually didn't dare to try to track her. Ironically, she was related, distantly, to the witch for whom Harry had decided to name her.

Even when Sirius came back to England, even when Remus knew that he had lost his tail for the moment, knew that it would be safe to Apparate to see Sirius even if just for a few minutes, he hadn't. Sirius hadn't sought him out either. Not until the Order took up residence in Grimmauld Place, and they knew that their excuses had run out. In lieu of an excuse to delay the meeting with the friend he had wanted to see for so long, Remus brought back-up. If they had a common purpose, perhaps the first meeting wouldn't be so awkward.

The young man had not come eagerly. "Young" was, of course, an adjective few used for Mundungus Fletcher, because few would guess his true age. He dressed in shabby clothes that hid almost everything about him and certainly had enough con stories to create the impression that he was twice his age. He kept a healthy layer of dirt on his unlined face and young hands. But he couldn't have fooled many eyes, truly, if the mind and heart of all who saw him didn't want to believe, fiercely, that a man so young couldn't possibly hold this much bitterness and anger in his heart. Mundungus reeked of bitterness. The air around him sometimes practically tasted of it.

At moments, it was almost impossible not to compare him to his sister. Their temperaments were actually very similar, but she had never allowed hers to be clouded with so dense a shroud, even when she walked through the valley of the shadow of death, even when she moved among those who were evil and cold and heartless. Seeing him with his few friends, kindred spirits (future con-men) or impressionable minds never failed to remind Remus forcefully of the elder Fletcher. Two months from now, seeing him with the Weasley twins (who were friends, con men and impressionable minds all rolled into two) would stop Remus dead in his tracks, every time.

"This better not be about the Order, Lupin," Mundungus told him gruffly. "I really thought that Dumbledore was too smart to try to send you to convince me."

This was definitely not one of those moments. Remus almost wondered that he had agreed to come at all. He had hoped more than expected Mundungus to answer his unexplained summons. They had, for years, by mutual consent avoided each other's presence. They had blamed the gigantic fight that they had had, but they both really knew that that was the easy way out, the easy face to put on things. They didn't want to see each other because it was too painful for Remus to see how like his sister Mundungus could sometimes be and for Mundungus to see in Remus the many mannerisms he had picked up from his wife.

Remus had known that they would have to restrain him when he first saw Sirius Black. He nearly escaped them three times before they finally had a chance to give him a garbled version of the true story of that terrible week. Then he sat still. "Did Pettigrew kill her too?" was all that he said.

Remus and Sirius looked at each other in surprise. It was the first time in a year that their eyes had met, and the moment that it happened they seemed to slip back twenty years, when they were still a fellow Marauder in each other's eyes, when they were the greatest of friends. Or rather, they slipped back into the Shrieking Shack.

"Well?" Mundungus demanded.

"I know how to find out," Remus said, a look of resolve coming into his eyes. He strode to the door without further comment.

Sirius Black turned back to the boy in front of him. "Any idea where he's going?" he asked him, wondering as he did so why it was so much easier to slip back into the old way of things with Mundungus Fletcher than with Remus. Maybe because it was much easier to separate this bitter, twisted conman from the next generation Marauder (as Mundungus had dubbed himself) that he had known long ago. Remus hadn't changed much, really. Only the way that Sirius saw him had changed dramatically.

"Probably to get Mariella's potion," Mundungus said with a kind of shrug. "She's the one who invented the Wolfsbane potion, you know. Remus was her test subject. That's how they met."

"What good will Wolfsbane do him now?" Sirius demanded, though he was utterly shocked by this information. Mariella Goring was one of the two people in the world who had known where he had been hiding last year, and neither she nor Remus had mentioned how they had met. Sirius had assumed that it was by virtue of her being Harry Potter's owl. It made sense, of course. He knew Mariella well enough to know that she would never have said anything about it, either to brag about her accomplishment or possibly embarrass Remus by saying that he was the test subject. Remus was also unlikely to bring it up. Mariella was awfully young to have managed it, though. Then again, that would explain why everyone talked about her potionmaking ability as if she spit Veritaserum.

"That's not the only potion she invented," Mundungus said with a roll of his eyes. "She's offered this one to him several times. She calls it the Thestral Caller. She invented it by accident in the process of the Wolfsbane creation. It allows you to see the death of the person closest to you, whether you were there or not, and, I suspect, whether or not they've already died. She's never admitted that, however. She thought it might be good for Remus's understandable complex if he could see if Marissa was already dead before he got to her. The Aurors never were sure of that. That's why he wasn't charged." From the sound of it, Sirius Black doubted that Mundungus Fletcher would have raised a hand to demand that Remus Lupin be given a fair trial if he had been charged for the murder of his wife.

"By Merlin, I hope that she was," Sirius muttered, settling back in a chair opposite the one where Mundungus was held by spells. "I've always felt terrible about missing her funeral. It was one of the things that I thought about most in Azkaban. I should have been there."

"Yes, you should have been," Mundungus told him bluntly. "You know that she came back to England to see all of you one last time. Even after she knew that you didn't tell her about the Fidelius Charm. She had faith in the friendships that you once had. She could have lasted a few more weeks, maybe a few more months, if she would have just given up on all of you and stayed in the tropics where Remus tried to bring her. You should have come to say goodbye at least."

"I visited her grave," Sirius offered. "The first thing I did after I had seen Harry. I went fifty miles out of my way on the trip to Hogwarts."

"How could you have thought that she would betray you?" Mundungus demanded harshly. "How could you doubt someone like her?"

Sirius took a moment before he answered, but Mundungus was not enraged by the delay. He was enraged that Sirius seemed to be looking back through the past, recalling the exact moment when he had decided that Remus and his wife were the traitors. He thought that he had a reason. He thought that there could possibly be a reason for thinking that Marissa Fletcher - she would never be Marissa Lupin to her brother - had betrayed all of the people that she loved.

"The Saturday night just before all of the shit hit the fan, there was a moment, when we were all sitting up together late at night. We all knew that it was unofficially the sort of 'interview' for Lily and James to make their final decision about their Secret Keeper, or rather whom to tell or not to tell as they told me later," Sirius started his tale. "There was a moment, around midnight, when we all had to finally admit that there was someone in the room who had betrayed us."

"How could you possibly think that it was Riss?" Mundungus demanded. "Or Remus for that matter? How many times did you, all of you, say that they were the best of you?"

"Yes," Sirius all but snapped at him. "Remus was the conscience of the Marauders and Marissa was the angel sent down from heaven who loved everyone and whom everyone loved - at Hogwarts. Hogwarts days were over. They knew secrets of the Order and the Death Eaters, but they weren't in the Order. We all worked together, I was James's partner and Peter was Lily's. Remus wouldn't even tell us where he had gone or admit that he had disappeared when he was gone for days. The only contacts that Marissa seemed to be keeping up were those of known and suspected Death Eaters. They were even sitting a little apart from the rest of us."

"She was Dumbledore's spy!" Mundungus burst out. "The best that he had!" He made another desperate move to escape his bonds. "And Remus was his top recruiter among Dark creatures - all magical creatures for that matter!"

"I know that now," Sirius snapped in annoyance. "We didn't know it then."

"They couldn't tell anyone, they barely told me," Mundungus replied. "Not for two years did they tell me. It wasn't like it was for you. You just declared War and fought. Even the others who remained anonymous did it for safety. They still could have done their work if they had been found out. But not Remus and Marissa. If so much as the shadow of suspicion had fallen on them it would have been over - they wouldn't have been able to do their work. They couldn't tell even you. I remember a dozen times that they had almost decided to tell you, hurt by your distrust, but then something would happen to remind us that someone in our circle had turned traitor."

"I know," Sirius cried in frustration, "now."

"So that night, in your eyes they were traitors," Mundungus said coldly. Sirius nodded, looking down at the floor, no longer able to meet Mundungus's eyes.

Mundungus stopped for a moment. He didn't stop because Sirius's explanation was satisfactory. He had seldom heard something less satisfactory to him. He stopped because before Sirius hid his face, Mundungus saw the tortured look in his eyes and the unbearable guilt that had settled on his shoulders long ago. He could see, for one brief moment, the deep ruts that had marked his shoulders from so long of carrying the colossal load. Mundungus knew at that moment that there would be nothing that Sirius Black would ever regret more than he regretted distrusting Mundungus's sister and her husband. No matter what other mistakes he was destined to make, that was the regret of his life. So it was with a more halting and less accusatory tone that Mundungus continued, "and that's what caused the events of that last week?"

"Oh not you too," Sirius muttered.

"What?"

"Remus sometimes says how frightening it is that all it takes is one bad week to utterly destroy your world, but I think that he knows better than that," Sirius explained. "I can't say the same for you, but I think that Remus knows that the events of that week had been in the works for years, had their beginning perhaps as far back as our fourth year. It's not even surprising that everything came to a head at once. The events of that week could never have happened one by one. Our lives were too tightly intertwined for isolated tragedies, much less deaths."

Sirius looked up and off toward the only window in the room, which was caked with a thick layer of grime, and again seemed to be looking far back into the past as he continued, "I just wish that I could say that we stood by each other in the time of trial, rather than that we were finally hit with one blow too many and broke apart. It was inevitable, though. We had changed too much in each other's eyes. We were too different from the way that we looked in the eyes of those whom we loved best. So yes, I looked at Remus and Marissa and saw traitors. In my eyes, Peter was the perfect bluff. In my meager defense, none of us showed each other who we were any more. Lily and James and I did a little more than the others, but even then it was only among the three of us.

"So of course the way that we saw each other started to change. We stopped trusting each other. Us. The Fabulous Four and their Girl Fridays. The Gryffindor Six. We looked around at the group of people that we knew better than anyone else in the world and no longer saw each other as we truly were. Once that happened, it was already too late. After that, what happened next was inescapable."

They were both silent until Remus returned.