10: Into the Open
Morning came and with it, a blessed return to humanity. There was always something deeply satisfying about waking up, aching but human, and realising another full cycle of the moon lay between him and another wolfish night. But relief did not prevent his tiredness and nor did it waylay the personally important necessity of not letting his condition impact upon his job.
“So,” Remus hoped very much that no students in his fifth year Gryffindor and Ravenclaw class had noticed his attempt to stifle a yawn as he leaned against his desk, quietly praying for the imminent bell and a much needed lunchtime nap. “In conclusion, what is the most important thing to remember when dealing with an object that has potentially been cursed?” He ran his eyes over the sea of hands. “Luna?”
Luna Lovegood smiled vaguely. “Look out for Spurglepuffs,” she remarked dreamily. “They feed off cursed objects, you know. And if you let a Crumple-Horned Snorkack lick over it, you can tell if the object is cursed by the colour its tongue goes…”
Remus was rather proud that he managed to keep his face so straight. “A unique, if rather unconventional approach,” he remarked as titters rose from the rest of the students present. “But I was looking more for something we had covered in class. He hesitated a moment before making his next selection. “Ginny?”
The youngest Weasley’s smile was slightly strained. Remus had kept a careful eye on her throughout the lesson, aware that this was a subject to which she was likely to be sensitive; but despite the edge that her lingered in her eyes throughout, she had given no overt signs of distress and Remus had taken care not to draw attention to her until now. “Don’t touch it,” she said softly. “Don’t talk to it or try to cast any spells on it. If in doubt, leave well alone. And…” She hesitated only briefly. “Never trust anything that thinks for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”
Remus nodded, his smile reassuring. “A succinct and accurate summary, not to mention a fine piece of addition advice. Five points to Gryffindor.”
Ginny’s sincere returning smile was punctuated by the bell. Remus raised his voice over the immediate clatter of books and quills tumbling into bags. “Homework, please read chapter ten of Arestor Curetes’ Banishing the Darkness and summarise how you would recognise and deal with a cursed object in your home. Two foot by next lesson please and remember we’ll be testing what you’ve learned on a couple of items I’ll be hexing with an itching spell so unless you want a very uncomfortable time, I’d read up.” He joined the gentle chuckling of his students. “Thank you all. Now go to lunch.”
With kind of jostling clammer that only a class full of hungry pupils could muster, the fifth years bustled out of the classroom, chattering and laughing. Luna Lovegood departed dreamily, her bulging eyes raking the ceiling as though it was the most fascinating thing in the world; Ginny Weasley on the other hand, lingered briefly in the doorway, flashed her teacher a quick and grateful smile and was gone.
The moment the clatter of the departing hoard of students had faded down the corridor, Remus closed his eyes and allowed himself to fold into his chair. Moving aside Rebekah’s book and the fifth year textbook, he crossed his arms flat on the desk in front of him, yawned widely and lowered his head into their embrace.
Merlin, he was tired. No matter how much sleep he got on a full moon night, it never quite seemed to be enough to cover the sheer bone-wrenching exhaustion of transforming from man to wolf and back again in the space of just one night. And of course, he had not slept as much as he could have…
Harry. Tired as he was, Remus had not been able to muster the energy to go in search of James’ son and discover just what had brought him to see his teacher at that particular time of night. That it could not have been anything desperately urgent had been reinforced by the fact that Harry was not, as he had half expected, waiting urgently outside his office door at moonset; instead the young man had settled for merely catching his eye awkwardly at breakfast that morning and sharing with him a half nod that Remus had interpreted as I’ll speak to you later. But Remus had to admit, he had not expected later to be as late as this. Perhaps he should…
“Professor Lupin?”
Remus raised his head. Harry, Ron and Hermione stood clustered in the doorway.
Harry looked uncomfortable. Ron looked rueful. Hermione looked outright annoyed.
Fighting back another yawn, Remus sat up slowly and beckoned them inside. They obeyed wordlessly, Ron pausing only to pull the classroom door shut behind them before joining his two friends in front of their professor’s desk. Settling back in his chair, Remus managed a smile.
“So,” he said quietly. “Now that I can talk, what can I do for you?”
A tinge of red touched Harry’s cheeks. “Look professor, I’m really sorry about last night,” he said, the words spilling out in a bit of a rush. “Now I’m not doing Astronomy, I’d kind of lost track of the phase of the moon…”
“I could have told you,” Hermione’s voice was clipped and terse. “If you’d asked me.”
Ron glanced at her sharply. “You’re the one who wanted another look at that Gold-thing woman’s book!” he exclaimed irritably.
“Yes, but I didn’t mean for you two to go sneaking…” Hermione cut herself off with swift abruptness as she caught Harry’s warning look. Glancing down at her teacher’s desk, her eyes alighted on the topmost of the two books that Remus had earlier pushed aside. Her face flushed slightly pink.
A somewhat clearer picture of events was forming in Remus’ mind. “Let me guess,” he said softly as the three teens regarded him with sudden apprehension. “After hearing my conversation with Tonks, you wanted another look at this.” Gently he lifted Rebekah’s book in one hand. Hermione’s expression was answer enough. “But on going to the library, you discovered the only copy had been taken out and could not persuade Madam Pince to share with you who had it. So last night, you, Harry and Ron, decided to sneak down to the library under James’ cloak and take a peek at her records. How am I doing so far?”
“A bit too well,” Harry remarked wryly.
Remus grinned outright. “How easily you forget I shared a dormitory with your father and Sirius for seven years. Now let me see “ you searched her cards and found that the book had been lent out to me. On consulting the Marauder’s Map, you found that I was alone in my office and decided to bite the bullet as it were and ask me outright if you could borrow it. But on arriving at my office, you found the door sealed closed…” He trailed off thoughtfully. “You know, Harry, I can understand that you might have been a little concerned at finding my door warded. But I have to ask “ what on earth made you so convinced I was in imminent danger?”
Harry and Ron exchanged a long troubled look. Hermione frowned.
“We’ve been looking into this Feral Institute you mentioned,” she admitted with a sigh, wincing slightly at the slightly reproachful look on her teacher’s face. “And what little we can find has made it pretty clear that, Death Eaters or not, it isn’t a place that any werewolf wants to be. Werewolves who go in there only tend to come out…well, dead.”
“And then last night,” Harry picked up the tale. “As Ron and I were leaving the library under the cloak, we heard Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall walking along nearby. And they were talking about you.”
Remus frowned. “Me?”
“Yeah,” Ron said, his freckled nose wrinkling with concern. “Saying how dangerous what you were doing was and how worried they were that some people they just called them would come along and lock you up or even try to kill you now that they had proof you were a target. And then when we found your door was all warded and you didn’t answer…” Ron’s voice dropped to a hush. “We thought this they might have already tried something.”
Remus smiled slightly, fighting a cold chill that wrapped around his heart. Dumbledore was that worried? Well, that was reasonable enough, he supposed “ after all, he wasn’t exactly joyful about his situation himself. And it certainly explained Harry’s over-reaction the night before but flattered as he was by the three Gryffindors’ obvious concern for his well being, it still did not change the fact that this was not Harry, Ron or Hermione’s problem. But how on earth could he say as much without making Harry feel as though he was once more left in the dark?
“Harry,” he began gently. “Your concern is appreciated but as I said before, this really isn’t something you need to worry about. There is no specific threat against you or the school…”
“We’re worried about you, Professor,” Harry interrupted sternly, his green eyes flashing. “Not ourselves.”
“And I’m worried about me too,” Remus admitted candidly “ three pairs of eyes blinked in surprise at the statement as he leaned forwards, his gaze pointed. “But I’m not going to let that stop me doing an important job that only I can do. Honestly, believe it or not, I’m not going into this blinkered and I can look after myself. And you certainly don’t need to sneak around libraries researching it for me.”
“But we want to help!” Ron burst out suddenly. “We want to do something!”
Remus smiled gently. “And I appreciate that. I really do.” He sighed, steepling his fingers as he propped his elbows on the desk in front of him and rested his nose against his fingertips. All this dancing was getting them nowhere and if he simply brushed them off once more, he could only imagine that Harry, Ron and Hermione would throw themselves into their investigations with even greater fervour. But perhaps…
“Look,” he said suddenly, carefully avoiding the gaze of three pairs of expectant eyes. “Whatever I say, you’re going to keep looking into this aren’t you?” Their stubborn expressions were answer enough. “Well, then,” Remus sighed. “I can’t see how telling you this will make you any less worried but at least it will stop you making up scenarios all your own.” He looked up sternly. “But you have to promise me that if I tell you’ll stop investigating. And I hope I can trust you to have the good sense not to spread anything I tell you around.”
“Of course, Professor!”
“We promise!”
“We won’t say a word!”
“Well then.” Remus leaned gently back in his chair once more, trying to fight the feeling that he was making a terrible mistake. “In that case, take a seat and I’ll begin…”
* * *
All things considered, Harry, Ron and Hermione had taken the news about a potential army of Imperiused werewolves surprisingly well. Harry’s jaw had hardened grimly, Ron’s lip had twisted nervously and Hermione’s thoughtful frown had deepened with concern but none of them had displayed any outward signs of panic. Instead they had calmly, if uncertainly questioned him on the matter and he had responded accordingly, providing Hermione with an appropriate booklist to study her defences and agreeing with Harry’s assertion that he would immediately if subtly start the DA practising suitable non-direct spells useful for driving a transformed werewolf back. And then they had departed, slightly pale and unusually quiet but otherwise showing no outward sign of nervousness.
Remus wondered if he’d done the right thing. But it was too late now.
Besides, coddling and protecting Harry the year before had led them to disaster. He was sixteen years old. It was time to start trusting him.
And then he thought of Sunday and wondered whether his father would now be ready to grace the same favour upon him.
Friday and Saturday had passed with quiet uneventfulness. He had met Tonks for a drink in the Three Broomsticks on Saturday night, where the Auror had informed him with profound irritation that information regarding the backgrounds of the Feral Institute staff had been restricted to a clearance several levels above hers.
“I can ask Kingsley to have a look,” she had told him, as she had twisted and contorted a napkin bad-temperedly between her fingers. “He’s got clearance high enough. But Umbridge…” she had paused and mock-spat, “has erected this great wall of bureaucracy that you have to climb to get any information these days and Kingsley’s so busy at the moment that Merlin knows when he’ll be able to find the time. I don’t fancy our chances of getting a look at those files before the Millennium. Sorry mate.”
They had drowned their sorrows together with butterbeer for a couple of hours before going their separate ways “ Tonks down the floo to her flat in London and Remus on foot back to Hogwarts. And so the night had passed and Sunday had sluggishly dawned, drizzly and grey, the sky heavy with the weight of April showers.
And Remus had gone home.
The weather in mid-Wales was little better than it had been in the highlands of Scotland, grey skies and drizzling rain that shrouded the surrounding trees, still mostly leafless in spite of the onset of spring, in a grim and swirling mist. The cottage of Winter Hollow was pale and slightly blurred, its bookend chimneys rising half-hidden out of the cloak of cloud, its red front door bleached of colour. Wrapping his cloak tightly around him, Remus hurried across the meadow towards the muted glow of light against the windows and let himself quickly inside.
“Remus?”
Remus glanced up as he pushed the door closed, meeting his father’s eyes with a smile. Reynard smiled warmly back as he leaned against the doorframe of the living room, his stance easy enough in comparison to the previous fortnight’s tension to allow a touch of relief to swell in Remus’ chest. But still, as he looked closer, around the edges of his father’s eyes and in the set of his shoulders, there lingered an undeniable uncertainty, a slight apprehension as he watched his son hang his cloak on the peg beside the door and move over to join him.
In spite of a ridiculous temptation to flood his father with the questions he had previously refused to answer, Remus forced himself to quell the whisper of worry in his mind. Instead, he simply tossed a glance towards the kitchen.
“Are we eating out today?” he asked with deliberately careful cheer. “Only I don’t smell a roast from Mrs Wenn.”
“No, no roast.” Flexing his crippled knee awkwardly, Reynard made his way slowly over to his familiar chair by the fire. Damp weather always affected him this badly, but Remus knew his father’s pride well enough not to offer any kind of help. “I asked her not to come today. I had a feeling you would want to talk before doing anything else and there’s no point in letting good food get cold.” He smiled slightly ruefully as he settled the garish green Molly-Weasley blanket over his obviously painful knees and poked his cane at the embers of the fire to make them flare. “I think I should congratulate you on your restraint, son. I half-expected to be hoisted up by my robes and shaken for answers as soon as you walked through the door.”
Remus chuckled softly as he settled on the settee beside the window, rubbing one hand unconsciously up and down his wrist as his mind flitted awkwardly back to several similar imaginary encounters that had flashed through his head in the prior fortnight. “Oh, it was a close run thing,” he replied with careful lightness. “But my fingers aren’t what they were. I decided I’d catch you unawares and quietly grill you over the fire instead.”
“At least you had a plan.” Reynard twitched his cane slightly between his fingers as he settled back against the cushions, a familiar gesture of his own nervousness. “But honestly, Remus “ the smell would have been terrible.”
Remus shrugged wryly as he crossed his legs and leaned back. “Son of a Potions Mistress and an Exterminator, remember? My nostrils were desensitised before I reached five. I’m immune to foul odours.”
Reynard cocked an eyebrow playfully but his smile was tight. “In other words, you mean the scent of your mother’s concoctions burned your nose hairs off.” He clicked his fingers in mock annoyance. “I knew we shouldn’t have given you the bedroom over the kitchen.”
“Not to mention the piles of kappa droppings in the yard. And the stench of you dissecting red caps on the kitchen table. And…”
“All right, all right.” Reynard raised his hands in wry defeat. “You had a smelly upbringing, I admit it.”
“And a loud one. What with mum blowing up the kitchen and your menagerie out the back and mum telling you off about your menagerie in the back…”
“We were terrible parents.” Reynard admitted with a more genuine grin. “I’ve never pretended otherwise. I mean people only have to look at how badly you turned out to tell…”
Remus returned the grin broadly. “Living here did teach me one valuable lesson. I learned how to sit quietly and block out the world as all hell broke loose around me. Given who I shared a dormitory with, I’d never have passed a single exam without that skill.”
“Nice to know I made a difference,” Reynard remarked with a sudden air of careful nonchalance. “I’ll thank you to remember that when you have me strapped to a spit, the stench of charred parent wafting on the breeze.”
Remus smiled again. “Weren’t you listening? I’ll be able to ignore you nicely as you rotate away.”
There was no doubt this time “ the lightness of his father’s tone had slipped into uncertainty. “But then how will you hear my answers? And for that matter,” he smiled wanly, “what were you planning to ask me?”
Remus’ felt his smile droop rather as the daft conversation dropped abruptly back into seriousness, back into the lap of the subject that both had been skirting. “I was hoping you might just start to talk,” he ventured.
“I might have been a little distracted by the flames.”
Remus gave him a stern look. “Dad.”
“Sorry.” Reynard raised an apologetic hand at his brief but blatant attempt at humorous diversion. “Let’s forget the metaphorical torture for now. I asked you here to talk about something… something important that’s happened to me in the last few weeks. Something I want to share with my only son.”
Remus fought back a ridiculous chill in his chest as Tonks’ suggestion for his father’s odd behaviour reared irrationally against his memory.
“Look, dad,” he said suddenly, determined to head off any potential awkwardness the older man might feel in confessing such a liaison. “I think I know what you might be about to say and I just want you to know that if you have decided to start… seeing someone, I wouldn’t dream of being anything but happy for you and I know mum would have only wanted to you to be happy too…”
“Remus, slow down.” Reynard sat slowly forward, regarding his son with suddenly wide eyes as his fingers tickled his cane once more. “What on earth are you talking about?”
There was a substantial pause. “About you seeing someone?” Remus offered at length. “A female someone?”
Reynard stared. “Remus,” he said slowly. “I’m married. Remember your mother?”
Remus immediately felt distinctly silly. “I know. But my friend Tonks suggested you might be meeting someone on some kind of date the day we saw you and that you’d been widowed for a long time…” He trailed off at his father’s incredulous expression. “I told her it was daft,” he finished wearily.
“Completely daft,” Reynard agreed with a nod. “Honestly, I thought you knew me better than that. For me, there is no woman in the world that could ever compare to your mother.”
“I did say that to her.”
“I should think so.”
Remus frowned. “All right, I’m sorry. But if you weren’t meeting a woman, who were you meeting?”
The twitching hands stilled. Reynard’s eyes lifted slowly to fix upon his son’s.
“My brother,” he said softly.
There was a lengthy silence.
Whatever Remus had expected, it wasn’t that. Though in hindsight, he wasn’t quite sure why.
“Your brother?” he repeated at last, his voice equally soft. “As in Rolphe Lupin? The brother you haven’t seen or spoken to in thirty years?”
Reynard nodded slowly. “Until two weeks ago, yes.” He smiled wanly. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised. You’re the one who told me I should get back in touch with him.”
“I…” Remus breathed deeply. “Dad, that was four months ago. When you didn’t say anything, I suppose I assumed you’d decided against it.”
Reynard’s smile grew rather rueful. “No, just working up the courage. And I think the same was true for him. It took him over a fortnight to reply to my letter.”
Remus’ mind flashed back to the three months wait and significant push from the Order it had taken to get him to accept Rebekah Goldstein’s invitation, not to mention his days of procrastination before deciding to visit Kane prior to his Kiss. Clearly indecisiveness on matters of great personal importance was a bit of a Lupin trait.
“What did he say?” he asked softly.
Reynard shrugged but his casualness was obviously false. “That he wanted to meet in person and talk at the Three Broomsticks that Sunday. And that he wasn’t angry with me any more.” He chuckled dryly. “That’s why I was…well, jumpier than a grindylow in a hot cauldron, as you so diplomatically put it when you saw me that day. I was about to see my little brother for the first time in more than thirty-three years.”
A slow realisation was dawning on Remus. “Not to mention it must have been rather nerve-wracking to have your werewolf son appear when you were about to have a delicate reunion with a man whose wife and son were killed by the same werewolf that bit him.”
Reynard flushed instantly. “You know I don’t think like that, Remus.”
“But you didn’t know that Rolphe didn’t,” Remus offered easily. “Dad, don’t worry. It makes perfect sense.”
Reynard still looked uncomfortable. “I’ll admit, I did wonder. But as it happens, he was quite reasonable about it.” He smiled slightly. “He’s rather warmed to you since you brought his wife’s killer to justice.”
Remus raised an eyebrow in slight surprise as vicious headlines and misleading articles danced before his mind’s eye. “Considering Rita Skeeter’s charming piece of venom in the Prophet, I’m surprised he didn’t tar me with the same brush.”
“Oh he did, at first.” His father smiled more fondly. “But apparently you’re his grandson’s favourite teacher. And he told Rolphe that Rita’s report was utter dragon dung. Apparently, the boy even signed your petition.”
Remus laughed outright. “Good to know,” he chuckled as his mind skimmed over class lists. So I teach my uncle’s grandson? Since he was fairly certain that he would have noticed another Lupin in the register, Remus could only assume the grandson mentioned belonged to one of Rolphe’s daughters.
“What’s the boy’s name?” he asked curiously.
“You know, I forgot to ask.” Reynard was smiling more easily now. “But I doubt I would have remembered anyway. You know he has nine grandchildren from four of his five grown up kids? The eldest lad’s at Hogwarts and another couple are due to join him next year. And his youngest daughter’s had a baby just last Christmas.” His smile turned slightly bittersweet, his eyes a little wistful. “It’s probably a good thing my father left him the family home. The three of us would have rattled around rather in that big old house compared to Rolphe and his hoards of offspring.”
Remus felt his heart twist unpleasantly inside his chest. He knew better than anyone just how much his parents would have loved a rampaging hoard of children and grandchildren careening through their lives. But fate had not been kind in that regard “ fertility problems had meant that Remus was their long awaited first-and-only child and his bite aged only three had put pay to any realistic ambitions towards a family of his own long before he’d ever had time to formulate them. Even if by some miracle he did happen across a woman brave or foolish enough to be willing to marry and have children by a werewolf and even if he were to allow such a woman to make such a sacrifice, a hoard of grandchildren clustered around Granddad Reynard’s knee did not seem especially likely.
Biting his lip, Remus forced himself to speak. “Do you know what year he’s in? Or his House?”
Reynard sat back, his eyes still a little melancholy but his smile was real. “All I know is that he’s in his teens and a Ravenclaw like his grandfather was. Rolphe was very proud of that.” The smile faltered slightly. “There’s old family tradition of Lupins in Ravenclaw, as my father was always reminding us when we were young. He wasn’t best impressed when Rhea went to Gryffindor and even less when I became a Hufflepuff like mum. At least Rolphe restored the family honour for him.”
Rafe Lupin was a subject that Remus most definitely did not want to touch upon. “He didn’t say anything else?” he deflected quickly. “If I’m teaching a cousin’s son, I’d like to at least know about it.”
His father’s smile became a little rueful. “Sorry, Remus. I honestly don’t recall. But whoever the lad is, I’m very grateful to him. It was his endorsement above all else that convinced Rolphe to write back to me. He wrote to this grandson and asked what he thought of you. The report was apparently glowing.”
Remus smiled back. “That’s very reassuring.”
The cane has begun to twitch once more. “And that is also the reason,” Reynard added softly. “That when I saw him again last week back at our family home, he invited both of us to a family dinner in two weeks time.”
Remus blinked. Had he just said…? “Pardon?”
“A family dinner,” Reynard repeated with a slight smile. “Both of us. With Rolphe, his wife, his five children and his nine grandchildren all in attendance to meet us. He’s holding it during the Hogwarts Easter holidays especially so the whole family can meet us.”
Remus stared at his father in outright disbelief. “They’ve invited me?”
Reynard grinned. “Indeed they have.”
“To dinner.”
“That’s right.”
“With their family”
Rey smiled warmly. “With our family.”
Remus struggled slightly to bring his mind into focus. “But Kane…”
“You stopped him.”
“I’m still a werewolf.”
Reynard laughed fondly. “And that’s just it, Remus. I won’t lie to you and say that Rolphe is entirely comfortable with that. But you captured Kane. You’re his grandson’s favourite teacher. And you’re my son.” He smiled. “He says he can live with it.”
Remus felt a rush of fond warmth. Acceptance was always something that he had craved far more than he had ever received. But if Rolphe Lupin, a man whose wife and son had fallen to a feral’s claws, could swallow his distrust enough to issue such an invitation, then he certainly did not intend to refuse it.
“Well then,” he said with a smile. “Then I guess I’ll be meeting the family.”