The Marauders Year Five Part 2 #Wattys2017

Who Will Stop the Rain?

"Long as I remember
The rain been comin' down
Clouds of mystery pourin'
Confusion on the ground
Good men through the ages
Tryin' to find the sun...
And I wonder...
Still I wonder...
Who will stop the rain?"

Sirius slowed his hand and the music faded away as he sat there, staring across the room at the three other empty beds. He felt a lump rise up in his throat, picturing James and Peter sneaking off across the grounds and into the dark below the tunnel. He closed his eyes and cast the guitar aside. He walked over to the stereo and shoved a tape into the deck, and changed into Snuffles, jumping up onto Remus's bed and curling up in a ball as the music started playing - quiet and melancholy.

Sirius fell asleep, his nose buried in the pillows of Remus Lupin's bed.

"Are you sure we ought to leave Sirius alone?" Peter asked, scrambling alongside James through the dark of the tunnel, headed for the Shrieking Shack.

"He'll come out," James said.

"He didn't seem like he would," Peter argued. "And I mean with all that's happened... and him talking about that dementor in his chest... aren't you worried about him?"

"He'll come out," James repeated.

Peter sighed.

James said, "He has to come out. Remus is going to be heart broken he's not coming."

"What if he isn't? What if Sirius is right and Remus didn't want him to come?" Peter asked, looking up at James.

"Of course he wants him to come."

"But they've broken up," Peter said nervously.

"Yeah. But only because of the stupid thing Sirius did, not because they aren't in love anymore."

"But still. They are broke up."

James frowned.

"Do you reckon they'll ever make up?"

"I hope so, Pete," James answered and he tugged the strap of his bag across his chest, adjusting where it lay on his shoulder, taking a deep breath of a sigh. "I really hope so."

"Me, too," Peter said anxiously.

James's fist was balled 'round the strap and he stared straight ahead through the darkness of the tunnel. Truth was, the thought of Sirius and Remus being broken up like they were scared him. He remembered the way he felt the day they'd flown Ace Dante's motorbike to find Remus, how much his heart had swelled up with belief that true love existed, that real love was something not only possible, but something that everyday people could find and have... And now they were apart and it made James question that belief, it made him afraid of it, afraid of putting his heart fully into it. He thought of Lily and the date in Hogsmeade - just eleven days away - and how much he wanted it go to well, how much he wanted her to be The One... if such a thing existed. He felt his hand shake a bit in his grasp of the bag and he swallowed back the nerves that wrenched his stomach.

"Do you think it's gonna be harder tonight?" Peter asked, "Without Sirius?"

"Dunno," James replied. He shrugged, "Sirius said he's not alpha anymore anyway because of what happened with Fenrir, so it might be harder anyway, even with Sirius. Rey's wolf thinks it's alpha dog now."

Peter shivered.

They'd reached the trapdoor and James pushed it opened and stuck his head up inside the dusty shack. "Remus?" he called, climbing through, "Me and Peter are here, Rey!"

"Upstairs," came the reply.

James climbed through and held out his hand for Peter, helping him up and they closed the door and jumped the missing step, heading up to the clubhouse room. They stepped inside and found it all torn asunder from the rampage of the niffler. James frowned. Several of the thumbtacks - shiny if the light was hitting them just right - had been pulled from the wall and all their papers and notes were scattered below on the floor. An ink pot had spilled and poured out over the desk where they'd made the Map and one of the beds had a broken leg, making it lean at a preposterous angle, broken when Newt had jumped upon it, trying to catch the wirey niffler as it leaped up onto the four poster's canopy to get away the month before. James frowned at the mess of papers. Remus was lying across the non-broken bed, his face flush.

"Blimey, look at this mess... damned Niffler," James muttered.

Peter started picking up notes and photos from the floor, collecting them so that his pockets were teeming with them.

"Sirius didn't come?" Remus asked, looking at the empty doorway.

James shook his head. "He didn't think you'd want him."

Remus frowned, "Oh."

"But you do, don't you? You do want him?" Peter asked, looking up from his collecting job.

Remus hesitated, "I do... but... I dunno. I also don't." He sat up, wincing with the pain in his lower back as he did, and he felt a few tears squeeze out of his eyes. He cleared his throat, "I don't know anymore what I want. It's so conflicting." He sighed. "I want... I want things to be back like they were before." He sighed. "But I can't just forget what happened, either."

"I understand," James said.

Peter frowned.

James waved his wand - the bed's leg was fixed, and, with a second swish - the rest of the pictures swept into a pile on the desk and the ink slurped back into it's bottle. He wished it was as easy to fix everything else that had been broken the month before as it was to fix the mess the Niffler had made.

But feelings don't go back inside as easily as ink does into bottles.