In a universe where Voldemort never became powerful enough to terrify people for decades after the first Wizarding War, Peter didn't betray his friends, and Remus Lupin fell in love with his best friend's twin sister.
Marauders era
Remus Lupin × fem...
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August 1974
It was a week later that Juliet woke up to very loud knocking on the Potters' front door. It was the middle of the night, probably two in the morning. She slowly made her way to her room's door, and opened it, expecting to see one of the boys behind it.
To her surprise, nobody was there. So she squinted her eyes, trying to peer through the dark hallway. She noticed Remus and Peter also lazily sticking their heads out of their given room doors.
"If this is a prank, it's the lamest you guys came up with." Juliet groaned.
"If this is a prank, then I was obviously not invited to participate." Remus noted and Peter nodded.
Now, all of them were confused. Until they heard Sirius' snores and even more knocking. And they realised the knocking came from downstairs. Without thinking twice, Juliet made her way to the staircase, and she could hear footsteps quickly following her.
"Juliet." Remus called quietly.
The girl tried to ignore the feeling she got when he called her name and turned to him.
"You don't know who's behind that door, it could be dangerous." He stated softly.
And there it was again, the knocking.
"It sounds desperate to me." She shrugged and made her way to the front door.
Before opening it, she glanced back to see Peter standing in the middle of the staircase and Remus a few steps away from her, his grip tightening on his wand.
Pulling the wood to her, she was quick enough to catch the small blonde that was leaning on the door before she met the floor.
She saw the blood sticking to her hair and the bruises on her skin and she gasped. "Pandora?"
Juliet did not waste time before turning to the blonde boy and yelling at him to go get her mother.
Remus put away his wand and went to help Juliet to lay Pandora on the couch.
"What happened?" Juliet asked the bruised girl softly, grasping her hand.
She received a weak smile. "I'm free." Pandora mumbled.
Juliet didn't have time to question her friend more, for her mother came running to them to examine the girl.
Euphemia managed to heal most of Pandora's physical bruises and left to tell her husband about the girl's state. The Lestrange's appearance had woken up the entire house apparently. They were now in one of their free guest rooms, Juliet worriedly staring at the sleeping blonde.
She sighed before leaving the room. Immediately she was bombarded by questions that she ignored, making a beeline for her own room. There she wrote to her friends, letting them know about Pandora, before giving the letters to her owl, Archimedes, that she liked to call Archie.
Afterwards, she went back to Pandora's room, knowing that if she woke up, she would need comfort, and being alone in an unfamiliar place was in no way comforting.
Juliet didn't sleep. She waited patiently for the rest of the night to pass. It must have been around ten in the morning that she realised that Pandora was awake.
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty." She greeted with a soft voice.
Pandora gave her a small smile before sitting up in the bed and looking out the window.
"Are you hungry? Let's go get you something to eat." Juliet said, getting up from her seat.
"Maybe later." Pandora muttered. The blonde could feel the brunette's stare and sighed. "I'm sorry for intruding like this. I didn't know where else to go."
"Hey." She called. "Don't apologise, it's alright, this is your home as much as it's mine." She could see the gratefulness in Pandora's eyes.
Juliet decided to go get breakfast for her friend and herself. In the kitchen, she was met with everyone else already wide awake.
"Morning Juliet. Where's your friend?" Fleamont gave her daughter a cup of tea.
"I think she's a bit too shy to come down, knowing her she might be embarrassed for coming here at two in the morning and all." Juliet lied.
Well, it wasn't completely a lie. Pandora was introverted and polite, so this kind of meeting was completely unusual to her, which could have made her more shy than she normally was. But Juliet knew her well, and she knew that after whatever happened, she was still too shocked and would probably feel uncomfortable with people she didn't know.
"Oh! Tell the girl it's totally fine, in fact, we're glad she reached out to us for help." Euphemia smiled at her.
Juliet took the empty seat next to Remus and served herself some eggs and fried bread.
"Did you not sleep at all?" Remus questioned in a whispering voice, leaning towards her with a frown on his face.
Juliet could feel her ears turn red and her heart flutter at the sudden closeness. She was pretty sure she has never been this close to Remus. And Remus was a pretty boy. Bloody hormones. She shook her head.
Before Remus could say anything, they heard a knock on the door. Suspecting it to be the Lestrange family, and completely ready to tell them to sod off, she abruptly stomped to the door.
But to her surprise, a worried Regulus Black and Amos Diggory were in front of her.
"Hey. Is she alright?" Amos spoke first.
"She's upstairs. Come in." Juliet didn't answer his question, because she simply didn't know the answer herself.
"Regulus?" Sirius exclaimed with wide eyes.
"Hello, brother." The youngest Black greeted.
"What--" And before Sirius could question his presence, Euphemia handed a big tray containing oatmeal, biscuits and fruits to Juliet.
"Here you go, I figured she must be hungry, just tell her to let me change her bandages later."
Juliet nodded, and she turned around, ready to lead the boys upstairs but Amos took the tray from her with a smile like the gentleman he was.
The Marauders who assisted at that whole scene were extremely confused. Since when was Juliet Potter friends with Regulus Black, Amos Diggory and Pandora Lestrange? Sirius was very annoyed at the thought. James was upset that his sister had left him on the dark on that subject. Peter was just standing there awkwardly, like most times. And Remus, well, Remus was mostly bothered by Diggory taking the tray from her before he could.
His own eyes widened at his own thoughts and he shook his head and went back to eating his breakfast.
Remus Lupin has been having those kind of thoughts way too often recently.
* * *
poor Pandora :((
also, please keep in mind that as an ambivertravenclaw, I'm doing my best to develop Juliet's (a Gryffindor) character
