A/N: Just to clarify, at this point of the fic, we are in mid to late August before the start of Harry’s sixth year. I’m not sure I ever made that clear. :)
3: Secrets
It had taken Remus several hours to shake the disconcerted feeling that tailed after him following the events of the night before. He lay on his bed in his darkened bedroom at Grimmauld Place, glancing at his book without reading the words and letting his mind race. Why had Moody been behaving so strangely around him? Remus was no fool “ Alastor had been uncomfortable with him ever since they had encountered the pensieve version of the feral Kane. He could only conclude that the encounter had brought back bad memories for him of Kane’s reign of terror and such memories in close proximity to another werewolf he had seen give in to his wolf side, however briefly, must have been unsettling.
It was unsettling for Remus too. Did Moody not trust him? Had he ever? Did he expect him to turn at any moment and leave a trail of bloody destruction just like Kane?
He forced himself to stop thinking that way. It had been a long time ago. A moment of weakness in extraordinary grief. Alastor had understood that.
Unless he thought he was grieving again. He had reason to.
With a sigh, Remus gave up on trying to read and closed the book, depositing it on his bedside table as he rose to his feet and made for the door. Brooding alone was getting him nowhere. It was time for a cup of tea.
It wasn’t until he had passed the foot of the stairs and was halfway down the hall that he realised the kitchen was occupied. A familiar voice cut through the air.
“…should take Lupin off this mission immediately. Merlin knows what’ll happen if Kane gets too near him.”
Remus froze. Oblivious to his presence, down in the kitchen Moody continued. “The lad’s the spit of his dad and Kane knows Rey Lupin by sight. Crazy as Kane may be, he’s quick. He’ll have known who he is.”
“Have you told Reynard that Kane has returned?” So it was Dumbledore that Moody was speaking to. Ignoring the cold feeling in his stomach and a hint of guilt at eavesdropping on his former headmaster, Remus leant against the wall and listened silently.
“Owled him as soon as I could. Knew he’d want to know.” Remus frowned “ Moody had contacted his father? He knew the two of them were friends from a long time back “ his father had worked in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for many years and had often collaborated with the Aurors on particularly difficult cases. But why call him now?
But Moody had continued. “Poor sod. Can’t imagine what he’ll think. But after what happened… He deserves to be warned.”
There was a pause. Dumbledore spoke softly.
“Does Remus know?”
A good question. Remus leaned forward carefully, hoping that Alastor’s magic eye would not roll his way. He could hear the clank of Moody’s wooden leg on the hard stone of the kitchen floor. The old Auror was pacing.
“I don’t think so, but the lad hides things well. I’m worried, Albus. I’m sure what happened with Black has upset him more than he’ll admit and Kane on top of it…” Moody’s grizzled voice was hushed. “He went feral once; oh yes, it was over quick enough and never again since, but it happened and there’s no avoiding it. I can’t help thinking Black’s death and Kane’s presence together might…”
“I have faith in Remus, Alastor.” Dumbledore’s voice cut sharply across Moody’s statement like a knife that sliced away the remaining words. “I trust he will not repeat the mistakes of the past. He is stronger now.” There was a pause. “But all the same, I shall be removing him from this mission, at least for now. I have another task for him. I assume he is here?”
There was no time to ponder the strangeness of the conversation. Remus backed down the hall as silently as he could manage, straining his ears for the sound of footsteps. When he reached the stairs, he hurried soundlessly up to the lower landing and paused a moment to catch his breath before proceeding more loudly back down, praying he hadn’t been noticed. By the time he reached the hall, Moody was passing the portrait of Mrs Black as he wrapped himself in his vast cloak and made for the door. His eyes, large and small, fixed on the younger man.
“Dumbledore’s here,” he informed him gruffly. “He wants a word with you. In the kitchen.”
Remus nodded with a smile. “Thanks Alastor.”
Moody merely grunted. A moment later he pulled open the front door and departed.
Remus stared after him for a moment. What in Merlin’s name was going on?
But Dumbledore was waiting. Forcing aside, his confusion, Remus turned and walked down the hall.
* * *
The full moon arrived as it inevitably did. There really was no avoiding it.
But despite the intense pain of the transformation, and the remembered loneliness of absent companions, this night was not the torture for Remus that it had been. Once the bane of his life, a time of mindless, half-remembered violence and shadowed horrors, the full moon had become a time of contemplation, a time to think over the events that had passed in his human life, a time, ironically, to get his head straight.
He needed it now. The last few days had almost spun his head from his shoulders.
He was going back to Hogwarts. He couldn’t believe it.
He had refused at first, just as he had the year before. He had expressed disbelief that Dumbledore had even asked.
He was a werewolf. The governors knew it. The parents knew it. The students knew it. The Ministry knew it. After his exposure in the Daily Prophet, most of the Wizarding world knew it. And after what had happened last time, all would agree that it wasn’t safe to have a werewolf in the school. He agreed it wasn’t safe. The students would fear him. The parents would write. The governors would protest. The Ministry would have fits.
Dumbledore had smiled serenely. Remus had known then and there that he’d lost.
They would take extra precautions, he had said. They would take more care. They students he had already taught loved him; those he had not would quickly learn to. He would write to the parents. He would speak to the governors. The Ministry, he believed, had far too many problems of their own to care. He had no one else to turn to “ Dolores Umbridge was, Remus conceded, the very dredges at the bottom of a very well scraped barrel “ and would not wish to if he did. With Voldemort exposed, the children needed a good Defence teacher above all else. And with the new threat against Harry, he needed someone he could trust to keep an eye out for him.
Remus wasn’t convinced. But he had given in.
So he was going back to Hogwarts.
It was a strange feeling. He couldn’t decide whether he was ecstatic or apprehensive. The truth, he suspected, lay somewhere in between.
He had already had one thought however, on how he was to keep an eye out for Harry. He just hoped Harry had brought it with him.
Whilst he had been closeted upstairs in his bedroom, exhausted and nervous for the day preceding his transformation, the Weasleys and Harry had descended once more on Grimmauld Place. There was no mistaking the sound of them rampaging through the hallways “ it made Remus smile in spite of his need for sleep. Molly had knocked cautiously on his door as he rested the afternoon before his change, peering reluctantly inside and offering a meal. He had politely declined, thanked her for her consideration and requested he not be disturbed until at least mid-afternoon the next day. The bellowing shouts directed at her rampant children, orders issued at full volume that they must be quiet and not wake him made him grin.
He had spent quite a bit of time with the Weasleys over the summer. Harry had been relocated there just two weeks after going to the Dursleys “ with the loss of Sirius still raw, it had seemed best to place him somewhere with people who could show sympathy and understanding for his loss and that place was not Privet Drive. And with its memories and associations of Sirius, Grimmauld Place too had seemed a bad idea, at least initially. So the Burrow had been firmly warded and at least three Order members were present at all times during Harry’s stay, various combinations of Molly, Bill and Arthur together with whoever happened to be available at the time.
It had left Grimmauld Place very quiet, but Remus hadn’t much minded “ with so much free time due to his previous unemployment, he was at the Burrow on duty a great deal in any case. He had been fed ruthlessly by Molly, who seemed to regard his thinness as a personal insult, chatted with Arthur and the children and spent more than a little time talking with Harry. James and Lily’s son seemed to be coping a great deal better than he had to begin with, but with all such things, healing was a matter of time. Given his own track record with grief, Remus did not feel he was in much of a position to judge.
He hadn’t given much thought to the conversation he had overheard between Dumbledore and Moody, mostly because it mystified him. At first he had assumed that it was concern regarding his feral incident in 1981 “ that Moody somehow believed that close proximity to a feral might rekindle the feral flame in himself. But why would Dumbledore have then turned around and offered him a job at Hogwarts? If they feared his turning feral, surely that was the last place they’d want him to be. And what did his father have to do with all of this? What wasn’t he being told?
Does Remus know? Those three words haunted him. Remus didn’t know and he was starting to wonder if he wanted to. The entire business had left a cold chill against his heart. Just what was going on?
One thing was for sure. He was off the mission. And although he felt a kind of ashamed relief that he would not have to return to The Howling and its desperate, deluded souls for the foreseeable future, it had also sealed closed any chance he had of learning the truth behind his exclusion.
Remus uncurled his lupine body on the rug, stretching his limbs and sighed as he laid his head down to sleep. Like the patrons of The Howling, unknowing of the terrible price that the fulfilment of their wolfish desires would entail, it seemed that he was destined to remain oblivious. That certainly seemed the intent.
Half-knowledge was a dangerous thing. Ignorance was bliss.
And deep down, a part of Remus wished to be oblivious once more.
* * *
Morning came and with it the pain and relief of the transformation back “ another full moon passed. Remus had hauled himself off the carpet, deposited his sore and weary body in his bed and promptly slept like the dead until well after noon. Mid-afternoon had seen Molly’s return, a hesitant knock and an offer of tea and biscuits and this time he had accepted, propping himself up on his pillows and ignoring Molly’s fussing about his hagged post-change appearance as he sipped his drink and chewed on his chocolate biscuit. He promised to make an appearance at dinner.
Remus smiled to himself as she bustled from the room. There was something about Molly that reminded him of his mother, the care, the fussing, the concern to the point of spoiling at times. He still remembered watching his Muggle-born mum as she tucked him into bed after his changes, making sure that his drink and his book were in reach, that he’d taken his tonics, that he was comfortable, that his pyjamas didn’t chafe his wounds, that he would call or ring the little bell she placed next to his bed if he needed anything at all and she would be right there. He remembered his father standing against the doorframe, catching his son’s gaze and rolling his eyes with a grin.
They’d cared so much, his mum and dad. He’d been their miracle baby, their first child to reach full term after many years of trying and his complicated birth had meant he would also be their last. And then, aged just three, he had been bitten.
Fate could be very unkind.
His parents had been heartbroken of course. But they had never abandoned him. Through thick and thin, they fought for him and stayed by his side. He couldn’t have asked for better parents than Reynard and Diana Lupin.
Remus sighed. He missed his mum. She had given up so much for him, personally and professionally, abandoning a lucrative career as a Potions Mistress in order to focus on finding a cure for her son. Gone for four years now, lost in a stupid accident, he still half-expected the letters she used to send him after every full moon just to make sure he was all right. Every one had made him roll his eyes fondly just like his father in the doorway but he longed for that amused exasperation now it was gone.
He needed to visit his father soon. He had missed Christmas due to Arthur’s attack and, loath to leave Sirius alone at Grimmauld Place, it had been far too brief a stay at Easter. He’d been neglecting him.
And perhaps, just perhaps he might have answers.
He finished his tea alone.