The Marauders: Year Four

A Promise to Return

A Promise to Return

The "quarters" Ed deposited Remus into was a small closet-sized room in the cellar, narrow, with a heavy wood door that had a small barred window at waist level. There was a window to the outside, also barred, at the very top of the little room, narrow and higher than even Remus could reach, as tall as he was, through which he could see only a tiny patch of the top of the evergreen trees that surrounded the cottage. Ed locked the wood door and murmured, "Nighty-night, poppet," and shuffled back up the stairs and out of the cellar, leaving Remus alone in the dark.

Remus sank to the floor, his back against the door, head just beside the little grate, his eyes on the sliver of the outside world he could see, and he rested his arms across his knees, chin on his forearms. There was very little to be done, without his wand he couldn't break out of the little cell they'd stuck him in. There was no way he could squeeze through that window, even if he could find some way to reach it... the walls and floor were cement... there really was nothing to do but wait.

So he closed his eyes and, to pass the time, he recited every defensive spell he could remember from four years of Defense Against the Dark Arts classes at Hogwarts - mumbling the incantations and moving his wrist with each spell. "Expelliarmus... Stupefy... Confundo... Protego... Protego Maxima..."

Outside, far off at the edge of the wood where the Half-Breed Army had collected, two men and a woman stood in the grass, their voices low.

"We need to find out if he is for sure here, first of all, and then we can proceed with making plans. You don't need to go rushing into this until we know for certain that Remus Lupin is out there," the woman said.

"I - I agree, it is most very, uh, important to know, for certain, that he - that he is there," agreed one of the men. "We risk everything by going in. Everything. And so we need to know that it is worth the, uh - uh, the risk."

The third voice was rushed, annoyed, "Well what do you propose we do then? Dawdle about to give the bloody fiend a chance to murder him? Eat him as look at him, that's the Greyback way. If the boy hasn't already suffered horrible torture, it's only because Greyback's exhausted from the Full Moon. Mark my word, though, twenty-four hours of aconite tea and he'll be on his game and ready to play with his prey."

"We - we confirm Remus is - uh - here," answered the first man.

"But how, without going in?"

There was a pause... a click and a small creak of something being opened - a box or a case, perhaps - and a low whistle. A moment later, "She's quite good at finding things, if you trust her to it."

"Perhaps she could find the key," suggested the woman's voice.

"See, that's the, uh, the spirit - that right there," said the first man's voice.

The second man said, "And if they catch her at it?"

The first man replied, "We won't talk about that. Think... think positive, Ned."

"It's rather hard to around this part of the woods..." the second voice said, "Dementors... memories..." he scoffed, "Damn near impossible to stay positive here."

"All the more reason that we should send her first," replied the first.

The debate went on a few more minutes, each presenting their arguments whom they should send and when, until finally there was an agreement reached: "she" would be sent now, and if she did not return quickly enough, a new decision would be made based on the current situation at that time.

Through the woods "she" went, moving sporadically from tree to tree, weaving in and out of the path through the trees... past the goblins and giants and centaurs and werewolves... to the little stone cottage in the clearing, miles away from where the three figures stood, waiting for the response...