Word count: 1,912

Chapter 25

One Ending of Many

Remus wasn't surprised to find his friends on the grounds taking advantage of the sunny day. He was, however, surprised to discover Sirius with a quill in his hand as he scratched at a piece of parchment.

"What are you writing?" Remus asked as he sat down, crowding into Sirius' personal space in an attempt to read the parchment.

Sirius shifted to let Remus fit comfortably against his side and held out the parchment for him to inspect.

"A letter to Zonko's asking if they're willing to take on a recent Hogwarts graduate who's well acquainted with their products."

Remus raised an eyebrow, earning a smirk from Sirius.

"You wanted me to find a job," he said, "and I figured why not check Zonko's first? Even if it doesn't work out, at least I'll have asked. They know me by name, so that's something. My resume will stand out if nothing else. Imagine getting to tell McGonagall that our old pranks helped secure my future. She'll be thrilled to have me close by still."

"You would wait until a few days before we leave to actually write about a job," Remus said with a roll of his eyes.

Sirius waved his quill in the air.

"I've been focused on my N.E.W.T.s. Do you know how much time those take? It's unrealistic to expect us to do well on exams and job hunt at the same time. It would take a superhuman to pull that off. Hell, I doubt Dumbledore could do it. The fact that society—"

"We get it, Sirius," James cut him off with a roll of his eyes.

He was busy reading the book that Lily had passed along to them several days earlier when they'd taken their last exam. Remus knew more about it than he should have due to the way James kept dropping facts about it into conversation to make sure Lily knew he was actually reading it.

"What about you then, Prongs?" Peter asked from where he was leaning against a tree trunk beside James. "Have you searched for anything yet or are you still going to mooch off your parents?"

Far from looking offended, James grinned as he bookmarked his place and laid the book to the side.

"My parents are horrified that I want to fight but said in their latest letter, and I quote, 'It would be counterproductive to let you starve when what we want is for you to be safe.' I'm all set."

"You living with them too?" Peter asked.

James hook his head.

"Nah. Did we not tell you? Padfoot, Moony, and I have decided to get a place. You must have been off with Sandra when we talked about it. I can never remember what you're around for anymore. We'll start looking once we make it back home."

Peter rolled his eyes but didn't say a thing about James' pointed comment.

"I found a place too," he said. "Or, my mum did at least. It's by my cousin's shop, and she says it's nice. She's helping me move in as soon as we get off the Hogwarts Express. It's so weird to leave Hogwarts and not even be going back to my house."

The others murmured their agreement.

Each step towards Dumbledore's office took more of Remus' energy than he wanted to give, but he put one foot in front of the other despite that. McGonagall had asked to speak to him at the end of that morning's breakfast, and Remus had been sure that she intended to apologize one last time for not being able to find him a job.

The last time they'd spoken about careers, she'd looked upset, so he had dreaded another discussion. But she hadn't talked about careers with him at all. She had given him a small smile and instructed him to head to Dumbledore's office.

Remus wasn't stupid. He had an idea of what he was walking into. Dumbledore had encouraged him to attend Hogwarts, to achieve the education that Dumbledore felt he deserved, and he had known, somewhere inside of him, that Dumbledore would try to step in when he was unable to find a job.

The talk of Dumbledore building a force against Voldemort weighed heavily on his mind with each step.

He muttered the password twice when the first time was too strangled for the gargoyle to make sense of the word.

After months of listening to James and Sirius chatter on about wanting to join Dumbledore, it felt wrong for Remus to make the journey to Dumbledore's office without them, but it was only him who had been requested. James and Sirius would be sitting in the common room wondering what McGonagall had wanted from him.

He only hesitated for a second before he knocked. The answering, "Come in," was immediate, and he found Dumbledore behind his desk when he entered, looking as regal as always.

"Remus, nice to see you again."

Remus tried to answer the man's smile with one of his own, but it was hesitant.

"You too, sir."

He took the empty chair Dumbledore motioned towards, clenching his hands together in his lap to keep himself from fidgeting.

"I'll try not to keep you too long. Your friends are undoubtedly still celebrating the completion of your N.E.W.T.s. I want to offer you my congratulations as well. I may not know your results, but I am confident that they will be as excellent as always."

Remus felt heat rise to his cheeks. Even after knowing Dumbledore for seven years, being complimented by him was hard to take.

"Thank you, sir. I hope so."

Dumbledore was quiet for a few moments as he handled a weird instrument on his desk that Remus couldn't identify. Remus chewed on his bottom lip, debating telling Dumbledore what he'd been thinking about recently. What he'd been thinking about for the past seven years, really. He wanted to thank the man for allowing him to come to Hogwarts, for going the extra mile of accommodating him, for giving him the opportunity to make friends, if nothing else.

The words didn't come. The idea of actually saying something made tears threaten to roll down his cheeks, so he kept his mouth shut until Dumbledore finished whatever he was doing and looked at him again with a smile.

"By now, I imagine it would be foolish to assume that you haven't heard talk of the Order of the Phoenix."

Remus shifted in his chair. His eyes on the unidentifiable instrument.

"Only rumours," Remus admitted. "There's no real way of knowing what's true or not."

"You can likely work out most of the truth," Dumbledore said. "Not all of it, but most of it. The basic idea behind it is quite simple: We fight against Voldemort," he ignored Remus' cringe at the name, "in whatever ways we can. We do what the Ministry is often unwilling to do in its desire to appear politically neutral. It's an organization composed of people whom I trust above all others."

"James and Sirius want to join," Remus said. "They've been talking about it all year. The only thing they want to do is fight."

"I had expected as much," Dumbledore said, an amused smile on his lips. "The pair of them are always willing to stand up for what they deem is right, even if it's not always the safest option. It's both a desirable trait in the world as it currently is and one to be cautioned."

"Will you let them join? Even if they've just graduated?"

Dumbledore's smile dipped into a frown.

"There are many circumstances I wish I could change. One of them is the way the war affects everyone it touches. If there were a way for you and your friends to have the proper life of young adults that you deserve, I'd want you to have it, but I'm afraid there isn't while Tom Riddle is creating terror in the world. For that reason and because I know Mr Potter and Mr Black would fight regardless of whether I allowed them to, I will not prevent them from joining should they choose to do so."

He templed his fingers, looking at Remus over them.

"And you, Remus? How do you feel about joining the Order?"

He frowned, staring intently at the edge of Dumbledore's desk.

"I'll fight," he said, voice wavering. "I don't think I'll ever be as enthusiastic about it as James and Sirius, but like you said, it's not like I have much choice. There's nothing else for me to do, and I'd appreciate living in a world where a sizeable chunk of the population isn't trying to kill me."

Dumbledore was silent until Remus looked at him. There was no happiness in his eyes over his offer being accepted. He stood, holding out a slip of parchment to Remus from across the desk.

"This is the location of our meetings. The next will be on July 1st should you choose to attend. Your friends must read the parchment as well, but I ask that you destroy it immediately after. In the wrong hands, that paper could be the Order's downfall."

Remus slipped the piece of parchment into his pocket, where it felt like a lead weight weighing him down.

"Yes, sir."

"Show only the people you trust. If they have kept your secret without threat of punishment, then I trust them with this."

With one final nod, Remus hurried from the office, sure that the parchment was creating a bulge in his robes that anyone could see.

The parchment burnt a hole in Remus' pocket until that night when he knew he didn't have much time before they left the castle in the morning. He knew he had to get it over with. Each second the parchment existed, it was a safety risk, and Remus wanted to get rid of that fear, even if it meant creating new ones in its place.

He watched from the end of his bed as the other Marauders and Lily crowded over the parchment and read the address Dumbledore had printed upon it in a careful script. Sirius smirked as he sat down beside Remus. As Peter took a seat across from them on his own bed, Lily set the parchment aflame, and all five of them watched it disintegrate in the air.

"Frankly," Sirius began, "I'm appalled that Dumbledore only felt the need to personally invite you, Moony. I have half a mind to turn him down until he comes to me himself."

"Yeah, right, Padfoot," Remus replied. "I'm sure your feelings are Dumbledore's utmost priority at the moment."

Sirius shrugged, brightening as he tugged close with an arm around his waist. Remus' heart quickened, though the gesture wasn't enough to rid him of the anxiety that had settled in his stomach.

"This is it," Sirius said. His smile was wide, even as the others looked back with far more serious expressions. "Tomorrow, we're free of this place. We'll be full-fledged members of the Order in no time at all. We'll actually get to do good in the world."

James offered Sirius a grin. Remus watched him closely, wondering at how subdued he appeared when he'd been as gungho as Sirius about being able to fight.

"Right, not much time at all," James said.

Lily took his hand and gave it a squeeze in silence.

A/N: And...that's the end! Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it.

There is going to be a sequel, but to be honest, it's probably going to take a long time to get around to it. I've just started working on a Remus/Tonks story that I'm aiming to make fit with this one (meaning it will have a lot of Remus/Sirius as well), so that will likely come first. The true sequel, which will pick up right where this left off, will likely come later. So, keep an eye out for that!