Is It Over Now?

Chapter Thirteen

"If I heal it can I have my detention time cut in half?" The lion asked, that smile still on his face as if all within the room were peering at a stranger instead of the boy that they had known for a few years shy of a decade.

"Why not," the professor said, her voice exhausted and questioning the Marauder's capacity of even doing so.

Remus gaze his wand a lazy flick to the angered and stunned snake, the damage completely reversing itself to the point that even the blood from the Spytheirn's broken nose had disappeared, before grabbing the other by the hair and whispering in the other's ear. His smile was as sharp as a wolf's, his voice as sly as a fox.

"We'll settle this in house, Friday," Remus whispered, leaving no room for question, not that Mulciber would have dared to, remembering the last time that the pair had dealt with an issue 'in house.'

The lions watched as Remus let the Slytherin go before stretching with his hands high above his head and then laying down against the desk like a cat. He wasn't exactly far from being one.

The display was violent in ways that they wouldn't have thought that their Moony could have been only two years before, but it settled the unease that has lingered inside of the other two boys since the day that they had found out about Remus's continued closeness with the younger Black brother the year before. It let them know that for all Remus had changed, he was still the same boy that designed pranks to make it to where the snakes couldn't say slurs.

Neither of the boys thought that the display had been engineered by a certain group of friends. They weren't cunning enough to think of such a thing. But neither were exactly surprised either when Remus disappeared Friday night and Mulciber came to breakfast Saturday morning looking as if he had lost a fight to a bludger or two.

—-

Remus watched from the carriage as Hogwarts became smaller and smaller in the background. He watched as the school faded for what should have been the last time, but somehow knew that he would be back one day, that he was bound to be. He wasn't sad to watch it disappear though, not when he knew that he had a home to return to.

—-

School hadn't even been out a week before Remus and the other Marauders were brought into their first Order meeting. Dumbledore had sent each of them a note by owl with the name of a secret location protected under the fidelius charm. Remus had smiled along with the other three as he held his, ignoring the guilt that coiled in his stomach at the lies that seemed to fall constantly from his lips. It didn't matter, he would do what it takes; everyone in their group would.

Remus stood quietly in the small room as he looked at all of the faces, familiar and not. Arthur Weasely was a kind man that the boys had met a time or two at the Potter's Christmas parties over the years, his wife Molly was much the same. Hagrid stood tall in the room, standing out among all of the others as a man that Remus could only assume was an auror - Moody , someone called him - stood beside the half giant. The Prewett twins smiled mischievously as they recognized the four Marauders moving about their ranks, though time had taken its toll on the pair as well. Remus smiled as he recognized three more faces.

Lily, Mary, and Marlene.

The girls smiled when the four joined them, but the mood was still solemn within the room, like a poison hidden beneath false cheer.

The meeting flew by quickly, Dumbledore handing out assignments and never giving any reason as to why. Remus didn't understand most of it, as if the adults were speaking in a language that he didn't yet know, but for the most part it seemed as if everyone was being sent off in desperate missions to try and help, ones that would do little even if they did.