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starfishstarRAISE YOUR LANTERN HIGH
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. (My Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making! This is the second half of the story, set in the Half-Blood Prince year.)
Notes:
The shifting between points of view gets a little out of balance in this middle bit of the story; because of what canonical events this story needs to cover, there are a couple chapters that show only Remus' point of view, or only Tonks'. I beg your patience (and recall you to the first half of this series, "Be the Light in My Lantern," where nearly every chapter belonged to only one character!)
Also, this is a rare case where this fic intersects with actual, canonical events from Half-Blood Prince, so as always, anything you recognize belongs to J. K. Rowling!
Chapter 12: Christmas at the Burrow
Light, you’re with me in the dark
Light my way at night
–Ásgeir Trausti/Einar Georg/John Grant, Going Home
Remus landed outside the Burrow’s garden with a jolt of shock at seeing the familiar place again. With smoke wafting skywards from its lopsided chimney, the Burrow looked like a picture postcard for the very idea of home.
Remus approached and knocked. “Remus!” a voice inside cried, and the door flew open to reveal Molly standing just inside the kitchen door.
“Security question, Molly!” Remus protested, but she was already pulling him inside, closing the door, and hugging him hard.
“Oh, Remus, I’m so glad,” Molly exclaimed, her voice muffled in his shoulder. “You did write that you’d come, but I couldn’t believe it until I’d seen you with my own eyes and, oh, here you are –” She pulled away, holding Remus at arm’s length and looking him over with a critical eye. “Oh, but you’re rail thin, we’ll have to get some food into you. I’ve got something left from dinner, won’t take a moment to heat it up –” Molly bustled to the other side of the kitchen even as she spoke.
“Molly, don’t trouble yourself, there’s no need –”
“Nonsense, Remus Lupin, you sit at that table and eat.”
Remus sat.
Molly piled a plate with an enormous slice of steak and kidney pie and a generous heap of vegetables, then slid an immense dish of trifle onto the table beside it, keeping up a cheerful patter all the while. “The children are upstairs in bed already, but Arthur will be home any moment now, he’s been working such long hours at the Ministry. We’ve got a room all made up for you – you’re to sleep in Bill’s room, and he’s bunking up with the twins, it’s a full house, certainly, but I’m ever so pleased you’re here…”
Remus could feel his body letting go of a constant tension, the need to be watchful at all times as a matter of survival, as he sank into the familiarity of the Burrow. Already, the stand of trees where the pack slept on the moor seemed very far away.
But he had only a few days here. He mustn’t allow himself to grow too accustomed to this.
Molly sat with him as he ate, chatting cheerfully, though Remus could read her worry in the way she looked at him, and the way she kept urging him to take a second and third helping.
When Arthur arrived home, he clapped Remus heartily on the shoulder, but Remus saw the worry in his eyes, too. It wasn’t something Remus had expected, to ever again have friends like this who cared about seeing him safe and well.
Once Molly was finally satisfied that Remus had eaten his fill, she drifted away upstairs, clearly wanting to allow Arthur his own chance to catch up with Remus. Arthur pulled two bottles of beer from the cooling cupboard and Remus’ stomach dropped at the memory of the last time they had sat here, he and Arthur, over bottles of beer. It had been high summer still, and the loss of Sirius had been a raw wound.
In the months since, Remus had once again learned to tuck that wild grief away into the quiet corner of himself where all the pieces of his grief lived. There, it was contained enough to allow him to get on with the things that needed getting on with. But it was never entirely gone.
“Cheers,” Arthur said, settling into the chair opposite. He raised his drink, and Remus did the same. “I’m glad you’re here, Remus. We’re glad. Molly’s been frightfully worried about you – I’m sure you can imagine. How have you been keeping? Has it been terribly dangerous?”
Remus looked at Arthur’s kind, concerned face and thought, This is what werewolves face. Not only the predictable hatred of bigots, but the mistrust even of those who could be their allies. Even Arthur Weasley, one of the best men I know, can’t imagine werewolves as anything but savages…Present company excepted, of course. Remus knew that even to his friends he was only and ever the exception – a civilised man despite his lycanthropy, not because of it. And he found it mattered to him very much that he correct that mistaken view.
Remus took a long pull of his drink, thinking how to begin.
“The pack I’m living with,” he said, “have more social cohesion than any other group I’ve ever known. They cooperate in everything, with the old teaching the young, and they share everything. Their survival depends on it. They have a culture of their own, a religion of their own. And for the most part, they just want to be left in peace.
“Werewolves like Greyback – they’re outliers. And if they’re radicalising some elements of the werewolf population, well, it’s no more than the wizarding population as a whole is being radicalised. There are certainly some werewolves who thrill to that call of violence, but there are at least as many others who just want to be left to get on with their own concerns. I’m not sure even I quite understood that, before this year.”
Arthur gazed thoughtfully back at him. “I do see why Dumbledore sent you there,” he said. “These are things none of the rest of us would have been able to learn – we could never have got close enough to a werewolf community to do so. It’s a unique role you play for the Order, Remus.” Then he sighed. “I just wish it didn’t always have to be you.”
“I’m glad of the opportunity,” Remus said softly, and as he said it he knew it was true. “I can’t say it’s always enjoyable, sleeping out of doors in all weather, but I’ve been learning…things I think I needed to learn.” About werewolves. About himself. “And there’s no great risk involved, not now I’ve been accepted by the pack.”
Would that remain true, though? he wondered. What might happen if the younger pack members’ resentments roiled up to the point of open rebellion? Or, much worse, what if Fenrir Greyback came calling, to poach new recruits for his own pack by brute force? As one of the few werewolves to have been turned by Greyback but escape his clutches, Remus would be a particular target. Greyback was possessive of those he considered his own.
Shaking himself free of that dark thought, Remus asked, “And the Order? Everyone’s all right?” If something terrible had happened to someone close to Remus, surely Molly would have told him straight away. But still it would be a relief to hear it said out loud that they were all still safe.
Arthur nodded grimly. “We’re hanging in there.” He frowned at the tabletop. “Tonks, too. She had quite a coup up in Hogsmeade, arrested two men who were storing Dark objects for the Death Eaters. She’s one of the few in the Ministry really taking initiative.”
Remus felt tightness in his throat. Yes, that sounded very much like Tonks. It would be desperately good to see her, but he knew he didn’t dare. Too much longing lay in that direction, too much temptation to go back on his word. He would have to admire her strength and tenacity from afar.
He and Arthur talked a little longer, slowly draining their drinks down to the dregs, but Remus was feeling the inexorable pull of weariness. He was accustomed to sleeping and waking in rhythm with the sun, as the pack did, and it was long past nightfall.
Climbing the stairs to Bill’s old room, guiltily glad to have a warm bed waiting for him, Remus thought of the pack, bedded down in their draughty lean-to on the moor. It wasn’t right that only he should get to spend the night in a warm house. It was mere accidents of personal history that had brought him here, to a life among human friends, rather than having been forced to flee society at a young age as so many of the others had done.
Not that his feeling guilty about it did anyone any good.
Remus pushed open the bedroom door and let muscle memory guide him, reaching out to find the little lamp that stood on a table by the door. He tapped it with his wand, grateful for these small opportunities to do casual magic.
The room filled with soft light, and with it the memories flooded in. This was where he had slept during those terrible first weeks after Sirius’ death. He had lain on this bed and seen Sirius falling through the veil in the Department of Mysteries again and again and again.
Remus had stared at that incongruously cheery picture on Bill’s ceiling, of a pretty witch waving from a flying carpet, and reached his decision to break things off, finally and completely, with Tonks, no matter how much it hurt to do so.
It had been the right decision.
It hadn’t ceased to hurt.
Remus closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again.
He set his rucksack down beside the neatly made bed. Molly had even laid out a set of pyjamas for him, Remus saw with a pang of gratitude and of something of less identifiable – nostalgia, perhaps, for what it had been like once upon a time to have a home.
Well, three nights of a borrowed home were enough of a gift, more than he had any right to expect. Remus changed his clothes, slid into the bed, and let exhaustion claim him. His last thoughts as he drifted off were ones of warmth and gratitude.
Remus woke early the next morning and found no one else yet awake, so he took himself out for a long walk over the brittle winter hills. After so long living outdoors, being out in the invigorating air felt familiar and right, the best way to spend a cold but clear morning.
By the time Remus got back to the Burrow, breakfast was in full swing, along with the usual happy cacophony of the Weasley family. Arthur had left for work, but everyone else was present: Molly dishing out sausages from a frying pan of heroic proportions; Bill and Fleur cuddling cosily together; Ginny giggling to herself over some mischief she was playing on Fred and George; Harry and Ron sharing a good-natured laugh.
Hermione would not be here this year – Arthur had warned Remus as much and suggested it might be best not to mention her in front of Ron. Mentally reviewing what he’d observed over the years of that previously platonic friendship, Remus decided he wasn’t surprised at this new development, nor even that it had hit a rocky patch. But he hoped Hermione wasn’t spending too lonely a Christmas.
Harry spotted Remus first. “Professor Lupin!” he called, looking pleased. Then he added, unnecessarily, “We’re having breakfast.”
“Hello, Harry,” Remus said, flooded with warmth at the mere sight of him. It would be worth any amount of hardship to see Harry like this, smiling and surrounded by friends. Remus greeted all the children in turn, then said, “Molly, goodness, can I help you with that?”
“No, no, Remus, have a seat and tuck in. It’s just these last sausages and they’re nearly done.”
So Remus sat and ate his fill, and let the tumult of cheerful conversation wash around him like a friendly sea.
After the meal, Fred and George set off for the village and Bill and Fleur for points unknown, but presumably somewhere away from Molly’s watchful eye. Harry and Ron, though, stayed in the house, Harry seeming determined to stay put and cause as little trouble as possible. He was certainly a more serious boy these days than the thirteen-year-old Remus had first met. And Ron was a good friend, willing to stay indoors on a clear, brisk day for Harry’s sake.
Remus stopped at the kitchen doorway and tried again to offer his help to Molly, who was immersed already in preparations for dinner, but she waved him away. Ginny appeared behind Remus’ elbow and said, “It’s no use, Professor Lupin. She’s got a particular way of doing everything, and you’ve got no hope of ever getting it right even if you’ve had an entire lifetime of practice.”
“That’s hardly the reason,” Molly sniffed. “Remus, you’re our guest; go relax for once and enjoy yourself. Besides, the boys prepared the vegetables for me yesterday, so there’s not much left to do. Truly, Remus, go sit by the fire, or see what the boys are up to. You, however, young lady, can help with the stuffing.”
Ginny sighed and rolled her eyes conspiratorially in Remus’ direction, but she went into the kitchen without complaint.
Smiling at the sight of the two of them working together, Remus left the kitchen for the living room, where Ron and Harry were ensconced in two comfortably tattered armchairs, playing chess. Pausing in the doorway, Remus saw that Ron was clearly winning. A number of Harry’s pieces lay scattered around the boys’ feet, shouting a cacophony of unhelpful commentary in their piping little voices.
Harry glanced up and waved an arm wildly. “Professor Lupin! Please come help me here.”
Remus glanced at Ron, sure he would object, but Ron just shrugged. “Why not.” He grinned. “It’s not like Harry’s going to be able to win, no matter what.”
“Oi!” Harry protested, but he was smiling, and the sight tugged at Remus’ chest in the best possible way.
Remus crossed the room to them, still cautious about inflicting his presence on Harry if it was unwelcome. They’d hardly seen each other since the horrible night at the Ministry when Remus had bodily held Harry back from flinging himself through the veil after Sirius.
Yet Harry, with his generous heart, didn’t seem to begrudge Remus his role in Sirius’ loss.
“Here,” Harry said, stretching out an arm to pull a high-backed chair closer to the small table where the chessboard lay. “I’m losing, so anything you suggest will probably help.”
“I’m no expert,” Remus warned, settling into the chair Harry had offered. “And I haven’t played chess in a while.”
“You’re bound to be better than I am, professor,” Harry insisted. Remus could not seem to cure Harry of the habit of calling him professor, although he was no one’s teacher now.
Remus studied the board. “To start with,” he suggested, “try moving your bishop closer to your queen.”
“That’s what I said!” shouted an indignant discarded knight from the floor beneath the table.
Rolling his eyes, Harry nudged the disgruntled knight away with the toe of his trainer and informed it, “You just kept shouting, ‘The bishop, you idiot!’ How was I supposed to know what that meant?”
“A capable player would have understood!” the knight shrieked tinnily, from where it had landed under the drapes.
Ron moved his own knight across the board and Harry winced, this time recognising the danger it posed. He looked to Remus hopefully. “Your rook, perhaps?” Remus suggested, and was amused to see Ron nod in approval, more concerned with improving Harry’s game than with winning.
The morning passed amenably. Harry managed to win one of three games, then convinced Remus to take a turn against Ron, which Ron won, but narrowly. When Fred and George returned in the afternoon, Harry and the four youngest Weasleys exploded out to the garden for a dramatic mid-air snowball fight on brooms hastily fetched from the broomshed. Remus smiled to see Harry out there laughing and shouting with the best of them.
Watching the airborne battle from the big window that looked out on the back garden, Remus was startled to turn and find that Fleur had slid noiselessly into the room. She came and joined him at the window.
“Oh, sorry,” Remus said reflexively, shifting a step to the side to allow her more space.
“You needn’t skeeter away from me,” Fleur said with a toss of her dainty head. It took Remus a moment to parse that phrase – oh, she’d said skitter. “Unlike some Eengleesh eembeciles, I am not afraid of werewolves.”
“Oh – really?” Remus replied, startled into a banal response.
“Do you know, een some cultures, werewolves are seen as protectors of children,” Fleur continued, her nostrils flaring expressively as she gazed out at the whooping and diving taking place in the air above the back garden. “Eet eez a very sacred magic, zis duty of watching over the young and keeping zem safe.” She cut her eyes sideways at Remus. “I believe you know somesing about zat, yes? I ‘ear you were a very good teacher, a few years ago at ‘Ogwarts.”
“I did my best as a teacher,” Remus admitted. “But I don’t know that I did much in the way of keeping the children safe.” In fact, he’d done far worse, actively endangering the students that terrible night when he’d allowed the revelations of Sirius’ innocence and Peter’s guilt to distract him, the rising full moon catching him unawares on the open grounds of Hogwarts. Remus would never forgive himself for the harm he might have inflicted that night.
“Oh, rubbish,” Fleur exclaimed, with another toss of her head. “Zis Eengleesh reticence, zis modesty, I do not think eet does any of you much good. Celebrate your successes! Break out the champagne! When I say, ‘I ‘ear you are a good teacher,’ you must say, ‘Why, sank you.’”
Remus laughed in surprise. “And that would cure all our ills, would it? More celebration of our successes?”
“Eet would be a good start,” Fleur said darkly. “A lack of confidence never won any wars.”
Remus glanced over at her with surprised respect, before returning his gaze to the scene outside.
The kids tumbled back inside in the late afternoon, red-cheeked and glowing. Ginny, in a fit of enthusiasm, set about transforming the living room into a veritable model of the British paper chain in its natural habitat. Fred, George, Ron and Harry seemed to think they were the only ones who knew the angel atop the Christmas tree was in fact a Stupefied garden gnome the twins had caught and kitted out in a frilly pink tutu. It amused Remus that they clearly thought this was a secret, given that he had seen it, and he knew Ginny had noticed as well. Sometimes, the boys were not as subtle as they thought they were. Remus, watching them from the doorway, smiled as he remembered James and Sirius getting up to similar hijinks.
Arthur arrived home in time for dinner, a pleasant and relatively uneventful meal. (Fred and George played only one prank on Ginny, which Remus figured counted as a success in this family.) Crackers were pulled, jokes told, third helpings offered and accepted.
Remus would have felt like an interloper at this family event, except that Molly clearly resented the addition of Fleur to the celebration, and seemed to cling to Remus’ presence as proof that this was a holiday of family and guests, of whom Fleur only happened to be one.
Remus understood Molly’s frustration with the disdainful way Fleur reacted to nearly everything that wasn’t Bill. But he’d also experienced how thoughtful Fleur could be, and suspected she was capable of being quite kind, once she’d settled into a place and stopped needing to project her self-perceived cultural superiority at everyone around her.
Unfortunately, though, she hadn’t yet reached that point with the Weasleys. The family repaired to the living room to listen to Celestina Warbeck’s Christmas broadcast and the more Molly praised the music, the more Fleur made a point of talking over the songs.
To be fair, the way Molly glared whenever she thought Fleur couldn’t see probably wasn’t making it any easier for Fleur to settle in. But you had to hand it to Fleur, Remus thought as he stretched his legs towards the merrily crackling fire and stared into its depths. Whatever else one might say about her, Fleur had decided what she wanted and fought for it. Which sounded a lot like –
But such ruminations would get him nowhere. Tonks was better off without him, and that was that. Remus had chosen to sacrifice his own happiness in exchange for her welfare, and he would stick by that. He hoped she would move on and find someone better than him. He hoped it with a desperate ache of loss in his heart, but he meant it no less for that.
Remus came back to his surroundings with a start when he heard Harry say, “Mr Weasley, you know what I told you at the station when we were setting off for school?” Remus turned towards them as Harry laid out for Arthur his suspicions about Draco Malfoy, and his belief that Severus Snape was trying to help him. “Snape made an Unbreakable Vow!” Harry exclaimed, as if this proved everything.
There was a pause in their conversation as the song on the wireless reached a quiet passage and Arthur waited until the volume increased again to speak. “Has it occurred to you Harry, that Snape was simply pretending –” he began.
Overlapping him in his eagerness to get his point across, Harry said, “Pretending to offer help, so that he could find out what Malfoy’s up to? Yeah, I thought you’d say that. But how do we know?”
“It isn’t our business to know,” Remus said, turning to face Harry fully. “It’s Dumbledore’s business. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us.”
Remus knew what it was like to be wrongly suspected. He would not do Snape the same disservice without proof of guilt.
“But just say – just say Dumbledore’s wrong about Snape –” Harry began to protest.
“People have said it, many times,” Remus said. “It comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore’s judgement. I do; therefore, I trust Severus.”
In the end, it always came back to that – either you trusted Dumbledore and his obscure, far-sighted plans, or you didn’t. Remus, for many reasons both personal and professional, had chosen to trust.
Harry’s gaze was piercing. “But Dumbledore can make mistakes. He says it himself. And you – do you honestly like Snape?”
Remus thought of Snape taunting Sirius, even up to the very night Sirius had died, and felt the hurt of it in his chest. But for fairness’ sake he made himself think, too, of Sirius’ constant derision towards Snape, even as an adult, not to mention the years of senseless bullying Snape had endured from Sirius and James. These were human complexities Harry was still too young to understand.
“I neither like nor dislike Severus,” Remus said. Then, to the scepticism blazing in Harry’s face: “No, Harry, I am speaking the truth. We shall never be bosom friends, perhaps; after all that happened between James and Sirius and Severus, there is too much bitterness there. But I do not forget that during the year I taught at Hogwarts, Severus made the Wolfsbane Potion for me every month, made it perfectly, so that I did not have to suffer as I usually do at the full moon.”
“But he ‘accidentally’ let it slip that you’re a werewolf, so you had to leave!” Harry exclaimed, as touchingly indignant as if it had happened yesterday.
“The news would have leaked out anyway,” Remus reminded him gently. Any reprieve from the stigma of his condition, Remus knew, was only ever temporary at best. “We both know he wanted my job, but he could have wreaked much worse damage on me by tampering with the Potion. He kept me healthy. I must be grateful.”
“Maybe he didn’t dare mess with the Potion with Dumbledore watching him!” In his righteous indignation, Harry was Sirius all over, and Remus felt a tiny smile tug at his lips.
It felt good to be able to smile at Sirius’ memory.
To Harry he said, “You are determined to hate him, Harry. And I understand; with James as your father, with Sirius as your godfather, you have inherited an old prejudice. By all means tell Dumbledore what you have told Arthur and me, but do not expect him to share your view of the matter; do not even expect him to be surprised by what you tell him. It might have been on Dumbledore’s orders that Severus questioned Draco.”
Knowing Dumbledore, Draco Malfoy probably was up to no good, and Dumbledore likely had five or six different simultaneous plans in play to neutralise the concern. If Snape was part of those plans, all the better. For all his pettiness, Snape came through when it mattered. He’d kept Remus’ secret throughout their remaining school years, and it wasn’t for lack of wanting to reveal it.
Harry frowned, clearly ready to argue his point, but just then the song on the wireless ended with an ear-splitting high note. Molly applauded pointedly and Fleur commented in a loud “aside” to Bill, “Eez eet over? Thank goodness, what an ‘orrible –”
Arthur jumped to his feet and hurried to intervene. “Shall we have a nightcap, then? Who wants eggnog?”
Arthur bustled about pouring drinks for everyone; Molly discovered that Ginny had singed an eyebrow playing Exploding Snap and in fussing over her, forgot to be irritated with Fleur.
“What have you been up to lately?” Harry asked Remus. He sounded so grown up in that moment, so much a bloke having a man-to-man chat with a mate, that Remus’ breath caught in his chest. But this is Harry, not James, he reminded himself. He doesn’t need to know your every worry and concern.
“Oh, I’ve been underground,” Remus said. “Almost literally. That’s why I haven’t been able to write, Harry; sending letters to you would have been something of a give-away.”
“What do you mean?” Harry asked, and ah, yes, there was Lily, too, in the way his nose wrinkled up with concern.
“I’ve been living among my fellows, my equals. …Werewolves,” Remus clarified, when Harry looked blank. Harry was like Tonks in that way. Never seemed to be able to remember that Remus’ lycanthropy was, in fact, quite a sticking point for most people. Unsure how much Harry knew about the allegiances of werewolves in the current war, Remus explained, “Nearly all of them are on Voldemort’s side. Dumbledore wanted a spy and here I was…ready-made.”
That came out sounding unnecessarily bitter. Hadn’t he volunteered to go? Wasn’t he finally becoming a part of the pack, far more than he’d dared to hope? Being back in a warm home with these people he had missed must be making him soft.
“I am not complaining,” he assured Harry. “It is necessary work and who can do it better than I? However, it has been difficult gaining their trust. I bear the unmistakeable signs of having tried to live among wizards, you see, whereas they have shunned normal society and live on the margins, stealing – and sometimes killing – to eat.”
Remus had yet to see his own pacifistic pack harm a person, but he wasn’t naïve enough to believe it could never happen. If any of the pack’s members got backed into a tight corner or attacked, they would do what they had to do to survive.
“How come they like Voldemort?” Harry wanted to know.
How come indeed. A complex issue, but Remus tried to break it down to its simplest form. “They think that, under his rule, they will have a better life. And it is hard to argue with Greyback out there…”
“Who’s Greyback?”
Harry’s strange blend of tough savvy and startling innocence so often took Remus by surprise. But of course, why should Harry know anything of Greyback? He hadn’t grown up among wizards. He’d never heard the horror stories parents exchanged, the rumours children whispered.
Remus felt his hands clench in his lap and forcibly steadied his breath. It was difficult, still, to talk about the werewolf who turned him without raw anger bleeding through. “You haven’t heard of him? Fenrir Greyback is, perhaps, the most savage werewolf alive today. He regards it as his mission in life to bite and to contaminate as many people as possible; he wants to create enough werewolves to overcome the wizards. Voldemort has promised him prey in return for his services. Greyback specialises in children…bite them young, he says, and raise them away from their parents, raise them to hate normal wizards. Voldemort has threatened to unleash him upon people’s sons and daughters; it is a threat that usually produces good results.” Remus paused, weighing whether the last piece of this story was something Harry needed to know. But to wonder that was to do Harry a disservice; Harry generally did well with being told the whole truth. So he said, “It was Greyback who bit me.”
“What?” Harry exclaimed. “When – when you were a kid, you mean?”
Remus took a moment, again, to steady himself, to find the part of him that could talk about this in a neutral tone. “Yes. My father had offended him. I did not know, for a very long time, the identity of the werewolf who had attacked me; I even felt pity for him, thinking he had had no control, knowing by then how it felt to transform. But Greyback is not like that. At the full moon he positions himself close to victims, ensuring that he is near enough to strike. He plans it all. And this is the man Voldemort is using to marshal the werewolves. I cannot pretend that my particular brand of reasoned argument is making much headway against Greyback’s insistence that we werewolves deserve blood, that we ought to revenge ourselves on normal people.”
“But you are normal! You’ve just got a – a problem –”
Remus laughed, touched by Harry’s expression of fierce protectiveness and indignation. “Sometimes you remind me a lot of James. He called it my ‘furry little problem’ in company. Many people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit.”
Just then, Arthur reached them in his rounds of distributing eggnog, and Remus accepted a glass, still smiling a little. For Harry, being a fiercely loyal friend really did seem to be a genetic trait.
His own glass of eggnog now dangling distractedly in one hand, Harry leaned forward eagerly and took up a new subject. “Have you ever heard of someone called the Half-Blood Prince?”
“The Half-Blood what?” Remus answered, baffled by this conversational turn.
“Prince,” Harry repeated, watching Remus closely, as if he expected this to mean something to him.
“There are no wizarding princes,” Remus told him with a smile. “Is this a title you’re thinking of adopting? I should have thought being the ‘Chosen One” would be enough.”
“It’s nothing to do with me!” Harry retorted, indignant at the very idea, as Remus had known he would be. “The Half-Blood Prince is someone who used to go to Hogwarts, I’ve got his old Potions book. He wrote spells all over it, spells he invented. One of them was Levicorpus –”
“Oh, that one had a great vogue during my time at Hogwarts,” Remus said. What a fond and also exasperating memory. “There were a few months in my fifth year when you couldn’t move for being hoisted into the air by your ankle.”
“My dad used it,” Harry said, his voice uncharacteristically flat. “I saw him in the Pensieve, he used it on Snape.”
They’d arrived again at the schoolboy rivalry that refused to relinquish its hold, a generation later. “Yes, but he wasn’t the only one,” Remus assured Harry, because he looked so sad to think of his dad being thoughtless and cruel. Even if James had been thoughtless and cruel, sometimes. “As I say, it was very popular…you know how these spells come and go…”
“But it sounds like it was invented while you were at school.”
“Not necessarily. Jinxes go in and out of fashion like everything else.” Remus glanced at Harry’s face, and at last he understood what this was really about. An old schoolbook, marked up by a clever past student, someone who might have gone to school at the same time as Remus, might conceivably have been a friend of Remus’… “James was a pure-blood, Harry,” he said, “and I promise you, he never asked us to call him ‘Prince’.”
Caught out now, Harry asked plainly, “And it wasn’t Sirius? Or you?”
“Definitely not.” A wizarding prince was the last thing Sirius would have wanted to be, and Remus himself was a half-blood but harboured no princely ambitions.
“Oh,” Harry said. “I just thought – well, he’s helped me out a lot in Potions classes, the Prince has.” He gazed dejected into the fire and Remus ached for him. Harry so badly wanted a feeling of connection to his parents, and there was so little of it to be had.
“How old is this book, Harry?” Remus asked, falling back as usual on helping with practical matters, since he could offer Harry little of what he really wanted.
Harry looked up at him. “I dunno, I’ve never checked.”
“Well, perhaps that will give you some clue as to when the Prince was at Hogwarts,” Remus suggested. A good puzzle always seemed to get Harry and his friends going.
“Yeah, I could do,” Harry said, and his expression brightened a little.
That was good. There was so little Remus could give Harry. For that matter, there was so little he could give any of the people he cared about. But it was Christmas Eve, and those Remus cared about were safe, and that was enough. It would have to be enough.
End notes:
Yup, there really is folklore that has werewolves as protectors of children, rather than dangerous predators... I wished so much that Remus, with all his self-recrimination, could know about that. So I was very pleased when Fleur turned up and offered to be the character to show that viewpoint to him!
Also, I have been diligently posting one chapter a week, but will probably have to drop down to one chapter every two weeks, just for a couple chapters, so I have enough time to write some new material for Chapter 14. More thoughts about that in a separate post!
(continue to CHAPTER 13: Coming Together and Moving Apart)
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. (My Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making! This is the second half of the story, set in the Half-Blood Prince year.)
Notes:
The shifting between points of view gets a little out of balance in this middle bit of the story; because of what canonical events this story needs to cover, there are a couple chapters that show only Remus' point of view, or only Tonks'. I beg your patience (and recall you to the first half of this series, "Be the Light in My Lantern," where nearly every chapter belonged to only one character!)
Also, this is a rare case where this fic intersects with actual, canonical events from Half-Blood Prince, so as always, anything you recognize belongs to J. K. Rowling!
Chapter 12: Christmas at the Burrow
Light, you’re with me in the dark
Light my way at night
–Ásgeir Trausti/Einar Georg/John Grant, Going Home
Remus landed outside the Burrow’s garden with a jolt of shock at seeing the familiar place again. With smoke wafting skywards from its lopsided chimney, the Burrow looked like a picture postcard for the very idea of home.
Remus approached and knocked. “Remus!” a voice inside cried, and the door flew open to reveal Molly standing just inside the kitchen door.
“Security question, Molly!” Remus protested, but she was already pulling him inside, closing the door, and hugging him hard.
“Oh, Remus, I’m so glad,” Molly exclaimed, her voice muffled in his shoulder. “You did write that you’d come, but I couldn’t believe it until I’d seen you with my own eyes and, oh, here you are –” She pulled away, holding Remus at arm’s length and looking him over with a critical eye. “Oh, but you’re rail thin, we’ll have to get some food into you. I’ve got something left from dinner, won’t take a moment to heat it up –” Molly bustled to the other side of the kitchen even as she spoke.
“Molly, don’t trouble yourself, there’s no need –”
“Nonsense, Remus Lupin, you sit at that table and eat.”
Remus sat.
Molly piled a plate with an enormous slice of steak and kidney pie and a generous heap of vegetables, then slid an immense dish of trifle onto the table beside it, keeping up a cheerful patter all the while. “The children are upstairs in bed already, but Arthur will be home any moment now, he’s been working such long hours at the Ministry. We’ve got a room all made up for you – you’re to sleep in Bill’s room, and he’s bunking up with the twins, it’s a full house, certainly, but I’m ever so pleased you’re here…”
Remus could feel his body letting go of a constant tension, the need to be watchful at all times as a matter of survival, as he sank into the familiarity of the Burrow. Already, the stand of trees where the pack slept on the moor seemed very far away.
But he had only a few days here. He mustn’t allow himself to grow too accustomed to this.
Molly sat with him as he ate, chatting cheerfully, though Remus could read her worry in the way she looked at him, and the way she kept urging him to take a second and third helping.
When Arthur arrived home, he clapped Remus heartily on the shoulder, but Remus saw the worry in his eyes, too. It wasn’t something Remus had expected, to ever again have friends like this who cared about seeing him safe and well.
Once Molly was finally satisfied that Remus had eaten his fill, she drifted away upstairs, clearly wanting to allow Arthur his own chance to catch up with Remus. Arthur pulled two bottles of beer from the cooling cupboard and Remus’ stomach dropped at the memory of the last time they had sat here, he and Arthur, over bottles of beer. It had been high summer still, and the loss of Sirius had been a raw wound.
In the months since, Remus had once again learned to tuck that wild grief away into the quiet corner of himself where all the pieces of his grief lived. There, it was contained enough to allow him to get on with the things that needed getting on with. But it was never entirely gone.
“Cheers,” Arthur said, settling into the chair opposite. He raised his drink, and Remus did the same. “I’m glad you’re here, Remus. We’re glad. Molly’s been frightfully worried about you – I’m sure you can imagine. How have you been keeping? Has it been terribly dangerous?”
Remus looked at Arthur’s kind, concerned face and thought, This is what werewolves face. Not only the predictable hatred of bigots, but the mistrust even of those who could be their allies. Even Arthur Weasley, one of the best men I know, can’t imagine werewolves as anything but savages…Present company excepted, of course. Remus knew that even to his friends he was only and ever the exception – a civilised man despite his lycanthropy, not because of it. And he found it mattered to him very much that he correct that mistaken view.
Remus took a long pull of his drink, thinking how to begin.
“The pack I’m living with,” he said, “have more social cohesion than any other group I’ve ever known. They cooperate in everything, with the old teaching the young, and they share everything. Their survival depends on it. They have a culture of their own, a religion of their own. And for the most part, they just want to be left in peace.
“Werewolves like Greyback – they’re outliers. And if they’re radicalising some elements of the werewolf population, well, it’s no more than the wizarding population as a whole is being radicalised. There are certainly some werewolves who thrill to that call of violence, but there are at least as many others who just want to be left to get on with their own concerns. I’m not sure even I quite understood that, before this year.”
Arthur gazed thoughtfully back at him. “I do see why Dumbledore sent you there,” he said. “These are things none of the rest of us would have been able to learn – we could never have got close enough to a werewolf community to do so. It’s a unique role you play for the Order, Remus.” Then he sighed. “I just wish it didn’t always have to be you.”
“I’m glad of the opportunity,” Remus said softly, and as he said it he knew it was true. “I can’t say it’s always enjoyable, sleeping out of doors in all weather, but I’ve been learning…things I think I needed to learn.” About werewolves. About himself. “And there’s no great risk involved, not now I’ve been accepted by the pack.”
Would that remain true, though? he wondered. What might happen if the younger pack members’ resentments roiled up to the point of open rebellion? Or, much worse, what if Fenrir Greyback came calling, to poach new recruits for his own pack by brute force? As one of the few werewolves to have been turned by Greyback but escape his clutches, Remus would be a particular target. Greyback was possessive of those he considered his own.
Shaking himself free of that dark thought, Remus asked, “And the Order? Everyone’s all right?” If something terrible had happened to someone close to Remus, surely Molly would have told him straight away. But still it would be a relief to hear it said out loud that they were all still safe.
Arthur nodded grimly. “We’re hanging in there.” He frowned at the tabletop. “Tonks, too. She had quite a coup up in Hogsmeade, arrested two men who were storing Dark objects for the Death Eaters. She’s one of the few in the Ministry really taking initiative.”
Remus felt tightness in his throat. Yes, that sounded very much like Tonks. It would be desperately good to see her, but he knew he didn’t dare. Too much longing lay in that direction, too much temptation to go back on his word. He would have to admire her strength and tenacity from afar.
He and Arthur talked a little longer, slowly draining their drinks down to the dregs, but Remus was feeling the inexorable pull of weariness. He was accustomed to sleeping and waking in rhythm with the sun, as the pack did, and it was long past nightfall.
Climbing the stairs to Bill’s old room, guiltily glad to have a warm bed waiting for him, Remus thought of the pack, bedded down in their draughty lean-to on the moor. It wasn’t right that only he should get to spend the night in a warm house. It was mere accidents of personal history that had brought him here, to a life among human friends, rather than having been forced to flee society at a young age as so many of the others had done.
Not that his feeling guilty about it did anyone any good.
Remus pushed open the bedroom door and let muscle memory guide him, reaching out to find the little lamp that stood on a table by the door. He tapped it with his wand, grateful for these small opportunities to do casual magic.
The room filled with soft light, and with it the memories flooded in. This was where he had slept during those terrible first weeks after Sirius’ death. He had lain on this bed and seen Sirius falling through the veil in the Department of Mysteries again and again and again.
Remus had stared at that incongruously cheery picture on Bill’s ceiling, of a pretty witch waving from a flying carpet, and reached his decision to break things off, finally and completely, with Tonks, no matter how much it hurt to do so.
It had been the right decision.
It hadn’t ceased to hurt.
Remus closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again.
He set his rucksack down beside the neatly made bed. Molly had even laid out a set of pyjamas for him, Remus saw with a pang of gratitude and of something of less identifiable – nostalgia, perhaps, for what it had been like once upon a time to have a home.
Well, three nights of a borrowed home were enough of a gift, more than he had any right to expect. Remus changed his clothes, slid into the bed, and let exhaustion claim him. His last thoughts as he drifted off were ones of warmth and gratitude.
Remus woke early the next morning and found no one else yet awake, so he took himself out for a long walk over the brittle winter hills. After so long living outdoors, being out in the invigorating air felt familiar and right, the best way to spend a cold but clear morning.
By the time Remus got back to the Burrow, breakfast was in full swing, along with the usual happy cacophony of the Weasley family. Arthur had left for work, but everyone else was present: Molly dishing out sausages from a frying pan of heroic proportions; Bill and Fleur cuddling cosily together; Ginny giggling to herself over some mischief she was playing on Fred and George; Harry and Ron sharing a good-natured laugh.
Hermione would not be here this year – Arthur had warned Remus as much and suggested it might be best not to mention her in front of Ron. Mentally reviewing what he’d observed over the years of that previously platonic friendship, Remus decided he wasn’t surprised at this new development, nor even that it had hit a rocky patch. But he hoped Hermione wasn’t spending too lonely a Christmas.
Harry spotted Remus first. “Professor Lupin!” he called, looking pleased. Then he added, unnecessarily, “We’re having breakfast.”
“Hello, Harry,” Remus said, flooded with warmth at the mere sight of him. It would be worth any amount of hardship to see Harry like this, smiling and surrounded by friends. Remus greeted all the children in turn, then said, “Molly, goodness, can I help you with that?”
“No, no, Remus, have a seat and tuck in. It’s just these last sausages and they’re nearly done.”
So Remus sat and ate his fill, and let the tumult of cheerful conversation wash around him like a friendly sea.
After the meal, Fred and George set off for the village and Bill and Fleur for points unknown, but presumably somewhere away from Molly’s watchful eye. Harry and Ron, though, stayed in the house, Harry seeming determined to stay put and cause as little trouble as possible. He was certainly a more serious boy these days than the thirteen-year-old Remus had first met. And Ron was a good friend, willing to stay indoors on a clear, brisk day for Harry’s sake.
Remus stopped at the kitchen doorway and tried again to offer his help to Molly, who was immersed already in preparations for dinner, but she waved him away. Ginny appeared behind Remus’ elbow and said, “It’s no use, Professor Lupin. She’s got a particular way of doing everything, and you’ve got no hope of ever getting it right even if you’ve had an entire lifetime of practice.”
“That’s hardly the reason,” Molly sniffed. “Remus, you’re our guest; go relax for once and enjoy yourself. Besides, the boys prepared the vegetables for me yesterday, so there’s not much left to do. Truly, Remus, go sit by the fire, or see what the boys are up to. You, however, young lady, can help with the stuffing.”
Ginny sighed and rolled her eyes conspiratorially in Remus’ direction, but she went into the kitchen without complaint.
Smiling at the sight of the two of them working together, Remus left the kitchen for the living room, where Ron and Harry were ensconced in two comfortably tattered armchairs, playing chess. Pausing in the doorway, Remus saw that Ron was clearly winning. A number of Harry’s pieces lay scattered around the boys’ feet, shouting a cacophony of unhelpful commentary in their piping little voices.
Harry glanced up and waved an arm wildly. “Professor Lupin! Please come help me here.”
Remus glanced at Ron, sure he would object, but Ron just shrugged. “Why not.” He grinned. “It’s not like Harry’s going to be able to win, no matter what.”
“Oi!” Harry protested, but he was smiling, and the sight tugged at Remus’ chest in the best possible way.
Remus crossed the room to them, still cautious about inflicting his presence on Harry if it was unwelcome. They’d hardly seen each other since the horrible night at the Ministry when Remus had bodily held Harry back from flinging himself through the veil after Sirius.
Yet Harry, with his generous heart, didn’t seem to begrudge Remus his role in Sirius’ loss.
“Here,” Harry said, stretching out an arm to pull a high-backed chair closer to the small table where the chessboard lay. “I’m losing, so anything you suggest will probably help.”
“I’m no expert,” Remus warned, settling into the chair Harry had offered. “And I haven’t played chess in a while.”
“You’re bound to be better than I am, professor,” Harry insisted. Remus could not seem to cure Harry of the habit of calling him professor, although he was no one’s teacher now.
Remus studied the board. “To start with,” he suggested, “try moving your bishop closer to your queen.”
“That’s what I said!” shouted an indignant discarded knight from the floor beneath the table.
Rolling his eyes, Harry nudged the disgruntled knight away with the toe of his trainer and informed it, “You just kept shouting, ‘The bishop, you idiot!’ How was I supposed to know what that meant?”
“A capable player would have understood!” the knight shrieked tinnily, from where it had landed under the drapes.
Ron moved his own knight across the board and Harry winced, this time recognising the danger it posed. He looked to Remus hopefully. “Your rook, perhaps?” Remus suggested, and was amused to see Ron nod in approval, more concerned with improving Harry’s game than with winning.
The morning passed amenably. Harry managed to win one of three games, then convinced Remus to take a turn against Ron, which Ron won, but narrowly. When Fred and George returned in the afternoon, Harry and the four youngest Weasleys exploded out to the garden for a dramatic mid-air snowball fight on brooms hastily fetched from the broomshed. Remus smiled to see Harry out there laughing and shouting with the best of them.
Watching the airborne battle from the big window that looked out on the back garden, Remus was startled to turn and find that Fleur had slid noiselessly into the room. She came and joined him at the window.
“Oh, sorry,” Remus said reflexively, shifting a step to the side to allow her more space.
“You needn’t skeeter away from me,” Fleur said with a toss of her dainty head. It took Remus a moment to parse that phrase – oh, she’d said skitter. “Unlike some Eengleesh eembeciles, I am not afraid of werewolves.”
“Oh – really?” Remus replied, startled into a banal response.
“Do you know, een some cultures, werewolves are seen as protectors of children,” Fleur continued, her nostrils flaring expressively as she gazed out at the whooping and diving taking place in the air above the back garden. “Eet eez a very sacred magic, zis duty of watching over the young and keeping zem safe.” She cut her eyes sideways at Remus. “I believe you know somesing about zat, yes? I ‘ear you were a very good teacher, a few years ago at ‘Ogwarts.”
“I did my best as a teacher,” Remus admitted. “But I don’t know that I did much in the way of keeping the children safe.” In fact, he’d done far worse, actively endangering the students that terrible night when he’d allowed the revelations of Sirius’ innocence and Peter’s guilt to distract him, the rising full moon catching him unawares on the open grounds of Hogwarts. Remus would never forgive himself for the harm he might have inflicted that night.
“Oh, rubbish,” Fleur exclaimed, with another toss of her head. “Zis Eengleesh reticence, zis modesty, I do not think eet does any of you much good. Celebrate your successes! Break out the champagne! When I say, ‘I ‘ear you are a good teacher,’ you must say, ‘Why, sank you.’”
Remus laughed in surprise. “And that would cure all our ills, would it? More celebration of our successes?”
“Eet would be a good start,” Fleur said darkly. “A lack of confidence never won any wars.”
Remus glanced over at her with surprised respect, before returning his gaze to the scene outside.
The kids tumbled back inside in the late afternoon, red-cheeked and glowing. Ginny, in a fit of enthusiasm, set about transforming the living room into a veritable model of the British paper chain in its natural habitat. Fred, George, Ron and Harry seemed to think they were the only ones who knew the angel atop the Christmas tree was in fact a Stupefied garden gnome the twins had caught and kitted out in a frilly pink tutu. It amused Remus that they clearly thought this was a secret, given that he had seen it, and he knew Ginny had noticed as well. Sometimes, the boys were not as subtle as they thought they were. Remus, watching them from the doorway, smiled as he remembered James and Sirius getting up to similar hijinks.
Arthur arrived home in time for dinner, a pleasant and relatively uneventful meal. (Fred and George played only one prank on Ginny, which Remus figured counted as a success in this family.) Crackers were pulled, jokes told, third helpings offered and accepted.
Remus would have felt like an interloper at this family event, except that Molly clearly resented the addition of Fleur to the celebration, and seemed to cling to Remus’ presence as proof that this was a holiday of family and guests, of whom Fleur only happened to be one.
Remus understood Molly’s frustration with the disdainful way Fleur reacted to nearly everything that wasn’t Bill. But he’d also experienced how thoughtful Fleur could be, and suspected she was capable of being quite kind, once she’d settled into a place and stopped needing to project her self-perceived cultural superiority at everyone around her.
Unfortunately, though, she hadn’t yet reached that point with the Weasleys. The family repaired to the living room to listen to Celestina Warbeck’s Christmas broadcast and the more Molly praised the music, the more Fleur made a point of talking over the songs.
To be fair, the way Molly glared whenever she thought Fleur couldn’t see probably wasn’t making it any easier for Fleur to settle in. But you had to hand it to Fleur, Remus thought as he stretched his legs towards the merrily crackling fire and stared into its depths. Whatever else one might say about her, Fleur had decided what she wanted and fought for it. Which sounded a lot like –
But such ruminations would get him nowhere. Tonks was better off without him, and that was that. Remus had chosen to sacrifice his own happiness in exchange for her welfare, and he would stick by that. He hoped she would move on and find someone better than him. He hoped it with a desperate ache of loss in his heart, but he meant it no less for that.
Remus came back to his surroundings with a start when he heard Harry say, “Mr Weasley, you know what I told you at the station when we were setting off for school?” Remus turned towards them as Harry laid out for Arthur his suspicions about Draco Malfoy, and his belief that Severus Snape was trying to help him. “Snape made an Unbreakable Vow!” Harry exclaimed, as if this proved everything.
There was a pause in their conversation as the song on the wireless reached a quiet passage and Arthur waited until the volume increased again to speak. “Has it occurred to you Harry, that Snape was simply pretending –” he began.
Overlapping him in his eagerness to get his point across, Harry said, “Pretending to offer help, so that he could find out what Malfoy’s up to? Yeah, I thought you’d say that. But how do we know?”
“It isn’t our business to know,” Remus said, turning to face Harry fully. “It’s Dumbledore’s business. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us.”
Remus knew what it was like to be wrongly suspected. He would not do Snape the same disservice without proof of guilt.
“But just say – just say Dumbledore’s wrong about Snape –” Harry began to protest.
“People have said it, many times,” Remus said. “It comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore’s judgement. I do; therefore, I trust Severus.”
In the end, it always came back to that – either you trusted Dumbledore and his obscure, far-sighted plans, or you didn’t. Remus, for many reasons both personal and professional, had chosen to trust.
Harry’s gaze was piercing. “But Dumbledore can make mistakes. He says it himself. And you – do you honestly like Snape?”
Remus thought of Snape taunting Sirius, even up to the very night Sirius had died, and felt the hurt of it in his chest. But for fairness’ sake he made himself think, too, of Sirius’ constant derision towards Snape, even as an adult, not to mention the years of senseless bullying Snape had endured from Sirius and James. These were human complexities Harry was still too young to understand.
“I neither like nor dislike Severus,” Remus said. Then, to the scepticism blazing in Harry’s face: “No, Harry, I am speaking the truth. We shall never be bosom friends, perhaps; after all that happened between James and Sirius and Severus, there is too much bitterness there. But I do not forget that during the year I taught at Hogwarts, Severus made the Wolfsbane Potion for me every month, made it perfectly, so that I did not have to suffer as I usually do at the full moon.”
“But he ‘accidentally’ let it slip that you’re a werewolf, so you had to leave!” Harry exclaimed, as touchingly indignant as if it had happened yesterday.
“The news would have leaked out anyway,” Remus reminded him gently. Any reprieve from the stigma of his condition, Remus knew, was only ever temporary at best. “We both know he wanted my job, but he could have wreaked much worse damage on me by tampering with the Potion. He kept me healthy. I must be grateful.”
“Maybe he didn’t dare mess with the Potion with Dumbledore watching him!” In his righteous indignation, Harry was Sirius all over, and Remus felt a tiny smile tug at his lips.
It felt good to be able to smile at Sirius’ memory.
To Harry he said, “You are determined to hate him, Harry. And I understand; with James as your father, with Sirius as your godfather, you have inherited an old prejudice. By all means tell Dumbledore what you have told Arthur and me, but do not expect him to share your view of the matter; do not even expect him to be surprised by what you tell him. It might have been on Dumbledore’s orders that Severus questioned Draco.”
Knowing Dumbledore, Draco Malfoy probably was up to no good, and Dumbledore likely had five or six different simultaneous plans in play to neutralise the concern. If Snape was part of those plans, all the better. For all his pettiness, Snape came through when it mattered. He’d kept Remus’ secret throughout their remaining school years, and it wasn’t for lack of wanting to reveal it.
Harry frowned, clearly ready to argue his point, but just then the song on the wireless ended with an ear-splitting high note. Molly applauded pointedly and Fleur commented in a loud “aside” to Bill, “Eez eet over? Thank goodness, what an ‘orrible –”
Arthur jumped to his feet and hurried to intervene. “Shall we have a nightcap, then? Who wants eggnog?”
Arthur bustled about pouring drinks for everyone; Molly discovered that Ginny had singed an eyebrow playing Exploding Snap and in fussing over her, forgot to be irritated with Fleur.
“What have you been up to lately?” Harry asked Remus. He sounded so grown up in that moment, so much a bloke having a man-to-man chat with a mate, that Remus’ breath caught in his chest. But this is Harry, not James, he reminded himself. He doesn’t need to know your every worry and concern.
“Oh, I’ve been underground,” Remus said. “Almost literally. That’s why I haven’t been able to write, Harry; sending letters to you would have been something of a give-away.”
“What do you mean?” Harry asked, and ah, yes, there was Lily, too, in the way his nose wrinkled up with concern.
“I’ve been living among my fellows, my equals. …Werewolves,” Remus clarified, when Harry looked blank. Harry was like Tonks in that way. Never seemed to be able to remember that Remus’ lycanthropy was, in fact, quite a sticking point for most people. Unsure how much Harry knew about the allegiances of werewolves in the current war, Remus explained, “Nearly all of them are on Voldemort’s side. Dumbledore wanted a spy and here I was…ready-made.”
That came out sounding unnecessarily bitter. Hadn’t he volunteered to go? Wasn’t he finally becoming a part of the pack, far more than he’d dared to hope? Being back in a warm home with these people he had missed must be making him soft.
“I am not complaining,” he assured Harry. “It is necessary work and who can do it better than I? However, it has been difficult gaining their trust. I bear the unmistakeable signs of having tried to live among wizards, you see, whereas they have shunned normal society and live on the margins, stealing – and sometimes killing – to eat.”
Remus had yet to see his own pacifistic pack harm a person, but he wasn’t naïve enough to believe it could never happen. If any of the pack’s members got backed into a tight corner or attacked, they would do what they had to do to survive.
“How come they like Voldemort?” Harry wanted to know.
How come indeed. A complex issue, but Remus tried to break it down to its simplest form. “They think that, under his rule, they will have a better life. And it is hard to argue with Greyback out there…”
“Who’s Greyback?”
Harry’s strange blend of tough savvy and startling innocence so often took Remus by surprise. But of course, why should Harry know anything of Greyback? He hadn’t grown up among wizards. He’d never heard the horror stories parents exchanged, the rumours children whispered.
Remus felt his hands clench in his lap and forcibly steadied his breath. It was difficult, still, to talk about the werewolf who turned him without raw anger bleeding through. “You haven’t heard of him? Fenrir Greyback is, perhaps, the most savage werewolf alive today. He regards it as his mission in life to bite and to contaminate as many people as possible; he wants to create enough werewolves to overcome the wizards. Voldemort has promised him prey in return for his services. Greyback specialises in children…bite them young, he says, and raise them away from their parents, raise them to hate normal wizards. Voldemort has threatened to unleash him upon people’s sons and daughters; it is a threat that usually produces good results.” Remus paused, weighing whether the last piece of this story was something Harry needed to know. But to wonder that was to do Harry a disservice; Harry generally did well with being told the whole truth. So he said, “It was Greyback who bit me.”
“What?” Harry exclaimed. “When – when you were a kid, you mean?”
Remus took a moment, again, to steady himself, to find the part of him that could talk about this in a neutral tone. “Yes. My father had offended him. I did not know, for a very long time, the identity of the werewolf who had attacked me; I even felt pity for him, thinking he had had no control, knowing by then how it felt to transform. But Greyback is not like that. At the full moon he positions himself close to victims, ensuring that he is near enough to strike. He plans it all. And this is the man Voldemort is using to marshal the werewolves. I cannot pretend that my particular brand of reasoned argument is making much headway against Greyback’s insistence that we werewolves deserve blood, that we ought to revenge ourselves on normal people.”
“But you are normal! You’ve just got a – a problem –”
Remus laughed, touched by Harry’s expression of fierce protectiveness and indignation. “Sometimes you remind me a lot of James. He called it my ‘furry little problem’ in company. Many people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit.”
Just then, Arthur reached them in his rounds of distributing eggnog, and Remus accepted a glass, still smiling a little. For Harry, being a fiercely loyal friend really did seem to be a genetic trait.
His own glass of eggnog now dangling distractedly in one hand, Harry leaned forward eagerly and took up a new subject. “Have you ever heard of someone called the Half-Blood Prince?”
“The Half-Blood what?” Remus answered, baffled by this conversational turn.
“Prince,” Harry repeated, watching Remus closely, as if he expected this to mean something to him.
“There are no wizarding princes,” Remus told him with a smile. “Is this a title you’re thinking of adopting? I should have thought being the ‘Chosen One” would be enough.”
“It’s nothing to do with me!” Harry retorted, indignant at the very idea, as Remus had known he would be. “The Half-Blood Prince is someone who used to go to Hogwarts, I’ve got his old Potions book. He wrote spells all over it, spells he invented. One of them was Levicorpus –”
“Oh, that one had a great vogue during my time at Hogwarts,” Remus said. What a fond and also exasperating memory. “There were a few months in my fifth year when you couldn’t move for being hoisted into the air by your ankle.”
“My dad used it,” Harry said, his voice uncharacteristically flat. “I saw him in the Pensieve, he used it on Snape.”
They’d arrived again at the schoolboy rivalry that refused to relinquish its hold, a generation later. “Yes, but he wasn’t the only one,” Remus assured Harry, because he looked so sad to think of his dad being thoughtless and cruel. Even if James had been thoughtless and cruel, sometimes. “As I say, it was very popular…you know how these spells come and go…”
“But it sounds like it was invented while you were at school.”
“Not necessarily. Jinxes go in and out of fashion like everything else.” Remus glanced at Harry’s face, and at last he understood what this was really about. An old schoolbook, marked up by a clever past student, someone who might have gone to school at the same time as Remus, might conceivably have been a friend of Remus’… “James was a pure-blood, Harry,” he said, “and I promise you, he never asked us to call him ‘Prince’.”
Caught out now, Harry asked plainly, “And it wasn’t Sirius? Or you?”
“Definitely not.” A wizarding prince was the last thing Sirius would have wanted to be, and Remus himself was a half-blood but harboured no princely ambitions.
“Oh,” Harry said. “I just thought – well, he’s helped me out a lot in Potions classes, the Prince has.” He gazed dejected into the fire and Remus ached for him. Harry so badly wanted a feeling of connection to his parents, and there was so little of it to be had.
“How old is this book, Harry?” Remus asked, falling back as usual on helping with practical matters, since he could offer Harry little of what he really wanted.
Harry looked up at him. “I dunno, I’ve never checked.”
“Well, perhaps that will give you some clue as to when the Prince was at Hogwarts,” Remus suggested. A good puzzle always seemed to get Harry and his friends going.
“Yeah, I could do,” Harry said, and his expression brightened a little.
That was good. There was so little Remus could give Harry. For that matter, there was so little he could give any of the people he cared about. But it was Christmas Eve, and those Remus cared about were safe, and that was enough. It would have to be enough.
End notes:
Yup, there really is folklore that has werewolves as protectors of children, rather than dangerous predators... I wished so much that Remus, with all his self-recrimination, could know about that. So I was very pleased when Fleur turned up and offered to be the character to show that viewpoint to him!
Also, I have been diligently posting one chapter a week, but will probably have to drop down to one chapter every two weeks, just for a couple chapters, so I have enough time to write some new material for Chapter 14. More thoughts about that in a separate post!
(continue to CHAPTER 13: Coming Together and Moving Apart)
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