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Reckless Remus


Lily, Petunia, and Mrs. Evans had eaten a quiet dinner in their dining room at home, Petunia babbling on and on that Vernon Dursley was going to call her after dinner and how exciting that was, how much she missed him and blah-de-blah-de-blah. Lily had to grit her teeth not to say something about what a pompous walrus Vernon Dursley was…

When dinner was over, Mrs. Evans excused herself - she had a terrible headache and wanted to go lie down, so she’d gone upstairs and left the two girls to clean up the kitchen together before Tuney’s phone call with Vernon. They’d been in the middle of clearing dishes from the table when the phone rang and Petunia ran out to the living room to snatch it up. Lily had finished clearing alone, and she was filling up the sink with dish soap and water when Petunia suddenly was screaming great ear-piercing shrieks.

Instinct kicking in - certain Death Eaters had come to attack the rest of her family as they’d done to her father - Lily drew her wand and raced into the living room, skidding on the carpet, hands covered with suds, and she took aim swiftly, waved her wand and screamed, “STUPEFY!” the moment she could see the figure emerging from the floo.

He fell backwards over the ottoman, crashing to the floor.

Petuna continued on screaming at the top of her voice, the phone receiver swinging from its cord, bouncing off the carpet, the voice of Vernon Dursley crying out, “My Pet? What’s happened? Petunia!”

Lily snapped the receiver up from the floor, “She’ll have to call you back - goodbye,” and slammed it back onto the hook before hurrying over to inspect the scene. She ran ‘round the couch - realizing she recognized the supposed Death Eater and it wasn’t a Death Eater at all. “Remus!” she cried and she ran over. “Tuney, shut the blasted hell up, it’s just my friend, Remus!”

“HE CAME THROUGH THE FIRE!” screamed Petunia, “HE CAME IN THE FIREPLACE! HE WAS SUDDENLY THERE! HOW DID HE DO THAT? HOW DID THAT FREAK DO THAT?”

“He isn’t a freak!” Lily shouted back, then she knelt beside Remus’s still form and she said, “I’m sorry. Innervate!”

He blinked up at her, looking dazed still, and he groaned, “Bleeding hell, Evans, you’re quite the stunner.”

Lily cracked up, “That is such a Sirius thing to say.”

Remus smirked as Lily pulled him up. He looked ‘round at Petunia, who was backed against the wall, clutching her neck, her eyes still quite terrified. “Sorry I scared you,” he said.

Petunia didn’t look at all ready to forgive him.

“Normally I would have warned you I was coming,” he added, turning to Lily, “But… I sort of left in a hurry... I - I need to get to the Potter’s.”

Panic filled Lily. “What? Why? What happened? Is James okay?”

“It’s Sirius.”

“What’s happened?”

“It’s a long story, and I don’t even fully know it, I only know what James wrote me,” Remus said, “But Sirius is in trouble, I’ve got to see him, and he’s staying at James’s house.” He struggled to his feet.

Lily looked scared, “Well obviously I’ll go with you. I’ll drive you there. I’ve been taking lessons.”

Petunia spoke up, “You - you can’t drive him anywhere, mummy hasn’t said you can use the car.”

“It’s an emergency!” Lily retorted, “That’s the whole point of me having learned how to drive the car, Tuney, for emergencies!”

“You aren’t going anywhere with that… that filthy boy.” She stared at Remus, at the way his clothes were just a little too small, the way his ankles showed beneath his pant legs and over the tops of his ratty loafers at the soot on his cardigan and across his scarred nose. He was a right mess! And those scars - those scars were horrid. Clearly this boy was dangerous. “As the elder sister, I refuse to allow you to go.”

“Minutes don’t count, Tuney,” Lily said, and she grabbed Remus’s hand. “C’mon.”

“Lily Jane Evans!” Petunia cried, “I’ll tell mother!”

“Go on! I’ll hex you.” She raised her wand, pausing in the doorway. “Just give me a reason, Petunia, and I’ll do it. I’ll give you a great long tail you’ll have to explain at school.”

Petunia’s face reddened. “You wouldn’t.”

“I will.”

Petunia didn’t look like she much fancied challenging the tone of Lily’s voice, and she stayed there against the wall across the room as Remus followed Lily to the door, glancing over his shoulder with an apologetic expression and mouthing the words so sorry to Petunia several times as Lily grabbed her mum’s keys from the table in the hallway and then waved for Remus to follow her out to the carpark, where the red Morris Mini stood, as though waiting for them.

Remus, unlike Sirius, had been in a car before. Hope Lupin had a yellow one when he was little, one where the top came off and the wind blew her hair about as she drove. He used to lay in the passenger seat when he was small and she would drive them to the market or on an adventure while Lyall was at work, and they would go to a park or just drive about listening to big band music on the radio and Hope would tell him stories about when she was young and the memories that music brought to mind… He’d always been fond of big band swing music as a result, the horns and the rhythms excited him and called to mind dances and footwork, of movement and happiness.

The Morris Mini was much smaller than Hope’s car. Remus had to fold his knees to keep from hitting the dashboard and hunker down as his head nearly touched the roof.

“I don’t know where James Potter lives,” Lily said.

“I can’t even tell you exactly,” Remus said. “HIs house is under the fidelus charm.”

“What? Why?” Lily looked surprised, though she should have known it was - Remus was sure she’d known about it at one point.

Lily was starting the engine of the Morris Mini as Remus explained, “Well his dad’s one of the biggest blood traitors there is - isn’t he? Charlus Potter’s saved dozens and dozens of muggles from Voldemort! He rescued the Potters neighbors from a fire, and he’s set hundreds of protective charms all around Godric’s Hollow, and he does volunteer work at the Ministry, most of it training people for the muggle-related departments… you know, like Misuse of Muggle Artefacts officers and Muggle Liaison Office and Muggle-Born Orientation Department, that sort of thing.”

Lily remembered the horrified, sickened look on James’s face when Severus Snape had called her a mudblood, how he’d been unable to repeat the word… It made sense now.

Remus continued on, “The Death Eaters tried to attack him at Diagon Alley once, and he escaped and Voldemort’s been after him since… so they had to put the house under a Fidelus.”

“But - if it’s under the Fidelus, how are we supposed to get to it?” Lily asked.

“Well I’ve been told about it from the Secret Keeper, so I can see it. You won’t be able to until the secret keeper tells you, but I’m sure James will have a way to get you inside once we get there. Or you can just drop me off if you’d rather not go in the Potter house,” Remus said as LIly backed the car down the car park to the road.

Lily drove quickly and they were arriving, under Remus’s direction and good skill at reading a map, just as the sun was setting. Lily pulled up to the curb and pulled the emergency brake out, shifting the car into neutral. There were many little houses all in a row, sitting quietly, and beyond them, a wide field that stretched away to a row of trees.

“It’s there between those two houses,” Remus said. He could see it, but he knew Lily couldn’t. The house was dark and still, unoccupied. He ran his palms over his knees, nervous. This was the most reckless thing Remus Lupin had ever done - on his own, at least. He’d only barely explained to Professor Veigler what he was doing before he’d left Fallengunder to go to the Evans house. He’d never fallen through a floo so far in all his life, he hadn’t even been certain it would work and had worried he’d get lost in the network somewhere but it had gone alright in the end, though it had taken quite a lot of falling before he’d landed in the Evans’ hearth… and now here he was.

Lily stared at the gap between houses, wondering what the Potter house looked like.

She looked over at Remus after several long moments of silence and asked, “So… so what happened?”

Remus reached into his pocket and took out the letter from James, telling him what happened with Ace and he stared at it for a long time, the words popping off the page. He cleared his throat then held it out for Lily.

She took it and her eyes scanned the parchment.

She looked up when she got to the line about the sunshine. “That’s - that’s LSD.”

“I know,” Remus murmured.

“This creep drugged Sirius?” Lily’s voice climbed with anger… and then she read the next line. “He did what now?! But - but if Sirius wa on LSD, then he didn’t know what he was doing and --”

“Keep reading.”

Lily finished the parchment, her face growing redder and redder as she did, and she said, “What a terrible, awful person this - this --” she referenced the top of the letter, “Ace Dante is!” She was fuming, “Blast him! BLAST him! Oh no, Sirius must’ve been hurting so terribly…”

Remus nodded. “That’s why I’ve come. Lily, he’s getting help. Look. He’s been in so much pain and - and I just have to be there for him. If he’s getting help, I have to be there for him.” Remus’s eyes were welled up. “I can’t stand the thought of him hurting all alone.”

Lily anxiously handed Remus back. “I have a right mind to hunt down Ace Dante and hex him!” she exclaimed, and she suddenly understood James’s anger at Snape the month before. She would gladly string Ace Dante up and relieve him of his pants if she could.

They sat waiting in the car as the sun set and the moon rose… Lily was nodding off in the driver’s seat and Remus was pressing the parchment to his knee, worrying. Where were they? He stared up at the house. What if Sirius was at Ace Dante’s again? What if - what if he was inside, what if he’d hurt himself again? Remus could see it clearly in his mind - a horrifying image of Sirius laying in the bathtub that James said he had slept in, passed out, blood all about… and him, Remus, just sitting here in the car, waiting, when he could’ve been saving Sirius…

Fearful that this imagining was truth, Remus glanced at Lily, who was asleep with her forehead against the steering wheel, and he slid out of the car as quietly as he could, and ran around the nose of the car to the gap in the little stone wall that lined the small front garden of the Potter house, hurrying up the walkway to the house’s front door, and he knocked on it rather frantically. “Sirius,” he called, then tried the handle and found the house unlocked. Remus pushed his way inside and ran through, checking in the kitchen and living room, calling Sirius’s name… he ran up the steps and pushed open the bathroom door, relieved to see the tub was empty, and then checked both Sirius and James’s bedrooms before finally being satisfied that they really weren’t there…

Remus walked out onto the front steps of the house and he lowered himself down, sitting on the stone, covering his eyes as he worried still…

And then there was James, walking down the street, alone in the dark, his hands in his trouser pockets, staring down at his trainers so intently that he didn’t even notice Lily Evans, asleep in the car… Remus stood up as James stepped through the gap of the stone wall. “Where is he?” Remus asked.

James stared at him, flabbergasted.

“Where’s Sirius? Where is he?” Remus pressed.

“Remus? What are you doing here?” James asked, finally finding his voice.

“I’ve come to help Sirius,” Remus replied. “You said he needed his Moony. Well --” he held out his arms, “Here I am.”

“Fuck.” James put both his hands up in his hair, clutching his head. “Oh… fuck. Fuck.”

“What? Wwhat?” Remus asked, anxiety spiking as James spun on his heels, cursing. “What’s wrong? Where is he?”

“He’s on a bloody flying motorbike, on his way to Iceland!” James exclaimed, “On his way to apologize to you!”

Remus stared at James, his jaw dropped. “No.”

“Yes, he’s just left! I’ve just walked back from watching him take off!” James pointed up at the sky, at the moon and stars and clouds.

“No!” Remus yelled, “He can’t drive a flying motorbike all the way to bloody Iceland, is he mental!?”

“Of course he is -- he’s SIRIUS!” James shouted, “Bleeding hell. You two and your near misses, I swear to Merlin… they should make pills for this.” He looked thoroughly exasperated.

Remus looked about. “We have to go after him. We have to stop him.”

“Rey, even as fast as I can go on my broomstick, I can’t ever dream of catching up with a motorbike,” James said. “It’s impossible!”

Remus wrung his hands, mind racing. What to do - what to do - how could they possibly catch up with a flying motorbike? It was impossible - they’d have to be moving faster than the motorbike in order to have hopes of catching up. They’d have to be in a flying vehicle -- a lfying… car…

His eyes flickered to the Morris Mini.

He looked at James.

“I have an idea,” Remus said. “It’s a terrible one. But - but it’s very Sirius and - bloody hell, it’s the only chance we’ve got.”