@jegulus-microfic September 3, Word count 624

Previous part First part

James pretended to be asleep when Regulus snuck out to get into Remus’s bed. Regulus’s nightmares were terrible, as were Remus’s and the only thing that seemed to help was each other. James could give them that. He knew there was nothing more in it. They were friends and friends helped each other in times of need. 

James wasn’t exactly getting much sleep either. He stayed up long into the night, staring at his two-way mirror. He whispered Sirius’s name sometimes, but Sirius never answered because his mirror was safely locked away in James’s trunk. 

They only had one day left before school ended for the year, and never in the history of the Marauders had the dorm room been so quiet. 

“What are you going to tell your parents?” James asked Remus as they were packing. The next full moon was in just under three weeks. Normally, Lyall locked Remus up in the cellar. He’d lined the door with silver and put the entire house under heavy protection spells while he and Hope hid upstairs. Remus had told them that sometimes Lyall sent Hope away to her mothers, but they couldn’t do it regularly or people would get suspicious. 

Remus shrugged. 

“Suppose I’ll just let him do what he normally does. I’ll make a load of noise and probably get a good night's sleep for once,” 

“What about when we come back? Have they said anything about you breaking out of the shack?” Peter asked. 

“They’re putting stronger spells on the shack and tunnel. They think perhaps over the years the magic has weakened just enough to let me squeeze through,” Remus rolled his eyes and folded one of his jumpers up to put in his trunk. “Looks like there’ll be no more moon runs any more, but now we’ll have the entire rest of the month to do it so…” Remus waggled his eyebrows at them before returning to his packing. Peter let out a long sigh. 

“I’m going to miss that next year. I always thought it was so romantic running around on the full moon." Three pillows soared across the room and hit Peter in the face. “Oi!” He complained. “These are mine now, I hope you realise that,” and he piled them on top of his pillow and lay down, hitting them with the back of his head a few times until he found a comfortable position. They left him to it. 

“Have you had any more thoughts on how to get into Grimmauld Place?” James asked Regulus. It had become a daily occurrence. James couldn’t help but ask; sometimes he even had a helpful note to add, but in the end, Regulus figured out some catastrophic way each plan wouldn’t work, and it was back to the drawing board. 

The little bit of mirth left the room, and Regulus’s shoulders slumped. That was something James had begun to notice: as soon as Sirius was mentioned, Regulus’s posture became terrible, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and it was all becoming a bit too much for him. Regulus shook his head. 

“No. I keep coming back to the same issue. The wards are too powerful. No one can get in who isn’t a family member. We can’t get in.”

“We can’t get in,” Peter repeated, sitting up. “But you can!” Everyone in the room stilled. James watched Regulus as he worked through a plan in his head. He could almost see the cogs whirring away inside. He knew Regulus had it when his eyes flashed, the cold grey turning to liquid silver. A wicked smile curled the edges of Regulus’s lips, and James felt his heart soar. They were going to get Sirius back. 

@wolfstarmicrofic March 24, word count 371

Remus made his way down the quidditch stands. He was still sore after the last full moon. It had only been two days and his joints were still a bit inflamed. It was hard work, but by the time he got to the bottom, the team were on their way to the locker room to get changed. He’d missed them. 

An arm wrapped around his waist. He twisted to see who was touching him. He relaxed it was only Sirius. 

“Hey, Moony, you coming in?” Sirius nodded towards the small building where the teams changed. His heart pounded in his chest as Sirius’s arm tightened as they started towards the door. 

Sirius deposited Remus on one of the benches and started stripping off in front of him. Remus felt his cheeks heating and adverted his gaze as Sirius chatted happily at him. “Remus? Remus?” Sirius shook his shoulder, getting Remus’s attention. 

“Sorry,” Remus stammered as his eyes fell on Sirius’s bare chest right there… 

“Just going to hop in the shower, be back in a sec,” That's when Remus noticed the only thing covering Sirius was a towel. Sirius was gone before Remus could manage to get even a sound out of his throat. James snickered beside him. 

“You’ve got it so bad,” 

“Oh shut up!” Remus grumbled as James followed Sirius to the showers. 

He waited for a while. James and the rest of the team were showered, dressed and walking out of the door to go celebrate their win, but Sirius was still in the showers. James clapped him on the shoulder. 

“See you up there,” and Remus was alone. The only sound was of the water rushing from the shower head. The water shut off. The silence was deafening. 

Remus could hardly breathe when Sirius came out of the shower and walked towards him, water dripping down his bare chest. He was a vision. 

@jegulus-microfic May 6, Word count 835

Previous part First part

“So you can ask this room for anything, and it’ll give it to you?” Regulus questioned, staring around the room James had asked for. It was light and airy like the Gryffindor common room. There was a fireplace, an array of crystal phials on a bench and a selection of books on a small bookcase. 

“I think so. The only thing it can’t conjure is food, but other than that, yeah pretty much.” Regulus looked as if he was in awe. 

He walked to the bookcase and ran a finger across the spines of the books as he read the titles. He pulled one off the shelf and opened it. James wasn’t sure which book it was, but he’d asked the room for some on animagus transformations. 

“I need to keep a mandrake leaf in my mouth for a whole month?!” Regulus exclaimed as he read on. James stared at the little wrinkle in the middle of Regulus’s brow formed by the frown pulling down the corners of his mouth. He wanted to go and stroke it with his thumb to wipe it away. He blinked wide. Why had he felt the urge to do that? “How on earth did my brother manage that? His mouth is never closed long enough to keep anything in.” Regulus continued, seeming to have missed James’s little crisis. James cleared his throat.

“Yeah, it was hard, especially when my mum sent him some strawberry bon bon’s, and he was too scared to eat them in case the leaf moved.” James chuckled to himself. Sirius had ended up giving them to Remus to hide as the temptation was too great. Regulus replaced the book on the shelf. 

“How did you find this place?” He asked James. James looked around the room.

“Remus and Sirius found it. They sneak off here sometimes when the noise of the tower gets too much. I don’t know what they do though, they always come back dishevelled.” He hummed gently as he took the mandrake leaf he’d stolen from the greenhouses out of his pocket. 

He turned back to Regulus to hand it to him and stopped. Regulus was standing there with a look of bewilderment on his face. “It’s surprisingly easy to steal from the Herbology greenhouses.” He said, guessing that Regulus was surprised that he’d gotten hold of a mandrake leaf. “Now you have to put this in your mouth while looking up at a full moon. If it falls out, or you swallow it, you have to start again. We found it easier to tuck it under your tongue and pray the house elves are making a lot of soup that month.” Regulus shook his head and reached out for the leaf. James placed it carefully in his hand. His fingers brushed against the soft skin of Regulus’s palm, and he felt a jolt go through him. His eyes snapped up to Regulus’s, but the other boy’s face was blank. 

“Is that it? Just the leaf? Did we really need to meet in my brother's sex room just for this?” Regulus grimaced. 

“Well, there are a lot of other steps that we need to do as well. The leaf is just the first step. We need to get our hands on a Death’s-head Hawk Mo—Did you just say sex room?!” James gasped. Regulus smirked. 

“You can’t seriously be that oblivious. My brother and his wolf were all over each other yesterday. And you said they sneak off here, only the two of them?” James’s mind slowly started connecting the pieces together. 

“But, he’s always been touchy-feely, has Padfoot,” James said, while at the same time thinking, but only with me, never Remus. No, he decided. Sirius would have told him. Sirius would never keep something like that from him. Unless. Unless he was afraid of how James would react. 

“Why wouldn’t they tell me?” He said softly, not to Regulus, just voicing his thoughts. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?” He felt a profound sadness take over him. He looked up at Regulus. “Are you sure?” He asked. Begging Regulus to deny what he’d said. But he didn’t.

“Yeah, pretty sure. That was more than friendship how they were acting yesterday. And as for him not telling you, how am I supposed to know? He never tells me anything.” Regulus’s tone was sharp by the end. They all knew about the issues between the Black brothers. James found himself feeling sorry for the Slytherin. He reached over and squeezed his hand. 

“He wants to tell you stuff, you know. But it’s complicated.” James sighed, he didn’t know how else to put it. Sirius was scared anything he told his brother would get back to his parents or worse. Regulus scoffed.

“Are we done here?” And without waiting for an answer, he ripped his hand from James and stalked out of the room, leaving James in his thoughts, thinking about how to ask his best friends if what Regulus had said was true.   

Aleks is confused

Title: Hard To Find

Author: accioromulus

Word Count: 12,820

Rating: Mature