FIC: Triple Trouble - Part 8 of 12
Title: Triple Trouble
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 42,818
Genre: Romance/Humour/Drama
Summary: Double Trouble becomes Triple Trouble when Remus, Sirius and Lily from a parallel world visit The Marauders.
Warnings: Slash and some mild bad language
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
This story is the third in my Trouble series.
Double Trouble can be found here.
A Little More Trouble can be found here.
Chapter one of Triple Trouble can be found here.
Chapter 8
“There’s nothing in this stupid book,” James complained as he threw the book he’d got for Christmas across the room.
“I told you that before you went to nick it back from McGonagall’s room,” Remus pointed out with a frustrated sigh. “If the answer to opening the doorway was in there, we’d have found it when our doubles first got stuck here.”
“Dumbledore managed to open the doorway, or at least get a message through to his double so that they could perform the spell,” James stated, as though neither of the other two boys had been in the room at the time and seen this for themselves.
“Dumbledore knew what to do without a book,” Peter muttered. “There has to be a way to get that doorway open.”
“Maybe we should try doing the spell here and hope Sirius is doing it on the other end?” James suggested.
Remus shrugged. He doubted it would work, but at this stage anything was worth a try. Thirty minutes later and it was clear that Sirius wasn’t activating the spell in the other world, or if he was, he wasn’t in the same place they were.
“Maybe we should try again later, after everyone’s gone to bed, say in the common room,” Peter suggested. “Sirius wouldn’t risk being seen and he’d have to nick a wand after someone had gone to sleep.” He pointed to the bedside table where Sirius’s own wand had been carelessly thrown just before he’d transformed into Padfoot.
By two o’clock in the morning they’d given up on the idea of performing the spell over and over. Even taking it in turns, it was draining and there was no way of even knowing if Sirius was on the other side trying to get home.
James and Peter had both nodded off to sleep on the sofa in the common room when Remus suddenly realised that they had the answer to getting Sirius back already.
“Snape!” he shouted, waking the other two boys as he did so.
“Wassat! Where?” James sprang up from the sofa, wand in hand and drool on his chin, ready to fight off the attack he seemed to think was imminent.
“Not in here,” Remus assured him, waving him back down to his seat.
“Crikey, Moony, don’t do that!” James scowled at him as he rubbed his eyes and yawned. “I thought he’d infiltrated Gryffindor Tower with you yelling like that.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Remus muttered. “I meant that Snape has the information we need.”
“He does?” Peter asked with a yawn.
“According to Sirius, Lillian had asked Snape to follow her into her world at noon the day after she left. We just need to check the spell is the same one and find out where he’s been told to cast it. Then when the door opens Sirius will be there ready to jump back through. He’ll be sticking to Lillian like glue, waiting for her and Snape to open the doorway.”
“So, we just need to follow Snape and wait.” James grinned and clapped his hands together enthusiastically.
“Except if Snape has decided not to go, Sirius will be stuck there,” Peter pointed out.
“Which is why I’m going to be having a chat with Snape first thing in the morning,” Remus stated firmly.
“He won’t tell you anything,” James pointed out.
“Yes, he will,” Remus replied coldly. “I won’t give him any other choice.”
-o-xXx-o-
So, this is what the girls’ dorms look like. Sirius followed Lillian obediently into the girls’ dormitory. Not that he had a great deal of choice in the matter, not while he had the choker chain on anyway.
“Oh my god, it’s the Grim!” a girl Sirius didn’t recognise screamed. Sirius made a mental note to have a bit of fun scaring her if he had the chance before he went home.
“This is Snuffles,” Lillian stated proudly as she closed the door behind them and transfigured a nearby rug into a dog bed.
Once the two girls in the room had welcomed Lillian back again the conversation turned back to Snuffles.
“He’s a big mangy isn’t he?” the screamer commented as she edged further away from him. “He doesn’t have fleas, does he?”
Sirius growled. See if you’re going to get any sleep tonight.
“Does McGonagall know you’ve brought a dog back with you?” another girl, Penny, if she shared the same name as her counterpart, asked.
“Yes, she says he has to stay at home after this term but he can stay until the term ends.”
“So, you’re back here for good now?”
“I guess.”
“What was it like there?”
“Weird,” Lillian replied after a moment of thought. “The other me was a right nightmare most of the time, but I knew how to keep her sweet. The kids in the other world are mostly pretty stupid.”
I don’t see any teenage animagi round here, Sirius growled to himself again. Seems to me like you’re the stupid ones. Can’t even recognise a wizard when you see one.
“No cute guys then?” Penny asked.
“None that were available. The best looking ones were either seeing someone already or gay.” The screwed up her face at this last comment, her expression one of frank distaste. “They were really open about it, too.”
“Really?” Penny asked eagerly.
“Holding hands in the corridors, snogging in the common room, practically making out at the breakfast table.”
“Wish I’d seen it,” Penny said dreamily.
“It’d put you off your food for the rest of the day,” Lillian muttered. “Do you want me to tell you who the couple were?” She grinned widely as Penny and the other girl nodded eagerly.
“Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.”
“You don’t mean our…?”
“No!” Lillian shook her head. “The ones from the other world.”
“I’ve always thought Sirius was gay anyway,” Penny chuckled. “He dresses too well to be straight.”
“So, any other gossip?” the other girl asked.
“Er…” Lillian looked thoughtful. “The other Remus is a werewolf. Though most of the school don’t know about it.”
“Really?”
“They let a werewolf into a school?”
“That world is totally mad,” Lillian explained. “The Dumbledore there is even more of a nutter than ours is.”
Sirius yawned and crawled into the dog bed. It was going to be a long night.
-o-xXx-o-
“Snape!” James called out as he spotted the black-haired boy crossing the Entrance Hall, with the rest of the Slytherins who were heading to breakfast. Snape stopped and turned to look at him curiously. Remus guessed he was probably surprised at actually being addressed by his name instead of Snivellus. He had warned James earlier that if they were going to get Snape’s help, he had to at least make an effort to be polite.
“Potter, Lupin,” Snape sneered as Remus and James approached him.
“We need to talk to you,” Remus said as he pointed down one of the still deserted corridors.
“Tough,” Snape replied and he turned away.
“That wasn’t a request,” Remus hissed as he grabbed Snape’s arm and pulled him in the direction he wanted him to go.
“Er, Remus?” James whispered as he hurried to keep up. “I thought your plan was to ask politely?”
“It is.”
“It is?” Snape echoed as he tried to release his arm from Remus’s iron grip.
“In here,” Remus ordered as they reached the first empty classroom.
“So, what’s this about?” Snape asked in a thoroughly disinterested tone.
“We need to know where and how you’re going to open the portal to Lillian’s world,” Remus stated. “And you’re going to tell us.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t I’ll make sure you get a front row seat in the Shrieking Shack next full moon,” Remus hissed.
“Remus!” James gasped in horror.
“You’d be expelled,” Snape sneered back. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get some breakfast before classes start, even if you two don’t.”
Snape moved to walk past them and out of the door, but Remus stopped him by grabbing his arm again. “You are going to help us. Don’t make me hex you!”
“You wouldn’t dare. You’re a prefect and it’s not your style. You just sit back and let the others do the dirty work instead.”
Remus pulled out his wand and pointed it at Snape’s nose. “Lillian’s instructions. What are they?”
Snape hesitated, but didn’t reply.
“Last chance, Snape,” James said as he too drew out his wand and pointed it at him. Snape might not have believed Remus’s threats, but he knew that James was a whole other kettle of fish.
“The old fairy ring in the clearing where Care of Magical Creatures classes take place in the forbidden forest,” Snape replied. “She said to face east and she’d be in the ring facing west at noon.”
“And the spell?” James asked coldly.
Snape reached into his pocket and James and Remus raised their wands ever so slightly again case he tried anything sneaky. But instead of pulling out his wand, he pulled out a worn sheet of paper that looked as though it had been folded and unfolded many times. He started to pass it across to Remus who reached out for it, only to have it pulled back at the last second. “So, why do you want this so desperately?” he asked silkily. “And where are Black and Pettigrew?”
“Doing homework,” Remus lied, knowing that Peter was in fact sneaking James’s confiscated book back into McGonagall’s office, and Sirius was doing goodness knows what in a parallel world. Though knowing Sirius he was probably the only one of the quartet who was actually getting breakfast.
“And you want this little bit of paper because…?”
“Because that thieving little cow stole something of ours and we want it back,” Remus said as he snatched the paper out of Snape’s hand and opened it up.
“That’s the same spell we used,” James confirmed as he looked at the paper over Remus’s shoulder. Remus merely breathed a sigh of relief and passed the paper back to Snape. Now that they knew it was the same spell they’d copied out of James’s book there was no real need to keep the paper. The important information they’d been missing was the location, which Snape had now provided them with.
-o-xXx-o-
“All sorted?” James whispered to Peter as they joined him in the Great Hall.
“Book back in McGonagall’s office and your cloak is back in your trunk,” Peter confirmed. “How about you guys?”
“The fairy ring in the clearing,” Remus whispered. “They’re using the same spell. We just need to be there at noon to make sure that Sirius comes back.”
“What if he’s not there though?” James asked quietly.
“Then we go to the backup plan,” Remus whispered.
“And that would be?”
“We go get him ourselves.”
-o-xXx-o-
“So, do you think he’s going to try to go after Lillian?” James asked as they made their way towards the Forbidden Forest, keeping an eye out for teachers who might wonder why they were all skipping classes that morning. Unfortunately only Sirius had been lucky enough to have free periods that particular morning.
“Dunno,” Peter replied as they hurried to the appointed location ready for the midday meeting.
“Well, he’s not here yet,” Remus said as they hurried into the clearing and found the fairy ring.
“Wonder why she chose this spot,” James wondered idly as he checked his watch to see if it was noon yet.
“Who cares?” Peter replied. “At least it was easy to find.”
“She chose it because she thinks fairy rings are romantic,” Snape said as he stepped into the clearing.
James snorted with contempt.
“So, are you going to do the spell, or am I?” Snape asked.
“Peter’s going to do the spell,” Remus announced authoritatively.
“I am?” Peter squeaked.
“Yes, in case we need to resort to Plan B, remember?”
Peter suddenly remembered the details of that plan and nodded seriously.
“So, are you really going to leave and go through to the other world?” James asked Snape curiously.
“Why not?” Snape replied with a shrug.
“We can’t let you do that,” Remus whispered.
“What do you mean?” Snape asked.
“Petrificus totalus!” Remus called out as he pointed his wand at Snape and watched him fall down to the ground as the full body bind took effect.
“What did you do that for?” James asked. “We’d finally be shot of him.”
“Because he doesn’t belong in that world any more than they belong in ours.”
“But he’d be gone for good.”
“He’d probably be sent back anyway,” Peter pointed out, clearly disappointed at the thought.
“It’s noon,” Remus said, putting an end to the discussion. He waved Peter into position and stood back as the spell immediately began to work and the now familiar bubble appeared, expanding until it became the doorway between their two worlds. As the image in the bubble cleared they could see Lillian standing in the forest looking back at them in surprise and annoyance.
“I don’t see him,” James whispered. “Plan B?”
“Plan B,” Remus confirmed with a nod to the other two boys. “If the portal closes after we go through, give us an hour and then do the spell again,” he told Peter. “If it doesn’t work then it means we’ve got delayed somehow, so try again, right here every day at noon.”
“You’d better be back for afternoon classes,” Peter warned them. “I don’t fancy trying to explain to McGonagall where the rest of you are.”
“You’ll think of something,” James assured him with a grin.
“Like what?”
“Er…”
“See? You can’t even think of a good enough excuse!” Peter threw his hands in the air in exasperation.
“Only tell her the truth if you have to,” Remus asked. “Tomorrow’s Friday. Give us until Monday morning at least. No one will be missing us over the weekend. It’s just today and tomorrow, and it’s not like you all don’t skip Friday afternoon Divination anyway.”
“What about Snape?”
“Just leave him there,” James muttered and moved to give him a subtle kick on his way past.
“We really don’t have time for that,” Remus said as he pulled James towards the doorway and into the parallel world.
“I don’t see him,” said James, as he looked round the clearing frantically. The portal, as expected closed behind them almost as soon as they’d stepped through.
“Where is he?” Remus glared at Lillian.
“Where’s who?” she asked with wide-eyed innocence.
“Snuffles!” Remus snapped.
“Finders keepers,” Lillian smirked. “Where’s Severus?”
“Taking a nap,” Remus snarled. “Does the map work here?” he asked James.
“One way to find out,” James replied as he pulled out the marauders’ map and activated it. “Like a charm,” he grinned.
“Looks like he’s in Gryffindor Tower,” Remus said as he pointed to the little dot marked ‘Sirius Black’ in the common room. Carefully, so that Lillian couldn’t see his action, James casually pointed to the second dot bearing Sirius’s name that was on a higher floor in the tower with the other Remus Lupin.
“That one I think,” James said, pointing to the common room.
“Let’s go get him.” Remus took off through the trees, James hot on his heels. “Maybe you should wait here or put the cloak on,” he suggested when they reached the edge of the forest.
“I kind of like the idea of being a ‘ghost’,” James grinned back.
“Except you’re not a ghost,” Remus pointed out.
“I should probably keep an eye on Lillian anyway,” James said as he cast a leering glance back into the trees. “And at least I can’t mistake her for Lily here, since there’s only one of them.”
Remus rolled his eyes and took the map from James. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised. “With our Snuffles.”
James grinned and disappeared back into the trees leaving Remus to hurry towards the familiar castle where it appeared classes had just been let out for the morning. Remus eased his way through the crowd, nodding and responding to greetings as familiar and unfamiliar students called out to him.
He reached the portrait hole with the familiar Fat Lady sitting in residence. “Bonus dies,” he said and waited for the portrait hole to open.
“Wrong password,” the Fat Lady replied with a frown at him.
“It’s changed since this morning?” Remus asked with surprise. “But you never change the password mid-week?”
“The password is the same one it’s been since Monday morning,” the Fat Lady replied with another frown.
“Trouble getting inside?” a familiar voice asked and Remus spun round to see Professor McGonagall standing behind him. “You’re forgetting that our passwords are different to the world you’ve been a guest in these last few weeks.”
Remus ducked his head and hoped that the sharp-eyed professor didn’t notice that she was speaking to a different Remus. Thankfully she was in a rush and after letting him into the common room she hurried on her way.
The common room was empty when Remus stepped through the hole… empty that is, except for a large black dog currently chained up near the fireplace. It appeared that Lillian had anticipated that Snuffles might try to return through the portal, and had decided to take no chances.
Padfoot let out a bark of joy and Remus hurried across to him, throwing his arms around his neck and sobbing with relief that nothing too dreadful had happened to him. “Alohomora,” he said as he pointed his wand at the lock. It opened instantly and Padfoot pulled his neck out of the metal collar and leapt at Remus.
“Missed me, did you?” Remus asked with a grin as Sirius reappeared hovering over him.
“You have no idea,” Sirius replied as he lowered his head to kiss him.
“I’ll take that as a yes then,” Remus laughed. “But you’d better change back into Padfoot until we get back home.”
Sirius pouted slightly at the idea, and Remus could tell that he’d had more than enough of being Padfoot for the time being.
“Just until we’re safe back in our world,” Remus said. “Unless you want to stay here of course.”
“Don’t even joke about it,” Sirius muttered. “If I hear the name Snuffles one more time I think I may bite someone.” Then he planted one more quick kiss on Remus’s lips and changed back into Padfoot.
“Come on then, Snuffles,” Remus grinned. “James is waiting for us near the edge of the forest.”
Sirius looked back at him with a glare that even his canine features couldn’t hide.
“For the love of…” Remus muttered. “Fine, come on Padfoot. That better for you?”
Padfoot barked and began to follow after him.
“Padfoot?” a familiar voice, and one that neither boy wanted to hear, asked. Remus turned to face his other self who was standing at the foot of the stairs, Sirius’s double on the stair behind him. “I thought the dog’s name was Snuffles?”
“The dog’s Sirius, you idiot,” the other Sirius snapped as he pushed past his friend. “He’s an animagus.”
“How…?” Remus asked before remembering that there was still a chance he could have bluffed his way out of things.
“How did I know?” Sirius asked. “Because he curls up beside you the same way whichever form he’s in, and you look at him the same way no matter whether he’s in his human form or this one. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“Nice of you tell the rest of us,” the other Remus muttered.
“Not to mention not letting Dumbledore know when Lillian decided to steal him,” Remus muttered. “Thanks a lot.”
“I knew you’d come and get him,” Sirius replied with a shrug. “And I thought maybe that his coming here was part of his spying plan.”
“The way he was struggling to avoid it?” the other Remus asked.
“It could have been a show put on for the teachers.”
“And Prongs and Wormtail?”
Remus looked down at Padfoot who shrugged and turned back into Sirius once more. “Prongs is a stag and Wormtail’s a rat,” Sirius supplied.
“The rat Lillian was screaming over that day in the library?” the other Remus asked.
“Afraid so,” Remus replied.
“I take it you’re not registered?” the other Remus asked with a sly grin.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Sirius asked.
“Well,” Remus said as he stepped towards the entrance once more. “Great though this chat has been, we really have to get going now.”
“You don’t want to stick around for a while?” the other Sirius asked hopefully.
“We need to get back before we’re missed,” Remus replied as he looked pointedly at Sirius, silently trying to prompt him into turning back into Padfoot. Eventually he took the hint and the two of them hurried down the staircases and out into the grounds.
“James?” Remus called as they approached the edge of the trees. He was nowhere in sight and didn’t come to his call. “I guess he’s nearer the clearing,” he said as he led Padfoot into the forest.
Unfortunately the clearing was empty and there was no sign of either James or Lillian.
“James?” Remus called again as he circled the clearing, becoming more and more worried when no reply came.
“I think he’s in trouble,” Sirius said. Remus turned to see that Sirius was once again in his human form and was holding James’s invisibility cloak.
“He wouldn’t leave that lying around,” Remus whispered. “It’s his most prized possession.”
“They can’t have gone far,” Sirius reasoned. “Check the map and see if they’re back at the school. Perhaps James came looking for us.”
Remus took out the marauders’ map, but there was no sign of James or Lillian anywhere in the castle or on the grounds. “The map doesn’t cover all the forest,” Remus complained. “I’d say it doesn’t go much more than a hundred yards further than the clearing.”
“Guess we’ve got a bit of walking to do then,” Sirius said with a sigh. “Though at least this walk doesn’t involve a choker chain and it’s not raining.”
“You know something,” Remus mused about an hour later.
“I know many things,” Sirius joked.
Remus ignored his comment. “I think we were both wrong.”
“You think Lillian’s working for this world’s dark wizard?” Sirius asked and Remus nodded, confirming that the thought had crossed his mind, too.
“That or she’s some sort of teenage black widow,” Remus replied with a grin. “Her James ends up dead, her Severus ends up missing. She tries to get our Severus to join her here and then when James come through he goes missing, too.”
“Aren’t you just so relieved you’ve got me, instead of some crazy bird?” Sirius asked as he slung his arm round Remus’s shoulders.
“Oh, yeah,” Remus drawled. “Because you’re just no trouble at all.”
-o-xXx-o-
“I’m hungry,” Sirius whined after another three hours of wandering back and forth through the forest.
“It’s nearly dinner time,” Remus replied. “We should have opened the portal at one to let Wormtail know what had happened.”
“We’ll have to let him know tomorrow,” Sirius said as he poked at some strange looking plants in the hope they might be edible.
“I wonder how many detentions we’ll get for this.”
“They’ll be so pleased to have us back, they won’t give us any,” Sirius replied with a grin.
“It must be nice living in your world,” Remus mused.
“Oh, it is. No detentions or homework, all the chocolate you can… Remus!” Sirius watched as Remus fell to his knees and let out a piercing scream of pain. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“The full moon!” Remus choked out.
“But it’s not for another week!”
“Different world. It must have a different lunar cycle.”
“We’ve got to get you to the shrieking shack,” Sirius said as he judged how long it was before the moon had risen completely and the wolf took over.
“No shack!”
“But I can’t control you on my own. We need Prongs, too.”
“No shack!”
Finally the meaning behind Remus’s words registered. “Hell! It’s not been built because there’s no werewolf at this Hogwarts.”
“Don’t. Let me. Hurt. Anyone,” Remus pleaded.
“But you can’t transform,” Sirius whispered. “You said that your body prepares itself for the transformation during the two days up to the full moon. You haven’t… you can’t.”
“I’ll change anyway,” Remus whispered. “It’ll just hurt more. Don’t let me hurt anyone. Promise me!”
“I promise,” Sirius whispered. “I won’t leave you.”
-
Chapter 9
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 42,818
Genre: Romance/Humour/Drama
Summary: Double Trouble becomes Triple Trouble when Remus, Sirius and Lily from a parallel world visit The Marauders.
Warnings: Slash and some mild bad language
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
This story is the third in my Trouble series.
Double Trouble can be found here.
A Little More Trouble can be found here.
Chapter one of Triple Trouble can be found here.
Chapter 8
“There’s nothing in this stupid book,” James complained as he threw the book he’d got for Christmas across the room.
“I told you that before you went to nick it back from McGonagall’s room,” Remus pointed out with a frustrated sigh. “If the answer to opening the doorway was in there, we’d have found it when our doubles first got stuck here.”
“Dumbledore managed to open the doorway, or at least get a message through to his double so that they could perform the spell,” James stated, as though neither of the other two boys had been in the room at the time and seen this for themselves.
“Dumbledore knew what to do without a book,” Peter muttered. “There has to be a way to get that doorway open.”
“Maybe we should try doing the spell here and hope Sirius is doing it on the other end?” James suggested.
Remus shrugged. He doubted it would work, but at this stage anything was worth a try. Thirty minutes later and it was clear that Sirius wasn’t activating the spell in the other world, or if he was, he wasn’t in the same place they were.
“Maybe we should try again later, after everyone’s gone to bed, say in the common room,” Peter suggested. “Sirius wouldn’t risk being seen and he’d have to nick a wand after someone had gone to sleep.” He pointed to the bedside table where Sirius’s own wand had been carelessly thrown just before he’d transformed into Padfoot.
By two o’clock in the morning they’d given up on the idea of performing the spell over and over. Even taking it in turns, it was draining and there was no way of even knowing if Sirius was on the other side trying to get home.
James and Peter had both nodded off to sleep on the sofa in the common room when Remus suddenly realised that they had the answer to getting Sirius back already.
“Snape!” he shouted, waking the other two boys as he did so.
“Wassat! Where?” James sprang up from the sofa, wand in hand and drool on his chin, ready to fight off the attack he seemed to think was imminent.
“Not in here,” Remus assured him, waving him back down to his seat.
“Crikey, Moony, don’t do that!” James scowled at him as he rubbed his eyes and yawned. “I thought he’d infiltrated Gryffindor Tower with you yelling like that.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Remus muttered. “I meant that Snape has the information we need.”
“He does?” Peter asked with a yawn.
“According to Sirius, Lillian had asked Snape to follow her into her world at noon the day after she left. We just need to check the spell is the same one and find out where he’s been told to cast it. Then when the door opens Sirius will be there ready to jump back through. He’ll be sticking to Lillian like glue, waiting for her and Snape to open the doorway.”
“So, we just need to follow Snape and wait.” James grinned and clapped his hands together enthusiastically.
“Except if Snape has decided not to go, Sirius will be stuck there,” Peter pointed out.
“Which is why I’m going to be having a chat with Snape first thing in the morning,” Remus stated firmly.
“He won’t tell you anything,” James pointed out.
“Yes, he will,” Remus replied coldly. “I won’t give him any other choice.”
-o-xXx-o-
So, this is what the girls’ dorms look like. Sirius followed Lillian obediently into the girls’ dormitory. Not that he had a great deal of choice in the matter, not while he had the choker chain on anyway.
“Oh my god, it’s the Grim!” a girl Sirius didn’t recognise screamed. Sirius made a mental note to have a bit of fun scaring her if he had the chance before he went home.
“This is Snuffles,” Lillian stated proudly as she closed the door behind them and transfigured a nearby rug into a dog bed.
Once the two girls in the room had welcomed Lillian back again the conversation turned back to Snuffles.
“He’s a big mangy isn’t he?” the screamer commented as she edged further away from him. “He doesn’t have fleas, does he?”
Sirius growled. See if you’re going to get any sleep tonight.
“Does McGonagall know you’ve brought a dog back with you?” another girl, Penny, if she shared the same name as her counterpart, asked.
“Yes, she says he has to stay at home after this term but he can stay until the term ends.”
“So, you’re back here for good now?”
“I guess.”
“What was it like there?”
“Weird,” Lillian replied after a moment of thought. “The other me was a right nightmare most of the time, but I knew how to keep her sweet. The kids in the other world are mostly pretty stupid.”
I don’t see any teenage animagi round here, Sirius growled to himself again. Seems to me like you’re the stupid ones. Can’t even recognise a wizard when you see one.
“No cute guys then?” Penny asked.
“None that were available. The best looking ones were either seeing someone already or gay.” The screwed up her face at this last comment, her expression one of frank distaste. “They were really open about it, too.”
“Really?” Penny asked eagerly.
“Holding hands in the corridors, snogging in the common room, practically making out at the breakfast table.”
“Wish I’d seen it,” Penny said dreamily.
“It’d put you off your food for the rest of the day,” Lillian muttered. “Do you want me to tell you who the couple were?” She grinned widely as Penny and the other girl nodded eagerly.
“Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.”
“You don’t mean our…?”
“No!” Lillian shook her head. “The ones from the other world.”
“I’ve always thought Sirius was gay anyway,” Penny chuckled. “He dresses too well to be straight.”
“So, any other gossip?” the other girl asked.
“Er…” Lillian looked thoughtful. “The other Remus is a werewolf. Though most of the school don’t know about it.”
“Really?”
“They let a werewolf into a school?”
“That world is totally mad,” Lillian explained. “The Dumbledore there is even more of a nutter than ours is.”
Sirius yawned and crawled into the dog bed. It was going to be a long night.
-o-xXx-o-
“Snape!” James called out as he spotted the black-haired boy crossing the Entrance Hall, with the rest of the Slytherins who were heading to breakfast. Snape stopped and turned to look at him curiously. Remus guessed he was probably surprised at actually being addressed by his name instead of Snivellus. He had warned James earlier that if they were going to get Snape’s help, he had to at least make an effort to be polite.
“Potter, Lupin,” Snape sneered as Remus and James approached him.
“We need to talk to you,” Remus said as he pointed down one of the still deserted corridors.
“Tough,” Snape replied and he turned away.
“That wasn’t a request,” Remus hissed as he grabbed Snape’s arm and pulled him in the direction he wanted him to go.
“Er, Remus?” James whispered as he hurried to keep up. “I thought your plan was to ask politely?”
“It is.”
“It is?” Snape echoed as he tried to release his arm from Remus’s iron grip.
“In here,” Remus ordered as they reached the first empty classroom.
“So, what’s this about?” Snape asked in a thoroughly disinterested tone.
“We need to know where and how you’re going to open the portal to Lillian’s world,” Remus stated. “And you’re going to tell us.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t I’ll make sure you get a front row seat in the Shrieking Shack next full moon,” Remus hissed.
“Remus!” James gasped in horror.
“You’d be expelled,” Snape sneered back. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get some breakfast before classes start, even if you two don’t.”
Snape moved to walk past them and out of the door, but Remus stopped him by grabbing his arm again. “You are going to help us. Don’t make me hex you!”
“You wouldn’t dare. You’re a prefect and it’s not your style. You just sit back and let the others do the dirty work instead.”
Remus pulled out his wand and pointed it at Snape’s nose. “Lillian’s instructions. What are they?”
Snape hesitated, but didn’t reply.
“Last chance, Snape,” James said as he too drew out his wand and pointed it at him. Snape might not have believed Remus’s threats, but he knew that James was a whole other kettle of fish.
“The old fairy ring in the clearing where Care of Magical Creatures classes take place in the forbidden forest,” Snape replied. “She said to face east and she’d be in the ring facing west at noon.”
“And the spell?” James asked coldly.
Snape reached into his pocket and James and Remus raised their wands ever so slightly again case he tried anything sneaky. But instead of pulling out his wand, he pulled out a worn sheet of paper that looked as though it had been folded and unfolded many times. He started to pass it across to Remus who reached out for it, only to have it pulled back at the last second. “So, why do you want this so desperately?” he asked silkily. “And where are Black and Pettigrew?”
“Doing homework,” Remus lied, knowing that Peter was in fact sneaking James’s confiscated book back into McGonagall’s office, and Sirius was doing goodness knows what in a parallel world. Though knowing Sirius he was probably the only one of the quartet who was actually getting breakfast.
“And you want this little bit of paper because…?”
“Because that thieving little cow stole something of ours and we want it back,” Remus said as he snatched the paper out of Snape’s hand and opened it up.
“That’s the same spell we used,” James confirmed as he looked at the paper over Remus’s shoulder. Remus merely breathed a sigh of relief and passed the paper back to Snape. Now that they knew it was the same spell they’d copied out of James’s book there was no real need to keep the paper. The important information they’d been missing was the location, which Snape had now provided them with.
-o-xXx-o-
“All sorted?” James whispered to Peter as they joined him in the Great Hall.
“Book back in McGonagall’s office and your cloak is back in your trunk,” Peter confirmed. “How about you guys?”
“The fairy ring in the clearing,” Remus whispered. “They’re using the same spell. We just need to be there at noon to make sure that Sirius comes back.”
“What if he’s not there though?” James asked quietly.
“Then we go to the backup plan,” Remus whispered.
“And that would be?”
“We go get him ourselves.”
-o-xXx-o-
“So, do you think he’s going to try to go after Lillian?” James asked as they made their way towards the Forbidden Forest, keeping an eye out for teachers who might wonder why they were all skipping classes that morning. Unfortunately only Sirius had been lucky enough to have free periods that particular morning.
“Dunno,” Peter replied as they hurried to the appointed location ready for the midday meeting.
“Well, he’s not here yet,” Remus said as they hurried into the clearing and found the fairy ring.
“Wonder why she chose this spot,” James wondered idly as he checked his watch to see if it was noon yet.
“Who cares?” Peter replied. “At least it was easy to find.”
“She chose it because she thinks fairy rings are romantic,” Snape said as he stepped into the clearing.
James snorted with contempt.
“So, are you going to do the spell, or am I?” Snape asked.
“Peter’s going to do the spell,” Remus announced authoritatively.
“I am?” Peter squeaked.
“Yes, in case we need to resort to Plan B, remember?”
Peter suddenly remembered the details of that plan and nodded seriously.
“So, are you really going to leave and go through to the other world?” James asked Snape curiously.
“Why not?” Snape replied with a shrug.
“We can’t let you do that,” Remus whispered.
“What do you mean?” Snape asked.
“Petrificus totalus!” Remus called out as he pointed his wand at Snape and watched him fall down to the ground as the full body bind took effect.
“What did you do that for?” James asked. “We’d finally be shot of him.”
“Because he doesn’t belong in that world any more than they belong in ours.”
“But he’d be gone for good.”
“He’d probably be sent back anyway,” Peter pointed out, clearly disappointed at the thought.
“It’s noon,” Remus said, putting an end to the discussion. He waved Peter into position and stood back as the spell immediately began to work and the now familiar bubble appeared, expanding until it became the doorway between their two worlds. As the image in the bubble cleared they could see Lillian standing in the forest looking back at them in surprise and annoyance.
“I don’t see him,” James whispered. “Plan B?”
“Plan B,” Remus confirmed with a nod to the other two boys. “If the portal closes after we go through, give us an hour and then do the spell again,” he told Peter. “If it doesn’t work then it means we’ve got delayed somehow, so try again, right here every day at noon.”
“You’d better be back for afternoon classes,” Peter warned them. “I don’t fancy trying to explain to McGonagall where the rest of you are.”
“You’ll think of something,” James assured him with a grin.
“Like what?”
“Er…”
“See? You can’t even think of a good enough excuse!” Peter threw his hands in the air in exasperation.
“Only tell her the truth if you have to,” Remus asked. “Tomorrow’s Friday. Give us until Monday morning at least. No one will be missing us over the weekend. It’s just today and tomorrow, and it’s not like you all don’t skip Friday afternoon Divination anyway.”
“What about Snape?”
“Just leave him there,” James muttered and moved to give him a subtle kick on his way past.
“We really don’t have time for that,” Remus said as he pulled James towards the doorway and into the parallel world.
“I don’t see him,” said James, as he looked round the clearing frantically. The portal, as expected closed behind them almost as soon as they’d stepped through.
“Where is he?” Remus glared at Lillian.
“Where’s who?” she asked with wide-eyed innocence.
“Snuffles!” Remus snapped.
“Finders keepers,” Lillian smirked. “Where’s Severus?”
“Taking a nap,” Remus snarled. “Does the map work here?” he asked James.
“One way to find out,” James replied as he pulled out the marauders’ map and activated it. “Like a charm,” he grinned.
“Looks like he’s in Gryffindor Tower,” Remus said as he pointed to the little dot marked ‘Sirius Black’ in the common room. Carefully, so that Lillian couldn’t see his action, James casually pointed to the second dot bearing Sirius’s name that was on a higher floor in the tower with the other Remus Lupin.
“That one I think,” James said, pointing to the common room.
“Let’s go get him.” Remus took off through the trees, James hot on his heels. “Maybe you should wait here or put the cloak on,” he suggested when they reached the edge of the forest.
“I kind of like the idea of being a ‘ghost’,” James grinned back.
“Except you’re not a ghost,” Remus pointed out.
“I should probably keep an eye on Lillian anyway,” James said as he cast a leering glance back into the trees. “And at least I can’t mistake her for Lily here, since there’s only one of them.”
Remus rolled his eyes and took the map from James. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised. “With our Snuffles.”
James grinned and disappeared back into the trees leaving Remus to hurry towards the familiar castle where it appeared classes had just been let out for the morning. Remus eased his way through the crowd, nodding and responding to greetings as familiar and unfamiliar students called out to him.
He reached the portrait hole with the familiar Fat Lady sitting in residence. “Bonus dies,” he said and waited for the portrait hole to open.
“Wrong password,” the Fat Lady replied with a frown at him.
“It’s changed since this morning?” Remus asked with surprise. “But you never change the password mid-week?”
“The password is the same one it’s been since Monday morning,” the Fat Lady replied with another frown.
“Trouble getting inside?” a familiar voice asked and Remus spun round to see Professor McGonagall standing behind him. “You’re forgetting that our passwords are different to the world you’ve been a guest in these last few weeks.”
Remus ducked his head and hoped that the sharp-eyed professor didn’t notice that she was speaking to a different Remus. Thankfully she was in a rush and after letting him into the common room she hurried on her way.
The common room was empty when Remus stepped through the hole… empty that is, except for a large black dog currently chained up near the fireplace. It appeared that Lillian had anticipated that Snuffles might try to return through the portal, and had decided to take no chances.
Padfoot let out a bark of joy and Remus hurried across to him, throwing his arms around his neck and sobbing with relief that nothing too dreadful had happened to him. “Alohomora,” he said as he pointed his wand at the lock. It opened instantly and Padfoot pulled his neck out of the metal collar and leapt at Remus.
“Missed me, did you?” Remus asked with a grin as Sirius reappeared hovering over him.
“You have no idea,” Sirius replied as he lowered his head to kiss him.
“I’ll take that as a yes then,” Remus laughed. “But you’d better change back into Padfoot until we get back home.”
Sirius pouted slightly at the idea, and Remus could tell that he’d had more than enough of being Padfoot for the time being.
“Just until we’re safe back in our world,” Remus said. “Unless you want to stay here of course.”
“Don’t even joke about it,” Sirius muttered. “If I hear the name Snuffles one more time I think I may bite someone.” Then he planted one more quick kiss on Remus’s lips and changed back into Padfoot.
“Come on then, Snuffles,” Remus grinned. “James is waiting for us near the edge of the forest.”
Sirius looked back at him with a glare that even his canine features couldn’t hide.
“For the love of…” Remus muttered. “Fine, come on Padfoot. That better for you?”
Padfoot barked and began to follow after him.
“Padfoot?” a familiar voice, and one that neither boy wanted to hear, asked. Remus turned to face his other self who was standing at the foot of the stairs, Sirius’s double on the stair behind him. “I thought the dog’s name was Snuffles?”
“The dog’s Sirius, you idiot,” the other Sirius snapped as he pushed past his friend. “He’s an animagus.”
“How…?” Remus asked before remembering that there was still a chance he could have bluffed his way out of things.
“How did I know?” Sirius asked. “Because he curls up beside you the same way whichever form he’s in, and you look at him the same way no matter whether he’s in his human form or this one. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“Nice of you tell the rest of us,” the other Remus muttered.
“Not to mention not letting Dumbledore know when Lillian decided to steal him,” Remus muttered. “Thanks a lot.”
“I knew you’d come and get him,” Sirius replied with a shrug. “And I thought maybe that his coming here was part of his spying plan.”
“The way he was struggling to avoid it?” the other Remus asked.
“It could have been a show put on for the teachers.”
“And Prongs and Wormtail?”
Remus looked down at Padfoot who shrugged and turned back into Sirius once more. “Prongs is a stag and Wormtail’s a rat,” Sirius supplied.
“The rat Lillian was screaming over that day in the library?” the other Remus asked.
“Afraid so,” Remus replied.
“I take it you’re not registered?” the other Remus asked with a sly grin.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Sirius asked.
“Well,” Remus said as he stepped towards the entrance once more. “Great though this chat has been, we really have to get going now.”
“You don’t want to stick around for a while?” the other Sirius asked hopefully.
“We need to get back before we’re missed,” Remus replied as he looked pointedly at Sirius, silently trying to prompt him into turning back into Padfoot. Eventually he took the hint and the two of them hurried down the staircases and out into the grounds.
“James?” Remus called as they approached the edge of the trees. He was nowhere in sight and didn’t come to his call. “I guess he’s nearer the clearing,” he said as he led Padfoot into the forest.
Unfortunately the clearing was empty and there was no sign of either James or Lillian.
“James?” Remus called again as he circled the clearing, becoming more and more worried when no reply came.
“I think he’s in trouble,” Sirius said. Remus turned to see that Sirius was once again in his human form and was holding James’s invisibility cloak.
“He wouldn’t leave that lying around,” Remus whispered. “It’s his most prized possession.”
“They can’t have gone far,” Sirius reasoned. “Check the map and see if they’re back at the school. Perhaps James came looking for us.”
Remus took out the marauders’ map, but there was no sign of James or Lillian anywhere in the castle or on the grounds. “The map doesn’t cover all the forest,” Remus complained. “I’d say it doesn’t go much more than a hundred yards further than the clearing.”
“Guess we’ve got a bit of walking to do then,” Sirius said with a sigh. “Though at least this walk doesn’t involve a choker chain and it’s not raining.”
“You know something,” Remus mused about an hour later.
“I know many things,” Sirius joked.
Remus ignored his comment. “I think we were both wrong.”
“You think Lillian’s working for this world’s dark wizard?” Sirius asked and Remus nodded, confirming that the thought had crossed his mind, too.
“That or she’s some sort of teenage black widow,” Remus replied with a grin. “Her James ends up dead, her Severus ends up missing. She tries to get our Severus to join her here and then when James come through he goes missing, too.”
“Aren’t you just so relieved you’ve got me, instead of some crazy bird?” Sirius asked as he slung his arm round Remus’s shoulders.
“Oh, yeah,” Remus drawled. “Because you’re just no trouble at all.”
-o-xXx-o-
“I’m hungry,” Sirius whined after another three hours of wandering back and forth through the forest.
“It’s nearly dinner time,” Remus replied. “We should have opened the portal at one to let Wormtail know what had happened.”
“We’ll have to let him know tomorrow,” Sirius said as he poked at some strange looking plants in the hope they might be edible.
“I wonder how many detentions we’ll get for this.”
“They’ll be so pleased to have us back, they won’t give us any,” Sirius replied with a grin.
“It must be nice living in your world,” Remus mused.
“Oh, it is. No detentions or homework, all the chocolate you can… Remus!” Sirius watched as Remus fell to his knees and let out a piercing scream of pain. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“The full moon!” Remus choked out.
“But it’s not for another week!”
“Different world. It must have a different lunar cycle.”
“We’ve got to get you to the shrieking shack,” Sirius said as he judged how long it was before the moon had risen completely and the wolf took over.
“No shack!”
“But I can’t control you on my own. We need Prongs, too.”
“No shack!”
Finally the meaning behind Remus’s words registered. “Hell! It’s not been built because there’s no werewolf at this Hogwarts.”
“Don’t. Let me. Hurt. Anyone,” Remus pleaded.
“But you can’t transform,” Sirius whispered. “You said that your body prepares itself for the transformation during the two days up to the full moon. You haven’t… you can’t.”
“I’ll change anyway,” Remus whispered. “It’ll just hurt more. Don’t let me hurt anyone. Promise me!”
“I promise,” Sirius whispered. “I won’t leave you.”
-
Chapter 9