Chapter Text
“For every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Remus Lupin resisted the urge to check his notes. It was second nature at this point. Knowledge received wasn’t always knowledge that stayed. And he was the kind of person who needed to be right the first time, memory be damned. “Newton’s laws of motions.”
A red-haired head peeked over the top of her opened book. Of their expensive physics textbook. Lily smiled. She gazed at Remus with a challenging twinkle in her green eyes. “Which one?”
Remus tried to remember the list of laws Professor Vector had written on the board for last week’s lecture. But all he could think about was the tap tap tap against the table and the annoying sound that persisted next to him. He finally had enough.
“James,” he said, turning to face his best friend. “Stop tapping your pencil on the table.”
James’s hand stopped, his pencil held loosely in his fingers. James hadn’t been taking the study session very seriously. The black-haired, twenty-year-old finished answering all of their practice questions on his own. Remus wasn’t surprised.
As an engineering student, James Potter excelled in math. Ever since middle school, really. While all that was fine for someone like James, Remus needed the time and effort to concentrate. Remus was the studious type, and all of his academic achievements were hard earned through practice and study. Not everyone could be a prodigy genius.
“Sorry,” James said sheepishly. “I’m bored.”
Lily gave him an unamused stare. “Then why don’t you leave? You don’t really need to be here.”
Lily Evans was an equally studious woman. A chemistry student who Remus met last year when they partnered up for the lab portion of their inorganic chemistry class. It sparked a friendship between them. It just so happened that Remus, Lily, and James were all taking the same physics class this year.
James had taken a special liking to Lily that was not reciprocated. In fact, Lily rather found him annoying. The only reason James had been allowed to come to their study sessions was because he knew the subject well. Otherwise, Lily would have avoided him at all costs.
“I’m here for moral support,” James answered, clapping a hand on Remus’s shoulder. “You’re doing great, Remus.”
Remus shook off his hand. “The second law of motion.”
James made a sound of pity. “That’s wrong.”
Lily ignored James and looked back at the textbook. “That’s incorrect,” she said, pretending like James hadn’t spoken.
“It’s the third law,” James said unhelpfully. Remus took a deep breath to stop himself from grabbing James by the shoulders and violently shaking him.
James’s attempts at impressing Lily weren’t going to work this way. It wasn’t going to show her how much of an intellectual James was. It only made him look like a smartass.
“Thanks, James,” Remus said instead.
Lily laid the book down and grabbed one of the folders she brought with assignments stuffed inside. It was a thick folder, and, when Lily opened it, a few papers slid across the table. Physics notes and math problems were written all over them. James eagerly plucked at the runaway papers to hand them back to Lily.
Remus leaned down to pick up a stray piece of paper that had fallen on the floor. Unlike the other pages, there was no math on it. Instead, the paper displayed a chart of moon cycles.
“What’s this?” Remus held out the page to Lily. Lily had been stuffing the papers back into her bulky folder and froze for just a moment before hastily taking the page from Remus.
“This?” Lily folded the page into a tiny square and then slipped it into the pocket of her backpack. “It’s just something Pandora was working on. It must have slipped into my stuff by accident.”
“What was I working on?”
Remus and James jerked back slightly at the unexpected voice. They had all been tucked into a hidden corner of the university’s library to study without being bothered.
Remus craned his head over his shoulder to find a woman with long, wavy platinum-blonde hair. Dozens of corded bracelets rested on both of her wrists. A necklace presenting a deep black gem at its center looped around her neck like a dog collar. She smiled with lips of honey but watched them with an unblinking stare.
“Pandora,” Lily said. “You were supposed to wait for me at the cafeteria.”
Pandora Lovegood was pharmacy student and one of Lily’s roommates. Remus didn’t know her personally, aside from the one microscopy class they both shared, but rumors of her oddities circulated around campus.
Pandora was said to have mystical powers. Working with occult forces. A self-proclaimed witch. Whenever some odd stroke of bad luck happened on campus, it was an on-going joke to blame it on Pandora’s witchcraft. She never said anything to dispel these rumors. She was quite comfortable with the other students’ unease with her. Or maybe not caring for them at all.
“But Lily,” Pandora said. “I have to show you my new astrology charts. I’ve been practicing.” From the satchel on her hip, Pandora pulled out a few laminated papers. She quickly sat herself on the other side of the table, right next to Lily.
“Couldn’t this wait?” Lily asked, though she pushed aside their papers and books to make room for Pandora’s charts.
“Absolutely not!” Pandora pulled out a little blue pointed pendant from her pocket, holding it up from its silver chain. “The stars are in position. It can’t wait.”
Lily gave a small laugh and indulged Pandora. The wispy-haired woman grabbed Lily’s hand and placed it in the center of her chart. With the pendant, she waved it around the chart until it kept swinging in one direction. Pandora pursed her lips in a slight pout. “You were born after the new moon.”
Lily somehow also looked a bit disappointed. Her eyes flickered over to them as if remembering that they were still here. “Why don’t you practice on the boys?”
Pandora’s eyes immediately flew to each of them. Remus didn’t much care for rumors and thought Pandora was simply eccentric. James, still trying to get in Lily’s good graces, opted to be polite to Pandora and offered to go first.
“When’s your birthday?” Pandora grabbed James’s hand.
“March 27th.”
James’s hand rested over the center of the chart, and Pandora’s pendant swung in the same direction as Lily’s had been.
“You were born exactly on the new moon.” Pandora quickly dismissed James, as if he were no longer someone interesting. James snatched his hand back, a bit peeved by Pandora’s detached tone.
Both Pandora and Lily turned expectant looks towards Remus. He rolled his eyes at them but held out his hand. It was only astrology. Fun little abstract things people enjoyed. It wasn’t anything real.
“Your birthday.” Pandora pierced Remus down with a meaningful stare.
“March 10th.”
The pendant swung around over his hand for a bit before it kept swinging in the opposite direction than Lily and James did. Pandora’s hand clamped over Remus’s, a wide grin spreading over her face as she leaned over the table to stare at him.
“You were born on the full moon. The full moon!” Pandora lifted his hand and fervently shook it. “Congratulations!”
Remus pulled away from her grip. Rubbing over the thin scars that lined the back of his hand and turned to look at Lily. Lily’s brows furrowed in thought before she placed a hand on Pandora’s shoulder and pushed her back into her seat.
Lily checked over her watch. “We have to go meet Mary in the cafeteria. Come on, Pandora, put your charts away.” They both began to pack up their stuff.
Remus and James decided to do the same. It seemed that was the end of their study session. Pandora had skipped on ahead, appearing giddy with excitement. Lily turned back to Remus. “Since our time was cut short, why don’t you come over to my place so we can finish our study session?”
Before Remus could respond, James jumped in and said, “Yes! We’ll definitely be there.”
Lily rolled her eyes before smiling softly at Remus. “Great, tonight at seven. I’ll text you the address.” With that, she walked out of the library, trailing after Pandora.
James finished shoving his papers back into his backpack. “That was…”
“Odd?” Remus pulled his own backpack on.
“I was going to say fantastic.” James grinned, feet shuffling from one side to the other like an excited kid, as they exited the library. “Lily invited me to her apartment!”
“She invited me ” Remus reminded him.
He waved his hand dismissively. “Details, details.”
They walked around campus until they found their dorm building. When they reached their door, a familiar head of blond hair greeted them.
“All done, Pete?” James asked, his grin still firmly in place.
“Yeah.” Peter Pettigrew returned James’s grin and lifted the plastic bag clutched in his hand. “I brought takeout.”
They went inside their dorm, revealing a room housing a single bed and a bunk bed on one side and a door to a private bathroom on the other. The floor had piles of clothes, and all the bedsheets were rumpled on the mattresses. Two desks were pressed against the back wall with a mess of papers and textbooks.
Remus sat on the bottom bunk, James sat on one of the desk chairs, and Peter sat on the floor. They all opened their containers and had dinner. It was the only time of the day when all three of them managed to see each other.
Peter studied business and attended classes that neither Remus nor James did. James managed to share a few math classes with Remus, who majored in forensic science. But between all of them, Peter had the most chaotic schedule this semester.
When dinner was finished, Peter threw his textbooks in his bookbag and prepared to leave for his afternoon class. “Don’t miss me too much,” he teased, his hand on the door handle.
“I’ll remember you fondly,” James teased back with an added wink.
Remus paid them no mind, throwing away their containers in the trash bin. “Good luck, Peter.”
Peter saluted before stepping out of the room.
James picked up his towel and ran into the bathroom. “I call first dibs on the shower!”
It was only after the sound of spraying water muffled through the door that Remus’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He’d made it a habit of leaving it on silent after that one embarrassing incident in class back in his freshman year.
He pulled it out, expecting the name of one Lily Evans calling to confirm their afternoon study session, when his heart skipped a beat at the actual name blasting on his screen:
Mom
His eyes wandered to the calendar stuck to the wall of the room. The date was staring back at him with the full force of a lighting strike. It was a day Remus had been trying to erase from his life. A day he, unfortunately, couldn’t help but wear on his skin.
Remus took a deep breath, preparing for the inescapability of this call, for there was no ignoring the likes of his mom. He pressed the answer button and placed the phone against his cheek. “Hi, mom,” Remus said, careful with his tone.
“Remus,” his mom began, as she did with each call that landed on this particular day. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“That’s good.” There was a pause, but Remus and his mom have done this for so long that this conversation became scripted. He knew what the next question was before she’d even uttered it: “Are you still having nightmares about it?”
But no matter how many times they went about this conversation, it never lessened the blow of memories. They rattled in his brain and wrapped around his mind like poison that wouldn’t leave his body. There was no amount of therapy that could create an antidote for what messed him up permanently.
“No,” he lied. The nightmares had lessened in appearance through the years, but they never went away. Sometimes, they’d be gone for months, and he would think he was safe, but then they came crashing back like a twisted little reminder from his brain.
They haunted him more than anything else his dreams could conjure up, because they weren’t creations from some irrational fears or an overactive imagination but from vivid memories. Something straight out of reality.
A man with dark brown hair and normally gentle hands had stared at him with bloodshot eyes. A silver-glinting knife was held in his hand. He muttered, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, over and over again. And the sharp edge of the knife had sliced across Remus’s face.
“I’m visiting your dad next month,” his mom said carefully. The word dad was uttered like a delicate piece of glass—fragile enough to shatter, sharp enough to cut. “You could…come with me this time…?”
Remus’s dad had been a law professor. He was an intelligent, studious man who had done well for himself and his family. Remus grew up comfortably, without complaint…until that fateful night when he was merely seven years old.
His dad had come to his room in the middle of the night, waking Remus up with a half-crazed mind and a knife to the face. Remus didn’t understand at that age; he didn’t understand what was happening at that moment. All he knew was that his dad was trying to kill him.
I’m sorry, son. Please believe me. I’m saving you!
His mom intervened, locking his dad in the basement. She hurried Remus to the car and drove him to the hospital, where she called the police. His dad was apprehended and later proclaimed clinically insane. They have had him institutionalized ever since.
His mom visited his dad from time to time. Remus never had the courage to go with her.
“I’m a bit busy, mom,” he answered, not entirely a lie per se, but it was as good of an excuse as any. “College is a big priority right now.”
“I understand,” she said, as she always did when they concluded their calls. “Maybe next time.”
“Yeah…maybe.”
She sighed, sounding just as tired and just as haunted. “Take care of yourself for me, Remus.”
“I will.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, mom.”
“Goodbye.” She hung up. His mom always hung up before he could say goodbye in return. Not giving him the chance to say his farewells, knowing she didn’t want to hear them. As if she were afraid that one day he’d mean it forever.
Remus sat back on his bed, pressing his phone to his forehead and breathed deeply. Trying to relax his heart and his mind before he spiraled into a panic attack. He hadn’t had one of those since high school.
The phone pinged once, and his screen lit up with a text from Lily. Remus opened it to find the message containing the address to her apartment, expecting his arrival at six o’clock. He checked the time to find they still had twenty minutes until then.
When he closed his phone, the dark screen reflected his face. His hand drifted up, fingers tracing the line of his facial scar. Starting from one side of his forehead, moving diagonally across his nose bridge, and down to his cheek. The phantom sensation of a sharp blade slicing through his skin shivered down his spine.
I’m so sorry, son, I can’t control him anymore. Please believe me, I don’t want to do this, but I can’t let him take you. I’m saving you!
The bathroom door swung open with a trailing fog of steam. James stepped out, rubbing his towel over his hair. He shuffled over to their shared closet and grabbed two button-up shirts, holding them against his chest. “Which one looks more flattering on me? The red or purple one?”
The tight squeeze of his heart quickly faded, and Remus felt like he could breathe again. He vanquished unpleasant thoughts of his dad and focused on his best friend. An almost exasperated fondness consumed him as he watched James overthink his outfit. “James,” he said, making sure the exasperation in his tone would overshadow the fondness. “It’s a study session, not a date.”
“Not at first, but who knows?” James tried wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, “Maybe something will change by the end of the night.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “The red one.”
James dressed with enthusiasm, then strolled to the small mirror hanging on the wall to comb through his hair. “If all goes well, Lily might actually go on a date with me.”
“Slow down. You’re skipping a few steps.”
“I just…” James used the corner of his shirt to wipe his glasses before putting them back on. “My parents met in college, and they had a very sweet love story. They still do, and watching them when I was growing up made me realize I want to find something like that too, you know?”
Remus raised an eyebrow. “With Lily? Lily Evans? The person who seems to have little patience for you? That Lily?”
James slumped over himself. “Remus, you’re supposed to be supporting me here.”
“I’m being realistic.” Remus grabbed his backpack, taking everything they would need to study.
“We just need to get to know each other better. I’ll charm her in no time!” James said, springing back up with his usual optimism.
Remus laughed as they walked out of their dorm, locking the door behind them. “Sure you will.”
James elbowed him. “Now say it like you mean it!”
They walked out of the building and out of campus. Lily didn’t live in the school dorms but rather rented one of the nearby school apartments. She shared the place with Pandora and a third roommate, Mary Macdonald.
When they arrived, Lily met them in the apartment lobby before bringing them up to her door. The apartment was far more spacious than Remus’s dorm room. It was equipped with a full kitchen, a living room, and a hallway that probably led to the bedrooms.
James whistled appreciatively. “Nice place you have here.”
Lily considered him briefly before turning to Remus. “I didn’t think James would actually be coming. Considering he doesn’t seem to need to study as much as we do.”
Remus understood her frustration. It was difficult studying with someone as distracting as James, who had a tendency to get bored quickly with things he already knew. “He tagged along.”
“We’re a two for one special,” James said, placing a hand on Remus’s shoulder to smile over at Lily. Unbothered by her implication that the invitation didn’t extend to him.
Lily sighed. “Whatever.” She steered them over to the living room, where textbooks and papers were already laid out on the coffee table. “Pandora and Mary are out today, so we have the space to study until they get back.”
The living room had one long couch and an armchair. A bookshelf was pressed against one of the walls. The place was decorated with potted plants and multi-colored candlesticks.
In place of a television, there was a table draped with a black cloth. On it was an assortment of objects: crystals and rocks, incense sticks, tiny candles, dried leaves and pinecones, a plate holding a decorative knife, and a hand-held bell.
“That’s Pandora’s,” Lily said when she noticed them looking at the table. Remus supposed that meant he was looking at an altar, if the witch rumors were true.
They sat down on the couch, and Lily took the armchair. Remus noticed a circular blanket resting over the arm of the couch. It had strange symbols and lines woven into it. “What’s this?” he asked, thumbing at the edge of the cloth, noticing the thick yarn texture.
Lily’s eyebrows pinched together thoughtfully before she flipped through the pages of their textbook. “That’s something Mary’s been working on. She’s a fashion major and usually works with fabrics, but she wanted to learn to crochet.”
They spent almost two hours going over their last quiz answers and coming up with a study guide for their midterm, even when James complained that that was weeks away. Their joints began to stiffen with inactivity, and at James’s hundredth insistence on a break, Lily finally relented.
“It’s pretty late, and we managed to get quite a bit done,” she said, standing up to stretch out her legs. “This calls for a celebratory drink. You guys like red wine, right?”
“Yes,” James answered eagerly, his earlier boredom disappearing.
“Alright then, I’ll be right back.” Lily walked over to the kitchen.
James leaned over Remus to give him a cheeky grin. “I told you things would change in my favor.”
“Remus, can you come help me open this?” They heard Lily call from the kitchen. Just as Remus was about to stand up, James placed a hand on his shoulder.
James winked at him. “I got this.” He stood up instead and moved to the kitchen.
Remus went back to look through the notes they had compiled. Equations and mathematical theories were written all over his notebook. If the force of an object is determined by its mass and—
“I can do it!”
“I asked Remus!”
Head beginning to pound with their unnecessary shouting, Remus stood up and made his way to Lily’s kitchen.
In the kitchen, James kept pulling at the neck of a wine bottle still clutched in Lily’s hands. They both pulled back and forth, trying to rip the bottle away from the other.
“I volunteered,” James gritted out, frustrated but attempting to remain polite. James’s efforts to impress Lily seemed to be thwarted by the woman herself.
“But I asked for Remus to do it.” Lily pursed her lips together, definitely holding herself back from saying something disrespectful.
Remus rubbed his temples. Did they really need to make a big deal out of opening a wine bottle? Striding over to the arguing pair, Remus snatched the bottle from both of their hands and walked back to the living room. Not wanting to get involved in whatever squabble they’d gotten into but needing to stop it from getting in the way of his study time.
“Wait!” Lily called out. Both Lily and James followed him into the living room.
Remus sat back on the couch and placed his finger over the loose cork. “You guys are acting like children. It’s just a bott—” The cork popped off, and glass shattered on the floor.
Red dripped out of Remus’s hand. He jerked back instinctively from the splash of cherry wine and scattered shards littering the wooden floor. Mary’s crocheted blanket tipped over the couch, covering the mess of broken glass.
“You ok?” James asked.
Remus didn’t answer, glaring down at his blood-stained hand. A gash slashed across his palm. A red line dripping. Like the same red line slashed across Remus’s face. Taking a deep breath, he leaned down to pick up the blanket. Needing his hands to do something. Needing his hands to have a reason not to shake.
He grabbed hold of the soft yarn of the blanket, planning to lift it back up.
Lily yelled, “Remus, no!”
The lights suddenly dimmed. In that same moment, the lights grew in brightness, then embedded back down into darkness. The lights continued to flicker until a final white spark popped, and the bulbs from the living room burst in the intense heat.
In the dark, hands tugged at the back of his shirt. Pulling Remus back up.
Small flames lit up, one by one, on each of the candles Pandora had littered through the living room. An orange glow cast shadows around their faces. James’s eyes squinted behind his glasses, glancing uneasily at the candles. Lily’s eyebrows were pinched together. Though she didn’t look scared, she looked nervous.
Despite the flames of the candles, the room grew very cold. Some sort of draft blew through them, ruffling their hair and clothes. The flames didn’t even flicker. Mary’s blanket, cast in total darkness, jumped slightly. As if the piece of wool were pulsing with an unheard heartbeat.
Smoke wafted out of the blackness of the blanket, and Remus was worried a candle might have fallen over it. Instead of catching fire, the black circle bubbled.
It didn’t have the same properties as ordinary yarn. It bubbled like a boiling pot of water. The blanket gurgled like liquid. A dark, inky substance. That wasn’t normal. Something was eerily wrong.
Remus’s curiosity outweighed the horror. He leaned closer, peering down at the gooey blob that was so black, it appeared like a deep abyss. The bubbling abruptly stopped, and the dark circle of the blanket stilled. It wasn’t a blanket anymore. It was a black hole. Sinking into the wooden floor.
“What the—?”
A long, thick mass of black broke through the circle. A figure, equally black and inky, pulled itself out. The flames of the candles grew in size, the hot orange fire melting more of the wax. The figure emerged, a tall frame looming against the bookshelves. Casting them in its large shadow. The silhouette of sharp horns, leathery wings, and a long tail stuck out of the dark form.
The black circle bubbled again, and another equally large figure pulled itself out. It had the same shape and form as the first one, except the silhouette of its horns was shorter.
Remus froze in shock. His body stuck in place as his mind reeled to comprehend what was going on. He registered Lily loudly saying something to James, who was obviously freaking out.
The figures were cast in darkness. There was no trace of any facial features until the shape with the larger horns turned its head and the outline of a nose and mouth were full on display. Along with the shadows of sharp teeth as it opened its mouth and the haunting sounds—much like the echoes of a church organ—emitted from the creature. It vibrated through Remus’s body. It chilled him to his bones.
The other figure responded in the same haunting tones. Like a symphony of music, a soulful melody suffocating Remus. The air around them felt hot and heavy. He missed the earlier chill already.
Finally understanding the insane danger he was in, Remus took a single instinctive step back. Attempting to remove himself from whatever crazy situation this had turned into. It was a mistake on his part.
The first figure jerked its head towards him and, in one quick motion, clawed hands clutched at his face, fingers grazing his cheeks, and he was swiftly pulled forward until foreign lips slotted against his own.
Remus’s breath got caught in his throat as the hot press of a sharp-toothed mouth traced his lips. He froze at the slide of a wet tongue slipping into his own mouth and tasting his own tongue with a venomous push-and-pull of heat that passed between them.
It released him with an audible pop, and Remus stumbled back, catching his breath and feeling his heart drumming against his chest. Shaky fingers lifted to touch the tremble of his puffy lips. Still feeling the warmth of a soft, sharp mouth.
The inky blackness of the creature started to drip down onto the floor in piles. Its large frame began to shrink down. The strange black-oozing substance sizzled and smoked, evaporating in clouds of smog. The misty vapors quickly vanished, revealing a human-sized shape.
It was a man. A very handsome man at that. An almost ordinary person. Remus would have thought that if it weren’t for the horns, wings, and tail still protruding out of the man’s body. Confirming it was anything but human.
The strange man looked down at his hands before trailing them down his body as if examining himself. He licked his lips with a forked-tipped tongue, as if tasting the lingering traces of Remus’s mouth.
Remus could help but shudder at the thought.
The other creature opened its jaws to let out another stream of echoing sounds at the man.
The man took a deep breath and proceeded to laugh. A deep rumble of rich tones. A full belly laugh. It had a raspy quality to it that had Remus’s toes curling in his shoes.
The other creature suddenly turned its head towards Lily. It crawled over to her, completely ignoring Remus’s frozen form, and reached out with those same clawed hands. Remus’s throat felt dry when he tried to warn Lily. To yell at her to run.
Except Lily wasn’t backing away; she was stepping forward as if meeting the creature halfway. As its fingers grazed her cheeks, Lily was sharply shoved aside, and those clawed hands clamped down on James’s face and pulled him forward until their mouths pressed together like Remus’s had done.
The creature let go of James, who slipped down and scooted back, trying to get away from it. Just like with the first figure, the oozing blackness melted on the floor to steam in the air. When the smoke vanished, another man stood in its place.
This man was slightly shorter. His features were softer. A very pretty man. He licked his lips with that same forked-tipped tongue and cleared his throat.
“Greetings,” he said with a velvety texture to his voice that was deceivingly soothing. Lulling them into a false state of tranquility. The man pitched forward in an elegant bow.
Lily walked to him. To this alien creature masquerading under a human skin. She stood a few paces away and lifted an arm. The pretty man took her hand, raised it to his dark, full lips, and kissed the knuckles.
Still holding her hand, the man grinned at Lily with perfectly pearly white teeth that glinted something dangerous. Hiding their true sharpness. “A pleasure to formally meet you, Miss Evans,” he said cordially.
“Regulus,” Lily answered, a breathy tone in her voice. Something like awe. Like astonishment. Whispered reverently.
James grabbed Lily’s other arm and harshly pulled her away from the stranger. “What the fuck!” he yelled, trying to push Lily behind him even as his fists shook in fear. “What the fuck just happened?”
Remus pushed himself against the wall, crawling away from the monsters. Confusion and terror flooded his brain. His mind was trying to piece together reality and the insane events he had just witnessed.
The handsome man took a step towards them. An elbow leaning on the pretty man’s shoulder. “What a riot,” he said smoothly, in the low tones of a soft bass resonating across the room, drawing everyone’s attention. He aimed an amused smirk at James before his eyes trailed after Remus. “Are they the sacrifices, Lily?”
Lily pushed against James, waving her hands in denial. “No, they weren’t supposed to be here.” She rounded on the strangers with an apologetic pinch of her brows. “You aren’t supposed to be here either, Sirius.”
“What?” Remus stood up, keeping his back to the wall but glancing directly at Lily. “What do you mean they aren’t supposed to be here? Why are you talking to these — these things like you know them?”
Lily looked away. “I do know them,” she muttered quietly. And almost in an act of betrayal, Lily backed away from James and Remus to stand by the inhuman men. “We planned on summoning them, but it wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
“Summoning them? Summoning them?” James waved his arms over at the men. “Lily, I think you’re an amazing person, but I need you to explain what’s going on before I lose it.”
Lily bit her lip, gazing at the mess in the living room, before she took a deep breath. Deciding Remus was less likely to go off in a panic, Lily’s green eyes rested on him when she said:
“They’re demons.”