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Blue Opal


Remus was laying on the bed upstairs in the Shrieking Shack, alone, and staring at the wall they had covered with photographs and notes over the last three years. He felt less lonely looking at it, and though his breath came out labored and his back was about as stiff as anything had ever been, he felt comforted by the memories contained in the photos of himself and his three best friends… the best friends a man could have, he thought.

Downstairs, he heard the trapdoor bang open, and he smiled. There they are, he thought thankfully.

The stairs creaked and Remus could hear their voices arguing in the stairwell and the corridor as they approached.

“ -- and as far as I’m concerned, the old codger can suck my dick before I’ll actually attend any of his bloody detentions! Every evening ‘til the end of term, the man’s mental if he thinks I’m going to show up for that!” Sirius’s voice was angry.

“Well not showing up’s only going to lead to more detentions,” James said.

“More detentions for me not to show up for!” Siris replied.

“Why in hell can’t McGonagall be back yet? She’d set it right in no time!” James declared.

“Min-Min is the Queen,” Sirius said, “She’d fucking flatten this dillweed like he was nothing.” Sirius pushed open the door of the bedroom and slouched through, his boots hanging by the laces from his hand, walking in his thick-stockinged feet. He looked up and spotted Remus’s eyes staring at the door expectantly. “Hey you’re awake!” Sirius smiled, “I would’ve thought you’d been asleep. Took my shoes off so I wasn’t banging up the stairs, too.”

“The boots aren’t what makes you loud, you dingus,” James said with a snort, “It’s your pie-hole.”

“My pie-hole could go for some pie about now, actually,” Sirius said, slinging his boots and a bag he carried down by the desk, then he frolicked across the room and onto the bed beside Remus. Remus winced as the mattress moved beneath Sirius, who curled around him and snuggled his face against the back of Remus’s head as he brought his arms around Remus’s sides. “My Moony,” he murmured into Remus’s hair, “I’ve arrived.”

Remus put his hand on Sirius’s forearm and he smiled tremulously as Sirius pressed his mouth to the warm spot beneath Remus’s hairline on the back of his neck.

“What happened with Professor Gaunt?” Remus asked, “I heard you on the stairs,” he added with James looked up with an expression that clearly said he was thinking up something to say.

“He’s an arsehole is what he is,” Sirius answered.

James sighed, “He gave us all detention for the foreseeable future.”

“None of which I am going to attend,” Sirius said.
,br> “Currently skipping the first one now, we are,” James agreed with a chuckle.

“We’re badasses,” Sirius declared.

“Truly,” agreed James, grinning.

Remus looked sicker than he already did. “What’d you guys do? James, you said you lot would be careful ‘round him! Are you mad? Getting detentions with him? If my theory about him doing the imperius is true then --”

“Wait, what?” Sirius sat up.

Remus closed his eyes, hating himself for the words coming out.

“Gaunt? Doing the imperius?” Sirius demanded. “On who?”

James looked at Remus.

Remus sighed, “On students.”

“Who?” Sirius asked.

Remus drew a deep breath, “My main concern’s been on me, Meg, and McKenna at that detention I had.”

“The no-homework detention?” Sirius asked, having heard Remus’s tirade about it several times already.

“Yeah,” Remus replied. “That’s the one.”

Sirius frowned. “Why in hell would he imperius you?”

“Dunno,” Remus replied. “That’s the mystery of it. I was going to go and talk to Dumbledore last night but he wasn’t in his office and James and I agreed to try again tomorrow if he’s back and --” Remus looked at James, “And you said you lot would be careful around him! You said you lot would be alright!”

James said, “What can I say? He’s an arse!”

Sirius declared, “That’s an understatement!!”

“But we are alright, really, Rey, and after dinner in the Great Hall, Wormtail’s going back at the dorm with the Map, keeping an eye on where Gaunt’s at the whole time tonight,” James added.

Remus frowned, nervous.

Sirius laid himself back down and nuzzled into Remus’s neck and dug the heels of his hands against Remus’s spine the way he liked, and Remus let out a moan as Sirius started working the knotted muscles in Remus’s back. “Oh gods Sirius.”

“No, no, Moony, it’s oh gods Evans,” Sirius smirked.

James glared.

Sirius’s smirk only deepened.




Madam Pomfrey was humming quietly to herself as she took inventory of her cupboards so she could place her orders for potions from Horace Slughorn when the door to the infirmary opened up. She turned around and found Professor Gaunt in the frame of the door, his shadow casting across the stone floor. “Mr. Gaunt,” she said in surprise, and she put down her check list.

Gaunt looked about the room slowly.

“Can I help you with something?” Pomfrey asked.

Gaunt’s eyes were scanning the beds - nearly empty, the only exception being a bed at the far end, where someone lay concealed beneath their covers, most likely asleep.

“No,” he said sternly, and he backed back out of the infirmary, having confirmed what he was fairly certain he’d already seen in the minds of the sixth year Gryffindors.




Lily was seated at the dinner table, only sort of half listening to Peter ramble about some stuff he was learning in Divination, but mostly pushing her food about on her plate, worrying about James, Sirius, and Remus, when a hand grabbed onto her shoulder and spun her around. She found herself staring up at Professor Gaunt’s cold eyes. “Where are they?” he spat.

“Sirius Black and James Potter,” hissed Gaunt.

She stared up at him, “How should I know?”

His voice was smooth, “You know.”

Lily shook her head and started to turn back to her dinner, “I don’t, I’m not their keeper, I’m just --”

And she felt it. Felt the intrusion on her mind, as though her own thoughts were being violently shoved aside, as though her brain had been torn open… just like it used to feel when Severus Snape had done it to her and she wrenched herself back, jumping up to her feet and knocking Gaunt a step backwards in the motion, throwing him off, making his attack on her thoughts end. He looked at her in surprise.

“Don’t you dare!” she hissed.

Gaunt stared at her.

Lily’s voice was tense, “Don’t you dare go into my mind like that! You can’t just do that to people, you can’t just --”

“Well hello Miss. Evans… Professor Gaunt,” Horace Slughorn was suddenly at their side, smiling grandly and holding his robes by their lapels, his head covered with a funny cap, looking between Gaunt and Lily. He patted Lily’s shoulder, “Talking to one of my most prized pupils, Pleiades?” Slughorn seemed oblivious to the altercation he’d walked in on.

“I was simply asking Miss. Evans where her friends are,” Gaunt replied darkly.

Slughorn looked about the table and, seeing only one of the four Marauders was there, he said, “Oh ho! We do seem to be missing some rather notorious faces tonight, haven’t we? Lily? Where are the other three?”

“Remus was ill earlier,” Lily said quickly, “Perhaps they’re visiting him in the hospital wing.”

“They aren’t in the hospital wing, I’ve been there already,” hissed Gaunt, his eyes still suspiciously roaming over Lily’s face, still stunned that she’d thrown him off like she had.

Slughorn chuckled, “With those hooligans, they could be near to anywhere in the castle! When you see him, Miss. Evans, please, invite them along to brunch on Sunday. And yourself, too, of course.” He turned to Gaunt. “And you as well, Professor.” He smiled, “Just a little Christmas get together, you know, the annual shindig.”

“Yes sir,” Lily said quickly.

Peter was staring up at them hopefully but Slughorn didn’t turn to him - didn’t offer him an invitation.

Rather, Slughorn tossed his arm about Gaunt’s shoulders and, with a chuckle, he guided Gaunt away from the table, “You’ll be quite impressed, I think, with the brunch. You see, only the brightest and most important of the students are invited along and --”

The moment they were out of earshot, Lily turned around and looked at Peter. “Did he - did he try to do it to you, too?” she asked quietly.

“Do what?” Peter asked, his mouth full.

“The mind thing?”

“Mind thing?” Peter looked confused.

Clearly he hadn’t.

Lily stared across the Great Hall at Gaunt and Slughorn, sitting down at the staff table. Gaunt was still staring her way and she grit her teeth and looked at Peter, “I’ll see you around,” she said and she hurried out of the room before Professor Gaunt could try to intrude upon her thoughts anymore than he already had.

Peter stared after her for a moment, then sighed and looked back to his meal, feeling rather abandoned. Sure, the lads had asked him to do a really important thing - keeping an eye on Gaunt was certainly not nothing, and sure he really was the one whose animagus was least helpful out in the Shack on a full moon night, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel slighted. Especially when they seemed to be taking every opportunity to leave him behind this year, even worse than the previous years, and he stared at his plate, pushing potatoes and carrots about with his fork.

He felt eyes upon him and he turned to look toward the table up front.

Professor Gaunt as staring at him.




After dinner, Peter scrambled up the stairs to the dormitory and he set himself on the bed and he pulled out the Map, leaning it against the foot of his bed and he waved his wand upon it. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!” he informed it, and he watched the lines and markings spread across the parchment until the map had appeared. He spent a great many minutes searching it, however, to find that Pleiades Gaunt seemed to have disappeared - he was nowhere to be found. Peter flipped frantically through the folds of the Map, checking and double checking again and again, but to no success.

He sighed and, leaving the Map unfolded to show Gaunt’s office, so he would see when Gaunt appeared there, Peter got his bag of crystals out and shook it up gently before closing his eyes and asking, outloud, “What’s the big deal with Professor Gaunt, anyway?” and he lowered the bag and opened it up, reaching inside and fishing around ‘til he felt a stone that felt right, and he pulled it out, laying it upon the bed.

Tiger iron.

Peter consulted his book on the meaning of the stones.

A stone for seeking power or one’s will. A stone for one building up their strength. A stone for actors or liars, a stone for someone who is pretending.

Peter stared at the stone for a long moment, thinking this over. Then, “Why is he picking on Remus Lupin?” and he fished about in the bag again.

Spectrolite.

A stone for seeking opportunities. A stone for enhanced awareness.

Peter chewed his lower lip, then, “So he’s using Moony for something? He’s a liar that’s using Moony.” He thought for a moment, and then asked, “What’s he using him for?”

Azurite.

A stone for retaining information. A stone for knowledge and those seeking answers.

“Seeking answers? About what?” Peter wondered and he reached into the bag again.

Prehnite.

A stone of unconditional love or care. A stone of true friends. A stone of close family.

Peter’s heart raced. “He’s looking for information about one of Remus’s friends, it must be. It must be. Because Remus hasn’t any family. Oh Merlin, but then it must be one of us --” Peter paused, and looked up at the wall and caught his reflection in the mirror over the desks. “It’s got to be either James or Sirius, though, certainly it can’t be me...” he looked down at the stones again, then he took a deep breath and put them back into his bag and he shook the bag again and he said, “A dark coloured stone will be for Sirius and a light coloured stone will be for James.”

He reached into the bag.

He pulled a blue opal.

Peter stared at the opal, then closed his fingers around it.

If the crystals were right - and Peter very much trusted those rocks - then Pleiades Gaunt was seeking power, seeking to further his will and to do so, he was using Remus Lupin to get information about James Potter.