Be the Light in My Lantern, chapter 16
Dec. 19th, 2014 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarBE THE LIGHT IN MY LANTERN
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Note: Okay, so here's my posting plan for the next weeks – because things are about to get (even more) hectic for me, I'm going to switch to posting chapters every two weeks. So I won't post a chapter next Friday, but I will post on or around Friday two weeks from now. And on or around Friday two weeks after that. And then that's it for Part 1! (Part 2 will follow...) Oh, and as always, this story is simultaneously updating at AO3 and FF.
Chapter 16: The Calm before the Storm
You can live in the corner of my room
And I will live somewhere between the ceiling and the wall
And if I need anything at all
I'll call out to you
–Angus and Julia Stone, Here We Go Again
Remus Apparated to the pavement outside the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade at nearly the same moment Mad-Eye Moody did.
"Prove you are who you appear to be," Moody growled, and Remus knew the other man was gripping his wand under his cloak.
"Albus Dumbledore told the two of us it would be a 'great relief' to know we would work together in the event of his absence," Remus said.
"And he used the words 'working in tandem' to describe McGonagall and Snape's role," Moody replied. "All right, proof enough for me. You?"
"Yes."
Moody pushed open the door to the pub, and Remus followed.
Inside, the place was as drab as ever, and nearly deserted aside from a small knot of elderly wizards playing a gambling game in one corner, their playing cards emitting whizzes and bangs and orange flashes of light.
Moody went to claim them a booth at the back of the room, while Remus headed towards the bar to do the ordering. Moody's habit of never drinking anything but his own was too well known for him to plausibly take that role.
"A Firewhisky, please," Remus said, the most neutral and inconspicuous drink he could think of.
Aberforth Dumbledore made no comment as he slapped the glass down on the bar, but when Remus glanced down, he saw a bit of folded-up parchment beneath it.
"Thank you," Remus said, handing over coins in payment for the drink. Aberforth nodded, and Remus took both glass and parchment to the booth where Moody was waiting. Moody set his flask at the outside edge of the table, so it would somewhat obscure a casual observer's view, and Remus slid the small square of parchment towards the middle of the table.
"I am Alastor Moody," Moody said, tapping the parchment with his wand.
"I am Remus Lupin," Remus said, reaching across the table to do the same.
The parchment unfolded of its own accord, and thin, spidery handwriting began to spread outwards from its centre.
I am at a safe location, Dumbledore's letter read. It's best we don't attempt to meet, but instead continue to correspond in this manner as planned. Either of you can come here without arousing suspicion, under the pretence of meeting with Minerva.
It has come much as I had anticipated: Cornelius has finally found a pretext for removing me from Hogwarts, but as his version involved Aurors, arrest and an unproductive stay in Azkaban, I chose to take a different path.
I cannot help but think this new situation will prove advantageous in certain ways, as I am now in an unprecedented position to carry out some necessary research to which I had been hoping to devote more time. If I am concerned for the students at Hogwarts, I must remind myself they are in the capable hands of Minerva, Severus and the rest of the staff. I could say the same about the Order of the Phoenix in your hands.
Alastor, I trust you to convene the Order when necessary and to continue practical training. Remus, I depend on you to keep lines of communication open amongst our members. I authorise either of you to make decisions on my behalf in cases when time is of the essence. And I ask that you refrain from sending a message to me by Patronus unless a dire scenario should arise.
Please ensure that Harry continues to study Occlumency. This grows ever more urgent.
Please destroy this letter.
A. P. W. B. D.
Moody set the parchment aflame with a tap of his wand, and the two of them looked at each other over the flames as they flickered and died away, leaving nothing but a dusting of ash.
"And so the game begins," Remus said.
Moody nodded, then surprised Remus by saying, "It's good to have you on board, Lupin." He leaned across the table and clapped Remus on the shoulder.
There was nothing else that needed to be said for the time being – but plenty to do if they wanted to let the Order's members know what had happened before the morning Prophet arrived and gave them a shock.
They parted ways outside the Hog's Head and set off across the country to spread the news.
– – – – –
The next morning's Daily Prophet set the entire wizarding community buzzing with dismay. Within the Order of the Phoenix, however, the reaction was one of disappointment but no great surprise, and Remus was grateful to see how determinedly everyone kept on. If anything, this sign of how bad things had become only increased everyone’s focus and determination.
And even the shock to the wider community was not necessarily a bad thing. Fudge's stories were growing less believable by the day, and public opinion was turning.
For his own part, Remus took seriously Dumbledore's charge to oversee Order communications, and was on the go constantly, shuttling between members, passing along messages, keeping everyone informed.
He dropped by the Hog's Head periodically to leave messages for the elder Dumbledore brother with the taciturn but dependable younger brother. McGonagall (yes, Remus knew he was allowed to call her Minerva now, but it never quite sounded right to his ears) was good about coming out to meet him at the pub, giving him a pretext for being there. Just in case anyone was watching.
Sometimes in the evenings, nearly dead on his feet, Remus would drop by Tonks' flat, and she would greet him with a smile, then make him stop moving and rest for a bit on her sofa. Sometimes she would touch his hand or his shoulder, but Remus kept himself from leaning into that touch, held himself back from wanting or asking for more.
On one evening, she sat next to him on the sofa – it was a deep shade indigo this month, and Remus smiled even through his weariness at Tonks’ endearing impatience with furniture that stayed the same for too long – and read some work papers of her own. As she read, she reached out one hand to stroke Remus’ hair where his head rested next to her hip, and Remus closed his eyes and carefully did not wish for any more than this. From the way her hand occasionally hitched in its motion, he could tell Tonks was thinking much the same.
But they never took it further than the sofa. It was a slow and careful courtship, this time, a building up of trust, and that wasn’t something that could be accomplished in a single day – or a single night. As much as he longed to hold Tonks, to kiss her endlessly, to grab her hand and pull her up from the couch and take her to bed, Remus wanted even more to do it right this time, to be someone she could depend on, first. So they stayed beside each other on the sofa, on those quiet evenings at her flat that were a reprieve from the rest of the world, and it was almost enough.
– – – – –
Nearly two weeks after Dumbledore's flight, Sirius finally got a letter from Harry, and Remus came down to the kitchen at 12 Grimmauld Place to find him frowning at it.
"Can't make heads nor tails of this," Sirius grumbled. "I mean, I can see why he's being cautious about what he says, since the parchment's all crumpled and manhandled and it took a week and a half to get here after he wrote it. But what's the good if I have no blasted idea what he's talking about?"
Remus knew to take these complaints with a grain of Pixie dust – Sirius would still light up like a kid at Christmas even if Harry wrote in Gobbledegook – but he obligingly took the letter from Sirius' hand and had a look at it, leaning against the table. As he read, he felt a slow smile spreading across his face.
"What?" Sirius demanded. "What are you getting out of that that I'm not? I understand 'sometimes I feel bad about things that happen, even if they're out of my control,' he means Dumbledore having to leave, but what's the bit about 'at least my friends and I have been learning to turn happiness into something stronger, which an old friend of yours once taught me'? You're the 'old friend,' I'm supposing from the inane way you're smiling."
Remus kept smiling, but tried to rein it in to something less inane. "Patronuses," he said. "Goodness, not only can he produce one himself, but now he's teaching others?" The thought of Harry and his friends arming themselves with this powerful protective spell was comforting.
"Patronuses," Sirius grumbled, "Of course, clear as mud. Remind me to remind Harry not to go into the business of code-writing." But he folded Harry's letter carefully into his pocket.
Remus had worried how Sirius might react to the kids staying at school to revise during the Easter holidays – even though students had stayed at Hogwarts during the Easter holidays since time immemorial, especially in their O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. years – but so far he was bearing up all right. Molly and Arthur had offered to come over for part of Easter Sunday, which Remus thought very kind of them, that they wanted to show Sirius they cared even when Harry wasn't there.
Then, late one afternoon not long after the holiday itself, Remus was at the kitchen table puzzling over an incomplete plan of the Department of Mysteries that Kingsley had managed to smuggle out for the Order, when he heard Harry himself say, "Sirius?"
Remus started and spun around. Yes, Harry's head was in the fireplace. "Harry!" he said. "What are you – what's happened, is everything all right?"
"Yeah," Harry said, looking shifty and not quite all right. "I just wondered – I mean, I just fancied a – a chat with Sirius."
Remus knew that falsely casual expression far too well, having grown up with two boys who wore it almost constantly, but he simply rose to his feet and hurried out of the kitchen to get Sirius, who'd gone looking for the perpetually disappearing Kreacher.
He managed more or less to maintain his decorum while still in the kitchen, but once out of Harry's sight, Remus dashed up the stairs from the basement, then hollered, "Sirius! Sirius, Harry's in the fire for you!"
Remus could feel a bubble of vicarious elation rising in his chest. Whatever had driven Harry to the desperate measure of using the Floo from Hogwarts, at least it meant a chance for Sirius to see him face to face.
Sirius pounded down the house’s many fights of stairs in less time than seemed possible, and raced Remus back to the kitchen.
"What is it? Are you all right? Do you need help?" Sirius demanded, dropping down to Harry's eye level by the fire. Remus joined him there, not wanting to intrude, but wanting to be near at hand if they needed anything.
"No, it's nothing like that," Harry said. "I just wanted to talk…about my dad."
Remus looked at Sirius and Sirius looked at Remus. Harry had broken who knew how many school rules in order to get access to a fireplace, and now he was here…to talk to them about James?
"Okay, sure," Sirius said, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. "What about him?"
It all came tumbling out, a story of "accidentally" ending up in Severus Snape's Pensieve and seeing a terrible memory Snape had taken great pains to hide. How strange it was to hear Harry describe a scene from twenty years before as if it had only just happened – although for him, of course, it had just happened. All of them out by the lake after an O.W.L. exam, Sirius haughty and bored, Peter playing James' one-man fan club and James lapping up the attention.
Then Snape entering their crosshairs, James and Sirius tormenting him, Remus doing nothing to stop them. And Lily, easily the only one of them to have had both a brain and a conscience in those early years, stepping in to defend Snape.
Harry tried to tell the story as a series of neutral facts, but Remus could hear the distress in his voice as he described James' arrogance, Lily's disdain. No, Snape's memory was not a pleasant one, from anyone's side.
Harry completed his story and no one spoke. So Remus said, "I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen –"
"I'm fifteen!" Harry interjected.
Sirius took a different tack, trying to explain to Harry the rivalry that had existed between James and Severus, with years of bitter history already in place before the scene Harry had accidentally witnessed, years of mutual enmity and James' popularity and Snape's known fascination with the Dark Arts. Sirius added, "And James – whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry – always hated the Dark Arts."
"Yeah, but he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because – well, just because you said you were bored."
Harry looked uncomfortable implicating Sirius in this way and Sirius hurried to assure him, "I'm not proud of it."
Remus glanced at Sirius, thinking that he really had managed to grow up somehow, despite Azkaban. Then he said, "Look, Harry, what you've got to understand is that your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did – everyone thought they were the height of cool – if they sometimes got a bit carried away –"
"If we were sometimes arrogant little berks you mean," Sirius interrupted, and at that Remus really couldn't hold back a smile.
"He kept messing up his hair," said Harry, sounding pained.
Sirius' laugh was infectious, and Remus allowed himself to briefly entertain the foolish notion that perhaps they should send Harry back into memories of their school days more often, if it made Sirius laugh like that.
"I'd forgotten he used to do that," Sirius said, his smile soft and indulgent.
"Was he playing with the Snitch?" Remus couldn't help asking. Fifteen-year-old James. An arrogant, lovable berk indeed.
"Yeah," Harry said, gazing at the two of them, perplexed. "Well…I thought he was a bit of an idiot."
"Of course he was a bit of an idiot!" Sirius declared. "We were all idiots! Well – not Moony so much."
Remus shook his head at being painted into this role yet again. "Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape? Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?"
"Yeah, well, you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes…that was something…"
Harry determinedly drew their attention back to the problem at hand. "And he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!"
Sirius shrugged. "Oh, well, he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around. He couldn't stop himself showing off whenever he got near her."
Harry looked miserable at the very thought. "How come she married him? She hated him!"
"Nah, she didn't." Sirius’ tone suggested it was incomprehensible that anyone could think such a thing, as if Sirius himself hadn’t spent the better part of six years at Hogwarts trying to convince James that Lily hated him and he should give it up already.
"She started going out with him in seventh year," Remus tried to explain.
"Once James had deflated his head a bit," Sirius added.
"And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it," Remus couldn't help putting in.
"Even Snape?" Harry wanted to know.
That was a difficult one, and Remus tried to tread carefully. "Well, Snape was a special case," he said. "I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?"
"And my mum was okay with that?"
"She didn't know too much about it, to tell you the truth," Sirius said. "I mean, James didn't take Snape on dates with her and hex him in front of her, did he?" Sirius frowned to see Harry still looking unconvinced. "Look, your father was the best friend I ever had and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it."
"Yeah, okay," Harry said. There was a little pause, then he said, "I just never thought I'd feel sorry for Snape."
That reminded Remus of another important piece of this equation. "How did Snape react when he found you'd seen all this?"
And Harry answered, so casual, that Snape had called off Occlumency lessons entirely.
"I'm coming up there to have a word with Snape!" Sirius declared, and actually started to stand up, as if he were about to dash off to Hogwarts that moment to give Snape a piece of his mind.
Remus put a placating but firm hand on Sirius' shoulder and reminded everyone of where things stood. "If anyone's going to tell Snape it will be me. But Harry, first of all, you're to go back to Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons – when Dumbledore hears –"
"I can't tell him that, he'd kill me!" Harry argued.
Remus, though, could practically see the spidery handwriting in front of his eyes. Please ensure that Harry continues to study Occlumency. This grows ever more urgent.
"Harry," he said, "There is nothing so important as you learning Occlumency! Do you understand me? Nothing!"
"OK, OK," Harry said, annoyed and clearly not understanding. "I'll try and say something to him…but it won't be –" He stopped speaking and appeared to be listening for something. "Is that Kreacher coming downstairs?"
"No, it must be somebody on your end," Sirius said.
"I'd better go!" Harry gasped, and then his head was gone from the fire.
Remus and Sirius both stared at the flames, returned to normal reds and oranges instead of emerald.
"I was planning to go by the Hog's Head tomorrow anyway," Remus said, without looking at Sirius. "McGonagall was going to meet me, but I'll ask her to send Severus instead, and I'll talk to him. Please don't go running up there. Please trust me. I've got this under control."
Sirius jumped up and started pacing. "I know you do, I know you do," he muttered. "But what do I do? When do I help? Am I seriously supposed to just sit here and watch?" He rounded on Remus, who was only just pulling himself to his feet and brushing off the knees of his trousers. "He's supposed to help Harry, not put him in more danger!"
"I know, but –"
"What a fucking arrogant PRICK," Sirius raged, then stormed off up the stairs, likely to Buckbeak's room.
Remus looked at the flames flickering lower in the fireplace, then at the doorway where Sirius had gone. Remus knew better than to try to follow him just now.
He sighed and set himself back in front of the Department of Mysteries documents. That was all he could do for the time being, try to help them all be prepared.
Remus lost track of time, but it must have been several hours later that a knock at the front door startled him from his work. His eyes went automatically to the kitchen clock, wondering who would be dropping by so late in the evening.
When he went upstairs to see, he found Arthur Weasley standing on the front step, looking equal parts anxious and excited.
"Remus!" he said. "I'm sorry, is it too late? Can I come in for a minute? Am I bothering you?"
"No," Remus said, "Yes, I mean, no, come in."
He stepped back to make room for Arthur, who asked, "Did you hear what happened?"
Remus' mind went immediately to Hogwarts, and Harry's call. Was he in danger he hadn't mentioned? "No, what is it? What's happened?"
Arthur saw that Remus' mind had jumped straight to worry and said, "Oh, it's nothing bad – that is, unless you ask Molly. Just our two most incorrigible sons, who've left school for good. And done it with characteristic flair, of course."
"Oh," Remus said, now perplexed. He motioned Arthur towards the kitchen stairs, following after him. He offered Arthur a seat and rooted around in the cold cupboard for a Butterbeer, then offered that to Arthur as well.
Arthur grinned and said, "Oh, well, sure. Ta, Remus."
Remus settled himself back into the chair across from Arthur and asked, "Fred and George have left Hogwarts?"
"Got themselves completely backed into a corner by Umbridge, then reclaimed their brooms, which she'd confiscated, and flew off into the sunset, if I've understood the thing right. We've had one very nasty owl from Umbridge and one nearly incomprehensible one from the boys, so that's the best I've been able to reconstruct it."
"You haven’t seen them, then? Since they left?" Remus asked. He would never have wished for the Weasley twins to abandon their schooling this way, of course, but for the Order to have ready access to a student's perspective – well, a recent ex-student's perspective – on the situation at Hogwarts might not be a bad thing.
"No." Arthur scratched his head. "They seem to have premises in Diagon Alley already, where they’re planning to open a new joke shop, and where they're living as of tonight. I'm not entirely sure how they got all that done so fast, frankly."
"They're resourceful boys," Remus said. He hadn't quite figured out yet if Arthur was pleased or displeased, or mainly still in shock. "And how's Molly taken the news?" he asked with what he hoped was circumspect neutrality.
Arthur raised his eyes from the drink in his hands and looked directly at Remus. "You know I love my wife more than anything, right? That she and the kids are the most important thing in the world to me, and I wouldn't want to live a day without them?"
"Yes," Remus said, startled.
"Then I hope you'll understand if I say that at this particular moment, she's driving me mad."
For a second, Remus just stared at Arthur, then he couldn't help the laughter that burst out. "Oh – I'm so sorry –" he said. "I shouldn't laugh – "
Arthur grinned, seeming to relax. "No, it's quite all right. You know Molly. You can imagine the volume of the shouting. And Fred and George aren't there in person to be shouted at, so…" He shrugged his shoulders. "I just needed to get out and take a breather for a few minutes. I hope you don't mind that I washed up here."
"Of course not," Remus said, and he meant it. It was somehow quite nice to think that when the storm hit Arthur would come here.
Remus pictured Molly in the kitchen of the Burrow, raging over her twins' incomplete Hogwarts education. Then he tried to picture the joke shop Fred and George would open, and found that mere imagination failed him. It was sure to be spectacular, at any rate.
"You know the boys will be fine, don't you?" he asked Arthur. "They're very bright and resourceful, and I've never seen them let anything get in their way. I taught them for a year, remember, and I know they're beyond brilliant when they choose to bend both their minds to something."
"That's certainly what I hope," Arthur said. "I know they're clever, but who's to say if they've got the business sense, the stamina to stick out the ups and downs…"
"They do," said Remus. All the afternoon's stress and worry seemed to recede when he thought of Fred and George Weasley turning their formidable talents to a shop of their own. Diagon Alley wouldn't know what had hit it.
Arthur stayed perhaps twenty minutes longer, then admitted it was time to go home and make another run at placating his wife.
"Tell her what I said," Remus urged. "I really do think they'll be absolutely fine, even without N.E.W.T.s."
"You know," Arthur agreed, "you, she just might listen to."
Just before tamping down the kitchen fire for the night, Remus sent a message to Professor McGonagall, asking if she would instead send Snape to their meeting at the Hog's Head the next day.
He scribbled the request on a slip of parchment and dropped it in the Floo, saying "Professor McGonagall's office at Hogwarts" as he did. It was a method of communication Dumbledore had recommended for messages that needed to travel more quickly than an owl could, but weren't really urgent enough to merit a Patronus. Applicable, of course, only for communications innocuous enough to stand up to the scrutiny surely being exercised on the Floo network.
The next day, though, it was McGonagall waiting for him in a booth at the back of the Hog's Head.
"Severus declined to come," she told Remus with a frown. "Is something the matter?"
Remus weighed his options, but decided this particular problem was between Harry, Snape and Dumbledore. "No, it's all right," he said. "I'll send a message to Dumbledore about it."
He slipped a note under his empty glass before he left, mentioning Snape's refusal to continue lessons with Harry and asking if there was anything he should do. Two days later, the answer he received when he next dropped by the Hog's Head, briefly and alone, came as a shock.
If this is the case, and Harry is no longer receiving Occlumency instruction from Severus, the note read in Dumbledore's handwriting, then we have entered the realm of back-up plans, and I feel I should inform you, Remus, of my suspicions. There has always been a danger that Voldemort would use the connection he shares with Harry; that once he discovered that connection, he would attempt to exploit it, even make Harry his unwitting spy against the Order.
More and more, however, I begin to think Voldemort will not be content forever to simply mine information. At some point he may attempt to manipulate Harry and to make more active use of their connection. I cannot say for sure what form this would take. All I can ask is that you redouble your guard. Minerva already knows to keep Harry in her sight as much as possible, and to alert you or Alastor or myself if anything seems amiss.
Share this knowledge discreetly, but as you see fit.
It would be imprudent to give details here, but my research proceeds apace. Keep up hope and know that I appreciate your work.
It concluded, as the notes always did, Please destroy this letter.
Remus sat, stunned.
Voldemort might attempt to manipulate Harry? How? Into doing what? And what in Merlin's name were they meant to do to stop him?
Remus finally roused himself from his seat when he realised that sitting alone with his gaze fixed on his drink was eventually going to draw unwanted attention. He stopped to gather his cloak around himself as he stepped out of the pub, more for a chance to pause and collect his thoughts than for protection against the mild evening air.
The person he wanted to talk to was Kingsley, he realised. Not Moody, with his indubitable store of knowledge but dire outlook on the world; not even Tonks or Sirius, though he would tell them soon. Well, perhaps not Sirius. Remus would have to mull that one over, whether it would do more harm or good for Sirius to know this particular alarming piece of information. But right now Remus found he could do with Kingsley's unflappable calm, along with his expertise as an Auror.
Remus checked his timeworn pocket watch and estimated Kingsley might just be arriving home. He Apparated, and caught the man arriving on his doorstep.
"Remus!" Kingsley said, surprised. "Something urgent?"
"Not urgent so much as…potentially urgent," Remus said.
"Come in," Kingsley replied, without requiring further explanation. He unlocked his front door magically, and indicated Remus should step inside.
"No security question?" Remus asked. He would have expected Kingsley of all people to follow security protocols to a T.
"No need," Kingsley replied. "The protections I've set up are such that you only make it in the door if I've previously vetted you, and the spell can't be fooled by Polyjuice. I've got some strong Imperius detections up, too. In fact, if someone were controlling my actions, I'd be the first to know."
"Ah," Remus said. It made sense that they all had their own personal preferences when it came their security at home. In fact, it was probably a good thing, since the variety made each iteration harder for an enemy to figure out.
He hated that they had to think in those terms.
"Anyway, I'm sure you're not here for a lecture on my security system," Kingsley said. "What can I do for you? Can I get you something to drink?"
Remus noted the tired circles under Kingsley's eyes, despite his laidback manner, and said, "No, thank you, I'm just stopping by."
Then he found that it was difficult, somehow, to voice what he had just learned. In the end, he put it as directly and simply as he could.
"I've just heard from Dumbledore concerning his suspicion that Voldemort may try to exploit the mental connection we know he shares with Harry. I suppose it's not really new news, but the way he phrased it was startling – that Voldemort might try to 'manipulate' Harry, that he may try to control their connection more actively."
Kingsley gave a slow nod as he hung up his cloak in the hallway. "Not surprising. Disquieting, of course, but not surprising."
"The worst thing is not knowing what form it might take," Remus admitted.
Kingsley turned to Remus again. "If it helps at all," he said, "think of it this way: Harry has people watching out for him all around him. Minerva and Severus are there for him at Hogwarts, we have Order members in Hogsmeade, here in London, at the Ministry… There's a reason Voldemort hasn't got to him yet, Remus, and it's not for lack of trying. Harry has the best possible guards – he has us."
Remus managed a bit of a smile. "It sounds so much more manageable when you say it."
"That's my job," Kingsley said, quite seriously. "Not making things sound manageable – actually making them so. Have you talked to Alastor yet?"
"No," Remus said. "I'll go to him next."
"He'll probably want us to station another guard in Hogsmeade," Kingsley said thoughtfully, "but you can tell him, for what it's worth, that I don't think it's necessary, since the Ministry has Aurors regularly patrolling there already. The Ministry collectively may have its head in the sand, but an Auror will still know how to recognise manifestations of Dark magic."
"True," Remus said. "I'll tell him you said so."
"And remember, Harry is safe as long as he stays at Hogwarts."
"Yes," Remus said. "Then let's certainly hope he does."
Kingsley reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Remus, you're doing a great job. You're really keeping things together, and you should know that we appreciate it."
"Oh –" said Remus. "I'm not really – I mean, mostly Moody –"
"Runs the practical side of things, yes. And you keep all the loose threads together."
"I –" Remus struggled to find a way to express that he was not really doing as much good as everyone seemed to think he was doing, then gave up. "I'm doing my best."
"That's all anyone can ask," Kingsley replied.
– – – – –
"It's my birthday tomorrow," Tonks said from behind her paperwork, sitting next to where Remus was resting on her sofa. It had been an anxious few days, as he grappled with Dumbledore's newly revealed suspicions, but as always Tonks was the force that kept him steady.
Remus jerked upright, and Tonks gently pushed him back down. "I'm so sorry," he said, "I did know that, but with everything going on – why didn't you say something sooner?"
"I didn't say anything on purpose, because I don't need a big fuss made over me."
"Oh, as if you didn't make a big fuss over me, with the cake and the surprise gathering…"
She just smiled and waggled her head at him. "That's because you need a good fuss made over you now and again. But I’m a doted-upon only child and I’ve had more than my share of being fussed over, believe me. This year I’d like it to be a quiet thing. I've convinced Mum and Dad to come over to Headquarters in the evening tomorrow, because I want Sirius there too. So, just you and me and Sirius and Mum and Dad. Do you think that will be all right with Sirius?"
"Of course it'll be all right. I know he'll be glad."
It was a good thing, though, that Andromeda had brought Ted along to visit Sirius once before, because finagling a way now to get the address from Dumbledore to give to Ted would have been next to impossible. Good, Sirius would have a little company, and Tonks would get to spend some time with her family. Then a new thought made Remus flop back onto the sofa cushion beneath his head with a groan.
"What is it?" Tonks asked.
"Andromeda is going to grill me, isn't she?"
"Grill you? About what?"
"You know – us."
"No, she won't! She won't say a thing."
"You don't understand, she'll grill me with her eyes. She doesn't have to say a word."
There was a pause, then Tonks burst out laughing. "You know what? I know exactly the look you mean." She leaned back against the sofa. "Oh, woe, poor Remus. Always suffering the whims of Blacks."
"You don't know the half of it," he said, but they were both smiling.
– – – – –
All in all, it was a lovely evening. The five of them had dinner together in the basement kitchen (Remus cooked), with candles in the wall sconces around the table making the room cosy. After the meal, Andromeda finally revealed the birthday cake she'd been keeping magically concealed.
It was a complex confection of multiple layers and subtly shifting shades, a fairy tale castle of a cake. Remus vaguely remembered this, that Andromeda had always had a deft hand with this sort of whimsical confection, although it made such an unlikely contrast to her otherwise no-nonsense personality.
"Oh, Mum," Tonks breathed.
"Happy birthday, sweetheart," Andromeda said. "We're so proud of you. We may not always agree with your choices, and admittedly, there are times you leave us worrying for your safety more than we'd like –"
Ted grinned and put a hand on his wife's arm. "What your mother is trying to say, though I wouldn't blame you if you can't tell, is that we love you unconditionally and everything you do makes us proud."
"Yes, something precisely like that," Andromeda said, with a wry smile at her own expense. "Come on, make a wish and blow out your candles."
Tonks did, then got Andromeda to dish up enormous slices of the cake for each of them, insisting she'd only make a mess if she tried to do it herself.
"Delicious, Andromeda," Remus said, as they dug in. "I’d forgotten you had such a talent at this."
"Too bad it's not genetic," Tonks said, but she didn't look like she particularly minded.
"Who says it's not?" Sirius retorted. "Maybe you're the only one it skipped."
Tonks raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh? Because you're an expert baker now?"
"For all we know I could be. In fact, maybe I am, you just don't know because I haven't bothered to bake anything yet."
Tonks rolled her eyes, and Remus smiled to see both of them joking and happy. Tonks knew about Dumbledore's message and Sirius didn't, and Remus still didn't know if that was the right decision.
"So what do you think of your little cousin now she's all grown up, Sirius?" Ted asked. "Have we done all right by her?"
"I'd say," Sirius replied. Remus, who'd been expecting a witty comeback, was surprised to see he looked pensive. "I never even thought I'd be around long enough to see her make it out of childhood, and now look at her, with more sense than the rest of us put together."
Predictably, Tonks blushed.
"No need to get sentimental on us, old man," Remus teased. He hoped Sirius would recognise the comment as a joking echo of what Sirius had said at Remus' own birthday, and he saw by Sirius' hint of a smile that he did.
As Ted and Andromeda were clearing the plates away, Remus found an opportunity to put a hand on Sirius' shoulder and say quietly, "I still feel bad that we didn't do anything for yours."
Sirius shook his head. "I told you, Moony. No birthdays until I'm truly free."
Remus knew he couldn't argue.
"Presents!" Ted announced, and with a wave of his wand, a small pile of them appeared on the table in front of Tonks.
There was a Quidditch book and a pair of high-quality flying gloves from Sirius (Remus knew Andromeda had done the actual shopping, to Sirius' obsessively precise specifications).
Then, from Andromeda and Ted, a couple of Dark Detectors that had Tonks in raptures of delight. Remus smiled again, thinking what a wonderful Defence Against the Dark Arts student she must have been, even though he knew Andromeda and Ted had more practical reasons for their choice of gifts than simply indulging their daughter's love of all things Defence.
Remus himself was still debating the wisdom of giving her the present he had chosen, but now that the moment was here, he realised there had never really been any question.
"Sorry, mine is still upstairs," he said. "You'll have to wait a moment while I get it."
He noticed Andromeda's gaze flick between him and her daughter, but she had refrained all evening from grilling Remus – even with her eyes – and he was grateful.
Remus dashed up to the bedroom he used at Grimmauld Place and fetched his small gift, wrapped in simple brown paper. Then he hurried back down to the ground floor, but paused in the doorway at the top of the stairs to the kitchen, just to steady himself for a moment.
To his surprise, Tonks emerged out of the dark a few steps below him.
"Hey," she said. "I thought I'd come see where you'd gone. Are you coming back downstairs?"
"Perhaps I could give this to you here," Remus said, holding out the little paper-wrapped package.
She came up the last few steps to him, but the doorway was too narrow for both of them to stand in without bumping into each other.
Tonks laughed. "How about in the dining room?"
He followed her across the hall to the dining room, where they stopped inside the doorway. Soft light fell into the room from the old lamps that lined the hallway.
Remus' throat felt dry as he held out the package again. "You're going to say this is too much," he told her. "And you don't have to take it if you don't want to. But I'd like you to have it."
She looked at him quizzically, but accepted the gift he placed in the palm of her hand. Gently, she undid the paper to reveal a small gold locket. "It's lovely," she said, but he could tell by the way she looked at him that she knew that wasn't the whole story.
"It was my mother's," he said.
"Oh, Remus –"
"I was trying to think what I could give you, and I knew you wouldn't want me to spend money just for the sake of doing something, but doing nothing wasn't right either. And as silly as it might sound to say it, I think she would have wanted you to have this. But I understand if you think it's inappropriate, if it’s too much, I know I probably shouldn't –"
Tonks looped her free hand around the back of his neck and silenced him with a kiss, their first in very many weeks, then whispered, "Thank you. I'm honoured." She drew back and studied the locket, its delicate chain pooled in her hand. "Oh, but I can't wear this, I'll break it."
Remus smiled. "Good thing it's got an Unbreakable Charm on it, then. My mother was nothing if not prepared for all eventualities."
Tonks smiled back, then looked down at her hand again. "What was she like? Would we have got on?"
"I think so. She could be a tough nut to crack at times, but she was a deeply good person."
"Like someone I know."
Remus blinked at her.
"Here," she said. "Would you help me put it on?"
She offered the locket back to Remus, then turned away. He opened the clasp, looped the chain carefully around her neck, and fastened it.
Tonks turned to face him again, her eyes watching his face to see what he thought now that he saw the necklace on her. Remus reached out and touched the locket with one finger. It seemed already to have warmed to her body heat.
"Happy twenty-third," he said. "That's a number I've always been partial to."
"Is not. You just made that up!"
"No, truly…"
She laughed and shook her head. "Remus?"
"Yes?"
"I'm glad you're here."
"And I'm so glad to know you. You've made my life richer by far, but you know that."
They looked at each other a moment longer, then Tonks asked, her voice hesitant now, "Can I – just maybe one more time –?"
Remus reached out and pulled her in, and kissed her. Tonks sighed and kissed him back, then rested her head against his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her.
"This is nice, isn't it?" she murmured into his shoulder. "I'm not going to think about it too hard, just for tonight, all right? This is nice." Then she snorted. "Also, though, can you imagine the conversation my parents are going to have when they get home tonight? All the speculation? Mum'll be going wild, trying to figure us out."
"And yet your mother has exercised admirable restraint tonight," Remus said into her hair.
He felt Tonks laugh against his shoulder. "Let's keep 'em guessing, Remus."
He smiled. "All right."
– – – – –
(continue to CHAPTER SEVENTEEN)
End note: Because this chapter mentions Remus' mum, I thought I'd mention that she gets a story of her own here: "Hold Tight and Almost Believe."
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Note: Okay, so here's my posting plan for the next weeks – because things are about to get (even more) hectic for me, I'm going to switch to posting chapters every two weeks. So I won't post a chapter next Friday, but I will post on or around Friday two weeks from now. And on or around Friday two weeks after that. And then that's it for Part 1! (Part 2 will follow...) Oh, and as always, this story is simultaneously updating at AO3 and FF.
Chapter 16: The Calm before the Storm
You can live in the corner of my room
And I will live somewhere between the ceiling and the wall
And if I need anything at all
I'll call out to you
–Angus and Julia Stone, Here We Go Again
Remus Apparated to the pavement outside the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade at nearly the same moment Mad-Eye Moody did.
"Prove you are who you appear to be," Moody growled, and Remus knew the other man was gripping his wand under his cloak.
"Albus Dumbledore told the two of us it would be a 'great relief' to know we would work together in the event of his absence," Remus said.
"And he used the words 'working in tandem' to describe McGonagall and Snape's role," Moody replied. "All right, proof enough for me. You?"
"Yes."
Moody pushed open the door to the pub, and Remus followed.
Inside, the place was as drab as ever, and nearly deserted aside from a small knot of elderly wizards playing a gambling game in one corner, their playing cards emitting whizzes and bangs and orange flashes of light.
Moody went to claim them a booth at the back of the room, while Remus headed towards the bar to do the ordering. Moody's habit of never drinking anything but his own was too well known for him to plausibly take that role.
"A Firewhisky, please," Remus said, the most neutral and inconspicuous drink he could think of.
Aberforth Dumbledore made no comment as he slapped the glass down on the bar, but when Remus glanced down, he saw a bit of folded-up parchment beneath it.
"Thank you," Remus said, handing over coins in payment for the drink. Aberforth nodded, and Remus took both glass and parchment to the booth where Moody was waiting. Moody set his flask at the outside edge of the table, so it would somewhat obscure a casual observer's view, and Remus slid the small square of parchment towards the middle of the table.
"I am Alastor Moody," Moody said, tapping the parchment with his wand.
"I am Remus Lupin," Remus said, reaching across the table to do the same.
The parchment unfolded of its own accord, and thin, spidery handwriting began to spread outwards from its centre.
I am at a safe location, Dumbledore's letter read. It's best we don't attempt to meet, but instead continue to correspond in this manner as planned. Either of you can come here without arousing suspicion, under the pretence of meeting with Minerva.
It has come much as I had anticipated: Cornelius has finally found a pretext for removing me from Hogwarts, but as his version involved Aurors, arrest and an unproductive stay in Azkaban, I chose to take a different path.
I cannot help but think this new situation will prove advantageous in certain ways, as I am now in an unprecedented position to carry out some necessary research to which I had been hoping to devote more time. If I am concerned for the students at Hogwarts, I must remind myself they are in the capable hands of Minerva, Severus and the rest of the staff. I could say the same about the Order of the Phoenix in your hands.
Alastor, I trust you to convene the Order when necessary and to continue practical training. Remus, I depend on you to keep lines of communication open amongst our members. I authorise either of you to make decisions on my behalf in cases when time is of the essence. And I ask that you refrain from sending a message to me by Patronus unless a dire scenario should arise.
Please ensure that Harry continues to study Occlumency. This grows ever more urgent.
Please destroy this letter.
A. P. W. B. D.
Moody set the parchment aflame with a tap of his wand, and the two of them looked at each other over the flames as they flickered and died away, leaving nothing but a dusting of ash.
"And so the game begins," Remus said.
Moody nodded, then surprised Remus by saying, "It's good to have you on board, Lupin." He leaned across the table and clapped Remus on the shoulder.
There was nothing else that needed to be said for the time being – but plenty to do if they wanted to let the Order's members know what had happened before the morning Prophet arrived and gave them a shock.
They parted ways outside the Hog's Head and set off across the country to spread the news.
– – – – –
The next morning's Daily Prophet set the entire wizarding community buzzing with dismay. Within the Order of the Phoenix, however, the reaction was one of disappointment but no great surprise, and Remus was grateful to see how determinedly everyone kept on. If anything, this sign of how bad things had become only increased everyone’s focus and determination.
And even the shock to the wider community was not necessarily a bad thing. Fudge's stories were growing less believable by the day, and public opinion was turning.
For his own part, Remus took seriously Dumbledore's charge to oversee Order communications, and was on the go constantly, shuttling between members, passing along messages, keeping everyone informed.
He dropped by the Hog's Head periodically to leave messages for the elder Dumbledore brother with the taciturn but dependable younger brother. McGonagall (yes, Remus knew he was allowed to call her Minerva now, but it never quite sounded right to his ears) was good about coming out to meet him at the pub, giving him a pretext for being there. Just in case anyone was watching.
Sometimes in the evenings, nearly dead on his feet, Remus would drop by Tonks' flat, and she would greet him with a smile, then make him stop moving and rest for a bit on her sofa. Sometimes she would touch his hand or his shoulder, but Remus kept himself from leaning into that touch, held himself back from wanting or asking for more.
On one evening, she sat next to him on the sofa – it was a deep shade indigo this month, and Remus smiled even through his weariness at Tonks’ endearing impatience with furniture that stayed the same for too long – and read some work papers of her own. As she read, she reached out one hand to stroke Remus’ hair where his head rested next to her hip, and Remus closed his eyes and carefully did not wish for any more than this. From the way her hand occasionally hitched in its motion, he could tell Tonks was thinking much the same.
But they never took it further than the sofa. It was a slow and careful courtship, this time, a building up of trust, and that wasn’t something that could be accomplished in a single day – or a single night. As much as he longed to hold Tonks, to kiss her endlessly, to grab her hand and pull her up from the couch and take her to bed, Remus wanted even more to do it right this time, to be someone she could depend on, first. So they stayed beside each other on the sofa, on those quiet evenings at her flat that were a reprieve from the rest of the world, and it was almost enough.
– – – – –
Nearly two weeks after Dumbledore's flight, Sirius finally got a letter from Harry, and Remus came down to the kitchen at 12 Grimmauld Place to find him frowning at it.
"Can't make heads nor tails of this," Sirius grumbled. "I mean, I can see why he's being cautious about what he says, since the parchment's all crumpled and manhandled and it took a week and a half to get here after he wrote it. But what's the good if I have no blasted idea what he's talking about?"
Remus knew to take these complaints with a grain of Pixie dust – Sirius would still light up like a kid at Christmas even if Harry wrote in Gobbledegook – but he obligingly took the letter from Sirius' hand and had a look at it, leaning against the table. As he read, he felt a slow smile spreading across his face.
"What?" Sirius demanded. "What are you getting out of that that I'm not? I understand 'sometimes I feel bad about things that happen, even if they're out of my control,' he means Dumbledore having to leave, but what's the bit about 'at least my friends and I have been learning to turn happiness into something stronger, which an old friend of yours once taught me'? You're the 'old friend,' I'm supposing from the inane way you're smiling."
Remus kept smiling, but tried to rein it in to something less inane. "Patronuses," he said. "Goodness, not only can he produce one himself, but now he's teaching others?" The thought of Harry and his friends arming themselves with this powerful protective spell was comforting.
"Patronuses," Sirius grumbled, "Of course, clear as mud. Remind me to remind Harry not to go into the business of code-writing." But he folded Harry's letter carefully into his pocket.
Remus had worried how Sirius might react to the kids staying at school to revise during the Easter holidays – even though students had stayed at Hogwarts during the Easter holidays since time immemorial, especially in their O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. years – but so far he was bearing up all right. Molly and Arthur had offered to come over for part of Easter Sunday, which Remus thought very kind of them, that they wanted to show Sirius they cared even when Harry wasn't there.
Then, late one afternoon not long after the holiday itself, Remus was at the kitchen table puzzling over an incomplete plan of the Department of Mysteries that Kingsley had managed to smuggle out for the Order, when he heard Harry himself say, "Sirius?"
Remus started and spun around. Yes, Harry's head was in the fireplace. "Harry!" he said. "What are you – what's happened, is everything all right?"
"Yeah," Harry said, looking shifty and not quite all right. "I just wondered – I mean, I just fancied a – a chat with Sirius."
Remus knew that falsely casual expression far too well, having grown up with two boys who wore it almost constantly, but he simply rose to his feet and hurried out of the kitchen to get Sirius, who'd gone looking for the perpetually disappearing Kreacher.
He managed more or less to maintain his decorum while still in the kitchen, but once out of Harry's sight, Remus dashed up the stairs from the basement, then hollered, "Sirius! Sirius, Harry's in the fire for you!"
Remus could feel a bubble of vicarious elation rising in his chest. Whatever had driven Harry to the desperate measure of using the Floo from Hogwarts, at least it meant a chance for Sirius to see him face to face.
Sirius pounded down the house’s many fights of stairs in less time than seemed possible, and raced Remus back to the kitchen.
"What is it? Are you all right? Do you need help?" Sirius demanded, dropping down to Harry's eye level by the fire. Remus joined him there, not wanting to intrude, but wanting to be near at hand if they needed anything.
"No, it's nothing like that," Harry said. "I just wanted to talk…about my dad."
Remus looked at Sirius and Sirius looked at Remus. Harry had broken who knew how many school rules in order to get access to a fireplace, and now he was here…to talk to them about James?
"Okay, sure," Sirius said, as if this were the most normal thing in the world. "What about him?"
It all came tumbling out, a story of "accidentally" ending up in Severus Snape's Pensieve and seeing a terrible memory Snape had taken great pains to hide. How strange it was to hear Harry describe a scene from twenty years before as if it had only just happened – although for him, of course, it had just happened. All of them out by the lake after an O.W.L. exam, Sirius haughty and bored, Peter playing James' one-man fan club and James lapping up the attention.
Then Snape entering their crosshairs, James and Sirius tormenting him, Remus doing nothing to stop them. And Lily, easily the only one of them to have had both a brain and a conscience in those early years, stepping in to defend Snape.
Harry tried to tell the story as a series of neutral facts, but Remus could hear the distress in his voice as he described James' arrogance, Lily's disdain. No, Snape's memory was not a pleasant one, from anyone's side.
Harry completed his story and no one spoke. So Remus said, "I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen –"
"I'm fifteen!" Harry interjected.
Sirius took a different tack, trying to explain to Harry the rivalry that had existed between James and Severus, with years of bitter history already in place before the scene Harry had accidentally witnessed, years of mutual enmity and James' popularity and Snape's known fascination with the Dark Arts. Sirius added, "And James – whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry – always hated the Dark Arts."
"Yeah, but he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because – well, just because you said you were bored."
Harry looked uncomfortable implicating Sirius in this way and Sirius hurried to assure him, "I'm not proud of it."
Remus glanced at Sirius, thinking that he really had managed to grow up somehow, despite Azkaban. Then he said, "Look, Harry, what you've got to understand is that your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did – everyone thought they were the height of cool – if they sometimes got a bit carried away –"
"If we were sometimes arrogant little berks you mean," Sirius interrupted, and at that Remus really couldn't hold back a smile.
"He kept messing up his hair," said Harry, sounding pained.
Sirius' laugh was infectious, and Remus allowed himself to briefly entertain the foolish notion that perhaps they should send Harry back into memories of their school days more often, if it made Sirius laugh like that.
"I'd forgotten he used to do that," Sirius said, his smile soft and indulgent.
"Was he playing with the Snitch?" Remus couldn't help asking. Fifteen-year-old James. An arrogant, lovable berk indeed.
"Yeah," Harry said, gazing at the two of them, perplexed. "Well…I thought he was a bit of an idiot."
"Of course he was a bit of an idiot!" Sirius declared. "We were all idiots! Well – not Moony so much."
Remus shook his head at being painted into this role yet again. "Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape? Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?"
"Yeah, well, you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes…that was something…"
Harry determinedly drew their attention back to the problem at hand. "And he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!"
Sirius shrugged. "Oh, well, he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around. He couldn't stop himself showing off whenever he got near her."
Harry looked miserable at the very thought. "How come she married him? She hated him!"
"Nah, she didn't." Sirius’ tone suggested it was incomprehensible that anyone could think such a thing, as if Sirius himself hadn’t spent the better part of six years at Hogwarts trying to convince James that Lily hated him and he should give it up already.
"She started going out with him in seventh year," Remus tried to explain.
"Once James had deflated his head a bit," Sirius added.
"And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it," Remus couldn't help putting in.
"Even Snape?" Harry wanted to know.
That was a difficult one, and Remus tried to tread carefully. "Well, Snape was a special case," he said. "I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?"
"And my mum was okay with that?"
"She didn't know too much about it, to tell you the truth," Sirius said. "I mean, James didn't take Snape on dates with her and hex him in front of her, did he?" Sirius frowned to see Harry still looking unconvinced. "Look, your father was the best friend I ever had and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it."
"Yeah, okay," Harry said. There was a little pause, then he said, "I just never thought I'd feel sorry for Snape."
That reminded Remus of another important piece of this equation. "How did Snape react when he found you'd seen all this?"
And Harry answered, so casual, that Snape had called off Occlumency lessons entirely.
"I'm coming up there to have a word with Snape!" Sirius declared, and actually started to stand up, as if he were about to dash off to Hogwarts that moment to give Snape a piece of his mind.
Remus put a placating but firm hand on Sirius' shoulder and reminded everyone of where things stood. "If anyone's going to tell Snape it will be me. But Harry, first of all, you're to go back to Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons – when Dumbledore hears –"
"I can't tell him that, he'd kill me!" Harry argued.
Remus, though, could practically see the spidery handwriting in front of his eyes. Please ensure that Harry continues to study Occlumency. This grows ever more urgent.
"Harry," he said, "There is nothing so important as you learning Occlumency! Do you understand me? Nothing!"
"OK, OK," Harry said, annoyed and clearly not understanding. "I'll try and say something to him…but it won't be –" He stopped speaking and appeared to be listening for something. "Is that Kreacher coming downstairs?"
"No, it must be somebody on your end," Sirius said.
"I'd better go!" Harry gasped, and then his head was gone from the fire.
Remus and Sirius both stared at the flames, returned to normal reds and oranges instead of emerald.
"I was planning to go by the Hog's Head tomorrow anyway," Remus said, without looking at Sirius. "McGonagall was going to meet me, but I'll ask her to send Severus instead, and I'll talk to him. Please don't go running up there. Please trust me. I've got this under control."
Sirius jumped up and started pacing. "I know you do, I know you do," he muttered. "But what do I do? When do I help? Am I seriously supposed to just sit here and watch?" He rounded on Remus, who was only just pulling himself to his feet and brushing off the knees of his trousers. "He's supposed to help Harry, not put him in more danger!"
"I know, but –"
"What a fucking arrogant PRICK," Sirius raged, then stormed off up the stairs, likely to Buckbeak's room.
Remus looked at the flames flickering lower in the fireplace, then at the doorway where Sirius had gone. Remus knew better than to try to follow him just now.
He sighed and set himself back in front of the Department of Mysteries documents. That was all he could do for the time being, try to help them all be prepared.
Remus lost track of time, but it must have been several hours later that a knock at the front door startled him from his work. His eyes went automatically to the kitchen clock, wondering who would be dropping by so late in the evening.
When he went upstairs to see, he found Arthur Weasley standing on the front step, looking equal parts anxious and excited.
"Remus!" he said. "I'm sorry, is it too late? Can I come in for a minute? Am I bothering you?"
"No," Remus said, "Yes, I mean, no, come in."
He stepped back to make room for Arthur, who asked, "Did you hear what happened?"
Remus' mind went immediately to Hogwarts, and Harry's call. Was he in danger he hadn't mentioned? "No, what is it? What's happened?"
Arthur saw that Remus' mind had jumped straight to worry and said, "Oh, it's nothing bad – that is, unless you ask Molly. Just our two most incorrigible sons, who've left school for good. And done it with characteristic flair, of course."
"Oh," Remus said, now perplexed. He motioned Arthur towards the kitchen stairs, following after him. He offered Arthur a seat and rooted around in the cold cupboard for a Butterbeer, then offered that to Arthur as well.
Arthur grinned and said, "Oh, well, sure. Ta, Remus."
Remus settled himself back into the chair across from Arthur and asked, "Fred and George have left Hogwarts?"
"Got themselves completely backed into a corner by Umbridge, then reclaimed their brooms, which she'd confiscated, and flew off into the sunset, if I've understood the thing right. We've had one very nasty owl from Umbridge and one nearly incomprehensible one from the boys, so that's the best I've been able to reconstruct it."
"You haven’t seen them, then? Since they left?" Remus asked. He would never have wished for the Weasley twins to abandon their schooling this way, of course, but for the Order to have ready access to a student's perspective – well, a recent ex-student's perspective – on the situation at Hogwarts might not be a bad thing.
"No." Arthur scratched his head. "They seem to have premises in Diagon Alley already, where they’re planning to open a new joke shop, and where they're living as of tonight. I'm not entirely sure how they got all that done so fast, frankly."
"They're resourceful boys," Remus said. He hadn't quite figured out yet if Arthur was pleased or displeased, or mainly still in shock. "And how's Molly taken the news?" he asked with what he hoped was circumspect neutrality.
Arthur raised his eyes from the drink in his hands and looked directly at Remus. "You know I love my wife more than anything, right? That she and the kids are the most important thing in the world to me, and I wouldn't want to live a day without them?"
"Yes," Remus said, startled.
"Then I hope you'll understand if I say that at this particular moment, she's driving me mad."
For a second, Remus just stared at Arthur, then he couldn't help the laughter that burst out. "Oh – I'm so sorry –" he said. "I shouldn't laugh – "
Arthur grinned, seeming to relax. "No, it's quite all right. You know Molly. You can imagine the volume of the shouting. And Fred and George aren't there in person to be shouted at, so…" He shrugged his shoulders. "I just needed to get out and take a breather for a few minutes. I hope you don't mind that I washed up here."
"Of course not," Remus said, and he meant it. It was somehow quite nice to think that when the storm hit Arthur would come here.
Remus pictured Molly in the kitchen of the Burrow, raging over her twins' incomplete Hogwarts education. Then he tried to picture the joke shop Fred and George would open, and found that mere imagination failed him. It was sure to be spectacular, at any rate.
"You know the boys will be fine, don't you?" he asked Arthur. "They're very bright and resourceful, and I've never seen them let anything get in their way. I taught them for a year, remember, and I know they're beyond brilliant when they choose to bend both their minds to something."
"That's certainly what I hope," Arthur said. "I know they're clever, but who's to say if they've got the business sense, the stamina to stick out the ups and downs…"
"They do," said Remus. All the afternoon's stress and worry seemed to recede when he thought of Fred and George Weasley turning their formidable talents to a shop of their own. Diagon Alley wouldn't know what had hit it.
Arthur stayed perhaps twenty minutes longer, then admitted it was time to go home and make another run at placating his wife.
"Tell her what I said," Remus urged. "I really do think they'll be absolutely fine, even without N.E.W.T.s."
"You know," Arthur agreed, "you, she just might listen to."
Just before tamping down the kitchen fire for the night, Remus sent a message to Professor McGonagall, asking if she would instead send Snape to their meeting at the Hog's Head the next day.
He scribbled the request on a slip of parchment and dropped it in the Floo, saying "Professor McGonagall's office at Hogwarts" as he did. It was a method of communication Dumbledore had recommended for messages that needed to travel more quickly than an owl could, but weren't really urgent enough to merit a Patronus. Applicable, of course, only for communications innocuous enough to stand up to the scrutiny surely being exercised on the Floo network.
The next day, though, it was McGonagall waiting for him in a booth at the back of the Hog's Head.
"Severus declined to come," she told Remus with a frown. "Is something the matter?"
Remus weighed his options, but decided this particular problem was between Harry, Snape and Dumbledore. "No, it's all right," he said. "I'll send a message to Dumbledore about it."
He slipped a note under his empty glass before he left, mentioning Snape's refusal to continue lessons with Harry and asking if there was anything he should do. Two days later, the answer he received when he next dropped by the Hog's Head, briefly and alone, came as a shock.
If this is the case, and Harry is no longer receiving Occlumency instruction from Severus, the note read in Dumbledore's handwriting, then we have entered the realm of back-up plans, and I feel I should inform you, Remus, of my suspicions. There has always been a danger that Voldemort would use the connection he shares with Harry; that once he discovered that connection, he would attempt to exploit it, even make Harry his unwitting spy against the Order.
More and more, however, I begin to think Voldemort will not be content forever to simply mine information. At some point he may attempt to manipulate Harry and to make more active use of their connection. I cannot say for sure what form this would take. All I can ask is that you redouble your guard. Minerva already knows to keep Harry in her sight as much as possible, and to alert you or Alastor or myself if anything seems amiss.
Share this knowledge discreetly, but as you see fit.
It would be imprudent to give details here, but my research proceeds apace. Keep up hope and know that I appreciate your work.
It concluded, as the notes always did, Please destroy this letter.
Remus sat, stunned.
Voldemort might attempt to manipulate Harry? How? Into doing what? And what in Merlin's name were they meant to do to stop him?
Remus finally roused himself from his seat when he realised that sitting alone with his gaze fixed on his drink was eventually going to draw unwanted attention. He stopped to gather his cloak around himself as he stepped out of the pub, more for a chance to pause and collect his thoughts than for protection against the mild evening air.
The person he wanted to talk to was Kingsley, he realised. Not Moody, with his indubitable store of knowledge but dire outlook on the world; not even Tonks or Sirius, though he would tell them soon. Well, perhaps not Sirius. Remus would have to mull that one over, whether it would do more harm or good for Sirius to know this particular alarming piece of information. But right now Remus found he could do with Kingsley's unflappable calm, along with his expertise as an Auror.
Remus checked his timeworn pocket watch and estimated Kingsley might just be arriving home. He Apparated, and caught the man arriving on his doorstep.
"Remus!" Kingsley said, surprised. "Something urgent?"
"Not urgent so much as…potentially urgent," Remus said.
"Come in," Kingsley replied, without requiring further explanation. He unlocked his front door magically, and indicated Remus should step inside.
"No security question?" Remus asked. He would have expected Kingsley of all people to follow security protocols to a T.
"No need," Kingsley replied. "The protections I've set up are such that you only make it in the door if I've previously vetted you, and the spell can't be fooled by Polyjuice. I've got some strong Imperius detections up, too. In fact, if someone were controlling my actions, I'd be the first to know."
"Ah," Remus said. It made sense that they all had their own personal preferences when it came their security at home. In fact, it was probably a good thing, since the variety made each iteration harder for an enemy to figure out.
He hated that they had to think in those terms.
"Anyway, I'm sure you're not here for a lecture on my security system," Kingsley said. "What can I do for you? Can I get you something to drink?"
Remus noted the tired circles under Kingsley's eyes, despite his laidback manner, and said, "No, thank you, I'm just stopping by."
Then he found that it was difficult, somehow, to voice what he had just learned. In the end, he put it as directly and simply as he could.
"I've just heard from Dumbledore concerning his suspicion that Voldemort may try to exploit the mental connection we know he shares with Harry. I suppose it's not really new news, but the way he phrased it was startling – that Voldemort might try to 'manipulate' Harry, that he may try to control their connection more actively."
Kingsley gave a slow nod as he hung up his cloak in the hallway. "Not surprising. Disquieting, of course, but not surprising."
"The worst thing is not knowing what form it might take," Remus admitted.
Kingsley turned to Remus again. "If it helps at all," he said, "think of it this way: Harry has people watching out for him all around him. Minerva and Severus are there for him at Hogwarts, we have Order members in Hogsmeade, here in London, at the Ministry… There's a reason Voldemort hasn't got to him yet, Remus, and it's not for lack of trying. Harry has the best possible guards – he has us."
Remus managed a bit of a smile. "It sounds so much more manageable when you say it."
"That's my job," Kingsley said, quite seriously. "Not making things sound manageable – actually making them so. Have you talked to Alastor yet?"
"No," Remus said. "I'll go to him next."
"He'll probably want us to station another guard in Hogsmeade," Kingsley said thoughtfully, "but you can tell him, for what it's worth, that I don't think it's necessary, since the Ministry has Aurors regularly patrolling there already. The Ministry collectively may have its head in the sand, but an Auror will still know how to recognise manifestations of Dark magic."
"True," Remus said. "I'll tell him you said so."
"And remember, Harry is safe as long as he stays at Hogwarts."
"Yes," Remus said. "Then let's certainly hope he does."
Kingsley reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Remus, you're doing a great job. You're really keeping things together, and you should know that we appreciate it."
"Oh –" said Remus. "I'm not really – I mean, mostly Moody –"
"Runs the practical side of things, yes. And you keep all the loose threads together."
"I –" Remus struggled to find a way to express that he was not really doing as much good as everyone seemed to think he was doing, then gave up. "I'm doing my best."
"That's all anyone can ask," Kingsley replied.
– – – – –
"It's my birthday tomorrow," Tonks said from behind her paperwork, sitting next to where Remus was resting on her sofa. It had been an anxious few days, as he grappled with Dumbledore's newly revealed suspicions, but as always Tonks was the force that kept him steady.
Remus jerked upright, and Tonks gently pushed him back down. "I'm so sorry," he said, "I did know that, but with everything going on – why didn't you say something sooner?"
"I didn't say anything on purpose, because I don't need a big fuss made over me."
"Oh, as if you didn't make a big fuss over me, with the cake and the surprise gathering…"
She just smiled and waggled her head at him. "That's because you need a good fuss made over you now and again. But I’m a doted-upon only child and I’ve had more than my share of being fussed over, believe me. This year I’d like it to be a quiet thing. I've convinced Mum and Dad to come over to Headquarters in the evening tomorrow, because I want Sirius there too. So, just you and me and Sirius and Mum and Dad. Do you think that will be all right with Sirius?"
"Of course it'll be all right. I know he'll be glad."
It was a good thing, though, that Andromeda had brought Ted along to visit Sirius once before, because finagling a way now to get the address from Dumbledore to give to Ted would have been next to impossible. Good, Sirius would have a little company, and Tonks would get to spend some time with her family. Then a new thought made Remus flop back onto the sofa cushion beneath his head with a groan.
"What is it?" Tonks asked.
"Andromeda is going to grill me, isn't she?"
"Grill you? About what?"
"You know – us."
"No, she won't! She won't say a thing."
"You don't understand, she'll grill me with her eyes. She doesn't have to say a word."
There was a pause, then Tonks burst out laughing. "You know what? I know exactly the look you mean." She leaned back against the sofa. "Oh, woe, poor Remus. Always suffering the whims of Blacks."
"You don't know the half of it," he said, but they were both smiling.
– – – – –
All in all, it was a lovely evening. The five of them had dinner together in the basement kitchen (Remus cooked), with candles in the wall sconces around the table making the room cosy. After the meal, Andromeda finally revealed the birthday cake she'd been keeping magically concealed.
It was a complex confection of multiple layers and subtly shifting shades, a fairy tale castle of a cake. Remus vaguely remembered this, that Andromeda had always had a deft hand with this sort of whimsical confection, although it made such an unlikely contrast to her otherwise no-nonsense personality.
"Oh, Mum," Tonks breathed.
"Happy birthday, sweetheart," Andromeda said. "We're so proud of you. We may not always agree with your choices, and admittedly, there are times you leave us worrying for your safety more than we'd like –"
Ted grinned and put a hand on his wife's arm. "What your mother is trying to say, though I wouldn't blame you if you can't tell, is that we love you unconditionally and everything you do makes us proud."
"Yes, something precisely like that," Andromeda said, with a wry smile at her own expense. "Come on, make a wish and blow out your candles."
Tonks did, then got Andromeda to dish up enormous slices of the cake for each of them, insisting she'd only make a mess if she tried to do it herself.
"Delicious, Andromeda," Remus said, as they dug in. "I’d forgotten you had such a talent at this."
"Too bad it's not genetic," Tonks said, but she didn't look like she particularly minded.
"Who says it's not?" Sirius retorted. "Maybe you're the only one it skipped."
Tonks raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh? Because you're an expert baker now?"
"For all we know I could be. In fact, maybe I am, you just don't know because I haven't bothered to bake anything yet."
Tonks rolled her eyes, and Remus smiled to see both of them joking and happy. Tonks knew about Dumbledore's message and Sirius didn't, and Remus still didn't know if that was the right decision.
"So what do you think of your little cousin now she's all grown up, Sirius?" Ted asked. "Have we done all right by her?"
"I'd say," Sirius replied. Remus, who'd been expecting a witty comeback, was surprised to see he looked pensive. "I never even thought I'd be around long enough to see her make it out of childhood, and now look at her, with more sense than the rest of us put together."
Predictably, Tonks blushed.
"No need to get sentimental on us, old man," Remus teased. He hoped Sirius would recognise the comment as a joking echo of what Sirius had said at Remus' own birthday, and he saw by Sirius' hint of a smile that he did.
As Ted and Andromeda were clearing the plates away, Remus found an opportunity to put a hand on Sirius' shoulder and say quietly, "I still feel bad that we didn't do anything for yours."
Sirius shook his head. "I told you, Moony. No birthdays until I'm truly free."
Remus knew he couldn't argue.
"Presents!" Ted announced, and with a wave of his wand, a small pile of them appeared on the table in front of Tonks.
There was a Quidditch book and a pair of high-quality flying gloves from Sirius (Remus knew Andromeda had done the actual shopping, to Sirius' obsessively precise specifications).
Then, from Andromeda and Ted, a couple of Dark Detectors that had Tonks in raptures of delight. Remus smiled again, thinking what a wonderful Defence Against the Dark Arts student she must have been, even though he knew Andromeda and Ted had more practical reasons for their choice of gifts than simply indulging their daughter's love of all things Defence.
Remus himself was still debating the wisdom of giving her the present he had chosen, but now that the moment was here, he realised there had never really been any question.
"Sorry, mine is still upstairs," he said. "You'll have to wait a moment while I get it."
He noticed Andromeda's gaze flick between him and her daughter, but she had refrained all evening from grilling Remus – even with her eyes – and he was grateful.
Remus dashed up to the bedroom he used at Grimmauld Place and fetched his small gift, wrapped in simple brown paper. Then he hurried back down to the ground floor, but paused in the doorway at the top of the stairs to the kitchen, just to steady himself for a moment.
To his surprise, Tonks emerged out of the dark a few steps below him.
"Hey," she said. "I thought I'd come see where you'd gone. Are you coming back downstairs?"
"Perhaps I could give this to you here," Remus said, holding out the little paper-wrapped package.
She came up the last few steps to him, but the doorway was too narrow for both of them to stand in without bumping into each other.
Tonks laughed. "How about in the dining room?"
He followed her across the hall to the dining room, where they stopped inside the doorway. Soft light fell into the room from the old lamps that lined the hallway.
Remus' throat felt dry as he held out the package again. "You're going to say this is too much," he told her. "And you don't have to take it if you don't want to. But I'd like you to have it."
She looked at him quizzically, but accepted the gift he placed in the palm of her hand. Gently, she undid the paper to reveal a small gold locket. "It's lovely," she said, but he could tell by the way she looked at him that she knew that wasn't the whole story.
"It was my mother's," he said.
"Oh, Remus –"
"I was trying to think what I could give you, and I knew you wouldn't want me to spend money just for the sake of doing something, but doing nothing wasn't right either. And as silly as it might sound to say it, I think she would have wanted you to have this. But I understand if you think it's inappropriate, if it’s too much, I know I probably shouldn't –"
Tonks looped her free hand around the back of his neck and silenced him with a kiss, their first in very many weeks, then whispered, "Thank you. I'm honoured." She drew back and studied the locket, its delicate chain pooled in her hand. "Oh, but I can't wear this, I'll break it."
Remus smiled. "Good thing it's got an Unbreakable Charm on it, then. My mother was nothing if not prepared for all eventualities."
Tonks smiled back, then looked down at her hand again. "What was she like? Would we have got on?"
"I think so. She could be a tough nut to crack at times, but she was a deeply good person."
"Like someone I know."
Remus blinked at her.
"Here," she said. "Would you help me put it on?"
She offered the locket back to Remus, then turned away. He opened the clasp, looped the chain carefully around her neck, and fastened it.
Tonks turned to face him again, her eyes watching his face to see what he thought now that he saw the necklace on her. Remus reached out and touched the locket with one finger. It seemed already to have warmed to her body heat.
"Happy twenty-third," he said. "That's a number I've always been partial to."
"Is not. You just made that up!"
"No, truly…"
She laughed and shook her head. "Remus?"
"Yes?"
"I'm glad you're here."
"And I'm so glad to know you. You've made my life richer by far, but you know that."
They looked at each other a moment longer, then Tonks asked, her voice hesitant now, "Can I – just maybe one more time –?"
Remus reached out and pulled her in, and kissed her. Tonks sighed and kissed him back, then rested her head against his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her.
"This is nice, isn't it?" she murmured into his shoulder. "I'm not going to think about it too hard, just for tonight, all right? This is nice." Then she snorted. "Also, though, can you imagine the conversation my parents are going to have when they get home tonight? All the speculation? Mum'll be going wild, trying to figure us out."
"And yet your mother has exercised admirable restraint tonight," Remus said into her hair.
He felt Tonks laugh against his shoulder. "Let's keep 'em guessing, Remus."
He smiled. "All right."
– – – – –
(continue to CHAPTER SEVENTEEN)
End note: Because this chapter mentions Remus' mum, I thought I'd mention that she gets a story of her own here: "Hold Tight and Almost Believe."
