three_broomsticks | Marauders AU

Marauders AU

Characters: Mingle
Warnings: Gen to mature, smut warning?
Timeline: Fluid, this is an AU post, anything from Hogwarts to distant future
Preferences: AU'd characters. Feel free to use this as a mingle, post your top levels. And if someone out there plays James, I'd love to see you in this post too! Multiple versions of characters welcome and pile-up threads encouraged. So don't be shy to thread jack or start your own things.

WHAT IF JAMES AND LILY HAD LIVED
It's as simple as that. Maybe they picked Remus as their secret keeper after all and managed to mount an attack against Voldemort otherwise. This is just a silly what if scenario, go as wild with it as you like. I'll give some prompt suggestions below but feel free to invent your own, too.

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Remus' wand flicks towards the kitchen again, this time it'll be two cups of tea and another potion vial. He watches Regulus quietly while he slips a few drops of the veritaserum into Regulus' tea cup, gauging his reactions, waiting to see if he'll refuse to go through it after all.

"Seems like a thing he would do as many times as he can," Remus agrees, putting away the potion vial and placing the tea cup to the side as well to wait for the rest of the drinks.

It might be a little ruthless to make him take the potion and possibly spill some other secrets as well, but Remus refuses to feel bad about it. Regulus came to him for help and this is part of it. It'll be easier for him to convince others about his intentions if Remus can trust in what he says 100%.

Regulus swallows against his dry throat, but he reaches for the cup without hesitation. It's the only way, he knows it, and it's the least he can do. He owes them this. He needs to do this to prove himself to them. To Remus.

He's only heard stories of veritaserum, he's never experienced it, and he shudders as a wave of cold rolls through him, making his limbs heavy and his thoughts slow. Any lingering wariness or fear shivers into stillness and he closes his eyes, fingers curving around the empty teacup as his head tips backward and he takes a long breath. And smiles, the signal that the subject is fully under the sway of the potion.

Remus floats the tea from the kitchen while Regulus gulps down the potion, watching him with calm eyes. There's no need to feel afraid. He's not going to take an advantage of the situation personally, just to verify a few facts and then put Regulus to sleep until the effect is gone.

The tea is prepared quickly and efficiently and he shoots out his hand to Regulus to get his cup as well to be refilled, this time with sweet bergamon scented Earl Grey.

"Alright," he says and reaches over to place the cup in Regulus' hands. "You betrayed the Dark Lord, isn't that right?"

"Yes," he whispers, slow and drawn out, and the tea in the teacup trembles and almost spills before his hands steady again under the calming influence of the potion. "Yes, I betrayed him. I. Stole...from him. He'll kill me when he knows it's gone. But he doesn't know."

Regulus' eyes blink open, glazed over, and focus somewhere in the middle distance. "I'm going to die destroying it."

"Why you would say so? Is there something you didn't tell me about the Horcruxes earlier?"

Remus almost reaches over when the tea cup trembles in his hand but doesn't at the very last moment. They'll just have to get through this and then he can tug Regulus to bed and start contacting people he needs to sold this story to.

He's so relieved to hear that at least the main part of the story is true. He'll get to the details in a moment. It's hard to punch down the hope that rears its head inside him, cold fingers wrapping around his heart. If Regulus is honest and truly this is where they're going, it's going to be a long road to redemption but it'll happen, eventually.

"A Horcrux is...forgotten magic," he whispers, fragments of sentences from old books drifting back through his mind, the few scraps of information he'd remembered that had sparked his suspicions. "Created through death...so destroyed through death, they must be, I'm certain. It's all right," he adds, suddenly sharply zeroed in on Remus. Remus, who had never been a friend, but had always treated him kindly. Something Regulus had rarely done in return.

He's certain he should have died in the cave. He's living on borrowed time now, spared to complete the task of destroying the horcrux and stealing away one piece of the Dark Lord's soul. "It's fine. Remus. I'm ready."

"Don't be ridiculous," Remus snaps back, greens eyes flashing with a rarely displayed temper. "You're going to live and you will do so happily. That is my price on helping you. So get over it."

He isn't going to sell Regulus' story to Sirius, to Dumbledore, to everyone and then have him die on them and hurt their feelings again. This is not happening.

"So, it's a piece of old magic. I will look into it. Dumbledore will look into it. You won't do anything stupid before that."

He's going to have to hide that Horcrux. He'll take it to Dumbledore tonight. When Regulus is sleeping, take it away from him. Regulus might hate him for it but it's for his own good.

"No one told you to do this, did they? You aren't working under any kind of orders or suggestions? It was your own inspiration to go against your Dark Lord, right? The Death Eaters don't know about this either, am I right?"

Regulus narrows his eyes in confusion, the potion slowing him down and making it difficult to follow Remus in his anger, but after a few moments he shakes his head slowly. "No one told me. My own idea. No, no one else knows. No one else even knows about the horcruxes. The Dark Lord doesn't trust any of the Following with his secrets."

He pauses, then adds regretfully, "I don't think a horcrux can be destroyed without dying, and I have to do it. I'm sorry. I always liked you the best."

"How did you come to know about it then?" Remus asks, following this line of thought as quickly as a blood hound, trying to find a weak spot in the story that will allow him to exploit any possible foul play.

He gives Regulus a slow, reassessing look. "You know or you just think you know?" he asks, then wonders what Regulus meant by liking him the best. Out of who?

But that'll have to wait too.

"It might be true, but you're not going to be the one dying for it."

"The Black family library." The answer comes quick and easy. "I spent the whole year in there after Sirius became a Gryffindor. They were so angry." He blinks and looks away, drifting into memories. "I read through books...I shouldn't have seen, but I was studying to become a Slytherin, I thought if I knew enough of the Dark Arts there would be no choice. I read about horcruxes."

He takes another long, shuddering breath. He'd still been ten when he'd read about them, along with a host of other dark magics, but until Kreacher had told him what had happened, he hadn't remembered.

"I know. They whisper about it. The secrets he keeps. No one knows everything. He ordered me to bring him Kreacher to kill, so no one would be missing from the following and raise questions. But now I'll be missing. ...I'm supposed to be dead."

Remus watches him quietly, studying. Of course, Regulus had been at home with his parents when Sirius was at school for the first year. Must have been hard. But hard things happened to a lot of people.

He wasn't Sirius, though, and so he could see how Sirius' decisions and his way of living would affect Regulus' as well.

"You know or you think you know about Horcruxes being destroyed by dying?" Remus repeats his question because it sounds that Regulus is talking about something else. About the Death Eaters, perhaps.

He doesn't really need much more under the influence of Veritaserum. He's confirmed the facts and the rest is about Regulus.

And they know where to go for more information. The Black library.

"You said you left a fake one. So, currently nothing has happened yet, as far as Voldemort knows. We'll figure it out tomorrow."

"...I don't know. I think." The weight in his limbs is oppressive now and he shifts, slumping in the chair, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling and closes his eyes.

"Tomorrow," he repeats faintly. "I'll...I don't know where I'll be tomorrow." The potion is shifting, he thinks, beginning to roll out of his mind, leaving only exhaustion behind, and the creeping thirst beginning to return. It takes him a few moments to open his eyes again, and straighten slowly as if he aches, and take a sip of the tea Remus has left him, then a longer drink.

"That's enough," Remus says surprisingly gently when he thinks he's gotten everything he really needs to get an affirmation for. He waits for Regulus to finish his tea and then stands up, crouching beside him to pull him up by his arm. An arm he pulls around his shoulders and wraps his own arm around Regulus' waist.

"Tomorrow you'll be right here with me," he says softly and starts to help Regulus towards the bedroom. "But right now you need to sleep. I'll give you something for it. Don't worry. The Veritaserum will be out of your system when you wake up."

Remus only has one bedroom, so Regulus is going to be sleeping in his bed. He also has only one pair of sheets, so they're not going to be changed either. But he will spill Regulus into the bed and then bow over to help him out of his shoes at first.

By the time he finishes the cup of tea, he's feeling steadier. The Veritaserum might already be working its way out of his system. Either way, he doesn't resist when he's urged to stand, and he leans into the support as Remus walks him toward the bedroom.

"I came here because I didn't know who else would listen to me," he says as he sits at the edge of the bed, and automatically leans over to untie and kick off his shoes, but Remus is already there, so he straightens again and sits quietly. "I thought even if you didn't agree with me, you'd at least let me talk. And you did. Thank you, Remus." There's a smile, unexpected in the exhausted face, a glimmer of the brilliant smile he'd once had, and then he shifts to lie back.

"Oh no you don't," Remus murmurs and stands up to grab Regulus by the front of his robes, dragging him back up. "This goes too. You're not taking dusty robes into my bed."

He smiles, though, answering that curve with one of his own. "And you're welcome. You said you like me the best, what did you mean by that?"

Maybe he's pushing it a little bit at the tail end of the veritaserum effect. He refuses to feel guilty for it, though. It's so very innocent.

There's a little surprised noise when Remus yanks him up again, but Regulus doesn't put up a fight, just absently starts shrugging out of the dusty robes to a simple black shirt and trousers beneath. "You were the best," he says, a bit cryptically, but suddenly earnest in that particularly serious mood that people sometimes find when they've had too much to drink.

"You were the best to me. You knew what I was. How I thought. But you still tried. You were kind to me, you never needed to be but you were, and I know Sirius didn't always like it, but you still kept..."

He runs out of words and takes a slow breath, shaking his head as if waking up. The veritaserum is losing its hold on him, and it's getting easier to stop talking. "That's what I meant."

Remus helps him undress, effortless and quick, throwing away the robes towards a chair beside the bed. Then he reaches for the covers and nudges them, helping them away from under Regulus.

"Sirius is not my task master," he says quietly while helping Regulus to lay down. "I'm still trying, you know." He's trying to do this right this time. Because obviously he hadn't the first time. Regulus ended up taking the mark and now they're here.

"I think you both deserve better than your family," he continues, even quieter now, helping the covers on top of him. "And someone should have been patient with you too." The way they had been with Sirius. Sirius should have been patient, but of course Sirius never is...

"For my part, I'm sorry." If there is a quick hand smoothing down Regulus' hair, you shouldn't judge Remus for it. He knows it's too little, too late.

Regulus' eyes are already closed as he lays back, sleep swimming at the corners of his mind. He can hear Remus talking, hear everything he's saying, but it seems more like it's a dream. Deserving better? Deserving patience?

At the touch of Remus' fingers, he forces his eyes open again, and the half-lidded look is possibly fiercer than expected due to his sheer stubbornness. "Don't be," he says clearly, and closes his eyes again. "I wouldn't have listened. Not even to you. That isn't your fault, Remus."

If Remus says anything after that, it's lost as Regulus finally gives up the fight and falls into a deep sleep. It's been the longest day he's ever experienced, and he'll sleep for hours if nightmares don't wake him.

[ Do we want to have another thread in this story? ]

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Marauders AU

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