The Marauders sat anxiously in their usual carriage, apprehension coiling thickly in the air as three parts of a whole desperately awaited their missing piece. None of them knew if Remus would be sitting with them at all this time, not when he hadn't returned a single letter from any of the other three all summer. Not when the last time that he spoke to Sirius was when he struck the older boy across the face and left them for the snakes in the year below.
"He'll come," James said more for the other two than himself. "I'm sure that he will."
But the boy only winced at the two almost identical glares of disbelief that were given to him by the other two teens, the intensity of them stifled by Sirius's bouncing leg and Peter popping another chocolate candy into his mouth, going through them twice as fast as he normally would.
James looked at Sirius who, despite the summer sun from flying and constant visits from Mary over the holiday, still had something of a worried air that made him almost lesser than before. He didn't look like Sirius, he hadn't in a while.
He had to come.
Then the carriage door slid open, revealing to them an almost perfect stranger.
Peter's eyes went almost comically wide at the visage of the boy before them, as James immediately wonders what could have happened to cause such a change - he knew, they all did, but didn't want to admit it to himself, not yet at the least - and Sirius's breath hitched with something . It was the same feeling that had occurred two years ago, the first time that Remus came to school with such drastic changes. He pushed it down now too, just like then.
"Alright there?" The stray Marauder asked, an almost predatory smile curling on the standing boy's lips even after the soft summer that he knew that he'd had.
The teen took a drag from his cigarette, letting the other three take the change in; watching their reactions carefully as they did so.
Remus knew how he looked, there was a small bar going through the top of his right ear and a small cuff below it in the shape of a golden snake - not that the thought that they could see that much detail of the piece from where the other three were - with the usual beginner's piercings on both side - small black studs to match the black bar. On top of that, his hair was different this year too, the lower handle of his head shaved as small loose curls rained down from the top.
He watched as three sets of eyes traveled every inch of his face, eyeing every detail as if they thought it might change back to normal if they were to look away.
The next thing to be scrutinized was his clothes, the black knock off Doc Martens with red and yellow laces making an appearance once more, as dark torn jeans joined them with the usual sweaters. It felt something like a merging of timelines without any of the kindness remaining within them.
Remus rolled his eyes at the other boys' shocked expressions and sat down in his seat with a regal mess that he seemed to have picked up from a certain Black brother - not that they really acted like brothers much anymore. The idea that the younger boy could rub off on him so much after kinky a month or so alone with one another sent a pleased smirk to the werewolf's lips - tne breaking point it seemed for the others.
" Bloody hell , Remus!" James excamilmed, looking at his friend as if seeing a stranger. "What do you do to yourself?"
Remus felt his brow quirk up at the other boy's reactions which was so different from the polite avoidance of the topic that he'd given the last time that the other boy shouted up to King's Cross poking like a skinhead. James noticed it too, but - ever the Gryffindor - refused to back down.
"Punched a few holes in my ears, didn't I?" Remus shrugged, taking another drag of his cigarette. Though the Marauders's reactions were interesting, they weren't the ones that he was waiting for.
A sputtered coughing noise draws Remus's gaze to the boy sitting next to James, but where he had expected there to be a pant in his chest - whether from some dulled form of what could have once been love or anger Remus didn't know - there was none. Only a sense of cold apathy that he'd never felt for the other boy before.
"You alright there, Black?" The wolf asked as the ktner boy's cheeks flushed from a lack of air, and Peter stood to open the window.
"Fine," the older boy eventually manages, his tone careful. It was the first civil words that they'd spoken to one another in months. "How was your summer, Moony?" And Remus can tell that the other is testing the waters, the nervous looks on Peter's and James's faces tell him that well enough, so he decided to let the other call him what he wishes, only raising a questioning brow. Especially since another surprise was due soon
The werewolf shrugged, glancing out the compartment door for another figure that he wanted to see. "The usual, nothing too special," Remus lied easily - it was Al, that he'd been doing since he'd learned to speak. Only Sirius knew what 'the usual' meant, about the stealing and fights, but he was too eager to be in the younger teen's good graces once more to reveal it.
The softening look in James's eyes and the relaxing of Peter's shoulders made the deception worth it.
Remus relaxed into the dear as the train began to move and the. Other three boys told him stories of a summer spent flying and pretending that the war outside didn't exist at all. With the tentative peace between the dog and the wolf taking shape, it wasn't long before the topic at hand turned to a certain red haired prefect, but the other three Gryffindors were mercifully saved for hearing more as the compartment door slid smoothly open.
Remus immediately pulled himself to his feet as the two newcomers stepped inside unified, an easy smile stretching itself across the boy's lips that none of the other lions seemed to notice, too confirmed with the visitors.
Regulus Black was standing inside of the Gryffindor compartment with a blank look on his face as he took in the image of the older boy. He'd known that the lion was planning on doing something, but never had his mind come up with this . He knew that his mother would curse him for even poking at the older boy the way that he was, and would do so ten times over if she knew of the thoughts suddenly consuming him since the middle of the summer.
He didn't truly care.
Sirius watched his brother anxiously and saw a flicker of something in the younger Black's gaze, though he didn't know just what it was. He didn't know if he wanted to either, not when he bought that the other boy might be looking at Moony the same way that he had countless times before when no one else could see.
"Interesting look there, Lupin," the younger boy finally said at last, his voice holding none of the disdain or disgust that most of the Gryffindors present had expected it to. "Very muggle."
The standing lion walked towards the snake with a casualness that only half of those present understood. "You like it?" Remus asked, his voice almost teasing in a manner, not that anyone but the intended truly seemed to notice.
Regulus only hummus and goes for a non answer rather than a true one given the current company around the pair. "My mother would have a heart attack if she were to see it," the Slytherin boy remarks flatly.
"Good," the Gryffindor boy replies, a hard note in his voice that goes heard by everyone there.
James and Sirius exchange hurried glances at the strange interaction unfolding before them.
"What are you doing here, Reg?" The elder Black brother asks, his hands moving stiffly to the wand at his side despite neither of the newcomers showing any hints of hostility.
"Just here to pick up Remus," Pandora answers airily in the Slytherin boy's steed as she turns to look at her Gryffindor, blatantly ignoring the others. Something that she knew that the other boys were in no way accustomed to. "Remus darling, please put that out," the Ravenclaws says almost sternly as she points at the cigarette on the older boy's hand.
Remus rolls his eyes but nocked the cherry off out of the open window before pocketing the other half, and looping his arm through the Ravenclaw's.
The sitting Marauders watched the scene with a quiet bewilderment at the ease that the three moved around one another. They knew that Remus had hung around the younger Slytherins the year before - how could they not? The whole school knew - but somehow it felt as if they were expecting things to come back into a sense of normalcy that they'd created over the years once the school year started again. Now looking at Remus, it just seems like everything was changing even more than before. None of them knew what to think about that.
"I'll be back after the prefect's meeting," the fourth Marauder said as if being carted off by a Slytherin boy and Ravenclaw girl was natural now, as if they all should have seen it coming.
Maybe they should have.
The three Gryffindor boys watched their last member leave and wondered what this meant for them all that Remus was around - around, but not friends, Sirius refused to let his mind wander down that path and James and Peter knew better than to let him - Regulus Black of all people. Someone that should hate to even breathe the same air as the half - blood boy, and yet almostseemed fond of him.
—-
The trio walked into the prefect's carriage together, the two boys listening to the Ravenclaws girl give a recant of the information that she'd found over the summer, and the work that they still had to do.
So consumed in one another, they seemed to miss the strange looks that they were receiving from the other prefects, who had all stilled their own conversations to watch as the three took places right next to each other at the table, with Black in the middle and an open seat left on Remus and Pandora's other sides for their respective house partners. But all those that were staring looked away once the younger of the two boys gave a fierce glare that would chill anyone's heart.
Evans isn't as shaken by the sight as the others, not after the events at the end of last year when Severus came running to her in the last few days of the school term with stories of a werewolf boy and a full moon night. She'd gone to Remus with the Gryffindor idiots on the train, but found him towards the back of the Hogwarts's Express with the Slyherins instead. She'd seen the way that the three were pressed closely together then as they were now in conspiratorial whispers with the other two Slytherin boys laughing together on the ground, and had fought back a grimace.
Black, Potter, and Pettigrew might have thought that Remus being with them in the last two weeks of fifth year did not mean anything, but she knew that it did.
She knew that it was a strange bond that wouldn't die so easily with age.
Remus wasn't one to abandon friends unless they had wronged him greatly, and even then he often didn't let the separation last long.
So Lily just smiles at the Gryffindor boy and takes the seat that had been left open for her as if it was normal to do so. Remus smiled at her as well before going back to his conversation with the other two in just the same manner. She didn't even balk at the change in the other lion's appearance once she saw it, though she found that she liked how even though the boy was now - as always - so completely surrounded by purebloods, Remus seemed to flaunt his muggle upbringing even more than ever before.
It eased something in the witch about the whole thing. Because it was a thing now.
Remus hardly listened as the Head Boy and Head Girl of this year went through the same speech that was given the year previous, only giving enough attention to know when the topic would change. No, his attention was drawn instead to the shoe pressed against his ankle under the table. To the occasional, but so transparently deliberate grade of the other boy's thigh against his own. To things that could be so easily passed off as accidental if done by anyone else other than Regulus Black, a boy that seamlessly controlled how his body moved.
The Gryffindor boy knew what the younger was doing, testing the grounds to see if it would hold, and a wild part of him just wanted to drag the Slytherin boy over the line and let them both see what would come of it when doing so. But the more rational part of him knew that he could never hope to do so while the younger boy didn't know of the beast living just under his skin
A reckless part of him wanted to give in anyways.
"Now that that's out of the way," the Head Girl - s seventh year Hufflepuff that Remus never did learn the name of - started, "onto scheduling. This year we decided to let you guys pick who you're assigned with so as to avoid any unnecessary conflict. So who is willing to work with another house?"
Three hands immediately pushed into the air, drawing an raised brow from the Head Girl that Remus steadfastly ignored.
"Variant combinations of Lupin, Black and Lestrange I assume?" The Head Boy asked as he sat over the unwritten patrol schedule, quill in hand. The three nodded as the seventh year sighed and began to write. " It's always the fucking Marauders ," Remus thought that he heard the older boy mutter under his breadth.
He wasn't wrong either way.
"Lupin and Black will patrol tonight then," the Head Girl decided as the two seventh years began the slow process of combining houses and years so that no one was likely to kill one another and everyone was kept honest during their patrols.
Remus only listened enough to know what days he would be patrolling and with whom, pleased to find that it would be Regulus every Wednesday and Dora and Lily on Saturday and Monday, respectively. He really didn't want to deal with any of the other prefects, not with the way that one of the fifth year Gryffindors seemed a little too put out about not being with the older boy.
"Library tomorrow?" Dora asked once they were dismissed and everyone else was returning to their own compartments. Remus gave Evans a small nod to show that he would be along soon if she wanted to wait. "Usual group?"
Remus was about to object when someone else spoke as if reading the Gryffindor's mind.
"Library tomorrow, just the three of us," Regulus countered and Dora frowned at that.
The eldest of the three sighed in a put out way that neither of the other two were foolish enough to truly believe. "You know Barty and Evan would just be bored stiff the whole time if invited," the teen reminded her. "We'll do something with the five of us this weekend," he said in compromise and Pandora nodded at this before smiling at them both and squeezing each of their hands affectionately before leaving for her own compartment.
She never really was the type to give a verbal goodbye.
The Gryffindor felt his body relax in an all too familiar way as it was just Regulus and him again, Remus half sitting upon the table as the Slytherin boy remained seated. The seven was a familiar one to the pair that brought back images of summer days spent in the sun and those rare summer nights.
He missed it all already like a limb.
But there were still a few strangers from the other houses present and Lily was waiting for him impatiently outside of the carriage so they could walk back to the Marauders and the girls together, as both prefects were sure that Marlene, Mary, and Desdemona had found their way to the boys by now. Remus knew that the moment couldn't last. He also knew that he would immediately miss the comfortable silence once it was gone. Because Remus liked that when others demanded him to be loud, whispers were enough between the lion and the snake.
"I'll pick you up from the dungeons at about thirty before curfew," the older boy decided, knowing that Regulus would want to stay as far away from Gryffindor Tower and the boy inside of it as he could.
When the Slytherin looked at him, Rmeus could almost see a smile there. It was more than he thought that he would get.
"I'll be waiting," the younger teen says simply, plainly even. But fingers brush against his own as Regulus stands to leave and it feels like playing with fire.
Remus wondered just how long he could last before he became an arsonist.
The Gryffindor followed the Slytherin out a beat or two later, letting the other boy leave as he took up post at Lily's side.
"Weren't you one of the ones that warned me about befriending Slytherins?" The Gryffindor girl asked in that know - it - all voice of hers that everyone knew better than to question her but now when she started using it. Remus would have been annoyed, but in her eyes the boy found genuine concern among the righteousness.
The teen tsked as his fingers itched for a cigarette, or really just about anything to occupy them. "I warned you about a Slytherin, not all of them," Remus reminded her as they walked.
The Gryffindor boy had never really understood the innate hatred that Sirius and James had for the house of cunning, going as far as to abandon a younger brother simply be I as he'd had been sorted into it. The teen could admit that most of them were assholes, but Remus would never forget the respect that he held for Narcissa after their second year, or anything that happened at the end of the last. Most of the Slytherins were raised in hate, the kind that made you firefly protect those that they called their own.
No, Remus didn't hate the Slyherins - he never had - he hated those that thought that he and Lily were lesser for their blood status and muggle parents - those Remus only had the one. He hated the monster that turned him into one. But he didn't hate someone just for their house.
Lily sighed. "I just want you to be careful," the girl sympathetically, knowing a losing battle when she so clearly saw one, "we Gryffindors haven't had the best of luck with the Slytherins in the past."
A cold laugh of surprise encased the boy's lips, something cruel rising in his chest that he half heartedly shoved down. He knew just how much of an understatement that was, how much worse it was likely to get with the war worsening as it was.
"You and Snape still on the outs then?" Remus asked instead of giving fully into the voice that whispered in his mind to turn his words into knives. To make her bleed.
Anger had always been one of the werewolf's main issues, with or without the moon to accompany it.
Lily nodded, something sad entering what was usually such brightly lit eyes. "For good this time it seems," the Gryffindor girl admitted before rolling those eyes of hers, "especially after the stories that he was telling me about you ."
Though the last part was surely supposed to be a lightning force if the jesting tone that it was given in meant anything, Remus felt his heart beat faster as if he had a hummingbird in his chest instead.
He stopped, bringing Lily to a sudden halt as well. He looked at her and Remus knew just what kind of stories that the girl meant. He knew it as surely as he knew the scars lacing his skin and the moons that they came from. As sure as the pain in his bad hip and fine scent of magic that clung desperately to his lungs all summer long.
"You can't tell anyone," Remus said quietly, watching as realization dawned in the other Gryffindor's eyes, something that he didn't taking root in the other. "Promise me that."
"I-I would never," the girl stuttered out, shock heavy on her tongue. Remus watched as determination as bright as an explosion settled on the other Gryffindor's face, the curve of her mouth and gleam of her eyes, and he wanted so desperately to believe it because he'd grown fond of the other teen over the past few years. "I promise."
Remus really wished that promises meant anything in this world, but he wouldn't be him if he only ever got what he deserved.
"Okay."
The pair walked back to the other Marauders in a heavy silence, only for it to be broken right before entering the compartment.
"I like the new look but the way," the girl said almost teasingly, her smiler fierce yet unfailing kind. "Very punk."
Very muggle, was what went unsaid by the other.
Remus heard it anyways.
—-
The Sorting Ceremony and feast were the same as every year before, something they annoyed Remus more than it ought to have as if never had before. But it wasn't really the feast that annoyed the boy, but those around him at it.
Lily kept sending small looks at Remus and then at the Slytherin table on the other side of the Great Hall where Remus was taking great care not to look. Not when Sirius's eyes seemed to be on the scarred boy as much as they were on Mary who was all but sitting in the older boy's lap. Having already spoken to the older Black brother that day, Remus didn't bother to meet the other's gaze.
James was almost worse though in comparison to the others, a guilty look on the teen's face every time that he looked at Remus that the boy wanted to claw off. Remus didn't truly mind the other's adverse reaction to his change in appearance - had expected it even since the other teen had barely held his tongue in fourth year, and had frowned spectacularly last Christmas when the wolf had given Sirius a piercing of his own. The Potters were of a clean sort, the kind not likely to get a tattoo or a piercing, or even dye their hair if Mrs. Potter had any say in the matter - she always did.
No, what got under the boy's skin was the way that the other teen seemed to be wishing desperately to take his reaction back . Remus has been raised in a way that remorse was expected of you, but completely useless to the point that he didn't truly understand it at all. The damage was already done, you couldn't fix it just by wanting to.
Marlene and Mary were like annoying balms for the boy, the pair of Ms instantly having noticed the change and all but gushing at him in a way too similar to how they looked at James and Sirius that it made the Gryffindor boy want to suck up and feel pleased all at the same time.
" Careful there, Lupin ," Mary had said teasingly from Sirius's side, " Black here might start to think that he has competition. "
Remus had only laughed along with the others, the feeling bitter as he knew that the elder Black brother had nothing to worry about. Remus wasn't exactly interested in the same sort that Sirius was.
Remus stood when Lily did to go to the first years as the feast ended. "The password is 'lion heart [1] ' pass it on to the others," the boy instructed, he didn't miss the sharp look that the elder Black brother paid him at the password, he only chose to ignore it. Sixth years didn't choose the password to the common rooms, and it wasn't the taller boys' problem if the other teen was suddenly feeling a sense of guilt over it.
The prefects lead the first years to the dormitories with gentle smiles carved onto each of their lips as they were reminded of what magic was supposed to be - the pureness of first being so completely surrounded by it without a war looming over them all. Lily had to sway at the boy when one of the first hears gasped at the moving staircases and asked loudly how it could be safe - as if Remus hasn't been wondering the same thing since they were eleven themselves.
If the Gryffindor boy had ever doubted his duty with fighting in the war, watching as the first years as they gasped at a world of magic as if it was the most beautiful thing in the world made just for them would have been enough to make him decide right then and there.
The wood never wanted the young lions to become casualties of war. He never wanted them to get blood in their hands.
—-
"Going to bed already, Moony?" Peter asked as the boy in question laid down his book and pushed himself to his feet, biting back a pained groan as his hip resisted the sudden movement.
"I've got patrol tonight, Wormtail," the teen said not unkindly, if a bit disgruntled, but the other boys were used to his gruffness by now.
"Is Evans going with you then, Moony?" James asked as he sprung to a sitting position, suddenly very interested in the conversation at hand. The other three Marauders only rolled their eyes at the too familiar scene.
"No," the standing teen said almost pityingly to the bespectacled boy, "I'm with one of the other houses today."
Remus chuckled as he watched the boy all but relate at not being able to see the girl that had already gone up to her dorm to unpack.
"Have fun, Remus," Mary said kindly from her seat on the small couch where the girl's legs were folded in the elder Black's lap and her body leaning against the boy's shoulder. The Gryffindor waited for the usual swell of jealousy and found it missing entirely.
Remus only rolled his eyes in response. "It's a patrol, Mary," he reminded the girl. "Can't get more boring than that."
It was a lie, he knew that it was.
"Be safe, Moony," Sirius said in the bright voice of his that made everyone believe that everything was normal with the four. Remus only paid the older boy a nod in response and left.
—-
The snake and the lion walked together with their sides pressed tightly into one another, the same unspoken thing passing between the teens as it had all summer.
There wasn't much that the boys had to do, only breaking up the usual secret pairings in the hidden nooks of the castle, letting the culprits off with a warning until the points system got into full swing in the coming days. So the teens had plenty of time to talk about whatever they wished, from muggle books to wizarding stories, and classes and projects they wanted to pursue this year.
They stopped outside of the entrance to the dungeons at the end of their rounds, a comfortable silence stretching out between the pair, one that the younger of the two saw fit to break.
"Slytherin is having a party this Friday," the black haired boy said as they stood across from one another, close enough that the older boy could feel the younger boy's breadth in his neck.
The implication was clear enough to the older boy. "I'll be there if you want me," he assured. "Send Dora to pick me up then on her way?" He asked and the younger nodded, the smallest of smiles forming on his otherwise still face.
Remus felt heat blossom in his chest as it did everytime that the boy caused the younger to break his bearing, and had a sly grin of his own all the way back to the Gryffindor common room.
James and Peter had long gone to bed by the time that Remus got there, but the boy saw that Sirius was still awake as if waiting for him.
"Hey Moony," the lede Black said softly from his own bed as Remus crossed the room.
The taller boy felt his heart pull in that familiar way that it always used to around the older boy, but this time it wasn't because it was Sirius , but rather because the other teen sounded like another that they both knew when he spoke in such a way.
"Padfoot," Remus said concisely as he gathered his things for bed.
"Good patrol?"
"The usual."
"Moony, I-" the older boy started, a hint of a familiar desperation entering the other teen's voice.
"Good night, Sirius," Remus said tiredly, his cold tone never wavering as he closed the bathroom door, effectively ending the conversation.
[1] The star Regulus is the heart of the lion constellation, Leo. It is also considered to be one of the four "Royal stars" and is often called King and Prince