Is It Over Now?

Remus sighs as he knocks on the door of the meeting house for the Order. Another moon had just passed only a few days before and his bones still ached more than they usually did. He'd known that the transformation was going to be harder and harder each year as he grew older and his body more worn, but he truly hadn't expected it to start so young. The twenties were supposed to be the prime of one's life. If this was that…

The door opened to reveal a shock of red hair and bright green eyes that always spoke of summer even in the middle of the winter.

"Remus," she greeted kindly, her smile not quite making it to her eyes. It hadn't in a long time now, not since school. 

The false smile dropped altogether as she looked past the man's shoulder.

"What the hell, Remus?" Lily growled, a wand in her hand as fast as any dueler. It was pointed directly at Remus's head. "Why-" but she stopped as she finally recognized those behind him. "Sirius!"

Footsteps could be heard moving through the house, more than one set, as they rushed to the door. Lily gripped her wand tighter and it was then that Remus noticed the rings there. An engagement and a wedding band. He hadn't been told of either.

The first set of footsteps drew closer, stopping abruptly at the sight before them.

"You brought three marked Death Eaters?" James asked, his voice high with disbelief, but not the sort that came from an unforeseen betrayal.

"Three marked Death Eaters that are legally dead," the wolf corrected, reminding the man. He didn't exactly need to, not as Sirius joined them.

" Reg ," the elder Black brother breathed, his speech ragged as if he had just seen a dementor away from Azkaban. Remus supposed that this mustn't be too different. " How ?"

"You gonna let us in or what?" Regulus asked crudely, his voice gruff in a way that Remus knew that he had himself to blame for. 

The three former Gryffindors' eyes were wide at the former Slytherin's word, as one of the others snickered behind Remus, but another slapped them to shut them up. They acted like children sometimes and Remus loved them for it.

James and Sirius drew their wands and joined Lily in pointing it at the five.

"Hand over your wands and we will," James said stiffly and Remus fought the urge to roll his eyes at the man. 

"Yeah, whatever you need to sleep at night," he replied gruffly before nodding at the others and holding his hand out for the wands to be placed in. The others did so without question. "Here," he said, handing them over.

"And yours?" The Potter heir asked as he took the wands, his voice harsh in a way that never had been with Remus before.

"Left the bloody thing in the woods last year," the wolf replied shortly, not feeling too nice with the other either, "never went back to get it."

It was a shame, truly, Regulus had bought him that wand, but it was all but useless in his hands now. He didn't need it when he could do so much more without it.

The three inside of the house raised a brow at that, but there wasn't much they could do about it.

"Come in then," Lily decided, stepping to the side but keeping her wand at the ready just in case.

The five followed James into the house, with Lily staying at the back. Sirius tried to slip in with Regulus, but was forced to the back with Lily by Pandora.

"Good, Lupin," Moody said as he glanced up at the opening door, wondering what had been taking for so long. "We were just about to-" the man cut himself off and stood quickly with his wand in hand, the other Order members still alive now following suit, all of them trained on the group of five. "Knew there was something off about you."

"Can't deny that," Remus agreed easily as he raised his hands as if in surrender.

"We have their wands," James said quickly, almost as if he were worried about one of the five being hurt by the older wizards. Remus supposed it wasn't an unwarranted fear.

Dumbledore held out his hand for the wands and James gave them over easily, forever trustful.

None of the Order members lowered theirs.

Remus sighed as he looked at the room and then flicked his fingers to the side.

The result was instantaneous as the wands in all of the older members' hands flew from them and up into the air. 

Another flick.

The wands flew to the right towards the wall, sticking into it like arrows, and everyone's eyes were wide as they looked upon the scene. 

"That is some dangerous power there, my boy," Dumbledore said at last, his eyes holding no spark. Remus hadn't expected them to.

"It got your attention at the least," Remus said as he stepped forwards. An Order member moved to meet him, but it only took a simple thought for vines to grow from the ground and hold them in place. "Just like this should."

Remus stopped before the older wizard and drew the burnt locket from his pocket, letting it hang from his finger for the other wizard to see from across the table.

"Is this a…?" The Headmaster asked slowly as he reached out to the piece.

"Yes," Regulus said, stepping up beside Remus, their sides pressed firm together. Sirius whimpered at the sound of his brother's voice. "It's his. Or it was."

"How did you destroy it?" Dumbledore asked, genuine curiosity filling the eyes that were no longer quite as cold. The rest of the Order watched on in confusion. 

Remus held out his hand, flames dancing atop it, a fox running across the man's fingers. It was a stunning display of power, something controlled and simple that none of the Order members had seen before.

"I see." Dumbledore's fingers brushed the locket and Remus let him take it. "So he is mortal once more?" The headmaster asked, his voice optimistic yet cautious.

"Not quite," Evan says as he steps up to join the pair, Dora and Barty close behind. "We believe that he has, or he intends to, make more," the man says bluntly.

Dumbledore shudders at the thought, but the other Order members only looked confused.

"What is it?" Lily asks as she steps closer, curiosity overshadowing the betrayal in her gaze. In her voice.

Knowledge always was more important, it was her use of her intellect that had landed the girl in Gryffindor, Remus knew.

The Headmaster opened his mouth, his lips drawn in what the former Slytherins knew was going to be a hurried avoidance or an outright refusal to allow them to tell the others. 

Pandora was faster.

"It's a Horcrux," the woman said quickly, watching with a slight glee as the others in the room shuddered if they recognized the name and only looked confused if not, "or at least it was before."

Dumbledore sighed in defeat.

"What is a Horcrux?" Lily pressed as she let her hand wander to the dangling object, the radiating off of it both enticing and horrifying to the young woman. Mary and Marlene pressed close to her as the former Gryffindor drew away from it, the friends sharing a concerned glance.

"A Horcrux is an object in which someone hides a piece of their soul within after killing another." The answer came from someone that hadn't spoken in a while, and all but shrunk under the attention. A strange sight to see when he normally bloomed from it. "There is a book on them in the Black family library," Sirius explained, "I read it when I was younger, before I knew what it was."

"And you think that he has split his soul more than once?" Shackelbolt asked, disgust clear in his voice, though whether it was for the topic at hand, the strange group that he was addressing, or a combination of both, only he knew.

"Yes," Remus says with an air of finality. "The bastard is too paranoid to not have to."

"How many?" Dumbledore asks.

"Don't you know already, sir?" Pandora says in a way that is anything but sweet.

"Seven," the older man says as if the world were ending.

Maybe it was.

"Salazar Slytherin's Locket," Remus said, holding up the object in question, "and likely five other things related to the school or the man himself if wanted himself to be the seventh piece."

"This is crazy, Moony, you have to know that."

The voice is sudden and holds more than a note of fear to it, something reasonable for the topic at hand, but sets the wolf's teeth on edge.

"I'd be quiet if I were you, Petigrew," Barty threatens lowly, but the room is small enough and the rat far enough away that everyone hears anyway. Just like intended.

"And why is that?" James asks, stepping closer to his friend since before Hogwarts. But only a little at the dangerous look in Remus's gaze. It wasn't quite as strong as it had been upon seeing Sirius again after that night, but the anger was there nonetheless.

"Because Dumbledore here probably takes to traitors as well as the Dark Lord does," Evan says flatly.

"I d-don't know what he's t-talking about," Wormtail attempted to protest, but stopped as James began to look upon him with distrust.

There was a mass scratching of chairs as those seated around the table made to stand as where a man had been standing only a moment before, he was now gone and a rat in his place. A spell or two was named as in their panic, the Order members forgot that their wands were otherwise occupied with the wall. The rat scurried between feet as everyone made a grab for the creature, but none were successful.

"Stop."

The word rung with power as it was spoken and everyone within the room felt their bodies still even as it wasn't directed at them.

The rat froze on the ground by the door and the wolf grinned with too many teeth.

"Change back."

Where a rat had been a moment before there was now the cowardly Gryffindors, unmoving where he stood. Not even breathing.

"Breathe," the wolf commanded in a way that showed that he hardly cared if the rat did or not.

"Show them."

Peter raised his arm with jerky movements, pulling back his sleeve as if he wanted nothing more than to do anything else but.

They could all see the mark on the man's skin that matched that of the three marked Death Eaters within the room.

"An animagus form is the reflection of one's soul," Dora says with her light voice as she walks towards the once more frozen man, touching her fingers to his pulse and nodding to Remus once she confirms that it is steady and there. One never could be too sure how magic like this would affect a knowing recipient. "Yours seems spot on."

"So we had two traitors in our midst it seems," Dumbledore says with a sad sort of sigh that seems to hold more within it than it should. The former Slytherins all glance at one another at the older man's words, at the implications behind them as the Order members glanced at them .

At Remus.

"You seemed to have your Goblins out of order, old man," Regulus said suddenly, glaring at the man across the room from him as the youngest Black grabbed the back of the rat's collar and shoved the still man towards the headmaster.

"Regulus," Sirius tries to intercede, but the youngest Black brother isn't listening to the older.

 "Only one person in here was actually working for him ," Regulus continues as if no one else had ever spoken. "The rest of us were always on another side."

Not his side, not Dumbledore's, they meant. Just a side other than Voldermort's own.

Something cold flashes in the Headmaster's eyes, an expression more genuine that most that they had ever seen him wear.

"And what side are you on?" Dumbledore asks as his eyes bore into Remus's.

"The side that doesn't treat its members as chess pieces," Remus says harshly, as he looks at the older wizard and glances at the rest within the room, "collecting them, and sacrificing them for a greater good that only you can see. A side with some humanity to it.

"Our own, always our own since you decided that it was fine to leave a boy in a house that was sure to turn him into a Death Eater, and keep the boy that almost had a student killed just because he was angry. Since I knew that you would never do a thing to help those that you couldn't use."

And there wasn't any guilt in the older man's eyes, as if he still thought that all of his actions were justified. He probably did.

The rest of the Order didn't seem to think as much.

"But they're marked," Lily points out hesitantly.

"Remus told me at the beginning of seventh year that he told Regulus to get it," James says suddenly, not as if he just remembered the detail but as if it had just taken on a new meaning. "He said that Regulus's parents would have likely killed Regulus if he didn't."

There's a look in Sirius's eyes as James speaks, something hopeful and broken all at once as he looked at Remus. 

"And Crouch and Rosier?" Mary asks quickly.

"Agreed to take the mark so that we had more people to be able to hear about things like this," Pandora said as she pointed to the former Horcrux locket at the end.

"Do you really think that there's more?" Marlene asks as she looks at the locket.

"Yes," Remus says simply, a little miffed about having to repeat such a thing once more. "We know that it's unrealistic to try and find them all on our own, so we came here to ask for your help in doing so, because 'teams' aside, he won't die otherwise."

"We'll help," James says suddenly, speaking for the former Gryffindors even as the older wizards still looked on with hesitancy at the wolf and the snakes around him.

Just like in school, the other former Gryffindors nodded along with James's plan, never questioning it.

"Alright," Remus said easily as he turned and flicked his wrist once more, the wands of the other snakes flying into his hand as he passed them back to their owners as the five walked to the door once more, two other sets of feet hot on their heels. Just as Remus had known that they would be.

"Regulus, can we talk, please ?" Sirius said hurriedly as he tore after his brother, James following quickly behind him as always.

Regulus only looks at his brother coldly, grabbing Remus's wrist quickly, a gesture that didn't go unnoticed by any of the four presently close to one another in the hall.

"I just want answers," the eldest Black says sadly, as if he hadn't left first.

They all knew that he had.

"Here," Remus cuts in, handing James a slip of paper that he had prepared and drawing the attention to himself.

"You knew that he was alive all this time," Sirius says suddenly as if just understanding this fact.

"Of course I did," Remus replies harshly as James took the slip, a sad look in the bespectacled man's eyes, "I'm the one that helped the idiot fake his death."

"I'm not an idiot," the youngest Black brother protests quickly.

"You were that night," Remus says just as fast, something sorrowful in his tone that neither of the other two former Gryffindors missed. "Dora will pick you two up from there next Friday at five," the wolf continued as he points at the paper in James's hand. "Even a minute late and she leaves without you," the man says firmly before looking at the Black brothers. "You two can speak then."

Regulus nods and the pair turn quickly to leave, catching up with the other three members of their group before disappearing with a crack as if they never existed at all.