Four To The End (prev Shifting Lines) - Book One (Marauder Era)

Chapter Forty-Three - Return to School

You're a perfect mother, he thought as he slowly fell back asleep.

*

That night it snowed pretty hard so he remained a boy the entire night. He froze in the cement room underground with only a rather worn blanket wrapped around his shivering body. He had nothing to do... no light to even do anything by, and the darkness scraped at his brain. He despised nights like this, wishing his father could at least put a ball of light near the ceiling. That wasn't much to ask for, was it? Maybe I can figure out how to do that, he thought as he spread the blanket on the ground. He lay down then rolled across it, wrapping it around himself as he went, bundling up like a cocoon. He wriggled his feet until he got the end tucked under, and shivered more. It wasn't much better. He could put a warming spell in here too.

Remus hardly slept that night, too cold. Hope was relieved when she came for him, finding him intact without a speck of blood on him. She pulled him into her arms, kissing him multiple times. He was too cold and tired to respond much, gladly going to his room to pull on two sets of pajamas. After eating a hot breakfast he buried himself under three blankets to sleep.

When he woke up a few hours later he realized it was the first day of 1972. All his friends were on the train returning to Hogwarts this very moment. He hadn't told them he wouldn't be there, and wondered what they were thinking.

That night was the same as before, which meant he could have returned to Hogwarts on Sunday. He paced around his room in the afternoon, feeling grumpy and miserable. Finally he packed everything away (including his new books and the ink from James), and spent most the day looking out his window, excited to return to school the next day. To get back to his friends as well as classes. That night he received a letter from James's owl though it was signed by all three boys. They were very worried about him, wondering why he wasn't on the train, hoping his mother was all right, etc, etc. Remus sent the owl back on his own, since he'd be seeing them in less than twenty-four hours.

In the morning he got dressed, took his bags, ate his breakfast, and impatiently waited for noon. His father returned from work at eleven-thirty. That's when something weird happened. He asked Remus for the portkey to which Remus replied that his mother had it. Lyall frowned, going to Hope who said she'd look for it. She went into the bedroom and came back out.

"It's gone, I don't know where it went. Remus, did you take it?"

"N--no," he said, panicking a little. "You took it. For safekeeping."

Lyall stared hard at Hope. "Where is it?"

"I don't know!" she insisted. "I put it on my vanity table, and now it's gone!"

Lyall went into the bedroom to search while Remus hovered in the doorway, feeling sick. "If we can't find it--" he started.

"We'll find it," Lyall grunted from under the bed. Then he slid out, his brown hair sticking out everywhere. There was a very odd expression on his face. "Remus, why don't you go wait outside?"

"But--"

"No buts. Go wait outside."

Remus looked at his parents then took his bags out into the cold. There were still fifteen minutes to go before the portkey activated and he didn't particularly want to stand out in the deep snow, but he obeyed nonetheless. He went to the front yard, brushing snow off of a bench. He sat down, watching the house, heart pounding. He knew if it wasn't found he'd still get to Hogwarts some way or another; probably another portkey or something but he wanted to at least make it to Defense in the afternoon...

At about five til Lyall came storming out of the house with the piece of rope dangling from his hands. Hope hurried after, her face bright pink. "--be best!" she was saying.