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Too Much Trouble COMPLETE	By : LouisaB Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Remus/Sirius Views: 3350 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
“Sirius! What’s the crisis?” Remus asked as he rushed through the door of their flat, expecting to find his partner in a situation of truly horrendous proportions.
“I forgot to get candles,” Sirius explained as he gestured to the table he had prepared for their evening meal.
“What?”
“Candles,” Sirius repeated. “I forgot to pick them up in Diagon Alley.”
“And you sent me a patronus for that?” Remus shook his head. “And since you did think it warranted a patronus, why didn’t you tell me what the problem was? That way I could have picked some up instead of hurrying back here only to have to go out again.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to put lots of detail into the patronus messages. You know, in case the message is heard by the wrong person.”
“I don’t think the Death Eaters would really give a toss about forgotten candles,” Remus pointed out with a smile.
Sirius flushed and sat down on the sofa with a sigh. “You don’t have to go out for candles,” he said, reaching up to pull Remus down beside him. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit of a pain, aren’t I?”
“No,” Remus assured him. “You just don’t think things through all the time. You send long waffling messages telling me what you’re going to do to me in bed, but when it comes to other messages, where a bit more detail might actually be useful, you forget to elaborate.”
“I’ll try to do better in future.”
Remus chuckled. He wasn’t going to hold his breath on that one.
* * * *
Remus stared at Sirius as the dark haired young man put his borrowed wand away.
“What?” Sirius asked before turning back to the book he had been studying. “I told you I’d been trying to contact Prongs and Wormtail.”
Remus rubbed his nose and cocked his head to one side. “Have all the messages you’ve sent been like that one?” he asked, referring to the patronus charm that Sirius had cast a few minutes before.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Haven’t you told them what’s happened to us?” Remus asked.
“I thought that it might be best to keep the messages short,” Sirius explained. “In case our evil doubles are there. I told them we needed help. I just wish I knew why they haven’t replied.”
Remus shook his head and gazed up at the ceiling.
“What’s that look for?” Sirius asked.
“You do realise that without telling them we’ve been replaced by doubles, they’ll probably just apparate to the flat, see we’re okay and think that it’s you winding them up?”
“Er…”
Remus pulled out his wand and cast his own patronus, sending a brief, but also informative message to James, Peter and Lily. A few minutes later and a large stag patronus appeared in the room.
“Cool!” muggle-Sirius commented as he looked up from the book he had been buried in.
“You’re stuck in another world? But I saw you both this morning at the meeting.”
Remus pulled out his wand as the stag disappeared and sent another message. At least now they seemed to be getting somewhere.
“You mean that we’ve got two evil doubles here instead of you guys?”
“Yes! Now we need you to help us get home.”
Sirius turned to Remus and put a hand on his arm. “We need to find a way to rescue the Sirius we left behind in Hogwart’s Prison as well,” he reminded him.
Remus nodded. He hadn’t forgotten that. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I think I have a solution.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
Sirius grinned. “Did I tell you that I think you’re brilliant?”
“You haven’t heard the plan yet.”
Sirius shrugged and waved away his words. “I’m sure it will be.”
* * * *
“So, what do you think?” he asked the rest of the temporary residents of the Lupin mansion.
Several of the Sirius’s were looking quite pleased, but a few of them were looking doubtful.
The two who were looking the most apprehensive were the muggle and the squib. Remus knew that it was going to be tough for them to get their own lives back when they had been replaced by wizards.
“My family won’t want me back,” squib-Sirius muttered. “They’ll be better off with my wizard counterpart.”
Remus frowned and looked at his own Sirius who grimaced slightly.
“You really think that?” he asked quietly.
“I’m a squib in a family of dark wizards, what do you think their reaction would be to getting what they always wanted? Even if I wanted my life back, I couldn’t take on even one wizard, let alone my whole bloody family.”
Remus nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, I’ll see what we can do about that one.”
“And what about me?” muggle-Sirius asked. “I can’t win a fight against a wizard either.”
“Will your family want you back?” Remus queried.
“I don’t see why not. But there’s no one in my world to cast the spell to open the portal.”
“Which is why we need to find a way to rescue the Dumbledore from our world,” Remus explained. “Remus,” he said, turning to his double, “did you use the spot you went to the prison world in for any other portals?”
The other Remus, who had been sitting quietly throughout the discussion with Padfoot at his side, nodded his head. “I saw Sirius get taken, and cast the spell to open a portal in the same spot. I didn’t realise it was random until I found myself in a different world and the first Sirius I came across didn’t even know who I was.”
“How did you know how to open the portal in the first place?” Remus asked.
“Opening portals to view other worlds is part of the Hogwart’s curriculum on this world. We opened them for our NEWT level Charms. Professor Dumbledore teaches it to us himself as our Charms professor never got the knack for them. In fact, only a handful of us ever managed to successfully open a portal at all. That’s how I knew what I was seeing when Sirius was snatched. Unfortunately the spell I know is random and there are an infinite number of worlds out there.”
“So, the spell to trace a portal won’t work,” Remus concluded. “How did you get back to your own world?”
“He left the portal open,” Sirius explained.
“Didn’t plan on getting stuck there,” the other Remus muttered. “I just put a branch or something half through the portal and it seemed to work to keep it open.”
Remus nodded. “We can use the regular portal spell now that we have it, as long as someone stays in this world to open it for us.”
Several Sirius’s raised their hands to volunteer for the task. It seemed like a prison break wasn’t really high on their list of preferred jobs.
“We could try to send a patronus to our own Dumbledore,” Sirius suggested. “If we can get into his office in this world, we can open the portal with him on the other side.”
“Is the Dumbledore of this world Headmaster?” Remus asked. “Would he let us use his office?”
Remus shrugged. “He’s Headmaster, but I don’t know if he would let us in the office.”
“It can’t hurt to ask.”
Remus pulled out his wand and cast the patronus to get a message to Dumbledore. As it disappeared from the room he only hoped that it went to the right one. He had not had a problem contacting Sirius or James, but he suspected that this was because his bond with them was so strong.
They waited for a while but no Phoenix appeared in response to their message.
“He probably doesn’t have a wand with him,” Sirius said quietly.
“I think we need to see Dumbledore of this world,” Remus suggested. “If he teaches the portal spell in class then he’s the only wizard we know who can contact other worlds at will. If anyone can get a message to our Dumbledore, it’s him.”
“If he helps,” Remus’s double muttered.
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because while the Dumbledore of your world seems approachable, the one on this world isn’t. He has no patience for idiots who mess with things they don’t understand.”
“It’s not our fault this happened,” Sirius pointed out. “I didn’t ask to be kidnapped by an evil double.”
Remus agreed. He wondered if it might be worth trying to find someone else to help them out of this mess, but time was of the essence and they needed to get everyone home before their doubles unleashed havoc on their world.
* * * *
The Dumbledore in the world they were now in was much as they recalled their own to be. Despite Remus’s reports of his being impatient and unapproachable, he wasn’t as dissimilar as all that.
He took their story in his stride, barely batting an eyelid at the group as they piled into his office. In the end there had been eight of them going on the mission. Remus and Sirius themselves, Remus’s double, Padfoot, and four wizard Sirius’s, one from each of the houses.
Sirius had been surprised when the last remaining Slytherin had volunteered, but had been verbally torn off a strip when he had voiced his opinion. He grudgingly admitted that just because he was in Slytherin, it didn’t make him selfish and evil.
Both Remuses had wanted to leave Padfoot behind, but the stubborn set of his doggy jaw made it clear that he was not going to stay there whilst they risked their necks. He had been sticking to Remus’s double like glue ever since the fox had raced into the woods after him, and he had no intention of letting him out of his sight now.
Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully and they all watched as he cast a spell that was vaguely familiar to Sirius and Remus, as it was the one that they had seen their own Dumbledore use, the one to contact the first world that they had been in touch with.
A reply arrived on a piece of parchment a few minutes later.
“No, not him,” Dumbledore said. “Headmistress McGonagall know nothing about a prison.”
“Does he need a wand to reply?” one of the Siriuses asked.
Dumbledore shook his head. “He’ll need one to open the portal, but the parchment I am sending will return regardless. The occupant of the office merely has to write on it.”
“But how are we going to get a wand to him?”
“When we have found the right one, it should be simple enough to get him what he needs.”
“You do realise it could take months to find the right world?” the other Remus asked. “I was searching for Sirius for ages before I found him.”
Dumbledore gave him a look that could only be described as smug. “Had you come to me for help immediately he was taken, I would have been happy to assist. You’re too stubborn for your own good sometimes.”
Remus’s double scowled and folded his arms across his chest. “Since I saw Sirius kidnapped by your double I didn’t want to risk coming here to find another imposter. The last thing I needed was to be kidnapped too.” He shot a look at Remus who cringed as he made his point.
Dumbledore chuckled. “Anyway, it won’t take months. All I have to do is send a message to each of the worlds you have been to. Since you are all being sent to this prison world via this office, in various dimensions, it’s quite a simple process. A matter of concentration if you will.”
“I’ll bet it’s not as easy as all that,” Sirius whispered in Remus’s ear. “If it was, we’d have been home ages ago.”
Dumbledore smiled at Sirius, making it clear he had heard him regardless of how low his voice had been. “So, which one of you is a student under Headmistress McGonagall.”
Hufflepuff-Sirius raised his hand. “Does that mean you can contact all of our worlds?”
Dumbledore nodded. A second parchment appeared. He looked at the contents and scowled. “It seems that one of my evil counterparts doesn’t like my interfering.” He smiled slowly and cast the spell again.
The fifth reply was the one they were waiting for from the prison cell.
“It seems that we have found him,” Dumbledore commented. He pulled what appeared to be a spare wand from the desk drawer and cast a spell on it that caused it to vanish from the table. Then he stood and cast the portal spell. His double appeared in the office/prison cell a moment later.
“You’ve got to tell us how to do all these spells!” Sirius exclaimed.
Dumbledore frowned at him. “I think perhaps you have got into more than enough trouble with dimensional portals, don’t you?”
Sirius nodded reluctantly.
“The only one you need to know is the one to get you all home again.”
“We’re wasting time,” Remus pointed out. “We need to get the other Sirius out of the dungeon and back home.”
“I agree,” Dumbledore stated. “I’ll keep the portal open here. Just make sure that you don’t take too long.”
Remus stepped through the portal, Sirius close at his heels. Padfoot followed after them and Remus’s double behind him. The other four were about to step through as well when Dumbledore shook his head and raised a hand to halt them.
“Isn’t there safety in numbers?” Sirius asked.
“There is also safety in having a backup plan,” Dumbledore replied. “And I think they might be it.” He wrote his message in the air for the others to see and they nodded in agreement. “We also need to get the remaining Sirius Blacks from our Mr Lupin’s residence if we’re going to get them all home again. Since they have all been placed in the prison via this office, it will be easier to send them home from here too.”
They were of two minds as to whether to leave the portal open or not, but they knew they might have to leave in a hurry, and at least this way they would not have to waste time casting the spell.
With Dumbledore to assist them, and they all admitted that he was doing most of the work, they broke out of his office and made their way down into the main school.
“I hope he’s still in the dungeons,” Sirius said as they went down the flight of stairs that led to the entrance to the Great Hall.
“I see no reason why he wouldn’t be,” Dumbledore replied. For a man who was in the middle of a prison break he seemed remarkably calm.
They reached the Slytherin common room with no difficulty at all. The place was very much deserted, much as it had been in Remus’s dreams.
“Where are all the guards?” he asked quietly.
“No guards, only spells,” Dumbledore replied. “From what I have managed to discover since being here, that was more than sufficient to imprison my counterpart.”
“He’s not as good a wizard as you then?” Sirius asked with a grin.
“Oh, he is far greater than I am,” Dumbledore told him. “After all, he did manage to defeat me and escape, didn’t he?”
The door to the Slytherin common room was closed, but a quick non-verbal spell from Dumbledore opened it to reveal one solitary occupant.
They approached the prone form of the Sirius who had been left behind with caution.
Remus couldn’t help but think back to his dream, where Sirius had screamed in horror at the very sight of him.
“It was only a dream,” Sirius whispered into his ear.
“A dream about a place I have never been to or ever heard of, but that we’re standing in now,” Remus reminded him.
“Even if he does scream, you just have to remember that it isn’t me. I could never fear you.”
Remus nodded and they stepped forward.
The Sirius on the floor appeared to be sleeping, and as they neared him they heard the sound of soft snores.
“It seems his accommodation is even more sparse than my own,” Dumbledore commented as they reached the Ravenclaw.
The prisoner stirred as they surrounded him and he did let out a scream when he opened his eyes. However, it was more because he was startled than in genuine fear of them.
“You took your bloody time about coming back for me,” he muttered as he glared at Sirius.
“How about you save the complaints for later and we all get out of here?” Sirius suggested as he pulled his double to his feet.
“I won’t say no to that,” his double replied and they disappeared back into the main school.
“Does this seem like it was a bit too easy to you?” Remus asked as they arrived at the top of the spiral staircase that went to Dumbledore’s office.
Sirius had not had the chance to reply when they all heard the sound of voices coming from behind the door. “Moony, you should never say stuff like that,” he scolded.
“Sorry.”
It seemed that whoever it was on the other side of the door was far too engrossed in arguing to notice that they had arrived.
“How should I know where he is?”
“And how did he get a wand to open this portal?”
“I don’t bloody know!”
Remus crouched down to look through the keyhole. Inside the room, the portal was still open, but there was no sign of those in the other dimension.
In the room were two more Sirius Blacks, one who was clearly a prisoner of the other. There was also another Dumbledore and another Remus. They were all arguing loudly with each other, save for their prisoner.
“How many?” Sirius whispered beside him.
“Three plus another captured Sirius,” Remus murmured back. “I wonder what they want with you all, and why it’s mainly you that they take prisoner.”
“It’s because I’m so brilliant,” Sirius teased.
“So brilliant you get taken prisoner in every world you live in,” Remus said with a smirk.
Sirius grinned back at him. “You captured me first,” he whispered. “Heart and soul.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Remus’s double muttered from behind them.
Remus looked back through the keyhole and to his horror he saw the doubles from the dimension they had come from appear in their office, with the rest of the kidnapped Sirius Blacks.
The Dumbledore they had left behind turned to look at the occupants of the prison cell and smiled. “I see you have another one. And here are some of the ones you were foolish enough to let escape. I think you’ll find your missing Dumbledore is down in the dungeons with a couple of Remus Lupins and Sirius Blacks. Try not to let them all escape this time and for the love of sanity put Dumbledore into a cell somewhere other than this office.”
“I knew it!” Remus’s double hissed. “My Professor Dumbledore is evil too.”
“I wonder where all the good Dumbledores are,” Ravenclaw Sirius said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, all the Sirius Blacks were put down in the dungeons, but where are the other Dumbledores who’ve been kidnapped?”
Dumbledore sighed beside them. “I’m afraid there are no other Dumbledores who have been kidnapped apart from myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“In all other worlds I have contacted, save for the future world Remus and Sirius here have already visited, my duplicates have been evil to the core.”
“No!” Remus exclaimed. “It can’t be true. You’re the best wizard I’ve ever known.”
“But I’m afraid it is true. Only myself and one other appear to have found the courage and the strength to face Grindelwald and defeat him.”
“Surely that can’t be right. You’re the greatest wizard who ever lived.”
Dumbledore patted Remus’s shoulder. “Great doesn’t always equate to good. You have no idea how close I once came to becoming just like these other Dumbledores.”
“What are we going to do?” Sirius asked. “If what you’re saying is true, we’re up against who knows how many evil doubles.”
Dumbledore smiled. “We are indeed. But they have made one very important mistake.”
“What’s that?”
Dumbledore pulled the wand his double had sent through to him from his robes. “They have given me this.”
- 10
- 11
- 12
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Too Much Trouble COMPLETE