moony ~ remus lupin

Chapter Eighteen • Loving, Lying, and Leaving

Authors Note: This chapters a little short but it goes into a bit about Sirius and his relationship with Regulus and his parents. Next few chapters will be better!

Remus, James, and Sirius stood in Diagon Alley, waiting for Claire and Peter to turn up. "She said she would come," Remus said, pacing. After a while though, they couldn't wait and had bought their books already.

"Why isn't she here, James?" Remus asked. Fidgeting with his own rings. Claire had sent them as a gift over the summer, now that he couldn't play with hers. She gave Sirius one too. It had a snake on it as a joke but he got pissed and wouldn't write to her for a whole week. Peter showed up eventually. Without his parents this time.

"I don't know, Remus. Calm down. If I know Claire, and I do, she'll be here," James said, holding his books in hand. "Boys, I know you wanted to see Claire before school, but it's time to go," Mrs. Potter said, putting away her bag of galleons. "Yeah...let's go," James agreed, patting Remus's back sadly.

~

Claire wasn't on the train that next week. They tried writing to her one last time but there wasn't any response and James's owl hadn't come back yet. Remus was quiet on the train, barely acknowledging when Regulus came to talk to Sirius. Barty Crouch Jr. was with him too, but as always he just sulked behind, silently cursing at the Marauders.

James got up to see if Claire was with the girls but apparently they hadn't seen her either. "She's missing," Remus cried before they got into the Great Hall. "What if she doesn't show up at all?!" Lily was worried as well, but didn't show it as much as Remus. Marlene tried calming him down but he just couldn't.

"Remus! Relax, maybe she's contacted Minnie. I mean, she's the one that sent her to France in the first place," Sirius said after the last of the sorting. Marlene wrote Claire a letter that night, Lily wanted to add some things into it as well. Petunia had thrown her pet owl out the third story window and it wasn't fit to send letters at the moment.

No response.

She hadn't even shown up after the sorting. Luckily, McGonagall's office was right next to Gryffindor so Remus and Lily were able to ask her about it after Dumbledore's annual speech.

"Do you know if she's even back from France?" Lily asked.

"No, Ms. Evans. I don't."

"Well has she said anything to you?" Remus said nervously.

McGonagall could sense how worried they were. "I'm sorry. It's best you go back to your dorms and wait." Remus groaned, leaning his head back all the way in complaints "BUT SHES MISSING MINNIE!" He yelled. "Mr. Lupin! I will try contacting her as soon as possible," Minnie assured him, leading both of the students out of her office.

"But Min-"

McGonagall shut the door on them before letting them talk more. "Oh my..." Remus was tugging on his-now pretty long-hair. It wasn't long like Sirius's but he had a lot of it since Mrs. Potter stopped giving haircuts after the...incident with Peter's hair. "I trust McGonagall," Lily said, cutting him off. "She'll be back."

That night, around three, Lily had climbed into Marlene's bed and they were chatting about the whole Claire situation. Remus had gone to bed earlier, to stressed to hang out with them. They had cast the silencing spell so they couldn't wake Dorcas and Mary. Footsteps were coming up to the room as they whispered. "Wait. Shh," Lily stopped Marlene. She undid the silencing spell and opened the curtain slightly.

"Who's there?" Lily asked, stepping out of Marlene's bed. "Claire?" She stopped for a second and Marlene peeked out of the curtains. "Claire." She stopped in her tracks, she had her trunk in her hand and she had a huge bruise on her face, over her eye specifically. "What are you doing up?" Claire asked, setting her trunk down by her bed. She didn't care though.