Remus walked next to Regulus, close as ever, as they wandered the quiet halls of Hogwarts, savoring the small world that they had drowned themselves in the past two weeks and mounted it now that the others were all coming back. But for all the peace that they would miss, it still felt like finally breathing once more when the rest of their strange group crashed into the pair, sly smiles and quick touches on wrist, silent assurances that they were all still in one piece.
"We have something to show you," the younger Black whispered as the five of them walked into the castle, neatly avoiding the wandering looks of three ditch year Gryffindors searching for a fourth.
"And what would that be?" Evan asks, ever the impatient one.
"You're just going to have to wait," the other snake replied, a smirk on his face that none of them found any malice in.
"Not even a hint?" Dora asked from Remus's right as the younger Barack stayed to his left. There was a soft look on the girl's face that they knew better than to believe as her curiosity won out.
"You're the Ravencalw," Barty reminded the girl. "Shouldn't you be able to figure it out?" The rest of their group ignored the way that the boy's voice rasped as if he hadn't spoken since the train ride back home for the holidays. They ignored the probability that this was exactly the case, knowing that there was nothing that any of them could do. Not right now at the least.
Remus still hit the younger boy on the back of the head though for the remark, a slight pop that sounded much worse than the slight sting that the teen would have felt in reality, and Barty scowled even as he was thankful for the normalcy of it.
The Gryffindor and Slytherin pair led the others up the stairs to the seventh floor, blatantly ignoring the way that the o other teens protested under their breaths at the long climb from the ground floor. Regulus stood back as Remus moved the stalk in front of the wall, the snake knew that the lion was better at replicating the room than he was, as if the magic in it all spoke to the older boy in a way that it didn't do so with the others.
He knew why it did so, they all did, but the lion didn't tap into the power that laid inside of him. Regulus thought that he might never do so.
Looking back one day, he would see that he was wrong.
The park was just as they had left it the last time that the pair was there, the breaking equipment and the thick grass. Remus walked over to one of the picnic tables and sat on top of it, watching as the younger teens took it in, their little hidden world within Hogwarts. The Gryffindor was surprised when Regulus sat himself down next to the lion, the younger teen atop the table as well.
"Not very proper of you," the older boy remarked as they sat flush against one another, connected fully from their knees to their sides.
"I could move..." the younger said slowly, leaning away from the lion, and Remus hooks their fingers together to make the other stay.
Regulus leans back against the older boy, connecting them more fully than the pair had been before as he lays his head on the other's shoulder without thinking anything of it. They were around family after all.
Remus moved his arm hesitantly, circling it behind the younger teen's waist with movements that were much more hesitant than the younger Black's had been. He knew that in the muggle world - and wizarding too from the way that some people talked - that even the way that the Slytherin was laying on him would get them both beat to a pulp. He didn't think that any of the others would do that, but the fear was always there, lingering like a disease.
But Dora only nodded with a soft smile as she sat down on the bench, and Barty and Evan only pressed closer to one another as they sat down in the warm grass, Evan's leg on top of Barty's with Barty's hands resting on the blond's knee.
"I can tell what you blokes have been doing over the holiday," Barty said with a suggestive tone as he eyed the barley visible mark on the older boy's neck, though the way that he was lacing his fingers through Evan's said that there wasn't any harm in it.
"We've been doing research actually, Crouch" the Gryffindor replied easily.
"Over what then?" The dark haired boy asks, a brow raised at the idea of what could have been important enough to cause both of the other teens to voluntarily open school books during the break for something other than homework.
"Animagus," Regulus says simply as if they weren't speaking of attempting something highly illegal for their age.
But the others were two Slytherins and the Ravenclaw that hung around them, and none of them even faltered at the idea. Not one of the other three questioned it either, alreadying knowing just why the younger Black and the lion would have been doing such a thing. The Slytherin cunning and Ravenclaw wit kept them from asking why Remus was sure that this was a safe solution to the problem that he was plagued with. Then there was the unquestioning loyalty that they held for one another - the bonds that none of them had ever had with those that they shared blood with - that had each of them agreeing without the idea even fully needing to be spoken aloud.
They had three new people helping in the research after that day.
—-
It was February before the strange trio that they had created were able to gather in earnest to test their project once more.
Remus was up in Gryffindor Tower with the rest of the Marauders, smiling at their particular brand of chaos, when slight gasps had spread throughout the room as the spectral figure of a bat flew into the common room, swooping down in front of the teen as if to touch him. Sirius raised a brow at the sight, this being the second corporeal patronus to come to the taller boy, from a different person at that. James and Peter only stared in slight awe, never having seen one so close before.
"Well, that's my cue to leave," the scarred boy says as he stands, sliding the book that he had been absentmindedly reading for the past half hour into the bag that he otherwise hadn't touched before then, Sirius was curious to know just what was inside of it.
"Who are you meeting, Moony?" James asks, his brows wiggling in a mocking way.
"It's only Dora, you prick," Remus says with a roll of his eyes, but the older Black brother can hear just how much lighter the other boy's voice is when speaking of the Lestrange girl. Light in a way that he so rarely heard it this year.
"Lady killer!" Peter called as Remus walked away, middle fingers held high for all to see in a way that wasn't exactly proper for a prefect to act, but the teen smoked enough that it was a minor offense.
Sirius scowled as the other two lions laughed, and when James noticed, confusion rumbled through him.
"Why do you look like Moony just killed your dog?" The bespectacled boy asked with a tactlessness that only a Potter could use and it still be something akin to endearing, though Sirius found the teen gaze to be unsettling as he did so, calculating and attuned in the way that only the deer part of his really tended to be.
"I just don't trust Lestrange is all," the boy argued weakly, not wanting to admit just how childish it must look like he's being. Well, he's never cared about that before.
"Moony does though," James said as if that proved something. And maybe to the other boy it did, but Sirius knew the Remus that sold cigarettes behind their backs and broke into shops during the summer. He seemed to be the only one that remembered that Remus seemed to trust Crouch and Rosier as well - he wasn't even going to think about Regulus.
He trusted me, too , his traitorous mind reminds him. Look how that turned out.
"I still don't like it."
"We could follow him."
Sirius and James turned to where Peter was sitting in his chair, innocently holding up a bit of parchment that they all knew was much more than that.
Better people might have stopped at the obvious invasion of privacy, but they were Marauders, and Marauders thrived on chaos.
—-
The Pitch was still cold in the February chill as the three Marauders walked out to it, following the small footsteps of Remus all the way there, confused looks on each of their faces once they saw the other boy stop in the middle of field and at the fact that he hated flying. They weren't prepared for the sight before them once they finally reached it.
Regulus was standing atop his broom high in air, tall and proud with all of the grace of a seeker, as Remus stood beside him, their hands held tightly together as the Gryffindor wobbled.
If they were to have glanced into the Ravenclaw stands the three of them would have seen Pandora sitting there with parchment and a quill in her hands, poised and ready to take notes. But instead they watched as the boys let go of one another and Remus tilted back, falling from the broom like an angel that had lost its wings, like Icarus as his had burned. Regulus dived down beside the other like a shooting star, ready to catch the older boy should the need arise, but suddenly one of the lion's feet separated from the other and the wolf was running through the air. The Gryffindor laughed, strong and loud enough to be heard even from outside of the pitch as he ran through the sky as if he was always meant to be a part of it, the moon and a star.
Remus had always hated flying, ever since their first lesson at elven, but this was nothing like that. Running freely through the sky, the teen felt a lot like the constellation that his last name came from. It was the kind of freedom that he had never thought that someone like him would be allowed to have, but he was grasping onto it like it was all that he had.
Sirius stormed onto the pitch as obscenities that would have made a sailor blush fell from his lips, spurred on by the recklessness of the boy that was supposed to be the most sensible of them all.
" Lupin ! What the fuck were you thinking?!"
Remus sighed as he and the Slytherin landed on the ground. He had known that the others were coming, their scent was a familiar one after all of these years. But he hadn't expected to elicit such a response with his stunt, and a part of him knew that he hadn't, that this wasn't about his reckless actions at all but who he had chosen to complete them with.
Remus shakes his head subtly as Dora moves to come closer to the spontaneous inquisition before looking to the younger Black and nodding at him, a silent plea for the other to go, to trust him to handle this. The wolf knew that Padfoot's head was never on straight when his family was involved. Regulus left with a cold glare in the direction of each of the Gryffindors, Remus included, but he brushed their hands together as he left nonetheless.
"What were you doing with him, Moony?" James asked, his head cocked to the side.
"We were working on a project together," the boy in question explains as he leans down to change his boots out for the non - spelled ones.
"Just the two of you?" Peter asked, a slight tone of surprise in the smallest Marauders' voice.
"Dora too," Remus explains bitterly at the fact that he has to at all, that the others didn't seem to trust him enough for this. A glimpse at the cracked skin on his knuckles was enough to make the boy wonder if they were right not to.
"Right, Lestrange ," Sirius snarls, rolling his eyes as he looks everywhere but at the tallest boy in their group.
"Yes, Dora," Remus replies with a similar tone. "Without her Regulus and I would be at each others' throats the entire time," the wolf says, knowing that it wasn't technically a lie at all.
None of them liked it, not even Peter who had some friends in Slytherin as well - though his dislike, the wolf assumed, was mostly caused by wanting to fit in with the other two boys - but the three knew that there was nothing that they could do about it, not when it was Remus that they were against.
Things were cold between the four of them in the tower of a while after that.
—-
The next time that the pair were able to sneak off to the Room of Requirement it was Valentines Day. James was busy chasing after Lily in Hogsmeade, Sirius had a date with whichever girl he was with this week, Peter was with Desdemona, and no one was looking for the fourth Marauder.
Lips crashed together in the stolen moment that they had been able to steal, not truly having been alone with one another since the holidays and missing the contact like lung.
When Regulus left sometime later, there was a small cuff on his left ear in the shape of a golden snake that matched the one that Remus always wears on his right. No one but their small group ever noticed, but it didn't matter. After all, it wasn't for them