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Oblivious by Pallas

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A/N: And now, back to the present….;)

Part Three: The Waiting Wolf

19: A Matter of Blame

Hogwarts, Early November 1996.

A deathly stillness permeated the length of the Hogwarts Hospital Wing.

The silence seemed to stretch for years.

Two motionless figures stared at each other; the younger man, his brown hair greying slightly, his throat red-raw, resting back against the headboard of his bed as he watched the older man sitting on the edge of his mattress as he struggled to compose himself enough to continue. It was not an easy task.

“Even then, we weren’t sure.” The words when they came echoed against the weight of what had passed before; Reynard Lupin’s grasp on the hand of his son had not lessened once throughout the telling of his tale. “Oh, we had more hope than we’d dared to dream of the night before, but we still had no way of knowing what would happen after your first full moon. You’d formed a barrier, yes, but how you’d handle another incursion from the wolf, especially since I’d taken the memory of your first one, we just had no idea. You’d be starting over. We did our very best to explain it to you “ but how do you explain to a three year old the concept of becoming a werewolf? We cherished that month “ for all we knew, it was going to be our last together. And when the full moon came…” His voice faltered slightly as he squeezed his son’s fingers almost as though to reassure himself that he really was there, alive, full grown and sane. “That night almost broke both of our hearts. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so bad in all my life as I did that night watching poor Diana carry you down those cellar steps and leaving you down there in the dark, confused, unwell and naked to face that change alone. And then sitting in the kitchen, listening to you scream as the moon rose…”

“Dad, don’t.” Remus stepped in before his father upset himself further, reaching out to grasp his father’s shoulder with his free hand. “You don’t have to…”

His father’s eyes rose to meet his son’s. “But I do have to. Remus, I’ve bottled this up for thirty-four years and more, barely even discussing it with your mother for fear of upsetting her again. Selfish as it sounds, I need this.”

Remus sighed. His mind was still reeling, struggling to absorb the string of revelations that had emerged from his father’s tale of the past. Abraham Kane was Abel Isaacs. His cousin of all things. And if it hadn’t been for his father’s unexpectedly speedy pursuit and quick thinking in the hospital he would either be dead by euthanasia or raving golden-eyed in The Howling and slaughtering his friends and family for the kicks.

The thought of how close he had come to either fate made him shudder.

He remembered the depth of shock and horror that his parents had never quite managed to conceal when the truth behind that feral night in 1981 had been revealed to them. It must have been as though their worst nightmares from his childhood had sprung back to life.

“That first night, listening to you down there, transformed, tearing at the walls, howling and shrieking “it was agony.” Reynard resumed his tale, his gaze absent and faraway in the past as he delved once more into his most painful memories. “Our child was in the greatest pain and we could not even say whether or not he would still be the son we loved when morning came. But when the moon went down and you fell silent, your mother dared to open the cellar and there you were. In pain, yes, scratched up from head to foot, confused, bewildered, sobbing and terribly upset, but all that could be soothed away with a little time “ what mattered to us was that you were still yourself. It was only then that we knew once and for all that we would be all right.”

He toyed absently with his cane with his free hand. “I’d be lying if I said it was easy after that “ every full moon was almost as dreadful as the first for us all. And it wasn’t just the adaptations we had to make to our lifestyle because of it “ for myself at least, it required a serious mental overhaul. In one night I’d gone from hating werewolves with a passion to having one for a son.” He smiled crookedly, but there was a hint of uncertainty, as though he feared how his son would react to knowledge of his former standpoint. “It took a little getting used to.”

Remus smiled too, reassuringly. “I can imagine.”

Rey’s smile grew a little more confident. “The likes of Kane and his ilk I’ll always despise,” he admitted with feeling. “And after all he did to us, I feel no wrong in doing so. There’s werewolves and there’s werewolves and the world would be a better place if more people understood the difference. But when it comes to what you go through and others like you, those who don’t ask for it, don’t want it, don’t let it take over their lives, I’d fight to the death for your rights.”

Remus grinned broadly; this he knew for certain to be true. “I know that. I bailed you out of the Ministry holding cells just before last Christmas for beating up that Anti-werewolf protestor in Diagon Alley, remember?”

Rey sniffed, but his smile was wry and slightly crooked. “The man was an idiot. He didn’t know what he was talking about. And he started it; I refuse to believe that sideswipe with his placard was an accident. Besides, one good slap with a cane is not beating up, thank you.”

Teasing his father was one trait that Remus had inherited from his mother with enthusiasm. “That carol-singer described you as “ how did he put it? Oh yes, a spitting ball of white-haired fury. Honestly dad, you’re lucky your idiot didn’t press charges.”

Rey’s sudden grin was slightly wicked. “Thirty years of age and beaten up by a seventy year old with a gammy leg? He was too embarrassed.”

The brief laughter lightened the heavy mood for a moment. But only for a moment.

Reynard’s expression was suddenly sombre once more as he stared as his pale son, curled up yet again in a hospital bed. His eyes drifted to the red gashes at his throat.

“I should have told you this sooner.” His voice was a whispered hush. “If you’d have known, you might have been prepared…”

Remus gave a rueful chuckle. “Dad, I’m a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. That’s about as prepared as it’s supposed to get. I can get into trouble quite well enough by myself without needing you to try and steal all the blame.”

Rey was shaking his head. “But still… The memory charm was necessary at the time, I hope you understand that now, but I should have told you when you were older. But we were just so afraid that if we told you and you remembered, it might all come back…” He sighed deeply. “All through your childhood, we tried to shield you, to keep you away from anything that might upset you, distress you in any way. We were terrified to take you out of our home, of taking you anywhere that you might face the kind of disdain and prejudice that people direct at werewolves. We coddled you to an absurd extent, I can see that now, but at the time it was all so fresh in our minds, what had happened, what could happen again if your emotions got away from you. I’ll admit “ for a while I was all for keeping you out of Hogwarts even if they’d have you.”

He smiled, a soft smile tempered around the edges with still sharp grief. “But Diana “ she could see you weren’t happy at the idea of being a recluse. She saw the looks on your face when you watched other children play near the farm, the wistful pleasure whenever we dared to go anywhere different like Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. And she knew that in spite of our fears, Hogwarts would be the best thing for you.” His smile spread with sudden recollection. “Oh she fought old Armando Dippet like a tiger when he told her that Hogwarts would not accept a werewolf pupil. I swear sometimes he retired just to get her to leave him alone. And then Dumbledore became headmaster, your mother’s closest friend amongst the staff…”

Both men shared a smile for a moment, before Rey met his son’s eyes once more. “I suppose that would have been the time to tell you. We had lost the excuse of your being too young “ if eleven was old enough for Hogwarts, it was old enough to understand. But you were so happy at the idea of going to school “ we couldn’t bring ourselves to spoil it.”

He sighed as he dropped his gaze once more. “We decided then that we would tell you the next time you asked us. And we waited, with some trepidation for the inevitable questions. But they never came; you never asked. And secretly, we both drew a sigh of relief.” He raised his eyes once more, an eyebrow cocked quizzically. “I’ve often wondered Remus “ why didn’t you ask? You must have been curious.”

Remus closed his eyes at the memory. “I did ask. When I was nine, I asked mum. She burst into tears all over the place. After that I was afraid to ask again in case…” He removed his hand from his father’s shoulder to wipe it wearily across his brow. “I couldn’t stand the thought of making mum upset. And if one innocent question could hurt her so much…”

Reynard’s grip on his son’s hand tightened yet again. “Remus you were the most precious thing in our lives “ you remain the most precious thing in mine. You were the only child we had, the only child we were going to have and we both loved you very dearly. Even yesterday, I almost had a heart attack when Albus Dumbledore called me in the fire to say Abraham Kane had all but torn your throat out.” His features looked drawn and suddenly tired. “That night with Kane, the night you were bitten, was the very worst thing that either of us had ever, could ever have been through. It was our worst nightmare, worse than our worst nightmare and it was real. We went from thinking you dead or worse, like him, to finding you bitten and bleeding and then watching you writhe and scream and rage like a feral before our eyes, knowing that our son was underneath there somewhere, unable to get out and probably terrified. Do you blame your mother for crying at the thought of it?”
Remus shook his head. “Of course not. But I didn’t know that. I was a child and I’d made my mum cry. She almost never cried and I had caused it. I wasn’t about to try it again.”

Rey nodded thoughtfully. “Diana told me about it afterwards. But we didn’t realise it would have such an impact on you.”

“I loved mum. Do you think I wanted to see her cry just to satisfy my curiosity? I told myself it was the past, that it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as though it could be changed.”

Rey stared at the ceiling for a moment. “No, it can’t be changed. But unfortunately, it does matter.” He sighed again, dropping his eyes. “You were so happy at Hogwarts, happy with your friends. And then when you left school and got involved in the war… How could we add to your burdens like that? We were so afraid for you in those awful days, not just because your life was in danger, but because of the stress, the grief, the fear; what if it overwhelmed you? It began to look as though we would have to tell you, if only to warn you of how important it was to keep yourself controlled. But we put it off and put it off, thinking we’d still have time…” His voice trailed off into cold blankness, his eyes haunted. “But we didn’t.”

Coldness welled within Remus’ chest. “1981.”

His father nodded. “1981.”

A slow, terrible realisation slipped into Remus’ mind. “Two feral incidents. By the rules in those days, I would have been executed without trial. Even by today’s standards, I should be locked up and probably facing Azkaban.”

Rey was struggling to retain his composure. “Believe me, I know. When Alastor flooed in to tell us that day, still bleeding from where you’d hit him in your frenzy…”

He shuddered. “If it had been anyone but Alastor and Albus Dumbledore who saw it - it was only by good will that those healers and the other Aurors kept quiet when you were a child, one word would have been enough. Alastor had to all but threaten Jasper Castleton not to report you when you first registered and he never stopped resenting him for that. And at the time of your… incident, he was fairly high up in the ranks. If he’d have got word of it…”

Remus could feel his stomach plunging with horror at the closeness of his call. “Dad, I’m so sorry, I…”

“Stop that right now!” Reynard cut his son’s apology off sharply. “You have nothing, absolutely nothing to apologise for in this. You couldn’t help what happened that day, you had no idea you were more vulnerable than might have been. And given the depth of your grief, even if you’d known…”

He closed his eyes, kneading his forehead with the fingertips of his free hand. “We should have told you then. No more excuses. But now it had happened, now that we knew our fears had been real all along, we were too afraid…”

There was a long silence.

This time when he spoke, Rey’s voice did break. “And then when your mother died, I was so afraid again, if you grieved too much, if you were angry enough, I might lose you as well as her…”

The barricades finally gave way. Reynard Lupin broke down and burst into thirty-four years worth of repressed tears.

Remus immediately flung himself forward and wrapped his arms around his sobbing father, drawing him rapidly into a comforting embrace. Rey clung to his son, face buried in his shoulder as he vented a lifetime’s worth of pent-up emotion in a sudden rush, his sister’s death, that awful night in the woods, the bite, the terrible sounds of all those full moon nights, his son’s feral incident, his wife’s death, all held back in an effort to be strong behind walls that could no longer take the strain.

He cried for some time.

Remus cried too. Cried for his mother, for his father’s pain, for his lost friends and broken family. He shared his father’s grief and wept.

Finally, when the storm of tears for both had passed, father and son slowly broke apart, pale, damp-cheeked and faintly embarrassed as they wiped their faces dry and shared a rueful smile.

“Well, that was exhilarating.” Remus commented with deliberate nonchalance. Rey fixed his bloodshot eyes on his son as he fixed him with a mock glare.

“Watch it,” he retorted, half lifting his cane. “I’ve never had to discipline you before but its not to late to start.”

Remus managed to grin. “Would it make it easier if I dressed up as an Anti-werewolf campaigner?”

Rey tried to suppress the smile but failed in spectacular fashion. “Dear Gods, my boy, you are far too much like your mother. I knew I shouldn’t have let her spend so much time warping your mind when you were young and impressionable.”

Remus laughed again. “I think it was fairly well warped by genetics.” He paused, allowing more serious thoughts to fill his mind as he touched his father’s arm with concern. “Are you all right now?”

Rey waved a dismissive hand that told Remus eloquently that his father was still shaky but would sooner die than admit it to his son. “I’m fine,” he said softly, a hint of a catch in his tone that he struggled to conceal. “It’s just I had a long night worrying about you, thinking about all of this and then retelling it all on top of talking about when your mother…” He caught his breath determinedly. “It still hurts, I suppose. I think it always will. And if I live to be three hundred, I’ll never stop missing Diana. One more thing to thank Kane for I suppose…”

What?

The words registered sharply. Remus head snapped up even as his father’s mouth snapped closed, a sudden fear slipping across his eyes as he seemed to realise he had let slip something he had intended to remain concealed. The intense emotional release of moments before had apparently shaken his composure rather more than he had realised.

“What did you say?” Remus’ gaze bored into his father sharply.

He could tell at once that Reynard was going to try and shrug it off. “It’s nothing really, forget I…”

It was Remus’ turn to cut away the words. “No, dad, don’t you dare, not after all we’ve been through. I know what I heard. What did you mean by it?”

There was a weariness in Reynard’s gaze and an unconcealed apprehension. “You have to promise me,” he said softly. “Promise me that if I tell you that you won’t do anything stupid. I almost lost you yesterday and I couldn’t stand to go through that again.”

“I promise I’ll be careful.” Either Rey missed the dodge or he was too tired to dispute it. Remus suspected the latter and fought a twinge of guilt.

Reynard was once more staring at the bedclothes, his eyes strangely empty. “The morning before your mother died,” he said softly. “She sent me an owl from her hotel in Paris. She said…” For a moment the words seemed to catch in his throat; he struggled to continue. “She said she thought she had seen someone following her in one of the markets. She thought… she was afraid it was… She said it looked like Kane.”

The world seemed to rock on its axis. Remus fought the ice that threatened to bury him completely as he drew back from Reynard in shock.

“I told her to come home.” His father’s stare remained fixed stubbornly downwards. “But she was finally getting some recognition for her potion, she was so determined for it to be a success…” He sighed. “I know nothing for sure “ nobody does. Only that your mother was not clumsy and not stupid and don’t see how she could have managed to fall out of a window without… help.”

Remus was struggling to avoid drowning in the turbulent tumult of emotions that plunged and swirled through him “ only the stark realisation of what drowning could mean helped to keep his head above water.

“You think he pushed her.” At articulation of the words, the torrent surged.

Rey nodded wordlessly.

“But why push her out a window?” Coherent thought, that was important “ he had to hold onto to coherent, logical thought. “Why not just kill her as he killed the Bevans?”

Rey gave a bitter smile. “The French laws on werewolves are pretty severe. A feral killing would lead to an enormous hunt. I think Kane was lurking, looking for an excuse to come back into the country now he was mostly forgotten. To have a fuss kicked up would have been the last thing he needed if that were the case; alerting the British Aurors to a possible threat.”

“But then why risk killing mum?” The words tasted fiery and bitter on his tongue.

“Opportunity.” Rey sighed. “I don’t think he knew she would be there. I suspect he probably just saw her on the streets and followed her back to the hotel. Coincidence, I imagine. A lucky chance for him.” His hands were shaking, his voice a tremble. “I don’t know if he did it out of spite, for revenge, for the pleasure or just to see what it would do to you and me. I never found him to ask him.”

Remus felt his jaw drop. “That’s where you went after the funeral? Looking for Kane? Dad, you told me you just needed time to be alone!”

Rey sighed, his jaw clenched. “I had to, Remus. It was Diana…”

Remus was all but gasping for breath. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come with you, I would have helped…”

No.” Reynard’s voice was steel. “Things were finally starting to go right for you. The Wolfsbane potion was working at last, Albus had offered you the job at Hogwarts; how I could I spoil it for you when your life was finally coming together? Besides, I wondered then and I still wonder now “ what if Kane still wanted to kill you or even turn you? He’d view you as a challenge in either case, I know he would. I couldn’t let him get near you, for either reason…”

“Dad.” Remus reached forward and laid a hand across his father’s arm, ignoring the chill that ran the length of his spine as Kane’s words in the alley tumbled through the chaos in his mind. “Trust me. I have no intention of letting him do either. And you’ve talked about your losing me but what about me losing you? He would have killed you if you’d found him…”

“I know.” Reynard met his son’s eyes at last. “But at the time, that option didn’t seem so bad…”

Firmly, Remus drew his father into another hug. “That’s enough of that,” he ordered sternly. “I expect to have many more years in which to tease you, understand?”

He felt his father smile against his shoulder. “If you must.”

“I must.” Remus eased out of the embrace and risked a smile. “It’ll be all right, dad. And you don’t need to worry about me.” Gingerly he rubbed his throat. “Hard as it may be to believe right now, I can look after myself.”

Reynard was also eying the scars of Kane’s attack. “Of course you can.” He gave a deep sigh and flexed his shoulders. “Well, it seems I’m all done with turning your world upside down. How about I fetch Poppy and see about some food? It must be going on for noon by now.”

Remus nodded quietly. “That seems like a good idea.”

Awkwardly, leaning heavily on his cane, Rey pulled himself upright once more, gingerly twitching his bad leg as he massaged his knee with his fingers.

“Stiff again,” he explained with a half smile. “Bloody thing. My father used to have trouble with his knees but I doubt it was for the same reason.”

At the mention of his long dead grandfather, a question sprang into Remus’ mind. “Dad?”

Rey glanced down, fingertips still working his sore leg with the absence of practice. “Yes son?”

“Who was telling the truth?”

Rey frowned. “About what?”

“Kane or your father “ about what happened to your sister. Who was telling the truth?”

Remus immediately regretted asking as pain spilled across his father’s features.
“Honestly?” he said softly. “I don’t know. Perhaps Kane really was telling the truth as Adam Isaacs had told it to him “ but whether Isaacs was lying or Kane or my father, I really couldn’t say. Perhaps none of them told the whole story. Perhaps they all believed the tales they told. I don’t think we’ll ever know.”

Remus nodded thoughtfully. “Or about mum.”

Rey bit his lip. “Or about Diana. We can only guess, I suppose. I’ll go see Poppy about that food.”

Bracing himself against the stiffness in his sore leg, Reynard Lupin turned and made his way with awkward dignity across the room towards Poppy Pomfrey’s office.

His son watched him go, his mind awash with thoughts that his father would not have welcomed.

Kane had killed his mother.

He was sure of it. As sure as his father was.

He would have to take care. He would not be foolish, would not make any more silly mistakes; he was not willing to give the feral any more means by which to hurt his father through him. But Kane had bitten him, tried to turn him feral and almost destroyed his family. And now it seemed, he had been responsible for the death of the mother he had loved more than anything.

The thought made him burn and freeze as one. The thought made him furious.

He would keep his promise to his dad“ he would indeed be careful. But he had to act. And thanks to Kane’s slip about speaking with the barman, he knew exactly where he planned to start.

As soon as he was well enough, Remus was going back to The Howling.


A/N: Ah, chapter nineteen. Doesn’t look much like a battleground, does it? But innocent as it seems, this chapter gave me absolute hell when I tried to write it. For well over a week I wrote, rewrote, erased, wrote again, edited, stared blankly at the screen, drank copious amounts of Ribena and ate far too much chocolate, beat my head against the desk and sobbed quietly in an effort to get this chapter onto the page. There are whole tracts of text relegated to my “cut” folder that shall thankfully never see the light of the net. Why was it so difficult? I’m honestly not sure but a few possibilities are that it was the jump back into the present after really hitting my stride in the flashbacks; there was good sport on TV distracting me terribly whenever I got stuck; and I got bogged down trying to write around a speech I’d written for Rey before the chapter even started “ in the end I gave up on it, cut it out and only a fraction remains in the explanation for Diana’s crying. But I think my major problem was Remus himself “ how I had planned him to react and how he reacted when the time came to write it turned out to be two very different animals and plotting reasons, this proved a hurdle. The revelation regarding Diana’s death had been on the cards for a while but I was torn as to whether or not to use it for fear of, well, overkill “ in the end, I had to simply because it was the only suitable catalyst I had. It was only when these elements of the chapter clicked that I finally got a version down on paper that I felt was correctly characterised “ and even then my beta expressed concern over whether Lupin men were too reserved to cry (my response was in public, yes, but not with each other and I stand by that “ everyone needs some kind of outlet… ;) ).The reaction of Remus is perhaps then a little understated considering how many of my reviewers have expressed their anticipation as to what his reaction would be “ but I feel that it is also the most in character response I have managed and that is probably what matters most of all. So I hope you all agree. :)