The Wolf's Den [Remus Lupin]

31 - The Summer of Change

CW: Contains underage drinking, and mentions/shows abuse

-Sirius-

It was mid-August when I started getting antsy again about returning to Hogwarts. I was sitting in the parlor waiting for Kreacher to bring me my lunch before we had to go to an appointment when James' owl suddenly appeared in the open window. I jumped up and went over to it.

Hi Sirius
You'll never guess what happened. Mum was cleaning the whole house so we could donate our old stuff to Diagon Alley and she went through my closet and threw away my vial for the special project we've been doing. I have no more Mandrake leaves because I gave them to Pete thinking he would need them in case he swallowed his but I'm not gonna see him next week. Now I have to redo that entire MONTH of holding the leaf in my mouth. And I can't start it until the full moon which means I either have to do it from August to September A.K.A. starting school mute or come up with a really good excuse and do it from September to October. The only upside is we could do it together since you were already planning on doing it at Hogwarts. I'm storing up on the dew so we'll both have some when we do it. Am I seeing you before the 1st? Let me know x

Cheers,
James

I grabbed a quill and parchment and scribbled as fast as I could before his owl was ready to leave and wrote him back.

James,
Sorry mate, that blows. Granted, your mum has no idea what you're doing and must've thought it was an old potion. Has Pete made any progress? We can do it from Sept-Oct that way you can still talk during Quidditch tryouts. Not seeing you before the 1st – haven't been allowed in public since that day I snuck out to call Remus on the muggle phone. Gonna try to call him again tonight though. x

Cheers mate, S

His owl left fairly soon after he'd gotten here and Kreacher came in with a plate for me sometime after that. "Has Master Sirius been writing a letter?" He noticed how I hadn't attempted to clean up the parchment.

"Kreacher, you're a very bad spy," I groaned and took a bite of my sandwich.

He dusted across the bottom shelf of one of the cabinets staring at me sideways. "Kreacher is nothing of the sort. Kreacher has simply brought Master Sirius his lunch."

I scoffed and ate the rest of my food in silence. We left within the hour and I went along with my Mother to her appointments in Diagon Alley. She was parading me around today in new robes that had an annoying collar that was poking me in the neck all afternoon.

I thought back to James' letter as I waited for her to finish up in the apothecary. I would've loved to be mute for a whole month at home. No one would care if I spoke or didn't, and no one would think anything of it if I stayed in my room for hours on end. Granted, eating would be super difficult and we'd prepared a whole plan for ourselves when we thought we could all do it at Hogwarts but James wanted to start the process over the summer. I knew my mother would find out if I tried to do something so I thought it would be best if I waited. Now at least I wouldn't be doing it alone.

I got another letter from James after suppertime. He told me that Peter's almost done it. He said he could hear the second heartbeat each night when he said the chant which I couldn't believe. This was going to be the best thing we've ever done.

It was a little after midnight when I finally heard everyone go to bed. I got my jumper and left to go down to the telephone again. Remus answered the phone this time. "Cheers, mate, you alright?"

"I'm fine, just trying to get through the next few weeks. Both of my parents have all these meetings and appointments they want me to go to with them because I'm their heir but I think it's mostly just a ploy to keep an eye on me."