The phone rang for the third time that day. Remus thought about just letting it ring forever, unsure if the comfort of knowing someone on the other side waiting and insisting on him was good enough to never pick up. He knew who it was. He knew why the phone rang so much. But he didn’t want to. If only he could have never known anything, just sweet obliviousness forever.
“Remus!” The other side of the phone said sweetly. “I’ve been ringing forever, where have you been?”
“Well that’s what I want to know! What are you up to these days Lupin? I feel like it’s been forever since we last spoke.”
It had been almost three months. 87 days to be exact. Not that Remus was counting.
“Not much, got a job at a bar ‘round the block.” He said very monotonously “how ‘bout you? Any good news from Perú?”
“Actually,” she said cheery, Remus could tell she was probably smiling. “I met someone, that’s why I’ve been so spacey with the calls and all, but I’m getting married!”
“Oh fuck Mary! That’s grand! Congratulations!” Remus smiled “when’s the wedding? who’s the chap? how long you’ve been together?”
“It’s in September, he’s a friend of my brother’s from Argentina called Fernando and it’s been almost a year, I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about him before…”
“Shit, yeah, the exiled lawyer right?” Remus inquired.
“That’s the one! Well, democracy’s back in so we’re getting married in Argentina, September 28th. You should come!” Mary squealed.
“Uh, sure, yeah, why not?” Remus laughed “I mean I’ll have to save a tad but i’ll be there, promise.”
“Thanks Moony.”
Oh. Oh no. Remus began to feel it again. The sadness, the guilt, the loneliness, it had taken so little and yet he was feeling so much. He suddenly remembered why he thought she would have been calling in the first place. It was his birthday.
October 3rd.
Shit.
“Remus? You still there?” Mary worried
“huh? Oh…uh… yeah, right here.” Remus tried composing himself “I’m incredibly happy for you Mary and as always I loved talking to you but I think I’m getting another call and I think I should take it. Sorry. Love ya. Bye.”
“By-“ Mary was cutoff by the sound of the phone hitting the wall.
After a while, the phone began to ring again, only this time, he was decided on letting it ring forever.
Desc : what if... Remus smells somethin' fishy with Sirius' trial (or lack there of) and investigate it himself.
Okay so the first months following October 31th was rough, right? Like everyone's celebrating the end of war and all that but he's there missing his pack.
let's just pretend that the fake trial date was on the days of the full moon so he couldn't attend.
And one night on December, he went to a pub and he kinda stumbled upon a drunk Barty Crouch Sr. With.... Uhm lets say he was drinking with Scrimgeour or Cornelius.
OF COURSE being a silly little wolf that he is he just couldn't help but to... ✨eavesdrop✨
And that night was the night Remus John Lupin finally found out that his best friend, Sirius Black III didn't get any fucking trial and that was also the night where he just fucking decide to investigate it himself bcs lets be honest the ministry r fucking useless piece of shits.
So, for months and months again Remus tried to follow the tracks of hid friends on the days ( even months) before that fateful night.
He poured most of his memories of when they gathered on those years after graduating, in the midst of war, family building, and mission for The Order.
He analyze them one by one, but he never really knew what he was looking for.
One night, it was like the end of his straw right there he just screamed and trashed a room in his house and he cried all night trying to fight off the wolf.
And the next day he realized that he forgot about Peter's muggle mum who probably won't have any idea what happened to his son and he just kinda feels responsible.
So, he visited Peter's house, right? Oh what a surprise turns out the house was like full of weed and abandoned so he asked one of the neighbor.
"Oh, that poor lad. Mrs. Pettigrew died in 1979, my love. I still remember young Mr. Pettigrew knelt in front of her grave for days and he never came back ever since last January. Such poor boy"
Last January. January 1982.
Remus looked positively feral. If Peter thought he could fool Remus, he fucking thought wrong. And if on the way to unearth the truth he gotta overthrow the ministry, would anyone really fucking blame him? It was time to show them what makes him a Marauder, then.
Warnings : none? It's kinda weird me thinks, bcs I kinda struggled twisting it here and there bcs there's no magic in this au ( my half-assed assignment hUh). Mentions of death, grief, it's in 3rd pov but Remus centric.
Enjoy <3
Oh, and...
Happy Halloween, to those who cosplays as the Potters I do hope that you get enough hugs, love u all!
Still lingers on his mind, that day he and his friends had finally finished their responsibilities they had to their school and graduated.
The place where he felt safe, a place to lean on when everything was too heavy for him. The voices of cheering and elation still rang in his ears if he focused enough on the memories of that day.
He still remembered how happy and proud his friends were when they managed to turn the little hut they found into a secret place for them when they were at the end of their third year at school. He still remember all the dreams and hopes that he and his friends put in that small hut, and how they finally bought the hut from the school because they wanted their memories to still be there even though they had left the school.
He still remembers the happy years where he watched his best friend build a family, the years when they all pursued their respective careers in their precarious situation, the years when they could still feel the warmth of friendship and kinship in the midst of a war that is taking place in their country.
Yes,
He thought.
James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Lily Evans were a family to Remus Lupin. Even though they were not blood related, he felt so much closer to them compared to his family who isolated him in the past due to an illness he had since childhood.
James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Lily Evans are each other's home. A home where they can be themselves, a home where they can feel safe, a home where they can express all their feelings, and a home where they can feel the warmth and love that they don't get from their family.
But now,
all was lost.
Everything's gone.
All laughter, hope and joy are gone.
And the house they had built with blood, sweat, and tears for years slowly crumbled under their feet. Crushed by the jealousy, seduction of power, and despair of a man. And when it was all over, when all the remains of the ruins of the house had been cleaned up,
There was only one person left.
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November 1, 1981 (flashback)
Remus Lupin was annoyed, his body aches after the exhausting hours of the infiltration mission Dumbledore gave him. To be honest he couldn't even contact his family during the entirety of the mission which lasted for 3 freezing weeks on the Irish soil. He couldn't help but smile with satisfaction on the way home, imagining that he would be huddled with his family in front of the fireplace with the endless supply of hot chocolate that Lily seemed to have prepared for him in no time.
Along the way home he was confused when he saw many people who were cheering happily while holding the newspaper that had just been published that morning. He couldn't stop himself from thinking that the war was finally over, but he didn't want to linger on the road because he still had to go to Dumbledore to file his mission report before he was allowed to go home.
Remus could not wait for a confirmation of the truth of the news from Dumbledore, but he was not at all prepared when he heard that the war ended with his friends. Lily and James had been betrayed by Sirius Black who was indeed the only person they trusted to know the location of Lily and James' residence, which resulted in an attack on their residence which ended in the deaths of Lily, James, Peter and also Tom Riddle, the head of their enemy's side.
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December 24, 1981 (present)
Remus sat quietly in front of the fireplace at his house. He sat there trying to cope with the loss of his family. Tomorrow was the first Christmas he would celebrate without them, and it hurts him to see other families out there gathering and making new memories in their lives, he hates being a pessimist but the pain of Sirius' betrayal is still in his chest, a pain that he couldn't get rid of even though he had tried dozens of things. But amongst the pain of the betrayal there were doubts that still haunts him. Sirius was James' first friend, James is the first person to know that Sirius' family, The Blacks, is a family with a dark past and very strong connection to the Death Eaters, the opposing group in the war, and Sirius just wanted to escape from the shadows of his family. James was the one who opened his arms and his home to Sirius when he ran away from his childhood house after his mother beat him because he didn't want to follow his family on the wrong path, Remus and everyone who knew The Marauders knew that Sirius really loved James.
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In hindsight, Remus knew that he really shouldn't have trusted the government workers or the officials that easily. It was just a couple of days after the Yuletide that Remus was able to finally deal with the pain and anguish, that he started to realize that there were some things that were 'missing' from the report he received from Sirius's arrest. First, the absence of eyewitnesses is very disturbing in this regard. Secondly, due to the explosion allegedly triggered by Sirius, Peter's body is very unidentifiable, which makes Remus skeptical because he is a true believer in the motto ' No body, No crime '. And lastly, there is no further investigation into Sirius's connection with this mass murder. All based on Sirius' presence at the crime scene, and also his family background.
Remus realized for a long time that the government in his country was corrupt, and this was also not helped by the ongoing war from 5 decades ago, which caused chaos in the inner works of the ministry itself and if Remus was being honest, a little bit of old money was going on in politics. But things like this really made him doubt the authorities because the reports he got were proof that these 'authorities' were very incompetent in carrying out their duties. Of course, Remus knew that he couldn't simply protest against them, he doubted that they would believe him and feared that they would just imprison him for believing that he was cooperating with Sirius. He realized that if he wanted to uncover the truth, he had to investigate this himself and tread it carefully. Remus is also aware that this has the potential to lead him to the real spies among them.
Oh, and a little bonus on the good side he also came to the conclusion that he couldn't trust Dumbledore to do his job right this time round.
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October 31, 1982
One year.
He had spent a year alone. A year filled with sorrow, a year filled with doubts, and a year filled with new realizations for him. Since last Christmas Remus decided to investigate the case of betrayal and the death of his friends because he decided that the reports he received from the authorities were very unreliable and somewhat covered up. Day after day he passed by tracing back the traces of his friends in the days before their deaths, day after day he held back his emotions and forced himself to compartmentalize his thoughts because he realized that only he cared about this case, only he tried to thoroughly investigate the case. So he had to tread this seriously.
And all that paid off with results that are quite satisfactory.
For him, anyways.
He still remembered, one month ago when he was infiltrating Riddle's old bunker and he had seen and heard clearly the evidence he had been looking for…
“… yes! And he stupidly believed Dumbledore was telling him the truth! All those months of sending him away, thought he would've noticed it sooner, HAHAHA I never thought it would be that easy!”
Remus, who was trying to infiltrate the file room suddenly stopped. He recognized that voice.
“Didn't you say that he is one of the best spies in the Order?” sneered his interlocutor.
Remus tried to contain his anger as he successfully peeked through the cracks on the door, there sat Peter Pettigrew and Severus Snape sitting on the sofa holding a glass of Whiskey in their hands. Then he listened intently as Peter, the traitor, told in detail how he had worked to trick them all since the day of their graduation. His hand that gripped a Recorder was also very white, he was surprised that the Recorder could still be used and functioned properly. And there he promised that now was the time to leave this investigation to the Aurors, and that it was time to stop trusting Dumbledore and the rest of the Order.
And here he is now, standing on the edge of the rock that has become the separate island where Azkaban is. It was surrounded by a choppy sea and no nearby island could be seen as far as his eyes could see. Here he is now, at the end of his journey of the investigation that he started.
Here he is now, waiting for the return of a piece of the home he longs for.
And when the electric door opened, he finally saw the pair of gray eyes he had been waiting for all this time.
“Humph, did you have to wait a year for this? Sure took your sweet...sweet time didn't cha? Don't you know that they don't serve good food inside?? You owe me debt, Moony! Free food for me for 1 month! Or fuck that, make it a year!!”
And Remus could only laugh freely at the shouts emitted from one Sirius Black.
Yes, maybe he can't get them all back,
Maybe he won't be able to get all of the broken pieces of his home back to his grasp again. But now, right in this moment, when he finally, finally collides with the last remaining piece of his home and wept, he promised then. He promised in his little heart, whispering to the gods above that listens, that he would never let go of his home again.
And they would move forward, together. It would hurt, it would take time and time again. Trials and tribulations. But right then, he knew. Remus knew that together, they would go through it all.
