Four To The End (prev Shifting Lines) Book Three (Marauders Era)

Chapter Eight - Am I?

Author's note: CW for reference to child abuse, mention of near drowning

Big shout out to Felix (somniumfelix on AO3) for all the help for the last scene in this chapter!

Also! Since this chapter has a big music scene I thought this would be the perfect time to throw some links at you! I have two playlists on spotify for Shifting Lines!

First of all we have the official Shifting Lines Playlist. These are all the songs that have been in the actual story, updated whenever a new song is mentioned:

Then I also have a playlist that has songs that will 100% be in Shifting Lines at some point or another, updated now and then when I think up a scene that involves a song:

And finally I want to thank everyone for their messages of love and condolence. It's really been rough but posting this story again feels good. I'm really glad to be back <3

-x-

Remus was terrified his parents would somehow figure out there had been someone else in the house. However, when they returned from their date they were too wrapped up in each other to notice much of anything. Remus scurried down into the cellar as soon as his nose picked up on what they had done on their date.

Ew, he thought, hiding under his covers with a book. Where did they even manage to do that? The... car? Oh Merlin, if I smell that in the car, I am NEVER getting in there again!

At least their happiness meant they barely noticed... er, well, Remus wasn't entirely sure what they'd notice or if anything would give it away. It also meant Lyall didn't question Remus about his time alone. Still, Remus did the best he could to avoid them that night. He pretty much spent the entire evening in his room, trying to read while worrying about Sirius.

Did he make it to his uncle's? he wondered at sunset. Is his family mad? Is he in trouble?

He wished wizards had something like telephones, or that they had a magicked blackboard to communicate. He'd have to wait till Sirius wrote to him, although he suspected if Sirius was in trouble with his family he wouldn't admit how much.

They hurt him. Remus finally knew and understood this. He had suspected it for a long time, but every time the words floated to the surface of his brain he would tamp them down. It was difficult for him to believe a parent would... hurt their child like that! He knew perfectly well what abuse was, and knew it happened. But to the extent he thought Sirius went through? Those bloody wounds and bruises on his body were from someone who hated him. Who wanted to inflict pain on him.

How could a parent do that? Even ones as awful as the Blacks?

Scars from dark magic, he thought, staring out his window at the darkening sky. Have the Blacks used dark magic on their own son? How else would Sirius get scars? Almost every wound outside of dark magic could be healed easily. Or from most magical creatures, though there was the question over whether a lot of the magical creatures could be considered 'dark' or not. Even though hippogriffs weren't really 'dark' creatures (not like werewolves) the wounds they inflicted sometimes had difficulty healing and could leave scars if one didn't get to a good healer in time.

Either way, scars were from dark arts, and that meant someone had used dark magic on Sirius—

Remus shook his head, getting up from his desk, not wanting to think about it at the moment because he couldn't do anything about it. He felt so helpless. Especially since Sirius denied it.