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Spying Eyes


Sirius grabbed hold of the Marauder’s Map. “I’m going to go find out who Remus’s boyfriend is,” he announced, standing at the door, tucking the map into his belt. “Who’s coming with me?”

Peter looked up from his bed, “The feast starts in an hour.”

“Of course, nothing’s going to become Peter Pettigrew and his dinner,” said Sirius rudely. He rolled his eyes. “James? Mate?”

James sighed, “There’s no boyfriend, Sirius, bloody hell, give it a rest, will you? You’re starting to sound like one of the crazy muggle women on the telly programs my mum watches… they call them soap operas, though I don’t know why, nobody ever sings on them… and they haven’t a thing to do with soap.”

Sirius took up his leather jacket, shrugging the shoulders on. “We’ll see,” he replied, popping the collar up on the jacket. “Go to the feast then, both of you. I’ll solve the mystery by myself.” He rolled his eyes and took up his wand, tucking it over his ear so that it was held up by the Gryffindor scarf that was tied about his head.

James sighed as Sirius walked out the door, slamming it shut.

Peter looked ‘round at James, “What’s he on about Remus having a boyfriend?” he looked confused.

James rolled his eyes, “Sirius is being ridiculous. He’s been obsessed with this idea that Remus has a boyfriend… I keep trying to tell him he can’t have done… but he doesn’t listen. You know how he is -- Sirius Black is the most overdramatic idiot I’ve ever met.”

“Where’d he get the idea Rey’s got a boyfriend? That’s just absurd. He doesn’t go anywhere that we don’t go --”

“I know,” James said, “But Regulus Black told him that he’d seen him going off with another boy and that Remus was snogging with him behind the greenhouses after the quidditch try-outs and --”

Peter’s eyes went wide his cheeks went pink. “Oh no.”

James’s voice was wary, “Peter…?”

“Well, see, Remus and I were at the try outs and watching you lot and I got bored and I whined until he agreed to go back to the castle with me… I bribed him, really, with the promise of fudge bars… and so we came back and on the way, the Slytherins were just coming out of the castle. Remus didn’t want to deal with them, so we ducked off the path, we were going to go in the north gate, but they started shouting things to Remus and I and he got really upset, of course. But Regulus Black was among them, and he… he was teasing Remus… calling me his boyfriend.” Peter’s face was dark red.

James gasped. “IT WAS YOU?”

Peter nodded.

“YOU -- YOU -- are Remus’s boyfriend???” James stared at Peter, aghast.

“No, not really, we were trying to go in the gate -- I’m not gay -- I just -- Wait… Where are you going?”

James had leaped off the bed. “To tell Sirius!” he exclaimed, “C’mon! We gotta catch him up before he makes an arse of himself!”

“But the feast --”

James hesitated, already in the doorway, and Sirius’s words came to his mind -- “Fuck the feast!” he repeated and he ran out the door.

Peter blinked at the profanity, shocked, and then he realized James had gone and he scrambled to catch up. “WAIT FOR ME, PRONGS! WAIT FOR ME!” and he ran after him, headed for the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow.




Sirius, however, hadn’t gone for the tunnel by the Whomping Willow. Sirius had a different idea entirely. He was on the fifth floor by Gunhilda of Gorsemore, the humpbacked witch. He stared at the Map, aimed rather innocently toward one of the more interesting paintings along the wall so that he could claim he was taking in the art should anybody approach him. He looked the Map over to be sure nobody was coming this way, and when he was satisfied that the closest being on the Map was Peeves the Poltergeist, who was doing something that kept him zooming about in a chaotic fashion in a classroom down the corridor, Sirius turned to the witch and pulled his wand from his ear. “Dissendium,” he announced and tapped her hump. Sirius tucked the map back into his belt and pulled himself up, sliding through the hole that had opened up with ease.

It was a long walk along the passageway, but he passed it practicing his “Aha!” for when he’d busted Remus. He pictured himself peeking in to see Rey sharing a double fudge chocolate bar on the couch with a boy in a flickering firelight, their eyes all gooey as they puckered their lips and Remus leaned forward toward the boy -- and Sirius’s blood boiled before his imagination could let their lips touch and he ran all the harder down the tunnel, as if he had to outrun the kiss, as if the longer he took to get there, the more snogging was going to get done.

He’d decided to take the witch’s tunnel instead of the Whomping Willow for two reasons. The first was that with the feast going on, it would be nearly impossible to get out to the Whomping Willow without encountering other students or staff along the way. The second was that he figured whoever Remus’s boyfriend was, he’d probably go in and out of the Shrieking Shack by the trap door and Sirius didn’t fancy running into the boyfriend in the tunnel. Plus, once he’d got to the Shack, he wouldn’t have been able to sneak in through the trap door. Unless they were upstairs…

And suddenly a whole other scenario played out in Sirius’s head and he ran all the faster.

He reached Honeydukes basement in no time at all, it seemed, and he carefully lifted the door in the shop store room and looked about, making sure the coast was clear. It was still during business hours. He could hear the jingle of the shop door and see feet going by the small window that looked out onto the village street. He climbed through the door and snuck up the stairs and through the door into the shop - only just making it without being seen.

Sirius tried to act casual as he walked through the shop, pausing here and there to look at something, then putting it back as though he’d changed his mind, not wanding to raise suspicions. Of course, a teenager in Hogsmeade on an unscheduled visit was just as suspicious as a shoplifter might’ve been, and the shopkeeper was eyeing Sirius as he headed for the door.

Outside, the air was quite cold, that biting sort of autumn air that turns one’s nose pink. A wind blew through, carrying on it some of the damp leaves, streaked with white frost along the edges. The leaves whistled along at Sirius’s feet as he turned down the street that led to the Shrieking Shack. He paused at the fence, laden with omens and tokens, and the little placard, warning of the terrible horrors that awaited anyone who went too close to the Shack. Hostile Spirits Dwell Within the sign read, and he remembered the conversation that they’d had about the moaning and shrieking ghosts -- and Sirius looked up at the shack, hoping to Merlin there was no moaning and shrieking going on inside it.

He looked about, made sure he was alone, and then he grabbed onto the top of the fence and vaulted himself over. He ran across the lightly-snow dusted ground, his feet melting prints along the path, all the way up to the Shack, his heart in his throat. He snuck ‘round to the back, the windows that faced the woods, boarded up, but where the living room would be. Carefully, Sirius stood on his very tippy-toes, peering through one of the cracks in the wood.

He could only just barely see through, there were cobwebs in the crack of the wood and a spider crawled along them, obscuring Sirius’s view a bit. He ducked about, trying to find a window that allowed him a good view… but none of them were great. He could only see fragments of the interior of the Shack. “Bloody hell,” he murmured, frustrated. He couldn’t see Remus anywhere. He glanced up at the window hovering above him - he couldn’t have seen through it even if he had a way to get up there, he reminded himself, for they’d covered all the windows and walls with the duvets in the clubhouse room, just for this very reason, to keep spying eyes out. What happened in the Marauders’ clubhouse stayed in the Marauders’ clubhouse.

He pressed his eye to the hole in the wood by the spider again. He had to see what was going on! And then he saw just a fragment of two sets of robes headed down the stairs and his heart was in his throat. He’d been hoping, honestly, not to find a thing out there in the Shack, except Remus sitting on the couch, pathetic and alone and eating the fudge bars all by himself just as he’d claimed. Sirius had already decided that if that’s what he found then he was going to turn into Snuffles and bark at the door for Remus to let him in. He’d been so hopeful that maybe, just maybe, James had been right. But with the sight of two figures in the Shack, Sirius stumbled back from the window.

He had wanted so badly to be wrong.




“It’s getting late, you should go,” Remus said. It was nearly five now and Lily had been helping him in setting up and testing the stereo system. She’d smiled as Remus had grinned stupidly at the song Wild Thing playing on the speakers. It’d sounded so good, Remus had shivered at the thought of Sirius Black’s surprised face when he found out about it. But now it was getting late and Lily needed to go before the full moon rose.

Lily sighed and helped Remus stick a big red bow onto the stereo’s storage compartment lid. “Yeah, I should,” Lily murmured.

“Thank you so much for helping me with the stereo system… I really appreciate it,” Remus said. “You’ve been phenomenal.”

Lily’s eyes twinkled, “Anything to help out… I… I’m really rooting for you guys, you know.”

Remus laughed, “It won’t ever happen, Lil. Me and Sirius, I mean. He told me so.”

“People change their minds,” Lily persisted.

Remus shrugged, then shook his head, “Not Sirius Black. Once he’s got something in his head, he followed off on it no matter how bloody mad it makes him look.”

(Of course Remus didn’t know the irony of the fact that outside Sirius Black was ducking from window to window rather frantically, looking quite mad indeed.)

Lily shrugged. “I suppose we’ll see.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Remus chuckled, “He’s way too good looking for me anyway.”

“You’re very good looking,” Lily argued.

“Yes, scars are in,” Remus replied, laughing.

“They make you look older, more experienced… distinguished.”

“Distinguished!” Remus snorted.

“Well, they do,” Lily persisted.

Remus shook his head and he led the way to the stairs, he and Lily headed down. They reached the trap door and he opened it up for her, watching as she slid through. “Good night,” she said as she stared up at him from the darkness of the tunnel.

“Good night… Enjoy the feast, Lily,” he answered, “And thank you again.”

“You’re very welcome.” Lily paused, staring up at Remus with her bright green eyes searching him. Then, “Stay safe, Rey.”




Lyall Lupin lay on the couch, curled into himself, staring at the photo over the mantel of the family he’d lost. Hope smiling and turning to kiss his cheek as he stood daftly, blissfully unaware of the future, while Remus stood in front, grinning and blinking into the world from the frame. Hope had laughter in her eyes and when she leaned, her hand made Remus lose his balance a teeny bit and he sort of stumbled into Lyall’s torso… their little mannerisms captured for eternity. Lyall cried until he ran out of tears and then he just lay there on the couch, staring numbly.

On the coffee table, the wrappers and boxes from the pub he ordered from were stacked a bit neater than they had been when Dumbledore had visited. Among them was a parchment and a quill, and at the top of the parchment, two words - Dear Remus. A quill lay across the page, inked, dripping, waiting for more words to come…

Outside, the gate unlatched.

Lyall blinked, slowly coming out of the numb stare that had engulfed him. He lifted his chin, craning his neck over the end of the sofa.

There was a rapping on the door, very quick, very persistent.

Lyall ignored it. He lay his head back down. He didn’t feel much like seeing anyone. Whoever it was could come back another time. Lyall closed his eyes. A good deal of thoughts had been swimming in his mind since Dumbledore’s visit and it was on these things that his brain had been dwelling while he stared at the photograph…

The door opened.

Lyall sat up, his heart seizing in his throat as he looked over the couch -- seeing who it was that had just walked through the door… He turned - everything feeling quite in slow motion - and saw that he had two options laid before him on the coffee table… he could go for his wand… or he could go for his quill.

Avada Kedavra!

At the very first vowel, Lyall Lupin had made his choice. He leaped forward, grabbing hold of the eagle feather quill, and wrote the words as quickly as possible, the quill dragging off the page as the spell hit his back and he fell between the couch and the coffee table.

Silence filled the Lupin house, silence except for a shuffling, scraping sound… a cane scuffing along a floor… the creak of a door… the killer escaping.