The Marauders: Year Four

Madder Than Alice's Hatter

Madder Than Alice's Hatter

It had been a week since Sirius's letter, and February was gone into March, already, Remus's fifteenth birthday only just around the corner... but none of them were planning any celebrations. None of them felt much like celebrating at all, but most especially not Remus. Quite the opposite, Remus sat with Peter and James at the Gryffindor house table, but he may as well have been made of stone for all he said or did... he just stared at the table, pushing his food about on his plate whenever Peter nudged him and reminded him he should eat. "Keep up your strength," Peter said in a consoling, parental sort of tone, "You can't go starving yourself now... you're looking peaky..." He'd watched Remus with concern for the past seven days as Remus's meals went untouched. He was starting to lose weight and it worried Peter because Remus Lupin had hardly any weight on him to lose to begin with. "I have chocolate in my trunk upstairs," Peter promised. But even chocolate wasn't enough to get Remus excited.

His eyes were the color of damp moss after a rain.

None of the Marauders - or those who they'd let into the secret of Sirius's mysterious disappearance (namely, Lily Evans, Frank Longbottom, and Ali Prewitt) wanted to be the one to say it, but they were all thinking it: if Sirius Black were alive and able to do so, certainly he would've written them an owl by now... James kept his last one in his robes pocket and routinely took it out to look it over to see if there were any clues of what had happened, any evidence of where Sirius might've been headed to, anything at all that could help them look for him... but there was nothing.

Sirius Black had disappeared... and finding him would be like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands.

There were two things that James held onto for hope - and kept him coming back to that letter searching for clues...

First, he kept a very close eye on Sirius's brother, Regulus. Regulus was looking stressed, and as far as James could reckon it was probably because whatever affected his family would be affecting him. If Sirius Black was dead, then Regulus wouldn't look so bloody nervous, would he? Whatever it was that had happened at Number 12 Grimmauld Place that had set Sirius on the run was certain to be a Big Deal and if Sirius had seen or heard something that he ought not to have seen or heard... well, him being missing would be plenty of a reason to set the family on edge. Plenty of reason for that sick, pale look that set about Regulus Black's face.

The second thing that gave James hope was that, even though they hadn't heard from Sirius, they also hadn't heard from Voldemort or Orion. Perhaps, James kept trying to convince himself, perhaps the saying was true and no news really was good news. It seemed that if Orion Black had finally managed to kill his rebellious, long-hated son that there would've been a big deal made of it, like Sirius might've been made an example of -- here is what happens to rebels against the Dark Lord -- that sort of thing. But nothing had come at all.

And there were plenty of other deaths happening, tons of activity being reported everyday in the Daily Prophet, loads of horrible news stories.

For example, a whole family of muggles had been killed in their sleep, found torn apart in a most grisly fashion that Remus had said was probably the work of a member of Greyback's pack - it was too ungraceful a job for Greyback himself. Rather, there'd been loads of children that had just disappeared from muggle schools all over the country and this was probably Greyback himself. He preferred younger blood, Remus explained, running his hand over his shoulder and keeping his eyes downcast. Then there was several witches from the Ministry that went missing for three full days - everyone in the country looking desperately for them only to have three snapped, wands, wrapped in blood-soaked Ministry official robes, sent via owl to the Minister for Magic, declaring war against the Ministry.