Sirius and James started disappearing at odd times, and looking exhausted in the mornings. This wasn't unusual, but it was unique for them to be so completely closed-lipped about the whole thing. Remus found himself spending more and more time with Lily and Peter, while James and Sirius ran about who knew where.
When Peter asked him about it once or twice, he laughed it off, but privately he was starting to wonder. He wasn't, obviously, the only one.
"Has Sirius been acting, oddly, lately?" Lily said, putting down her Potions essay.
Remus glanced at them with a vague shudder, glad only that he didn't ever have to take Potions again. "He's been skulking around," Remus admitted slowly. "Disappearing. To be honest I didn't want to ask him about it."
Lily sighed. "He and James were out all night last night," she said, and absently put her textbook away, waving her wand to sort her notes. "And you know I don't normally pry into your affairs, but he seemed," and she searched for a word. "Tense."
"Well Sirius has been tense for weeks." Remus hesitated. "You don't think they're."
"What?"
He shook his head, frustrated. "No. I don't know."
Lily flicked her wand again, simply making a mess of their study notes. "I don't know anything," she admitted. "To be honest, I was hoping that it was a boy thing, and that you were going to laugh at me and I could just forget about it."
Remus gave her a watery smile. "I could laugh at you if you want."
"I don't think I'll feel better," she told him.
~
Remus started to notice other things, as well. Several times, Sirius came to class with burns on his hands, and once James woke up in the middle of the night weeping. Remus sat in bed, quietly, while Sirius whispered, "James? James?"
The three of them carefully pulled their curtains open, staring at James' closed set. "Should we..?" Sirius asked, scrubbing at his face.
Peter shrugged, frowning. "Is it." He started to rise, and then hesitated. "Maybe it's private?"
"He's asleep," Remus said, thinking hard. "So it's not really, it can't be, right?"
"I'm going to," Sirius muttered, and reached over for the bed curtains. At that moment, James gasped, then settled down again. They all looked at each other warily, and Remus listened hard. It sounded as if James' breathing had settled into a steady rhythm again, and they couldn't hear him sobbing anymore.
Peter asked uncertainly, "is that it, then?"
It seemed to be it. Except in the morning, James looked tired and pale, and Lily looked at him, both worried and angry at the same time. Remus knew how she felt.
~
Peter quietly sent a hex over to Sirius, and made his hair stand straight up. Sirius didn't even look up; he just kept his head bent, reading something and copying notes out of the book. Remus chuckled, and added a few pieces of parchment stealthily. Peter snickered, and still Sirius didn't look up.
James came into the room, shivering and nearly blue in his Quidditch robes. The rest of the Gryffindor team straggled in looking just as miserable. "It shouldn't be this cold," James declared, "not in January." He flopped in a chair near the fire. "No, I lie. It can be this cold in January. Just not when I'm supposed to be flying Quidditch." He moaned. "Why do I keep trying to do these pre-dawn practises?"
"You have been up before breakfast every day this week," Remus said mildly. "It's bound to wear you out."
"Weren't your morning practises only Tuesdays and Thursdays?" Peter said, surprised. "Where have you been?"
James had his eyes closed, and looked for all the world like he was asleep. Remus watched the nervous tic of his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, as if he was swallowing, gulping.
Sirius chose that moment to look up, and pull his wand out. "All right," he said, "who did it?" He tried to push his hair flat again, but it just resulted in it springing back up again - though a few of the parchment pieces fell off, and they fluttered to the floor. "Argh!" he said, scrubbing at his head.
Peter bounced up, and made his way up to their room with Sirius following closely behind him. Remus shook his head, and glanced over at James - he still appeared asleep, though his mouth twitched occasionally and his body was most definitely not relaxed. Remus called out softly, "James?"
"Mmm."
Remus pursed his lips. "Look, where were you yesterday morning?" James didn't move. "Or last night?"
"mmm," James said, and then murmured, "I could sleep for a million years."
"Listen," Remus told him, sitting opposite James, "you were crying in your sleep yesterday." James slowly opened his eyes, and Remus shifted uncomfortably. "Well, you were."
"I was," James said.
"Lily and I have been wondering, James," Remus said, quietly, "what you and Sirius are up to."
James moved around, rubbing his hands together briskly over the fire. He noticed that James' hands were still bright white. "Why don't you ask Sirius?"
"I'm asking you," Remus replied.
James closed his eyes again, holding his hands out, palms upward, towards the warmth of the fire in their grate. "I could sleep forever," he told Remus.
~
"Nothing?" Lily said, eating her porridge. "Nothing at all?"
"Nothing at all what?" Peter asked, sitting down with them. "And have either of you seen James?"
Remus looked at Lily. "We can't figure out what's up with Sirius and James," he admitted, stirring sugar and cream into his porridge. The two of them weren't at breakfast. As usual. "Any thoughts?"
Peter stared dully at his bowl, finally spooning a healthy helping of brown sugar and clotted cream onto the hot cereal. "Not a one, about James, Sirius, class, or otherwise," he told them.
"I suppose we'd best grab the two of them some toast," Remus said, eying the table. He was annoyed. Sirius and James had got up at the crack of dawn again to do who knew what, and when he and Peter got back to their room, they'd probably be fast asleep in their beds. Trying to nap once more before class. It wasn't fair.
"You're more forgiving than I am," Lily answered, sniffing. She'd already finished her breakfast and was scribbling out a last-minute assignment. "I'd let them starve."
Peter was already gathering up some toast, wrapping the pieces carefully in a napkin and stealthily putting a huge juice jug under his robe. "They'd make sure we ate even if we were cheering for Slytherin next match," Peter told her. "It's not a question of what they've done."
Remus nodded. "He's right." He nodded to Peter as Peter stood, trusting him to take care of feeding James and Sirius. He didn't feel like talking to either of them right now anyway, and he had to ask Professor Kettleburn something about the practise exam in a few weeks - there wouldn't be time enough to go back to the dorm and then go out to see him. "Besides," Remus added, just for Lily's ears, "it doesn't mean I've forgiven them."
She looked at him, surprised. "I thought you four never fought."
He snorted. "Fight? Us? Please. Don't you remember only last month, when Peter and James nearly bit each other's heads off over a bag of Sugar Quills?" He grinned. "It usually takes a matter of hours to resolve things."
"You don't seem to argue with anyone."
Remus rolled his eyes. "I'm easier to get along with than James or Sirius, haven't you noticed?" He played with his spoon. "I just want to know what's going on right now."
"Me too," Lily said, softly. "And not because I don't trust James. Just--"
"You don't trust James," he finished for her. "It's all right," Remus muttered, suddenly flush. "I don't trust them either. Think about what they did to the whole dorm last term - it takes a gullible person to trust them," Remus added, starting to chuckle. The laugh died. He put his spoon down with a clatter, and watched a few post owls dropping notes off for students. It was patently clear within a few seconds who was grateful for mail and who wasn't; a Hufflepuff student, Remus thought her name was Tracy, put her face in her hands. Sirius's cousin, however, was nearly beaming, if you could call anything that close to a sneer beaming.
Lily flipped through her copy of the Daily Prophet. The front page had Frank Longbottom, photographed outside a non-descript Muggle warehouse, skulking in the corners. Remus didn't even bother glancing at the headline. It would be the same old story. "Look at this," she said, pointing to the story inside. "It's positively disgusting."
Remus, however, was watching the Slytherin table. "That's disgusting," he told her, pointing as Lestrange and his pals were now laughing over the paper, Snape reading the article. "I bet his holidays were simply splendid."
"That much venom isn't becoming," Lily said, low. "Still, I understand. I mean, he used to be so different--" and Lily paused, frowned, and said finally, "They've all chosen their side. Best they just get out of here fast."
"People change," Remus said. He knew that it still hurt her, seeing such a reversal. He suspected it hurt Snape, as well, but some things wouldn't ever be taken back, and no use dwelling on it. People changed, sometimes for the good - proof of it in Lily's acceptance of James - or for ill - proof in Snape glancing over at them, and then looking away. "We'll never be rid of them," Remus said to her, standing. "We'd see them in the news, if nowhere else. I'd better get to class. Listen, maybe we should just ask Sirius and James?"
"We probably should," Lily replied. "After tea?"
"Right," Remus told her. He didn't feel at all hopeful about their chances of getting a straight answer.
~
That was because James and Sirius definitely weren't going to give them a straight answer.
"Fine," Lily said resentfully, watching their retreating backs. "They're going to practise Quidditch instead of speak to us, we'll figure out what's going on."
Lily snuck up to their room while Remus sat in the Common Room, unhappily shreading candy wrappers. She marched back down again, hands in fists, and said "I don't know. Maybe we should follow them." He stared at her unhappily, moved his mouth unhappily, but nodded.
~
Remus didn't see Sirius and James leave the room, he didn't see them close the door, he didn't see a thing. That wasn't unusual; many a night he'd heard James sneak out the portrait hole, wearing his Invisibility Cloak, off to do some good, or bad. He pulled shoes on, got the map out from under his pillow, and whispered "lumos" quietly.
The two dots marked "Sirius" and "James" carefully and steadily crept down the corridor, up a flight of stairs, and through a wardrobe in a spare room to an unused office. Peter snuffled, in bed, and rolled over with a gentle sigh; it was now or never.
He worried briefly about how to warn Lily, but when he got down to the Common Room, she was already standing in the middle of it, facing their stairway. "I heard them leave," she said by way of explanation. "I was sitting on the stairs."
"No one wondered why you didn't come to bed?" he asked.
Lily was already headed for the exit. "Sure they did." She paused. "I hope you know where they went."
The map was folded, safely in his pocket and wiped clean. They didn't have far to go; Filch was down in the dungeons, so it said. "Follow me," Remus answered, and set off down the hall.
The trip felt like simply ages. Remus' legs wobbled every time he set one down on the stones, sure that someone would catch them in the hallway. He was even more nervous about what might happen once they found James and Sirius. This kind of hiding, like they had a real secret, was as stupid as it was hurtful. "Here," Remus hissed, pushing his way into the wardrobe carefully. "Through here."
Lily was right on his heels, and then Remus felt his way around in the dark, finding with difficulty the hidden doorhandle at the back of the wardrobe. He pulled his wand out, unlocked the door--
and Sirius and James sat bolt upright, their own wands out immediately. "Oh," James murmured, and dropped his arm. "It's you."
Lily strode into the little office, wand still in her hand. Remus held back. There wasn't much furniture - two chairs, which Remus would bet Sirius had snuck from somewhere else, a table, and a lot of dust. "It's us," Lily said to James.
Sirius, Remus noticed, was rubbing his hands together rhythmically. He said, "we, uh. Thought you might be someone else."
"We locked the door magically," James cut in. "I guess, not very well."
"You're lucky we aren't Filch," Lily said, voice steady. Remus let her speak. He leaned against the hidden door, and bit the inside of his cheek.
James licked his lips. "Filch doesn't know a lick of magic," he told her. "He couldn't have got in without a lot of fuss. We would have heard."
As if that was the issue, getting caught. Remus glanced around again. He had been hoping, even as late as back in the darkened wardrobe, that this was something innocent the four of them could laugh about now - and then again later, with Peter in the morning. The looks on James and Sirius' faces, however, spoke a different story. They were obviously guilty.
"So what," Sirius started, and swallowed. "What are you doing here?"
"Well," Lily said, speaking directly to James, "we've been worried about the two of you lately. Disappearances. Mysterious meetings." She let out a soft 'hah', and Remus supposed it was meant to be a laugh. "You had us thinking you were up to something serious."
She looked at the two of them for a very long moment. "We were thinking along the right lines, weren't we?"
Remus waited for James to answer, but for the first time in his life, he didn't seem to have anything to say. Finally, Sirius said to her, "You were pretty much bang-on."
"Why," she asked quietly, cracks in her steady mask showing, "am I not reassured?"
It was the principle of the thing, Remus thought, pressing his tailbone against dark wood. They hadn't even deigned to explain something was going on; they had tried to hide the very fact that there was something to hide. It wasn't like James, or Sirius. The guilty, even wary, expressions the two of them wore were wholly unfamiliar to him. Remus crossed his arms.
"You followed us," James stated weakly. Remus shook his head again, just a fraction - not a denial. He was trying to piece together who was the betrayed party.
"Of course we did," Lily told him. "Concern does that to you. And we were right to be concerned." She stared darkly, from James to Sirius and back again. Hands on her hips, wand clutched in her fist, she looked a lot more fierce than most of the dark wizards they'd researched. When neither of them spoke, she said dangerously, angrily, "I don't suppose asking for an explanation will do us any good."
James raised his hands, supplicating, and Remus shook his head, nearly standing behind Lily in his attempt to stand away from James and Sirius both. His arms were crossed, pressing against his chest, and his hands were digging painfully into his own taut forearms, fingernails making little marks in the skin.
Sirius was the one to pull the book from under the pile and place it in the middle of the table. The cover was all black, shabby almost, and slick like oil. Lily glanced at it for only a moment, then immediately returned her eyes to James' face. Her anger didn't lessen. "What," she said low, harsh, "is that?"
Remus picked it up, flipped through the pages quickly and then put it down carefully, silently. He knew exactly what it was - they'd been studying this type of information for the last two years, trying to figure out some way to fight it. He backed up, and opened the door of the office just as silently.
Sirius winced as he closed it behind him with a little 'click' instead of the bang they all expected.