Is It Over Now?

Chapter Three

The Marauders sat anxiously in their usual carriage, apprehension coiling thickly in the air as three parts of a whole desperately awaited their missing piece. None of them knew if Remus would be sitting with them at all this time, not when he hadn't returned a single letter from any of the other three all summer. Not when the last time that he spoke to Sirius was when he struck the older boy across the face and left them for the snakes in the year below.

"He'll come," James said more for the other two than himself. "I'm sure that he will."

But the boy only winced at the two almost identical glares of disbelief that were given to him by the other two teens, the intensity of them stifled by Sirius's bouncing leg and Peter popping another chocolate candy into his mouth, going through them twice as fast as he normally would.

James looked at Sirius who, despite the summer sun from flying and constant visits from Mary over the holiday, still had something of a worried air that made him almost lesser than before. He didn't look like Sirius, he hadn't in a while.

He had to come.

Then the carriage door slid open, revealing to them an almost perfect stranger.

Peter's eyes went almost comically wide at the visage of the boy before them, as James immediately wonders what could have happened to cause such a change - he knew, they all did, but didn't want to admit it to himself, not yet at the least - and Sirius's breath hitched with something . It was the same feeling that had occurred two years ago, the first time that Remus came to school with such drastic changes. He pushed it down now too, just like then.

"Alright there?" The stray Marauder asked, an almost predatory smile curling on the standing boy's lips even after the soft summer that he knew that he'd had.

The teen took a drag from his cigarette, letting the other three take the change in; watching their reactions carefully as they did so.

Remus knew how he looked, there was a small bar going through the top of his right ear and a small cuff below it in the shape of a golden snake - not that the thought that they could see that much detail of the piece from where the other three were - with the usual beginner's piercings on both side - small black studs to match the black bar. On top of that, his hair was different this year too, the lower handle of his head shaved as small loose curls rained down from the top.

He watched as three sets of eyes traveled every inch of his face, eyeing every detail as if they thought it might change back to normal if they were to look away.

The next thing to be scrutinized was his clothes, the black knock off Doc Martens with red and yellow laces making an appearance once more, as dark torn jeans joined them with the usual sweaters. It felt something like a merging of timelines without any of the kindness remaining within them.

Remus rolled his eyes at the other boys' shocked expressions and sat down in his seat with a regal mess that he seemed to have picked up from a certain Black brother - not that they really acted like brothers much anymore. The idea that the younger boy could rub off on him so much after kinky a month or so alone with one another sent a pleased smirk to the werewolf's lips - tne breaking point it seemed for the others.

" Bloody hell , Remus!" James excamilmed, looking at his friend as if seeing a stranger. "What do you do to yourself?"

Remus felt his brow quirk up at the other boy's reactions which was so different from the polite avoidance of the topic that he'd given the last time that the other boy shouted up to King's Cross poking like a skinhead. James noticed it too, but - ever the Gryffindor - refused to back down.

"Punched a few holes in my ears, didn't I?" Remus shrugged, taking another drag of his cigarette. Though the Marauders's reactions were interesting, they weren't the ones that he was waiting for.