Four To The End Book Two (Marauders Era)

Chapter One Hundred-Four - It's The Pits

Remus was way too shaken up to pay much attention in Charms, and when it came time for practicing spells he didn't do so well. He was glad when Flitwick dismissed everyone, though figured his friends would want to talk more. Sure enough, they wanted to grab some food and hide out somewhere in order to question him more about the house. He described the interior as best he could, accidentally adding how amazed he was over the fact he had a whole house with furniture. They wanted to know why it surprised him, and he explained about his cellar at home.

All three of them fell quiet at that.

"Just... an empty... cellar room?" Sirius asked slowly.

"Uh, y—yeah?" Remus shifted a bit, peeling his sandwich apart to poke at the food. "Anyway, it is nice in the house—well, for the most part. It's not—I mean, it's being ruined by me so maybe not nice-nice anymore but you know what I mean."

"An empty cellar?" Sirius repeated.

Why are they going on about that? "Yes? Our house isn't exactly big, there's not anywhere else in the house I can... transform," he said, tearing apart the chicken now. "I thought you wanted to know about the house in Hogsmeade."

"It just seems a little awful to be locked up in a little cellar," James said. "Unless it's a big one? Our cellar at home is huge."

"It—it's not like I care much as a wolf," Remus hissed out, not wanting to admit how tiny it was.

"But you're sometimes human all night, right?" Pete inquired. "You said so. That's why you liked the blanket so much."

"Yes..." He scowled, slumping down a bit. "It's not important though. If you want to talk about the house we can, however I don't want to sit here rambling about the cellar at home, all right?"

Thankfully they dropped the subject of both the cellar and the house. Remus, feeling a little bad for snapping, considered apologizing—though he wasn't sure if he needed to or not. When he finally did, they wanted to know what the apology was for, laughing a bit when he explained and promising it was fine.

Sirius tousled Remus's hair. "You can tell us to shut up if we're bothering you, dummy."

"Or we cross a line," added Pete.

Remus shrugged, not answering that. The others returned to chatting about Operation Arsehole Party (as Sirius had dubbed their prank) or, OAP for short. James and Peter began shrieking 'OAP' loudly until it sounded like they were chanting oapaoapaoapa; it sounded really weird and Remus finally gave into laughter.

"You're still gonna come to Hogsmeade with us for supplies, right?" James asked once they got ready to leave the secret passageway.

"Yeah," he promised, not really wanting to but feeling like he had to. "We can do it Saturday afternoon or Sunday." He paused, frowning. "Tomorrow afternoon would probably be better since it's not a school night."

"When will you be done doing stuff with Silverlocke?"

"I don't know..."

"What exactly are you researching?" Sirius asked as they ducked out into the main hallways. "You never did tell us."

"Er—the school," he replied cautiously. Then, "We're trying to figure out anything we can about the Chamber of Secrets." That was the truth, and didn't mention the Pits Passage.

"The what of what?" Pete asked.

"Chamber of Secrets. It—"

Sirius cut Remus off with, "A secret place Salazar Slytherin supposedly made to hide some monster that preys on Muggleborns."