Is It Over Now?

They never told Remus where they lived. 

After James and Lily had gotten married, the pair had each moved out of the flats that they'd been renting and into a small house owned by the Potter family in Godric's Hollow. 

Sirius had come with them.

There was no need for anything like a secret keeper, they weren't being hunted anymore than any of the other members of the Order, but they never did tell Remus that they each had moved or to where. Not when they had thought that he was a spy.

(He was, just not for the side that they had thought. Not for a side that they had known existed at all)

They never told Remus where they lived, and yet the Friday after the Order meeting there was a knock at their door and Lestrange was on the other side.

"Evening," the younger girl greeted as Lily opened the door.

"How-?" The former Gryffindor asked, her voice raspy.

"Our Rem is very gifted in magic," the girl says with a soft smile that the lion didn't truly believe as well as she might once have. "A tracking spell didn't exactly take much effort. Or any at all."

Lily nodded uncomfortably, she'd had gotten the same impression the week before.

"I thought we were meeting you at the drop point later," the older witch asks as she steps aside to let the other girl in.

"We were," Pandora says simply as she steps into the entry hall, following the redhead further into the house, "but studies show that it isn't safe for pregnant women to travel by apparition, so here we are."

"Pregnant?" Lily choked as they stepped into the living room, her voice low as if to keep others from hearing. Pandora could hear the laughing voices of two men from the kitchen in the next room over, it wasn't hard to figure out who.

"Oh," Pandora says softly, her voice holding that dreamy note that it always did, "you didn't know. Well, now you do."

"How?"

"Hello, Potter. Black," the former Ravenclaw greeted as the two men walked into the room, confusion on each of their faces. "Good, you're both dressed. We can leave now then."

Pandora held out her arm for the other three to grab, a bracelet decorating the younger girl's wrist that seemed to be in the shape of a snake eating its own tail. The others grabbed on hesitantly and watched with wide eyes as the former eagle tapped the metal band and it began to spin, as did the world around them.

The next thing that any of them knew they were inside of another house, the walls white in a way that felt homely instead of cold as the sun casted a golden hue around the open living room and the kitchen at their backs. There was a couch and a couple chairs in the living room, a coffee table at the center of them covered in papers that didn't match the otherwise clean feeling of the room. Two of the chairs were occupied by familiar figures, each holding a book.

"Are those muggle books?" Sirius asked, immediately wanting to take his words back as his brother looked at him with a too blank expression. 

"They are," Regulus confirmed shortly as he stood and walked over to the group, Evan following the other snake. 

The younger Black brother holds out his hand and Lestrange hands over the bracelet without any other form of indication. Regulus immediately passes it off to Rosier, who'd had some sort of bag ready. The three moved easily with one another, with an ease that Sirius and his brother had lost a long time ago.

Sirius scowled at the sight.

Lily opened her mouth to say something, the tension in the room becoming too much even for her, but music followed quickly by an angry scream and the patter of feet cut the young woman off.

And then suddenly Remus was coming down the stairs and was before them all, the expression on his face angry in a way that the Marauders hadn't seen it in a long time.

It was the sort of anger that he used to have with them when they all pranked one another.

The sort that was almost fond.

Dora smiles at the sight, everyone else sees it.

"Control your bloody boyfriend!" Remus screams in the direction of the young trio, and Lily raises a brow as she had thought that Lestrange was dating Lovegood and he didn't seem the type to be involved with anything here.

"Is Barty making werewolf jokes again?" Regulus asks, his voice light in a way that hurt. 

Everything about all of this hurt the three that had come for the visit.

"No," Remus says, his voice only the slightest bit quieter but with no less emotions, "but if he keeps playing Werewolves of London, then he'll be one if he doesn't stop."

The snakes laugh and the Marauders know that it's a joke. The three were ashamed to admit that they hadn't been too sure before.

"Just turn all of his clothes pink," Evan suggests as he moves to put away the Port Key.

"And the four of us have to live with that for a week?" Dora asks, going along with the others, all but completely ignoring the three practical strangers in their home.

Regulus snaps his fingers. "Change of perception spell to where only Barty sees the affected clothes as pink."

"I could do it," Remus decides, "or Dora could make a potion."

The nickname seemed to be the last straw for the eldest Black.

"Can we get on topic here?" Sirius asked, his voice filled with exasperation.

"Of course," Remus says with an ease that no one present believed, but also did not comment on. "Barty, you can come out now," the man called out, drawing more than one look as he seemed to yell into the air.

Only the Marauders were surprised when a bird swooped down from where it had been perched silently on top of the kitchen cabinets, out of sight, and turned into a dark haired man.

Barty Crouch junior.

"You're an animagus," James said with a hint of excitement.

"We all are," Dora said calmly with a shrug. "The study is through here," the former Ravenclaw continued, "we can keep company in there while the brothers speak and tend to dinner."

Lily looked at the others, but this was their house - their home, a part of her whispered - their rules. She followed Lestrange, Rosier, and Crouch into the room, dragging James along even as he seemed to want to stay.

Pandora closed the door before anyone could think to make Remus join them, that didn't mean that Sirius didn't try.

"Remus could you...?" The older Black trails off at the look on his brother's face.

"He stays," Regulus said firmly.

"Reg, this is personal, not even James is here."

"He stays," Regulus said once more, his voice harder as he grabbed the wolf's hand, lacing their fingers together. It was only then that Sirius noticed that the ring on his brother's finger that matched the one hanging from the other lion's neck.

Oh.

"How long have you-?"

"The Christmas of our sixth year," Remus said as he turned and walked to the kitchen, his fingers slipping from the younger Black's as he did so. Not that it truly mattered, as Regulus followed right behind him anyways, the pair moved even more easily around one another than the trio had earlier, soft touches as they passed ingredients to one another and each worked on parts of the meal, small smiles on each of their lips even as there was a tension from Sirius's presence as he thought about where to start. 

(It was the life that he had wanted.)

He told himself to be happy for them.

(He wasn't sure that it worked.)

"You went to him after-"

"After you almost had me kill Snape?" Remus asked almost innocently as he stirred the sauce.

Regulus choked and Sirius looked on in surprise.

"What?" The younger Black all but growled as he looked between the pair.

"You didn't tell them?" Sirius asked slowly.

"Why would I?" Remus asks with a sneer as he puts the spoon down. "Doesn't matter now," he continues, "I got blood on my hands all on my own."

But he'd needed Sirius to remember that he wasn't innocent before they went into more recent topics.

Regulus squeezed his hand, just as he always does when Remus remembers what he had done.

You did what you had to, the other seems to say.

Remus always knows it, but the guilt is still there.

It always would be.

"But that's not what we're here to talk about," Remus said softly as he turned back to the soup.

"You faked your death," Sirius said, starting as blunt as always.

"I know," Regulus said coldly.

"I mourned you."

"It was necessary."

"Necessary?" Sirius asked, angirly.

"Yes," Regulus insisted bluntly. "I joined him, so that we could find a weakness. Anything. Him thinking that I'm dead was the only way to get out, and it had to look real. Your mourning had to as well."

"You're a bastard," the elder Black growled, though each of the others knew that he didn't mean it.

"It was my plan," Remus admits as he adds salt to the sauce.

"You're a bastard too."

"Maybe," the wolf agrees with a shrug, knowing very well the grief that he had caused the other. 

He'd felt it himself that day.

"You could have filled me in after," Sirius protests weakly. Tired.

"You left first, bother mine," Regulus reminded his brother coldly, still not having forgiven him for doing so even as he had helped Sirius leave that night.

(Not over it because he never came back for him. Sirius left him there, a place that left scars on them both.

Remus kisses them as if they are beautiful anyways.)

"I didn't think that you would care whether I lived or died."

"I left you, so you left me?" Sirius asks as he looks at his younger brother, a sadness that matched in each of their eyes. "You left me too," the man continues, looking at the wolf.

It wasn't a question.

"You hurt me first," was all Remus had to say.

"Right."

"Not like it matters," Remus decides as he begins to crack the noodles in half.

"Why's that?" Sirius asks.

"We were bound to grow apart regardless, you always would have thought that I was a traitor because of what I am even if I was perfectly on your side. At least this way we're all alive."

At least Regulus is alive, both of the older men hear.

Sirius had nothing to say to that.

"Right."

---

"I want to rob a bank."

The silence in the room was almost tangible as everyone stopped eating at the wolf's words.

"Remus, love, you can't just say shit like that," Dora said as she slowly put her fork down, but Regulus was grinning.

"You think one of the Horcruxes is there?" The younger Black asks, leaving the older to wonder how Regulus had gotten to this assumption.

"Think about it," Remus starts, "you have a bunch of contraband, you don't keep it all in one place. What if someone finds it? What if it accidentally gets destroyed? He hid the locket away, what's to say that he didn't hide the others as well?"

"And where better than with people that are completely faithful to him?" James asks, a conspiratorial smile on his lips. This was the Remus that he knew.

"Exactly."

"And Gringotts is the most secure Wizarding bank in the country," Evan said with a grin of his own. "Of the possible five remaining, there is bound to be at least one there."

No one could fight that logic.

"Bellatrix," Barty says with a smirk, earning looks from the rest of those at the table. "They're screwing each other," he informs, "other than the Malfoys, there's no one closer to him than her."

"Didn't see that one coming," Lily admits, her face a little green.

"It's disgusting," Remus agrees, "but her bad taste is fortunate for us."

"How so?" Sirius asks, his voice still subdued.

Remus grins, his teeth too sharp. "Because between Dora being a Lestrange and us having both Black brothers here, we should have access to the family vaults that she might have hidden it in," he explains.

Now the others smile as well.

It didn't take much to know what they would be doing soon.