Back at the Room of Requirement…
Sirius slowly turned in place, taking in the room. Tall shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, packed tightly with rectangular objects that looked—somehow—like tapes. At the far end of the chamber stood a massive television, larger than anything they had ever seen, even during their stolen trips into the Muggle world.
"What were you expecting when you thought of memories?" Remus asked cautiously.
"I don't know," Sirius admitted. "The only thing I know that stores memories physically is a Pensieve—and I hate those." He grimaced. "I suppose I was thinking of Muggle televisions."
"So what," James said, still staring around in awe, "we just… find the tape we want, stick it in, and watch?"
Sirius nodded absently, but a faint prickle crept up the back of his neck—a sensation so subtle he almost ignored it. The feeling of being watched. He shook it off, convincing himself it was imagination. His focus was still fixed on finding his mother.
"Mate, you have to see this," James called.
He stood before a shelf nearly twice his height—no small feat, considering James's own. A plaque at the top read: DUELLING CHAMPIONSHIPS, just like the labels in the Hogwarts library.
"Remember those photographs we found?" James said, excitement sharpening his voice. "They were from a duelling championship. If this is organised like a library, then—"
"—we just find the year," Remus finished quietly.
"They were from 1946," Remus added, his gaze darting around the room.
The tapes were encased in glass, each box etched with a year. The lowest row began with 1940, the entire shelf devoted solely to that decade's championships—memories preserved, catalogued, untouched.
But Remus wasn't looking at the tapes anymore.
His muscles were taut, every nerve screaming. The sensation was no longer faint—it was certain. Something was watching them. Not curious. Not passive. Watching with intent.
His instincts howled at him to grab his friends and run, to flee the room and never look back. The urge was primal, overwhelming, the kind that came from deep within—the part of him that had learned long ago how to survive.
But he stayed.
For Sirius. For James.
He swallowed, forcing the panic down, even as every instinct warned him otherwise.
After all, they always said one should trust their instincts.
And Remus Lupin's had never been wrong before.
********
"But how do we get it down?" James asked. "Do we just Accio it, or do we—"
Before he could finish, a ladder slid smoothly into existence, stopping precisely at 1947.
"Or," Sirius said with a grin, already grabbing the rungs, "we could just climb."
He shot up the ladder with reckless ease.
James turned instinctively toward Remus. "You alright, mate?" he asked quietly, leaning closer. "Your eyes are kind of… glowing."
Above them, Sirius began tossing down tapes, which James caught deftly with his wand.
"No," Remus said, voice low and tight. "I'm not."
James froze.
"There's something watching us," Remus continued. "Not human. It has been since the moment we walked in."
His instincts screamed—louder than they ever had. This wasn't paranoia. This was survival.
"We need to leave," Remus urged. "Now."
James didn't answer.
Remus followed his gaze—and his stomach dropped.
James had gone deathly pale, every trace of color drained from his face. He was staring past Remus, eyes wide and unfocused.
Then the smell hit.
It slammed into Remus like a curse—thick, cloying, and nauseating. Rotting meat left too long in the sun. Sweet decay layered with something faintly floral, disturbingly wrong, like perfume sprayed over a corpse.
From above, Sirius shouted, panic sharp in his voice."James—Remus—fucking run!"
A shield exploded into place just as Remus turned.
They stood there.
At least ten of them.
Zombies—the undead, as the wizarding world called them—but these were nothing like the shambling corpses from books. They wore shredded wizarding robes, fabric hanging from them in tatters. Some had no eyes at all—empty sockets glistening wetly—while others stared with milky, half-rotted orbs that didn't blink.
Flesh sloughed off their bodies in strips. Bone showed through in places it never should have. One's jaw hung by sinew alone, teeth clacking softly as it moved. Another dragged a leg that was clearly broken—yet it moved with terrifying speed regardless.
And still—their hands worked. Their legs worked.
"What in Merlin's name are these?" James shouted. "And why the hell are they tearing through the shields like they're nothing?"
He hurled fireballs, the flames engulfing two of them completely.
They didn't scream.
They didn't slow.
Burning flesh blackened and cracked, but they kept coming—running, running—far faster than anything dead should be able to move.
Remus dodged as one lunged. He fell, rolled—
—and sprang back to his feet with fluid, animal grace.
Sirius stared down at him from the ladder. "Since when could you do that?"
Remus didn't even look at him. "Trust me," he snapped, wand raised. "I didn't know either."
They backed toward the far corner of the room. Nowhere left to go. The zombies advanced relentlessly, boots thudding against stone, jaws snapping, the stench growing unbearable.
They hadn't managed to bring down even one.
That was when James realized—truly realized—how badly he had overestimated himself. How easily he'd believed the praise. How foolishly he'd thought he could face anything… even the Dark Lord.
A corpse lunged for him, fingers clawing toward his throat—toward his heart—
And then—
"Avada Kedavra."
Green light tore through the room.
The zombie collapsed instantly, lifeless in a way it hadn't been before.
James turned.
Sirius stood there, wand steady, eyes glowing molten silver. He looked disturbingly calm. Centered. As if casting a seventh-year Unforgivable Curse had cost him nothing at all.
It was the first corpse that truly fell.
And for reasons James couldn't explain—
Remus smiled.
James swallowed hard.
I am absolutely surrounded by psychopaths, he thought.
Remus looked like he had completely surrendered to his animal instincts.
He had abandoned his wand somewhere in the chaos—whether deliberately or not, James couldn't tell. He was fighting with his bare hands now, tearing into the undead with a brutality that bordered on inhuman. Fingers crushed bone. Nails split decayed flesh. Every movement was fast—too fast—and every strike landed with devastating precision.
It was as if he were infusing magic directly into his body, consciously or not. His strength was unnatural, his speed blinding. Blood soaked him—his hands, his sleeves, his face—splattering the stone floor with every violent impact.
James stood frozen, horror and awe tangling in his chest.
Then one of the zombies slammed Remus across the room.
His body hit the massive television with a sickening crack, glass spiderwebbing behind him.
That was when James snapped out of it.
He raised his wand, breath sharp and focused. His lips moved barely above a whisper as memory dragged itself up from somewhere buried deep—training he had loved, lessons his uncle Charles had insisted on, even when Fleamont had dismissed them as unnecessary.
You won't need this, his father had said.
But desperate times stripped a mind bare, and what remained was instinct.
James cast.
First—a spoken shield. Strong. Visible. Obvious.
The zombies swarmed it immediately, clawing and slamming into the barrier, their attention fully caught.
Then—silently—a curse slipped past the chaos.
Invisible. Precise.
Two heads exploded mid-motion, skulls rupturing outward as if crushed from within. The bodies collapsed instantly, boneless heaps hitting the floor.
Unfortunately, the remains landed squarely on Sirius.
He ducked, flicking his wand and sending a curse that made another zombie convulse violently, thick black foam spilling from its mouth.
Sirius scowled. "Could you not be so bloody messy, James?"
James didn't even look at him. "You should see Remus."
Sirius glanced over—
—and watched Remus grab a zombie by the head and slam it into the wall hard enough to shatter its skull, bone and gore splattering outward.
Sirius paused.
"…Right," he muttered, turning back to fire another curse. "I withdraw my complaint."
******
They had killed all ten of the zombies.
That, more than anything else, was why they finally collapsed onto the floor—backs against cold stone, chests heaving, limbs trembling with exhaustion. Somehow, instinctively, they all knew there wouldn't be another wave. The pressure that had coiled around the room from the moment they entered had loosened, like a predator stepping back after a satisfactory test.
Sirius was the first to move.
He pulled out a cigarette with bloodied fingers, lit it with his wand, and took a long drag as if this were an entirely normal end to an entirely normal evening. All three of them were smeared with gore—rotting flesh clinging to sleeves, dried blood cracking on skin, the stench hanging thick in the air.
"That wasn't the thing you were talking about, right?" James asked quietly.
Remus didn't look at him. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, unfocused but sharp, like he was listening to something no one else could hear.
"No," he said at last. "Not the zombies. They were dangerous—yes. We could've died—yes. Broken bones, torn muscles—yes." He swallowed. "But I can still feel it. Whatever this place is… it's still watching us. Testing. Measuring how far we'd go."
As if to prove his point, Sirius waved his wand lazily. "Accio—1947 tapes."
The reels tore themselves free from the shelves and landed neatly in a bag that appeared from thin air the moment Sirius wondered where to put them.
"The real question," James said slowly, pushing his broken glasses higher on his nose out of habit, "is why."
Sirius took another drag, then exhaled sharply toward the far corner of the room—the darkest patch of shadow along the wall.
"Fuck you," he said calmly.
James stared at him. "Right. He's lost it. Come on—let's go."
James hauled Remus to his feet, then grabbed Sirius by the collar when he looked like he might actually walk into the shadows. As far as James could tell, it was just a wall—though that might've been the cracked lenses talking. So much for the Unbreakable Charm.
They were almost at the door.
Almost—
—when the shadow shifted.
Two narrow slits of red light opened within it, glowing softly, watching them with unmistakable amusement.
No attack came. No sound. No movement.
Just the certainty that whatever lived in this room had seen enough.
For now.