The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

Homonculous Again

Homonculous Again

The stairs were murder.

Remus's knees were weaker than he'd realized, and he had to pause to take breaks, his bones aching horribly as they tread upwards - the climb intense, with no landings, just stairs that went on and on and on... Sirius stayed behind Remus, one hand out, hovering behind Remus Lupin's back as though to brace him from falling, though without ever actually touching his back, not wanting Remus to think Sirius saw hm as weak.

Lily would pause, a couple steps ahead of the boys, each time Remus started to wheeze and she'd motion for Regulus, who would catch Maryrose's hand and she would turn, looking like Igor Karkaroff, and ask, in her sweet little voice that was so disjointed from Karkaroff's face, "Is he okay?"

"I'm okay," Remus would insist and they'd all move onward.

Lily looked at Sirius nervously, and Sirius stared back.

Remus coming along had been a bad idea. How was Remus to help in his condition? It worried Sirius deeply. More deeply than he would ever have let on.

They made it to the top of the stairs, but it had taken nearly fifteen minutes for them to get from the boat to the corridor, Sirius noted, looking at his pocket watch and nervously glancing at Regulus. They needed to move faster if they were going to get everything accomplished before Regulus would go to the Dark Lord.

With Regulus's whispered instruction, Maryrose led them down the hallway as Igor Karkaroff, a bit wobbly on her feet with the height. Regulus followed behind her closely, glancing back at Sirius, Remus, and Lily, who walked in a knot together, Lily and Sirius both protective around Remus Lupin, whose gait was getting worse and worse it seemed with each passing moment. Sirius's face was lined with worry.

"Left here," Regulus whispered and they came to a short flight of steps and Remus winced at the sight of them. He took them bravely, though, without a word of complaint, holding his breath to keep from whimpering with the pain of each step. "This way," murmured Regulus, and they went on down a long corridor. They passed a student and Maryrose kept her chin level and Regulus, Lily, Remus, and Sirius all looked down, avoiding eye contact, but the boy seemed quite distracted and didn't pay them any mind.

"It's so quiet in here," whispered Lily, when the boy was gone, realizing that had been the first person they'd seen.

"It's the holidays," Remus said through grit teeth, "Probably most of the students are at home - just the same as at Hogwarts."

"I didn't even think of that," Lily said.

They came to a wide hall then, with banners featuring the double-headed lion hanging from the rafters, flickering in a draft that whispered around the castle mysteriously. Five different corridors opened out into the hall and before them stood thick wood doors with great brass handles. Regulus said, "Here we are." And he pulled open the doors to reveal a dusty library with rows of shelves and stacks of books, a very disorganized looking place, unlike the order and neatness Madam Pince kept Hogwarts' library in.

Remus looked about, aghast at the state of it. "It's a mess. How do they expect students to find anything in here?" he limped over to one of the shelves and blew dust from the spines.

"I get the feeling most of the lessons are demonstration based here, rather than book based," replied Regulus quietly. He ran his fingers through the dust on one of the shelves, then turned to look at the others.

"Alright lot, start looking for anything about Durmstrang itself. Anything that might have maps of this place." Sirius was holding his pocket watch again, staring down at it with worried eyes, "We've only got forty minutes." He looked at Regulus for a long moment, then quickly turned and started blowing off dust from the books.