Marauders - Always - Part One

Shattered

It took Remus a moment to get up, clutching desperately onto the night stand. He noticed the watch laying there, glowing. He tilted his head, confused. Was the glow broken? He remembered picking it up from the floor.

Speaking of broken...

Remus looked over at the frame on the floor. The wood was broke, bent at an odd angle, and he walked over and bent to pick it up, glass rained onto the carpet and when he turned it over it was to see that the way the frame had hit the wall, the glass had shattered in big bits and one particularly jaggedy edged shard had speared through the portrait so that the image of Regulus Black was broken in two. The portrait was not moving, but still, exactly as Remus had drawn it, without a bit of life in the eyes.

"No," Remus whispered, horrified. "Oh no.  Please no." He brushed the glass away and gingerly slid the pieces of the portrait out of the frame, letting the broken frame fall to the floor again and he turned to the bed, laying the two pieces down, hand shaking, and smoothed the sheet out, pushing the two bits together. "Hello? Hello? Regulus?"

The portrait pieces didn't move.

He turned the pieces over, heart pounding, and quickly drew his wand, spellotaping the back, and turned it back upright.  He felt a bit like a telly show James had watched once where a muggle doctor was trying desperately to resuscitate a patient. Remus poked and prodded the parchment, begging under his breath,  but it was no use.

The portrait wasn't waking up.

But it didn't usually on command, did it?

Surely a tear wouldn't remove the magic, would it?

Perhaps there was magic he could do to refresh it?
He didn't know how he'd done it the first time, though, much less how to do it again.

"Rey?" James was in the door way, a look of concern on his face. "Alright?"

Remus shook his head and motioned for James to come in the room and close the door behind him. James glanced back down the hall - the sound of Sirius and Lily talking loudly, in heated tones wafted in behind him. Clearly, Sirius must have told Lily about Peter and Oni leaving Tonks at the flat alone. James dodged into the room and closed the door quietly. "What's on, Moony?" he asked.

Remus waved his palm over the portrait.

James stepped up and looked it over. "What happened?" he asked, looking up at Remus.

"Sirius had a fight with him and he threw the frame..." Remus whispered, "He's going to lose it if we can't fix it."

James leaned closer. "Think a reparo,...?"

"I dunno."

"You know who would, odd as it sounds, but I'll bet Mr. Filch at Hogwarts would know how to fix it. He does all the restorations at the school."

Remus looked up, "YES! Filch! But how the hell do I get it to Filch without Sirius knowing it was torn?"

"I'll bring it tomorrow. I'm refereeing Gryffindor-Ravenclaw, I can go early and take it to him."

"And if he notices it gone?"

"You're on your own there."

Remus sighed.

James gently picked up the two pieces and looked it over. "It really is a brilliant likeness, Rey."

Remus shrugged, "I don't know. It never quite seems right to me." He didn't say it, but he thought the eyes were just a wee bit too engaging and friendly for Regulus's personality.

James shook his head, "It's very good. Stuff like this is why you're the artist amongst us lads." He looked at Remus, "I hope I'll have a chance to talk with him when we've got the portrait restored."

Remus flushed and looked down.

James carefully tucked the portrait pieces into his jumper pocket. "So what happened? What is he mad at Peter for today?"

"Tonks showed up today and Peter left with Oni, and they told her to guard the flat and went who knows where. They told her to lie to us and tell us she didn't see them and not to let anyone in Peter's room, that she was guarding something very important."

James raised a brow.

"What's in his room?"

Remus reached into his pocket, "Well..."

James took the book and read the title, looked up at Remus, who nodded back at James's shocked expression. "That's disturbing. Why would anyone want to read Grindelwald's muggle murder manifesto?" Even as he asked it, though, he tipped the cover opened and started flipping pages with a look of disgust upon his face.

Remus shook his head. "I didn't even read it when we studied him in History."

James was staring at a page where his eyes had caught the name Albus, and he was skimming a paragraph that seemed to be accusing Dumbledore of having helped form many of the ideologies in the book, saying. James murmured, "Hm."

Remus reached over and took the book back, uncomfortable with James reading too much of it, really, and closed the cover. The boys looked at each other, and Remus finally said, "Regulus's Portrait said something about not trusting Peter and that's what set Sirius off."

"Sirius was set off by somebody talking bad about Peter?" James had to hold back the laugh. "Sirius??"

Remus said, "I know, usually he's first line on being a bit of a bully toward Peter. Especially after he left Tonks here alone. I don't know what turned it so fast - he was literally shaking with anger at Wormtail when he left the living room and I came to tell him about this," he shook the book, "Nervous that I was adding gasoline to a fire, and instead I overhear his argument defending Peter to the portrait." Remus paused. "He - there was a lot said - he broke down a bit and we were talking about his family when you lot came. So I haven't shown him the book yet."

James sighed, "We'd better do it, and Lily, too."

"I mean what do we do? Should we even do anything?"

"We should ask him what's on, I guess."

"Do you think there's any connection between this and what he said to Tonks? I mean, it was on his desk, he must've been reading it recently at least."

"I dunno," James shrugged. "But Peter's one of our best mates, and I'm sure there's a perfectly normal explanation for that book, and maybe not a good explanation for leaving Tonks here alone other than perhaps a bit of stupidity... We know he has a crush on Oni Lamm, he might've just got overexcited at her wanting to go some place with him and fallen out of his right mind. I dunno, I'm making excuses, but let's give Pete the benefit of the doubt unless we have hard evidence that something nefarious is on. He's never --" James paused, he'd been about to say he'd never done anything underhanded before, but he rememberer the ordeal with the watch, and the unbreakable vow and all the sneaking about for that whole summer. James absently ran his hand over the watch on his wrist and he muttered, "He's one of our best mates," again.

Remus nodded.

"C'mon, lets go talk with Sirius and Evans about it. This sounds like a matter that ought to be discussed by the whole family."

"Alright," Remus agreed, and he followed James to the door, then paused, looked back, and waved his wand so the glass and broken bits of the frame were swept up in a small cyclone that glittered with the light catching the shards. They spun across the room and fell unceremoniously into a dust bin before Remus tucked the thick volume under his arm and closed the door behind him.