Not Alone After All

Chapter XXII

Lupin walked to the Defense against the dark arts classroom and opened the door. "Come in," he told the two. "Now, Laura, I haven't the faintest idea how this map came to be in your possession. And quite frankly, I am astounded that neither of you turned it in." He had now walked to the front of the class, and the two siblings were standing awkwardly in the middle of the tables. "Did it never occur to either of you that this, in the hands of Sirius Black, is a map to you?" He said, lowering his voice at the end of his sentence. It was almost as if he had noticed that he was yelling at the children like he was a parent and not their professor.

Laura looked down. She had obviously thought about that possibility. Except she knew where Sirius Black was, and she knew what he had and hadn't done, but she simply couldn't tell any of them. Harry, however, shook his head.

"No, sir," Harry told Remus. The professor sighed as if he had to say something to the two that he definitely didn't want to be the one saying.

"Now, your father never set much store by the rules either," he said, walking close to the two. "But he and your mother gave their lives to save yours." A silence fell between the three as Laura looked away from Remus and towards the window that showed a waxing gibbous moon. "And gambling their sacrifice by wandering the castle unprotected with a killed on the loose seems to me as a poor way to repay them," his voice became louder and louder as he became frustrated about Harry and Laura doing this after all their parents had given to them. He caught sight of Laura stiffening beside her brother, and immediately took a step back, taking a soft breath to calm his nerves.

"Now, I will not cover up for you again, Harry. Do you hear me?" Remus asked him.

"Yes, sir," Harry nodded.

"I want you to return to your dormitory and stay there," Lupin told Harry. The boy looked from the professor to his teacher, realising he had only spoken to him for the last couple minutes. "I will see what I can do for you, Laura, but professor Snape is your head of House, and he might want to punish you for wandering the halls at night."

"That's not fair-"

"It's fine," Laura told her brother with a smile to reassure him. "I'm used to it, remember?" Indeed, Laura had gotten into more and more trouble these last few months for the pranks she had been pulling with the Weasley twins. She often was caught and often had to stay up late in detention with some teacher. "Go," Laura told her brother.

"And don't take any detours," Lupin added. "If you do," he lightly drummed his fingers on the map. "I shall know."

Harry nodded, and as soon as he closed the door on his way out, Remus turned his attention to Laura. Before he could say anything, she spoke up. "Look I know, alright? I've heard it before a hundred times. 'Careful, Laura', 'don't wander the halls at night, Laura, it's dangerous'-"

"And yet, you and your brother were wandering the halls at night with this in your possession!" Lupin yelled at her. "Sirius Black-"

"Sirius Black was your friend!" Laura suddenly spoke up. This was new for both of them. Laura wasn't one to lose her temper so quickly.

"Yes, he was," Remus granted, his voice dangerously calm. "Until he betrayed your parents and killed one of our best friends."

"He didn't kill Peter Pettigrew," Laura decided to tell him. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, maybe she could have escaped this situation with some other argument, but that's what she decided to go with.

"What?" Remus rolled his eyes.

"Peter Pettigrew is not dead," Laura told him. Remus didn't dare to say anything, urging for her to speak. "Either he's not dead, or the map is wrong, because I saw him there, and so did Harry. So which is it, Professor?"