RUNNING WITH WOLVES remus lupin

O18. 𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄

𝐄 𝐈 𝐆 𝐇 𝐓 𝐄 𝐄 𝐍

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

REMUS GLANCED OVER HIS SHOULDER DOWN THE MURKY DARK OF THE SECOND-FLOOR CORRIDOR, then tapped his wand on the doorknob before him.

Yes, despite everything, he was still allowed near school grounds... with conditions. He had been hiding out in the shrieking shack. The conditions are he can only be in the castle at night... And under no circumstance go near Elodie Ashcombe.

He at least had to keep an eye on her. Most in his position would have gone mad by now. But Remus assumes that proximity to her helps... a little.

To say he was on edge was an understatement.

The lock clicked open, and with another glance about, Remus slipped into Argus Filch's office and snapped the door shut behind him. He only had a moment - he had told Minerva that they were just splitting up briefly to cast another quick look around before they went back to the Great Hall.

He waited until the lock clicked before he muttered "Lumos" and allowed the room to fill it with pale light. Filch's office looked exactly the same as ever, and Remus half-expected to see James and his poorly-concealed smile draped over one of the chairs before the desk.

But here it was filled with all kinds of things, no doubt, mostly pranks by the weasley twins. Remus chuckles at the thought. They almost remind him of James and Sirius when creating pranks for the marauders.

Remus strode across the room to the filing cabinet, eyes scanning across the labels for the letter 'M.' " Map ," he muttered to himself, tugging the door open and rifling through it with his free hand. " Map, map... "

But it wasn't there. An icy block of fear settled into his gut.

The rough sounds of his breath were loud in the stillness of the office, and he squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to remember who had been the last of them in possession of the map when it had finally been confiscated.

𝙛𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠. . .

"Confiscated?" James was incredulous, even as they all reflexively ducked at the sound of an explosion somewhere along the massive stone walls that ringed the ground. "Wormtail, how could you let it get confiscated?"

Peter opened his mouth to speak, but Sirius brushed past him, shaking his black hair out of his eyes. "Worry about it later, Prongs. They'll breach the wall soon if we don't move."

𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠. . .

Remus dragged his eyes open, took a deep breath, and shifted three drawers over. "Pettigrew ," he mumbled, fingers dancing across the files until he found the one with Peter's name on it.

Quickly, his own breath harsh in the dark office, he tugged the file out and let it fall open, balancing his lit wand atop the filing cabinet.

Seven years' worth of disciplinary write-ups and photographs of confiscated documents spread out before Remus, their frequency peaking in Peter's fifth year and then dramatically falling off in their sixth and seventh, as the war escalated and they all began to prepare for what was next.