A/N: Many thanks to Chriss Corkscrew who has kindly volunteered to beta this for me in spite of her limited time. Thanks mate! :)
2: The Pensieve
The noise in The Howling was unbelievable.
"Quietus!"
Abruptly the volume level dropped sharply, fading back to a dull roar against the background as Alastor Moody sheathed his wand once more, his magical eye swiveling as he surveyed the now-hushed figures who danced on, oblivious to the presence of the three figures who had just materialised in their midst. It was hardly surprising though, Remus reflected, since most of those before them were probably tucked up in bed sleeping off their hangovers whilst their shadows danced their actions of the night before in the mindscape of Dumbledore’s Pensieve.
"Much better," Moody growled, rubbing a half-missing ear with a well-scarred finger. "No wonder you didn’t hear anything, Lupin, with that racket going on."
Severus Snape surveyed the cavorting figures packed around him with a distinct sneer of distaste. "Charming," he remarked mordantly. "It’s almost fit to house a dog."
"As I understand, the barman’s dog died a while ago, Severus. So you’re probably right." Remus ignored his former colleague’s curled lip and smiled politely. He had long ago reached the conclusion that rising to Snape’s remarks was a waste of time and energy – instead he responded to the jibes and barbs of the Potions Master with unfailing politeness and friendly courtesy. The fact that this mild response infuriated him far more than any amount of retaliation was merely a benefit.
"So where are you, Lupin?" Moody was still scanning the crowds, but his magical eye was little help against the false spectres of people passed several hours before – he could not see through walls that were not truly there.
"Behind you." Remus turned to face the back wall bar that he had settled at earlier in the evening. "Sitting at the count… Good God." His sentence broke off sharply as caught sight of himself and instinctively fingered his recently donned robes reassuringly. "I am never wearing those clothes again."
Moody chuckled. "Hell’s teeth, lad, compared to your friends here, you’re dressed like a monk! And Tonks reckoned they suited you."
Remus regarded the old Auror with a raised eyebrow. "Nymphadora Tonks is a lovely young woman, an excellent auror and a good friend. She also has pink hair, Alastor."
"Not every day."
"When you two have quite finished." Snape’s drawling voice interrupted the rapidly spiralling conversation. "I was under the impression we were here for reasons other than discussing Lupin’s fashion statement."
"Right." Moody was immediately all business. "So where did you see them, Lupin?"
"Over there." Remus pointed to the alcove next to the door, currently unoccupied. He glanced over his shoulder at his earlier self, sitting at the bar and now talking to Friedrek. "They must have come in around the time I got my first drink. One of the other werewolves started talking to me and I got a bit distracted."
Snape elegantly rolled his eyes but did not comment.
"Let’s get closer." Moody grunted as he began to wade disconcertingly through the insubstantial figures. "I want a good look at them when they get here."
Wordlessly Remus and Snape followed his lead, moving through the half-silenced, madly leaping figures to the shadowed table tucked in beside the exit. Even as they drew free of the spectral mass, the door wafted open and two figures slipped inside.
"Bernhardt Oldstaff." Snape’s eyes had fixed at once upon the short, bearded man with the hollow eyes, wrapped in dark robes who glanced around The Howling with a scarcely concealed cocktail of distaste and fear splashing his features. "Fairly low ranking until recently, and his promotion has been much by default due to his long service and the capture of so many of his seniors." He sneered. "I wouldn’t trust him to charm a teacup."
Both Moody and Remus however had their attention fixed upon the dark-cloaked figure that followed him. Surprisingly not much taller than Oldstaff, he moved easily, loosely, clearly comfortable within his own skin, shrouded in a vast black cloak that shadowed his features, but Remus did not miss the golden eyes that gleamed within those depths, reflected the half-light disconcertingly from a mask of unseen features. The first sign of a werewolf gone feral was full moon eyes in human features, a wolf looking back from a human’s face, the essence of what truly lay inside reflected in a wolfish gaze. It made Remus shiver to think of it.
His own feral incident, brief as it was, so long ago but never forgotten, remained one of the worst moments of his life. He would never understand how anyone could live that way.
He could feel Moody’s eyes drilling into him – he could guess the old auror’s thoughts. He and Dumbledore had been the only witnesses that terrible day, November 2nd 1981 and he owed his freedom to their silence and understanding. In respect of that, he kept an iron grip on his moods and always wore the amethyst ring when he drank. He would not make the same mistake again.
A twinge of old pain around the crescent of his bite scar jerked him out of his dark thoughts – absently he rubbed his left side. Although the strange feeling had faded on leaving The Howling earlier than evening, his old scar had continued to ache in the wake of whatever the hell had been in that firewhiskey. After admitting his odd turn at the bar during his debriefing, he had, at Moody’s insistence, submitted himself to an examination by Hestia Jones, a St Mungo’s healer when she wasn’t working for the Order. She had failed to hide her wince at the sight of his terrible bite scar but had given him as clean a bill of health as a werewolf could have three days prior to the full moon. He could only assume it had been something in the drink that had disagreed with him.
By now, the death eater and the feral has settled into the alcove – the feral’s hood was still in place, but Remus could see the glint of his unnaturally sharp canines as he smiled. His pale fingers drummed absently on the table, the short, dark, vicious claws protruding from their tips cutting chips from the battered wood surface. The death eater was eyeing this with distinct unease.
Moving forward, Moody craned in to peer more closely at the hooded feral – it must have been disconcerting that his magical eye could not cut away the shadows here. Drawing his wand once more he waved it across the alcove.
"Sonorus! "
The death eater, Oldstaff, had leaned forwards towards the feral, his lips moving and abruptly his words became audible once more.
"…why you wanted to come in here, of all places. What if someone overhears?"
The feral gave a throaty chuckle but there was no humour in the sound – his voice when it came was a hoarse, gravelled drawl that seemed to curl around the edges of his words languorously as though speaking in a tongue not quite familiar. "You’d rather stand outside? In the clear night air, where even a whisper carries for miles? No one in here is listening. No one in here cares. And with this fine racket, they would not hear even if they tried."
Moody smiled smugly. "That’s what he thinks. Pensieves as spy tools. One of the best ideas we ever had. As long as your spy is close enough, they don’t even need to hear what’s said."
"Who is he?" Snape had moved forward to Moody’s side.
Moody grunted. "Not sure yet. But the voice rings a bell. Wish he’d take that blasted hood off – my eye’s useless in here."
The feral was speaking again. "I got your master’s messages. I’ll admit it intrigues me. So much offered – and all he wants in return is this Potter boy dealt with?"
Remus jerked and met Moody’s glance with a frown. He could tell the Auror did not like the sound of this any more than he did. Snape’s expression was impassive.
"What do you know about Harry Potter?" Oldstaff was clearly nervous – his eyes kept straying to the feral’s clawed fingertips.
"Nothing before the message. I’ve been…out of touch." The feral snorted to himself. "But I have looked into it since. A fascinating child, but a child nonetheless and I have dealt with children before. I don’t see that he will be much of a problem. I have a few ideas."
The slow unfolding of his shadowed smile was like a rictus. It was more a bearing of teeth than a sign of pleasure.
"Then you’ll do it?" A hint of relief flashed across Oldstaff’s place at the feral’s nod.
"What shall I tell my master? How soon shall it be done?"
"It will be done as soon as I have the time and inclination to do it. These things cannot be rushed. Tell him to have patience. I will deliver both the boy and the chaos he requires and I shall enjoy myself into the bargain. I do not do this for his precious ideology – I have no loyalty to his cause or even his reward. I do this because it will be fun."
Oldstaff looked doubtful once more. "You will not take the Dark Mark?"
Slowly, coldly, his eerie golden eyes never leaving Oldstaff’s face, the feral drew back his tunic sleeve to expose vicious red teeth marks that scraped the length of his arm.
"I already have one mark to show the world what I am," he drawled softly. "I do not need another."
Suppressing a shiver, Oldstaff rose hurriedly to his feet. "The Dark Lord expected your loyalty, Kane."
Moody’s gasp jerked Remus’ attention away from the concluding conversation.
"Kane? " he heard the old man hiss. For a moment his enormous eye darted towards Remus but twisted away when he caught the younger man looking. "Oh Hell’s teeth, we’re in more trouble than I thought."
The feral – Kane – chuckled again, rising in one swift motion. "He can expect what he wants."
With a vicious smile, he swept past the speechless Oldstaff, his eyes flashing as they passed across the room.
And lingered a moment. A spark of indefinable emotion glinted.
And then he was gone.
Remus felt himself shiver. He thought he had imagined that the feral’s gaze had paused on him. Apparently, he hadn’t.
Moody had seen it too. His mismatched eyes fixed sharply on Remus.
"You never told me he saw you," he reprimanded abruptly.
Remus shrugged, trying to shake off the unpleasant chill that had settled in his stomach. "I didn’t realise he really had," he admitted. "I assumed I had imagined it."
"Never assume! " Moody’s outburst caused both Remus and Snape to jump. "Constant vigilance! What if he recognised you?"
"Why should he?" Remus stared, bemused at the auror’s sudden incandescent fury. "He’s never met me."
Something indefinable glinted in Moody’s normal eye. Abruptly he turned away.
"Well, there’s nothing to be done now." He paused, watching as the memory Remus left the counter and hurried out of the door. "What matters is we’ve made an identification. Abraham Kane has a ministry file the size of Hogwarts library. It shouldn’t be too hard for Tonks or Shacklebolt to find."
Abruptly the scene around them faded to grey; with a misty swirl and a slight moment of disorientation, the three were standing once more in the drawing room at Grimmauld Place. Glancing at his two companions, Remus wordlessly retrieved his memory from the pensieve on the desk.
"You seem to know of him." Snape stepped smoothly around the desk.
Moody grunted. "Bloody should. I helped drive him out of this country more than thirty years ago. Hoped he’d perished somewhere over the years but apparently not. I suppose it was too much to ask a character like Kane to die quietly."
"What did he do?" Remus asked quietly, lifting the Pensieve from the desk and following the auror and the professor towards the door.
Moody shot him a sharp look as he moved into the hall. "What didn’t he? Orphaned street kid, bitten by a feral when he was ten. The feral, Hel she called herself, she was just a teenager but she thought it would be fun to keep the kid around, mess with his head a bit, start herself a pack. Soon made a name for themselves, leaving blood and bodies wherever they passed, killing maliciously just for the fun of it. You can thank the two of them for Umbridge and her ilk – oh, people were always nervous about werewolves but these two really stirred them up and the memories die hard. The Prophet had a field day." Moody pulled a face. "By the time they hit their twenties, he and Hel had both the Werewolf Capture Unit and the aurors out for their blood. The Ministry gave us permission to use any means necessary – so you know what that means."
"Unforgivables." Snape had started down the stairs, glancing disdainfully at the severed elf heads as he passed, Moody a few steps behind and Remus trailing.
"Exactly. We cornered them, Hel caught an Avada Kedavra from one of my team, Orestes Bevan, nice chap he was, with a young family, wife and two kids." Moody’s face hardened. "Kane escaped and slaughtered the lot of them. Then he fled the country before we could tear him limb from limb."
They descended into the hall in silence.
Snape waited until they had passed the heavily curtained portrait of Mrs Black and entered the basement kitchen before speaking. "So you believe he will have no qualms about going after Potter?"
"As I said, he’s targeted children before." There was an evasive discomfort to Moody’s tone that Remus caught immediately. "Younger than Potter too. He wouldn’t even see there was a difference. All bloody playthings or food to him. You heard him. He kills for the fun of it. He’d kill Potter and anyone else in his way without blinking."
Snape sighed. "Where is Potter at the moment?"
"The Burrow," Remus offered as he placed the Pensieve on the kitchen table. "He went to stay with the Weasleys a few weeks ago. A few of us have been taking turns to drop round, help Molly and Arthur keep an eye on things. I think Tonks is there right now."
"I think, under the circumstances, it is time for him to return to Grimmauld Place." Snape picked up the pensieve abruptly and moved towards the door in a sweep of black robes. "I will inform the headmaster. Werewolves," he muttered as he hastened from the room. "They’re more trouble than they’re worth."
Moody moved after him almost at once. "I’ll get hold of Shacklebolt, see if he can lift us a copy of Kane’s file," he grunted shortly. "Nice job, Lupin. See you later."
In moments, both had ascended the steps and moved out of sight, fading footsteps, the clunk of Moody’s wooden leg and then the opening and closing of the front door.
Remus was suddenly alone.