#continuity one

“Yeah, Moony, it’s me. You okay?” James’s voice was concerned, and Remus felt butterflies as the hands slid down, off of his face, settling at his waist. It was James, and Remus was safe in his bed at the Potter family home. Remus was 15, not 5, and his parents couldn’t get him here.

“M’I okay?”

“You were crying. I could hear it from the other room.” James crawled over to his other side, laying down next to him. Two tugs on his shirt, and Remus laid back down as well.

“Just a nightmare,” Remus said dismissively, resting his head on James’s chest and his friend’s arm slid under his neck and rested on his shoulder.

It was James.

Remus closed his eyes.

“The basement one again?” James traced gentle circles on Remus’s shoulder.

“Mmm.” Remus didn’t want to talk about it.

His curls shifted as James planted a kiss on the top of his head, making Remus’s stomach all fluttery. Or maybe that was anxiety from the dream. He wrapped his arm around James’s chest, snuggling closer.

“It’s okay,” James murmured into his hair, “I’m here.”

Remus knew that people couldn’t just Get Over trauma, but he still found it stupid that, even though he hadn’t been with his parents since he was 12, the nightmares still hadn’t ceased.

Not that life here was all rainbows (that was one thing Fleamont and Euphemia didn’t want in their house. Rainbows, that is. They wouldn’t be happy if they caught Remus in bed with their only son.) (Not that that was stopping them.) (Nor had it in the past.) (Shh.)

“You know you can talk to me?” James said.

“What’s there to talk about? You know it all.”

“Talking can help,” James paused, waiting for a response, and when he didn’t get one, he said, “I’ll go first. When i was younger, I had this recurring nightmare where these demons would break into my house-”

Remus opened his eyes.

“And they’d say that Father Christmas sent them to collect the bad kids-”

“Mate, what?”

“Shh, i’m not done-” he said, “and then, they’d fly me to a volcano and put me in line with some other children that they were shoving into the lava-”

“Are you, like, okay?”

“But when they pushed me off, i landed on a rock and jumped over to a shelf, and there’d be a bunch of… ah, what’s the word?” Remus felt James turn his head to look at him, “They’re not carousels, they… uh, shit, when you’re little, you climb on and rock on them like a horse?”

“Rocking horses?” Remus frowned slightly, imagining a rock shelf full of creepy rocking horses in the middle of a volcano.

“Nah, mate, they’re at playgrounds. All springy-like.”

“Oh,” Remus felt James’s foot slip between his legs, “uh, spring riders? I think?”

“Alright, those- the shelf was full of those, and i’d be trying to escape, but the demons threw fireballs at me, and besides, I couldn't run far because I'd lost my bracelet.”

Remus slowly blinked, looking up at James in the dark. And then, because he was invested now, “And then what?”

“Oh, no idea. Maybe that wasn’t the best one to lead with. Hm.”

“Hm.”

“Wanna hear the one where a giant cannibalized me and the scooby gang?”

Remus laughed, “What?”

“Made us into deserts and everything, it was crazy,” He smiled. A moment passed. “Come on, Moony, it’s your turn.”

Remus heaved a sigh into James’s chest, the fear from the dream having been long replaced with unease as James’s story brought Remus’s heart rate back down to resting. “Alright, fine. M’in the basement. It’s after the full moon and I’m hurt.”

James wrapped his other arm around Remus, holding him gently.

“I call for my mum, but she doesn’t come, and I can’t really move properly, and it sounds like they’re having a dinner party or something? I’m bleeding out and they don’t care. And also I’m, like, seven.”

James nodded.

“Room starts shaking,” Remus felt watched from the corners of the room, so he pulled the heavy blanket right up to his chin, “Mum starts storming towards the door, because my yelling has ruined the party- I- I wake up before she gets to me, but.” He sighed.

“But.” James said, not a question but more of an agreement with the fucked-up-ed-ness of the nightmare.

Remus closed his eyes again as James started caressing circles on his cheek.

“You’re safe now, you know that?” James said softly.

“‘Course.” Remus yawned.

A moment of silence.

“I love you, you know that?”

Remus smiled, looking up to where James’s face would be if he could see him, “Love you, too.”

James wrote. And wrote. And wrote. And after a month of not getting any response, he was officially worried. He didn’t want to leap to any conclusions- even though not writing was So unlike the Remus he had come to know- so he headed to the local library and went straight to the hidden section on wizarding families.

And found out that Lyall, Remus’s father, had a history of calling for the extermination of werewolves as a whole.

He had to do something. There was no way Remus was okay. There was no way-

He had to be careful about this. His parents had always taught him to be diplomatic in dicey situations (not that James had listened. Ever.) So he sat for a while and thought about what he could do. Would they let James in the door to check on Remus? He didn’t think so. But he needed to get in- if he was able to check on Remus, and he was fine, then there wasn’t a problem. But if he wasn’t… and he probably wasn’t……

He wrote a few more letters.

And was met with more silence.

James was in the front seat of his family car. His parents were both too old to drive, and James wanted to make sure no one would get arrested if things went south, so behind the wheel was Maisie- seeing as she was Not A Person and instead the combined magical talent of hundreds of generations of Potters all shoved into carved and painted ivory (that was then shoved into an Edwardian walking dress), she couldn’t be held accountable for her action but could, in fact, drive a car. James thought she was perfect for the job.

“Turn here, love?” Today she spoke with the voice of James’s grandmother, who he’d never met.

James consulted his map, on which he’d marked Remus’s house with an X (because he liked to feel like a pirate), and said, “Yeah, Maisie, here.”

They turned onto a residential street, lined with cookie-cutter houses and cookie-cutter lawns. It didn’t look like the sort of place you could hide a werewolf.

“I think it’s so nice you’re bringing your friend a basket!” Maisie smiled over at him, her painted-on eyes fond. James felt a pang of guilt, he hadn’t told her the plan.

“Yeah,” He muttered.

About halfway down the street, she leaned over and glanced at his map, “Here, dear?”

James looked out the window, then down at his map, double-checking the address, “Yeah, looks like it.” He was feeling nervous now.

“Alright, dear,” Maisie pulled over and put the car in park, “I’ll just wait here while you give your friend your present.”

James opened the door, stepping out onto the blinding-white sidewalk. This whole place was too perfect, it gave him shivers. He picked up the gift basket he and Maisie had put together, shut the door- then changed his mind, opening the back door a crack (better to be ready)- and started up the walk.

He passed a mailbox right out of a movie- in cursive font it said Lupin, with a large, medium, and tiny handprint on the sides. The house was a lovely yellow, and the living room and kitchen lights were on. The upstairs window, where the kids’ bedroom would be, was dark.

His skin crawled.

Trying his best to look innocent and well-intentioned, he knocked three times on the door.

After about thirty seconds, right when James was about to knock again, it opened.

A lady with Remus’s green eyes and curls opened the door, looking confused and a bit like she was looking at someone who shouldn’t be there.

“Hi! I’m James, I’m Remus’s friend from school!” He said, heart racing, “I brought him a basket, can I come in and see him?”

“Oh, that’s so nice of you,” She smiled, reaching for the basket, “But Remus is sick right now, so I’ll just give him this for you.”

James pulled the basket away, trying to look casual, “I really want to see him though, it’ll only be for a moment-”

“He’s highly contagious-”

“I’m vaccinated!” James looked behind her, trying to see into the house- Remus wasn’t in the living room, and not up the stairs-

“For what?”

“Uh, Everything!” He jerked the basket away as she grabbed it, sending a few apples from the Potter orchard rolling down the Lupin’s front steps. She wasn’t gonna let him in, this was exactly what he feared would happen, and-

Ah, fuck it-

He spilled the entire basket onto Hope Lupin’s feet and used her moment of shock to push past her into their entryway.

“Remus!” He shouted, sprinting further into the house and looking around wildly.

“You can’t come in!” Hope sounded angry now, “Get out!”

“Remus!” He ran into their hall, seeing a door with a silver doorknob and a large lock. He banged his hands on the door, “Remus?!”

To his relief and to his horror, he heard a faint voice call, “James?”

That was enough for him! He went to open it but found- duh!- that it was locked, and James couldn’t use magic-

He slammed against it, trying to get it open, but the door was solid oak, and he was 12.

“Uh, um,” He was starting to panic, “There’s gotta- uh,”

“Get out or I’m calling the police!”

James focused as much as he could on the door, willing it open, willing it to just explode-

With a loud crack, the hinges fell to pieces.

He rammed into the door again, and this time it fell open, sliding down the stairs.

“Remus!” He shouted, going down the stairs- the door led to a basement- as fast as possible.

“James! I’m down here!”

“I know!” He tripped on the door, tumbling onto the unfinished dirt floor. Remus grabbed his arm, and when James looked up, his heart dropped to the center of the earth.

Remus looked frightened, more than a little hungry, and fastened securely around his mouth and nose was a steel muzzle.

He stood quickly, trying to pull Remus to his feet, but his friend stumbled- James looked down to see that Remus’s foot was hurt, would he have to carry him? Could he?

Hope’s silhouette appeared at the top of the stairs, and James had a horrible vision of being trapped down here forever.

He grabbed Remus’s arm, pulled him to his feet, hurt foot be damned, and started dragging him up the stairs.

“MOVE,” He shouted at Hope, trying to force his magic into his voice- and sent Hope sprawling into the hall.

He ran, half-carrying Remus, through the living room, out the door, down the lawn, to the car, and then flung open the back door, pushing Remus into the car with a thunk before hurriedly climbing in himself, slamming the door behind them.

“Dear, is that your friend?” Maisie looked at them through the rearview mirror, clearly concerned.

“GO!”

“What, dear?”

“Maisie we gotta go she’s gonna-”

Maisie turned to look at them-

“Maisie we’ve gotta-”

“James, we can’t just-”

“They’re gonna hurt us!”

And that was enough for Maisie. She floored it.

They tore out of the lovely little neighborhood, leaving skid marks at corners and blowing past stop signs. James struggled to help Remus into his seatbelt as they were practically thrown around the cabin. Once they were both secured, he helped Remus out of the muzzle.

“Remus, what happened?” James cried out.

A few new scars decorated Remus’s face, claw marks on his cheeks and near his ears.

“They- they put it on so I can’t bite-”

“The full moon was two weeks ago! Why were you still down there?!”

Remus looked ashamed, turning his gaze away from James and out the window. The landscape went by in a blur.

For the rest of the ride to the Potter mansion, Remus wouldn’t answer any questions.

James’s mum and dad were away on a trip, so Maisie set Remus up in the bedroom adjoining James’s and tended to his wounds. When she was done, she left to make the two boys dinner (manifestations of family homes didn’t need to eat), and so James and Remus were alone.

James shut the door before crossing over to the intricately carved ebony bed that was now Remus’s. He climbed in, laying next to his friend on top of the velvet bed covers.

Remus looked over at him, green eyes weary and tired, “How long until the police get here to take you away for kidnapping?”

“They’re not coming. The ministry and my family have an agreement, and muggle police can’t find the house.” James scooted a bit closer to Remus so that they were sharing a pillow.

A few moments of silence ensued.

“You… wanna talk about what happened?” James asked.

Remus turned his head and stared at the ceiling. His brow furrowed, “Why do you have a chandelier in your bedroom?”

“Your bedroom.” James corrected.

“Why is there a chandelier in my bedroom?”

“Maisie thought it looked nice. We can take it down if you want,” he said softly.

Remus shook his head, but said nothing.

“... You wanna talk about what happened?”

Silence.

“My… my dad doesn’t like werewolves very much.” Remus said carefully, “And my mum’s afraid of them. They don’t… quite know what to do with me.”

James reached out and gently held Remus’s hand.

Silence.

“You didn’t think through bringing me here, did you,” Remus sounded tired, “It’s not safe.”

“We’ll accommodate,” James said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Remus closed his eyes, clearly exhausted, “Can I take a nap?”

“It’s your bedroom,” James said, sitting up to leave him to rest.

“Can you stay?”

James paused, before slowly laying back down, “Of course.”