Casting Moonshadows

79. Operation Recreate Goblin Battles

"And you testified to put your own father into Azkaban."

Remus flinched back, feeling as though Sirius had slapped him. "Th-that was different! He...h-h-he..."

"Remus, Moony..." Sirius reached out to cup the back of Remus's head with a gentle hand, a gesture that could pass as friendship to anyone happening to look their way. "I'm not saying you were wrong. In fact, I always thought you were bloody brilliant to do it – brave and strong and smart. But you know as well as me that there are some things a person can't come back from. There are some things a person can't be forgiven for, even if they're family. In your dad's case it was child abuse. The things Voldemort will make Regulus do..."

Sirius's grey eyes were slate-cold and haunted. His fingers tightened unconsciously in Remus's hair.

"Merlin, Moony, you don't know the half of it. Abuse will be a footnote in a long list of horrors I don't even want to think about. Torture, rape, murder..." He took a shaky breath. "He'll having him casting three Unforgivables before breakfast, treating Muggles as animals, murdering people in their beds, turning loved ones against each other. And the kind of dark magic he'll be using changes people. And I'm not just talking mentally. I mean emotionally, magically, physically. If you carry out your promise five years from now, the thing that you save won't be my brother anymore."

"How can you even claim to know this?" Remus asked numbly. "What do you know about it?"

"Remus, I'm a Gryffindor, but my family has been dark for generations. Some of the things my ancestors did were so dark and twisted that even thinking about them makes me feel contaminated. When I was younger, my Mum made me study our family history down to its last sick, filthy detail and if there was anything I could scrub from my mind forever, it would be that knowledge."

"How are we meant to fight against something like that?"

"Tooth and nail, Moony. Tooth and nail and bone and blood and whatever else we have to use to do it because to let the Wizarding world fall under the control of someone like Voldemort..." He shuddered. "We can't. We just can't. So we have to fight, okay?"

"Okay, Padfoot." Remus shifted closer, until Sirius's hand fell from his hair and their shoulders were pressed together.

Beneath the calm surface of the lake, the dark shadow of the Giant Squid moved towards the light, then sank again, disappearing from sight.

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The armies faced one another across the Quidditch pitch. Each side had swollen in ranks since the news of the battle plans had spread. Now sixty-eight small figures stood poised, each side containing a mix of each of the four houses. In the stands, dozens of students from other years were perched, news having spread that that the Marauders had been given permission to use first years to create havoc and mayhem in the interests of education. The teachers had allowed it on condition that they did not interfere. Remus had a suspicion that they were hoping that some of the 'education' might rub off on them as well.

"King Borgrog the Bearded's battalion, don your armour!" Sirius's magnified voice rolled out over the field. He stood in front of his little army, looking surprisingly grim and menacing for someone who had stuck rubber goblin ears to his helmet and a green false goatee to his chin.

His 'army' clattered around as they struggled into their mismatched armour. Remus smiled from his judge's position atop the Ravenclaw stands before raising his wand to his throat and muttering "Sonorous!" then, "Andrew Withick! Kindly remove or re-transfigure that 'Rockin' Dragons' breastplate! Only genuine goblin armour from between the years 1642 to 1680 allowed!"