sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-08 04:00 pm
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-08 04:00 pm
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Sweet Home, 7 of 7
Remus, in his midnight flight from the Edwards-Clarkes, aimed instinctively towards Victoria Park, an area he rather liked though the surroundings were shady and low-rent. Before, this had always been a detraction; he recalled someone at the hostel, in those first few days in London, saying how he was going to get out of the squalid little place and find a nice squat around the park, and he remembered his horror at the idea of living somewhere illegally, somewhere he might be caught in at any time. But hell, he was a werewolf, wasn't he? Living in his own body meant that.
It wasn't hard to find a room to stay in for the night, especially when he offered the other squatters cash to clear out; his salary hadn't been royal, but it had been good enough when one didn't have to pay room or board, and what did he have to spend money on? He had no particular desires or hungers then, and the only ones he had now were for silence and darkness and the absence of other people. Money could buy that, especially from the disenfranchised homeless who had made the abandoned houses their own.
He could have found a hotel, but there were bellhops and attendants and maids and for the first time since he had shot Lacon Chaney he let the wolf out just enough to find a dark corner in which to lick its wounds, as filthy and squalid as could possibly be. He charmed the door shut, transfigured a mattress out of a few bits of lumber in a corner, and lay down.
On his second night in the squatter's house, a young man who shared a room with two dogs downstairs stopped him on the staircase as he went lethargically out to get food, and asked him if he had a fix; realising this was some Muggle custom he was unaware of, Remus replied no, and then the man asked if he wanted one, and flashed something Remus did recognise -- a hypodermic syringe. He shook his head and went on his way, but the next night the man seemed so desperate for money that Remus simply pressed some into his hand. The man shoved him against the wall and kissed him on the mouth and Remus didn't resist, didn't bother to. The man smelled of wild things and animals and Remus never did get his name but he did get a cigarette habit off of him, as well as a couple of dark-hallway blowjobs that might have been handshakes for all Remus paid them any mind. He had no desire to see people or speak to them, but he hadn't the energy to avoid them, and it was a release of sorts.
He did go out, to get food and to distract himself, because he found that a small empty room was just as much a prison for grief as the cheerful, people-filled house he'd left behind. Sometimes it was a solace and sometimes it was an insane asylum he had to escape, and he followed the man who gave him the cigarettes, and the other men he met. He didn't always remember where he'd gone, but he had images of crowded places, the smell of Muggle alcohol and smoke.
The windows had no panes anymore but he blocked them up with wood and sticking charms. They held against the wolf on the full moons. He had half-wanted the wolf on Halloween, and now he had it; he lived from moon to moon, and the rest of the month was spent marking time, eating if he starved and smoking if he hadn't the energy for food, following others out at night.
His cash slowly dwindled. He wrote to his father dutifully once a month, usually when he was too sick from the Change to do anything else, and he never had a reply. How could he, after all. He didn't live properly. He just existed. He had no fixed address, no income, no purpose, no desires, nothing to occupy himself with and no need for occupation. He was a name with a stomach attached, and sometimes claws.
And Remus Lupin commenced to die. Little by little, day by day.
It wasn't unusual. In the early nineties there were lots of young people -- young men in particular -- dying slowly, and some not so slowly, in the slums of London. They succumbed to poverty-starvation or addiction or most popularly a new Muggle plague that was ripping its way across the world and which those in power, because it was a disease of perverts and scum, generally ignored. Remus liked the dying men best, because they understood; their bodies were failing them, too, and all they had for their scars was the disdain of the rest of the world. They had lost as much as he had, some of them more, and now they were dying and he wished he could die too, though the wolf's survival instincts made sure he ate -- not enough -- and slept -- not peacefully -- and one day his lungs rejected the cigarette smoke forcibly and that was the end of that habit.
His clothes wore out and he didn't bother to replace them; someone who moved in across the hallway showed him how to patch them for a few pounds and his remaining, now useless, cigarettes.
There were rallies he was dragged along to though he stood dumbly and tried to avoid the thick of the crowds; there were activists in the building sometimes, who disturbed his sleep with their conversations. There were musicians who called themselves post-Punk and played loud music, thumping up through the floorboards: Telegram Sam you're my main man and Sister sister he's just a plaything and Here I am Dr. John here I am do you know what to do?
At least he didn't dream of Lacon Chaney anymore, and if he dreamed that Gabriel slept with an arm across his waist, it was only a sign that he ought to find someone with a willing mouth and the ability to ignore a scar or two.
When James and Lily and Peter died, he had not lost his reason or shut himself away or beaten the walls; he had quietly and calmly gone home for a bit, to collect himself, and then he'd gone away from England, most sensibly and most reasonably. He had never simply given up; he had worked his way from place to place and found ways to force himself into a world that wanted no part of him. Dumbledore had written to him once that he ought to grieve; well, fine. He would grieve now, because he had no choice. He couldn't will away the shattered bits inside that he really physically felt there, the shards that worked their way into his heart and stomach and sometimes would kill him if he moved. When that happened he lay on the bed in the dusty, unlit room and stayed still, as he had when he was a child and the nightmares seemed real even after waking up.
One morning he woke to find the pressure on his chest was very real.
Alastor Moody's horrifying, asymmetrical face leered down at him, and Remus yelped and skidded backwards, fleeing the heavy hand on his chest, his first physical contact in days. Light filtered in through the cracks in the window-coverings. His locking charms on the door had been neatly picked.
"Tisn't easy to find ye," Moody said, complacently, as Remus caught his breath and slowed his pounding heart. The man rose from his stoop, his good knee popping as he did so and his wooden leg clacking against the floor. "Look a right mess, you do."
"Why are you here?" Remus asked.
"Business for ye," Moody answered. "Sent by Dumbledore. World's becomin' a dangerous place."
He held out a scrap of paper, and Remus took it numbly. Sirius' face looked up at him, waxy and drawn, hair matted, eyes dark. It was eerie the way the head never moved, though the text clearly proved it was a Wizarding paper.
"Gone and done a runner, and nobody knows a thing," Moody continued, as Remus read the article. Sirius had made it past the beach this time. He'd made it off Azkaban. Sirius was free.
"Oh," Remus said hollowly. "Fine. You catch him. If he comes for me he can kill me."
"Tut! Keep yer tongue in yer head for a moment," Moody said sternly. "He ain't comin' for you."
"Good, because I'd rather not see him."
"Comin' for the boy," Moody said. "The Potter boy."
Remus glanced up from the clipping. "For Harry?" he said hoarsely.
"Aye, it's on good authority. You're wanted to protect the boy."
"Me?" Remus laughed and gestured at himself. "Do I look in a position to protect anyone, Moody? Go on, find an Auror to babysit him. I won't go near him. Do more harm than good," he added, rolling over to put his back to Moody.
"Tisn't a request," Moody answered. "Tis a command as a member of the Order. Straight from Dumbledore."
"Tell Dumbledore to go fuck himself."
"Nah, lad, tell him yerself. He's offerin' a teachin' position and some perks ye may not know of, livin' like a Muggle," Moody said. "And it's a shame to bribe a man I taught better," he added. Remus cringed at the tone in his voice. There was a time when Moody's frown or smile meant the difference between failure and success to Remus, back before.
"Teaching at Hogwarts?" he asked, when his voice was steady.
"Defence Against the Dark Arts."
"Why would he ever allow me back there? Even the Shack isn't that safe -- "
"That's the perks," Moody said triumphantly, and Remus sat up, turning reluctantly to face him. Moody regarded him, his magical false eye rolling around in its socket. "New potion out. Wolfsbane potion. Just been discovered. Not a cure, mind you, but close as makes no difference. None more o' these," he added, indicating the scars on Remus' shoulders where the shirt he wore gapped open. Remus pulled it up, a little.
"I'm hardly fit to be a teacher," he said.
"Doubt that. Doubt that very much," Moody answered. "But it's no matter to me for if you don't, I'll be forced to. If ye're inclined to change yer mind, be on the Hogwarts Express in ten days' time. Otherwise," he gestured at the room, which seemed more awful and bare to Remus even than it normally did, "stay in yer hole and may ye rot here for the coward ye are."
Remus couldn't meet his eyes, and instead plucked at the frayed edge of the blanket. Moody snorted, and left the clipping behind him as he went, storming down the stairway and shouting at loiterers in the hall to move out of his way or he'd arrest the lot of them.
It was Harry's green eyes in his memory or Sirius' blue ones staring up at him from the newspaper clipping; the rock and the hard place. If he stayed here, he would feel Sirius' eyes upon him; if he went to Dumbledore like the prodigal son, he would be forced to see Harry every day.
Hunger swept through him suddenly, hunger that had nothing to do with his empty belly, and a new thought rose dimly in his mind through the howling of the wolf that had been drowning out all other rational thought for nearly two years:
If he went to Dumbledore, he would be allowed to see Harry.
Every day.
***
So Remus Lupin went to Hogwarts.
Again.
He had just enough money left after changing it at Gringotts (the Goblins looking down their noses at the shaggy, ill-dressed, pale-faced man) to buy what he needed. A halfway-decent haircut, some second-hand robes and clothing, a few books that would help him teach, quills and parchment; an owl to Dumbledore to say he'd accepted the job, and could Dumbledore please send him a train ticket for the Hogwarts Express. He went back to the squat that evening and began to pack, piling everything into the old, much-battered, too-worthless-to-sell suitcase.
He had no money for food. He'd gone hungry before, but now the gnawing pangs when he didn't eat made him wonder how. Or why. Moody had known what to do right enough, he reckoned; swear at him a bit, offer him a job, and then disdain him when he was too frightened to take it. He felt as though he'd woken after two years of sleepwalking.
His latest neighbour-across-the-hall was a heroin cook, with a little bit of cash to her name, and he nipped across to ask if he could sell her his haversack for a few quid, told her he was moving out in three days' time. She gave him five for it, which was probably about twice what it was worth, and he bought enough food to at least keep the hunger away. An owl arrived the following day with a congratulatory letter from the Headmaster, a train ticket, and three or four large bars of chocolate. Dementors, the letter said, might harass the train.
Remus thought back to his singular encounter with them, in America years ago, and practiced his patronus that night. The slivery thestral scared the bejesus out of a junkie who happened to look in the wrong room at the wrong time.
He arrived early at the train, unable to sleep the night before, and finally dropped off huddled under his coat in an empty compartment, wondering how he would manage what he would find at Hogwarts; wondering if McGonagall and Flitwick were still teaching -- Binns was, he was sure of it -- and if Severus was still there. He would be teaching Ackerly again, and Harry, and there must be others. Hadn't little Neville Longbottom been born around the same time Harry was?
When the high, not-quite-adult voices woke him a while later, he listened and learned. He protected them as well, when he had to; that was what he was really being paid to do, wasn't it?
The first time he saw Harry's eyes on the train, they were clouded with fear and confusion and he was far too distracted by the necessity of protecting the children to wonder if Harry would shatter him again. Harry was a boy who needed to eat that chocolate, a boy who needed his protection. Harry had no idea who he was or that he knew who had given Harry such a handsome young face and such brilliant green eyes.
No; he would survive. Once was enough, and he still felt the odd pull on his insides at times. He had already broken, and had not reassembled himself well enough to be broken again.
He would just have to get on with things, as normal people did. Spar with Severus on the occasions they had to meet, neither of them willing to bring up the evening in Australia when they had been almost-friends -- now he was the usurper of a position Severus wanted, and at Hogwarts he was a living symbol of the torments the other man had suffered at the hands of James and Sirius. Severus brewed Wolfsbane potion against his will, and Remus drank it nearly against his own, because it made the wolf docile, and the wolf was not meant to be controlled. It had been his only release, and though it relieved him to awaken without scratchmarks and bruises, there was an itch, somewhere around the base of his spine, that spoke of wilder things he could no longer express even in the beast's howl.
But he tolerated that too, and he taught, falling easily into the rhythm of a lecturer's speech, re-learning the trick of marking a paper tactfully when it was terrible and not-too-enthusiastically when it was excellent. He saw Ack again, a third-year Ravenclaw with an affinity for Magical History, and was proud of the boy in his own way, as proud as Ack was to be old-friends with the popular Defence instructor. There was Frank and Alice's shy young son, and the Patil twins, and some older Gryffindor boys whose siblings and parents he had known when they were young. He was kept busy, which was all for the best.
Sometimes at the end of the day the memories of the Academy were a little too overwhelming, and the desire for someone like Gabriel to comfort him a little too strong, but he could always put his pale face and sunken eyes down to his illness, convenient and vague.
He did have Harry to look after, especially in the spring, during the patronus lessons. Harry was not as inherently masterful as James or as quietly brilliant as Lily; he had talent, there was no doubt of that, but he was uncertain of himself, and he worked for what he got. He was more sensitive than his father -- kinder, though no less quick to anger. Remus studied him as he might have studied a red-cap or a boggart, to see what made him who he was, and he began to understand that perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps the years he had spent thinking he could give Harry nothing he didn't already receive from the Dursleys was the most grievous error of his life. The boy was starved for love, and now it was too late to give it to him. Remus was his teacher, after all.
But you know all this, don't you?
You were there too.
The year passed by too quickly, and then there was Sirius and the Shack, and Peter and Severus and a mess he himself made when he forgot the potion, one more mistake in a series of mistakes that once more cost him his job. There was a year of searching-for-work, of living-on-savings, of reading about Harry and his friends in the papers because he couldn't be there himself, and reading more about them in rare letters from Sirius. He worried, in the vague way a distant relative might, about Harry, but it was not his place to help him, it was Sirius', and anyway he couldn't have done anything if it was his place.
The next summer there was the horrible death of Cedric Diggory, and suddenly there was Sirius.
He arrived in late June after a circuit that must have covered most of Britain; he'd even gone to the Lupin farm, far off from the flat Remus was barely making payments on in Newcastle. He'd lurked at the farm for five or six days, he said, before he found out by eavesdropping where Remus was. All that came later, though; the afternoon Sirius arrived was a sunny late-summer day and Remus had come back from a part-time tutoring job, to find a large black dog slumped on his doorstep, fur matted, the pads of his paws cracked and dry, tongue lolling out. He stopped and leaned against the railing up to the building, regarding the creature with a mixture of amusement and surprise.
"You've never looked better," he said, and the dog scrambled to its feet, slowly and tremblingly. Remus saw at once it was not a time for jokes; instead he unlocked the door and led Padfoot inside. He used to say Padfoot was part Newf and part Grizzly Bear, but aside from the size of him, he was whip-thin and weak, and Remus had to carry him up the flight of stairs to his flat.
Inside, Sirius changed and was suddenly a weight on one shoulder instead of across both; Remus helped him to a chair in the tiny kitchen and poured him water, which Sirius accepted with hands that bled when he flexed his fingers. The next half hour was spent not in greetings but in medical attention, first hands and feet and then a hot bath. Remus didn't dare leave him for fear he'd fall asleep and slide under, so instead he sat on the edge of the tub and combed through the tangled hair, using scissors when he had to. The result wasn't haute couture, but it was clean and didn't look too terrible.
He helped Sirius back up out of the water, remembering other years, almost other lives, in which Sirius and James would carry him to a bed after a Change and bind up his injuries while he slept. He had never thought to be the one Sirius leaned on; Sirius didn't lean, for starters, and if he had it would have been on James --
"A strange reversal, isn't it?" Sirius rasped, as if he had read his mind.
"Let's get you something to eat," Remus answered, mentally cataloguing the sad assortment of food in his larder. Enough for a vegetable soup, he decided, and left Sirius to dress, shaky but a little more steady now, in patched clothing that was ill-fitting but better than rags, and at least clean and tidy. The shirt was too long, but narrow across the shoulders, and Sirius left it unbuttoned at the throat as he wandered back in and sniffed appreciatively.
"Onions?" he asked, with the fervor of a man who has been fantasising about vegetable soup for years.
"Onions and garlic, some celery, potatoes, carrots...I'm afraid it's not much," Remus replied. "I'll be paid tomorrow, though, and can buy some meat then."
"Quite a pair of ragged beggars we are," Sirius murmured.
"We do what we must," Remus answered simply, and was met with silence. He turned from the stove to see Sirius watching him. "Dumbledore sent an owl that there was news coming, but I didn't think you'd be the one to bring it."
"If there's no room I needn't stay long," Sirius said, and a hint of the old arrogant Black pride cut his tone.
"There's room," Remus answered. "You need a safe place to stay."
Sirius nodded, and studied the white kitchen table, fingers dancing across it aimlessly. "I have some money," he said softly, and rose, leaving the room. He returned with the remains of the trousers he'd been wearing before, and ripped the pocket right out, tossing it on the table. Remus leaned over and was surprised to see a thick roll of Muggle fifty-pound notes and a handful of pound coins and pence. Sirius saw his surprise, and shrugged.
"I had other bank accounts," he said simply. "I didn't learn absolutely nothing from my family."
"That would buy steak, if you want it," Remus said. "There's a shop two doors down -- "
"Soup," Sirius said, inhaling again. "Tonight, soup."
Remus nodded, and returned to the pan, adding water and chicken-stock-powder and tapping it with his wand to speed the cooking process. "This needs to simmer," he said. "Shall I buy bread? I have a little margarine."
"No," Sirius answered. "Soup is enough."
Remus saw the tiredness and uncertainty in his face then, and realised that Sirius was not asking for soup because he wanted soup; he didn't want Remus to go down to buy meat, because he didn't want to be left alone.
"Soup it is," he said, with a cheer he didn't feel. He located a half-full box of cheap crackers and poured some into a bowl while he quickly heated water for tea, filling two cups and using (extravagance!) a tea-bag each. He set them down on the table, pulling out the other, less sturdy chair as Sirius picked up a cracker and broke it into pieces before eating each shard individually.
"I have some news from the Order, nothing that can't wait a bit," Sirius began quietly. "I assume Dumbledore's been in contact with you about Voldemort's rise."
"More or less. Owl post isn't very safe," Remus answered. "Is that where you've been? Rallying the Order?"
Sirius nodded wearily and blew on his tea to cool it. "You're the last stop. Dumbledore thought I should stay with you."
"Dumbledore was right. How's Harry?"
"Holding up, as far as I know. He's a good lad," Sirius added, summoning the energy for a smile. "Reminds me of James."
Remus wondered how, since Harry was so inherently his own person, but then Sirius had known James better than he had. "He's a good student," he added haplessly, and they sat in silence for a while, Sirius breaking crackers and eating them slowly, Remus wondering if he ought to say anything. It was a relief when they at least had hunger as an excuse to be silent; between the pair of them they finished every last lump of potato, and Sirius seemed better for the food.
"You should sleep," Remus suggested, as Sirius ran the spoon idly around the bottom of the bowl. "You look done-in, Pads."
Sirius looked up sharply at the old name that fell off Remus' tongue before it meant to. Remus nearly flinched.
"I suppose I do," Sirius replied finally, looking away. Remus stood and led him to the bedroom and the old but comfortable twin bed that had come with the flat. Sirius, too tired to protest the offer of a bed, even if it was the only bed, slipped off the shirt and trousers, and Remus closed the door on a sleepy murmur of gratitude.
Later, he suspected, if there was to be shouting it would come; there was too much left unsaid between them, and Sirius was a shouter by nature. He wondered how he seemed to Sirius, all patched clothing and cheap soup, scars on his face that the Shack's ill light had hidden, living like a Muggle in a shoddy flat.
He cancelled his work for the rest of the week and stayed in the flat more or less, though he went out to spend some of Sirius' money on better food than his salary could provide. Sirius told him what the rest of the Order was up to, and they began plans for recruitment of a few new members, slowly and through safe channels; otherwise they were often silent. Sirius, who had been deprived of books for even longer than he'd been deprived of his freedom devoured the books Remus had, voraciously, and for once Remus was content to sit and read as well, keeping quiet company.
The third day after his arrival, in newly-purchased clothes that fit him better, Sirius looked up from the book he was reading and asked who Gabriel was.
Remus stared in surprise for a moment, before realising that the book Sirius had was inscribed by Gabriel, a gift from years ago.
"He was a friend," he said.
"He calls you Mon Anglais."
"He was French -- we knew each other in America. It's a big country; Europeans have to keep close ranks with each other."
Sirius nodded. "Did he die?"
"I don't know -- why?"
"You keep saying was."
Remus shrugged -- there didn't seem to be anything else to say. It occurred to him that Sirius might be jealous of the friends he'd had in the decade-plus since Voldemort's fall, of the places he'd been and the things he'd done, but they had said they forgave each other, and with Sirius, to say was to do. It was that simple.
Or perhaps Sirius was afraid of these people -- the Aurors in the photographs on Remus' walls, the names in his books. Perhaps Sirius was afraid these people held more claim on him now. Remus was not so stupid as to think he and Harry weren't all Sirius had left in the world. Remus understood what it would be to lose that.
"Sirius," he said, and then, "Padfoot."
Sirius looked up.
"It's over now," Remus said. "Azkaban. All of that. You and I, it's down to us. You won't ever want for someone."
"I didn't -- "
"You didn't have to say it." Remus closed his book. The book Sirius held was shaking in his hands. "For as long as it's needed -- the rest of our lives if you need it. I'm here. I'm not going to go away or abandon you. Not again."
Sirius looked like a starving man who saw a feast -- which was not entirely inaccurate.
"All right then, Moony," he said, trying to sound easy, though his voice was strained.
"All right then," Remus agreed. "And you can stay here as long as you like."
Sirius looked down. "Not for long."
"Sirius -- "
"No, I had an owl from Dumbledore this morning. I offered him the old town-house in London as a headquarters for the Order. It's mine now. You remember it?"
Remus cast his mind back. He remembered mention of it, true, but he'd never been inside -- even if Sirius' parents hadn't disapproved of his half-blood friend, there had been wards on the house against dark creatures, including werewolves, and Remus couldn't risk detection.
"I remember James talking about it," he ventured.
"Old Moody's been working on it. Adding some new charms and taking off some others." Sirius shrugged. "I didn't really want to say anything, but you...Dumbledore says he needs me there, and if you want to, there'll be no rent, and -- "
" -- you don't want to live there alone," Remus finished.
"You've learned how to be blunt," Sirius muttered.
"When do we go?"
Sirius shrugged. "Dumbledore says as soon as possible."
"I'll start packing," Remus said, and set his book down. As he passed, Sirius touched his wrist.
"Did you mean that?" he asked plaintively.
"Yes," Remus answered, unflinching.
"Why?"
"Because I remember when I was you," Remus said.
***
The year that followed their move to the house on Grimmauld Place wasn't easy, by any stretch of the imagination; Order meetings were tense, and Remus remembered the last time the Order had assembled, when the count of heads at each one was the most efficient way of seeing who had died. They'd lost so many, and already there was the danger of losing others. Arthur in the hospital, his oldest son taking dangerous missions to prove himself, the Aurors who were always in harm's way -- and the children. Some were mischievous, risking the safety of the organisation, while others were secretive and angry. Remus had been a teacher and an Auror and a homeless drifter and he understood the overflow of emotions that filled the house, but he was helpless in the face of them, and Sirius was a part of the storm.
So he focused on Sirius, because Sirius was always there and Sirius was someone he could at least try to fix. Starved for those things that make up a normal life, Sirius took anything he could gladly; a hot meal, a touch on the shoulder, a midnight conversation when he couldn't sleep. And slowly Remus re-learned Sirius and his place in Sirius' life, because it couldn't be what it used to be at school. He wasn't the prefect who looked the other way, the third best friend, the comrade in rulebreaking anymore. He knew it frightened Sirius, but what was he to do? He couldn't change who he had become, or he would have done so for reasons that really had nothing to do with Sirius Black in the first place.
Instead he comforted in other ways. He touched Sirius constantly, reassuringly; he spoke a lot, when they were together, filling the silence so Sirius didn't go off into some place in his head that was dangerous for Sirius and impossible for anyone else to follow. He anchored him, as much as he could, in the insanity that was Grimmauld Place. It was good to be needed.
When Sirius died he missed that almost more than Sirius himself, and couldn't find it in him to be horrified. Sirius had been brave and reckless and wonderful when they were boys, and everything Remus wanted to be but knew he never would. When they were men, Sirius was frightened, more than he would ever show, and trying desperately to be a man at all, after twelve years of standing still in Azkaban prison. There was no place for Sirius in the world, and they both knew it, and Remus was relieved for Sirius that the time of trying was over.
But he did miss his friend, and grieve him, and he knew that the rest of the Order paid him respectful mind because of it. If he was short with them or his occasional mission went badly, they put it down to Sirius, and perhaps they were right to do so. Out of anyone that year, even Molly Weasley, Harry listened only to Remus, which was strange because he ought to hate him; Remus could have understood hate, but the quiet obedience in the otherwise near-uncontrollable boy was baffling.
Then he remembered the Academy, and the young boys there who had been sent away by their parents because they were hopeless cases -- because the Academy had taken only the very best and the very worst. Death before mediocrity. The children who came angry and disobedient and rebellious to the Academy had been his favourites because if only you gave them reason to love you, they did so; they had nothing to lose. They wanted order in their lives. Harry wanted order in his life. Harry was afraid.
Remus did what he could. It was what he had always done.
The summer after Sirius' death was not a good time for the Order. Voldemort's followers had become more aggressive, despite their trouncing in the Department of Mysteries, and Dumbledore was still reluctant to put anyone on any kind of offensive, so they were stuck reacting instead of acting, cleaning up messes instead of preventing them from happening. Remus understood Dumbledore was waiting for something, but he didn't know what, and in the meantime people were getting hurt. Nearly half the Order was out with minor injuries after a disastrous scrap in Knockturn Alley, and it was a miracle nobody had been killed; word was coming in through Dung Fletcher and some of Kingsley's less savoury contacts that the ranks of the Death Eaters were swelling. The familiar, overwhelmed feeling from the last time they'd fought this war was welling up, and a pall hung over the meetings. If Dumbledore wasn't careful, it was going to turn to resentment and rebellion soon.
They needed time. They needed people and information. They had some money from Sirius, but most of it was in trust for Harry when he turned eighteen. In the meantime, Harry could only offer his inheritance from his parents, which no-one was about to ask for. Remus worked for the Order and took their support because he couldn't find a steady job at any rate -- a real job, people sometimes said by mistake. There was no malice in it, but it stung all the same because he knew it was true.
He was tired, and still sometimes he was broken in places he couldn't reach into to fix, and there was no-one to be for him what he had been for Sirius. He took comfort in Harry, oddly, and in the minutiae of preparing Harry for his sixth year. He had a responsibility. He couldn't run away any longer.
Though some days he was sorely tempted.
There was a mission that August, to recover a valuable magic artifact recently uncovered in a Muggle antique shop; he had to fight tooth and nail to get it, and on the way back his steps were dogged by Death Eaters almost ceaselessly. He'd had to take refuge in a ditch at one point, and the handle had finally snapped off his beloved suitcase, leaving him with, essentially, a large box carried with the same twine that held it together. By the time he reached Grimmauld Place he was filthy, cold and wet, hungry and angry and exhausted, his last good pair of robes in tatters and the trousers underneath going at the knees. He hadn't dared magic outside of the house; it would attract attention.
"Remus," Arthur said, coming to the doorway as he stepped in out of the muggy August night and set the case down, shedding his robes and with them the worst of the mud. "We were wondering -- "
"It's safe," he said tiredly, waving a hand at the box, squinting in the dim light and wanting only to go to his bedroom and wash, and lie down on clean sheets for a while. "Put it in the kitchen. Moody will know what to do with it. You'll probably have to do some paperwork about it, I took it off a Muggle, but they didn't really have a clue, so I think that's all right...."
"No, that wasn't it -- are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm not hurt. Just filthy."
"There are people -- "
"They'll have to wait, Arthur. Surely there's food we can distract them with," he said, already heading for the stairs up to his room.
"But Remus -- "
"Please, handle it for twenty minutes?" he asked. "Give me time to wash the mud off my face?"
Arthur heard the hard tone in his voice, and to his relief, the other man nodded.
"When you're ready, in the kitchen..."
Remus waved his hand in a gesture of agreement, and went up the stairs as fast as his tired legs would take him, beginning to shed his shirt almost before he was inside his rooms and leaving a trail of dirty clothing on his way to the bath. He turned on the water and cupped it in his hands, pouring it over his head and shoulders. He let the filthy water swirl down the drain before plugging it and filling the tub, dropping into it with a sigh of relief. The hot water soothed the ache in his muscles, and the steam cleared his head a little; he started feeling bad about snapping at Arthur before long. The people in the kitchen were probably important, were probably recruits or refugees who needed to talk to someone in charge, and right now, with Dumbledore out of the country (hopefully finding whatever he'd been waiting for), that was Remus.
He groaned and pushed himself out of the fast-cooling water, drying himself with a quick spell instead of a towel, and locating clean clothing. They would have to take him barefoot; his shoes were crusted with mud and he didn't appear to have any respectable socks.
He passed his desk as he was buttoning his collar, and paused.
Slowly, he turned.
There was an object on the desk, a cylinder wrapped in scarlet paper, without a tag or an explanation. If he hadn't thought the house was safe....but no-one could have left this here without access to his room, which was warded against those with ill-intentions.
He picked it up and peeled off the red paper slowly; underneath was a green cardboard cylinder of the sort wine bottles were packed in. He prised the lid off and grasped the black-wrapped neck of a bottle, easing it out slowly in case it was a trigger on some kind of peculiar bomb. It never hurt to be cautious.
The bottle glowed brilliant red-amber, catching the candlelight from the lit brackets in his bedroom walls and a hint of the silver moonlight outside.
He studied it for a minute, and then he became aware of the background noise he'd been hearing for a few minutes without noticing it; a song half-remembered, but the sort that, once learned -- like the Hogwarts school anthem -- is never forgotten.
...and we'll whip any Yankee magic
You just name the place and time;
If we're called on we can stand and
We will die or we'll live free....
He ran out of the bedroom and onto the landing, almost falling in his haste to get down the stairs. Another turn and he was in the kitchen stairwell, and in a spare second he was skidding to a stop in the kitchen, the neck of the bottle still clenched in his hand.
If we're called on we can stand and
We will die or we'll live free
For there are no fiercer Wizards
Than Montgomery Academy.
The sudden noise washed over him, the voices of men, grown men, singing in various degrees of harmony and several different keys. The note died faster than it might have, when he arrived; all eyes turned to him, and there were a lot of eyes.
Easily thirty men filled the kitchen sub-level, and that wasn't including Arthur, Kingsley, or the children -- Ginny and Ron, Harry and Hermione. Most of the men were in their twenties, it looked like; a lot of them wore short, bristling military haircuts, and some wore uniforms as well. A few wore red shirts and grey flannel jackets, and to a man they had, on their left index fingers, the insignia ring of a graduate of the Montgomery Academy for Young Wizards.
A brown-haired man had been conducting them, and when Remus paused just past the bottom step, he turned.
"Bonjour, Loupahn," Gabriel Lareaux said quietly.
Remus became suddenly aware that he was damp and disheveled and barefoot, his hair slick against his head from the bath, but he didn't care; the little shattered fragments inside of him were realigning themselves in his soul and it hurt, it was so good. A small smile appeared on Gabriel's lips, and he gestured, mild and graceful -- a fencer's gesture. It took in at once the men surrounding him and Remus himself. "I've brought you an army," he said.
"Gabriel," Remus said stupidly.
"Oui, mon Anglais." Gabriel gestured again, and one of the men in American military uniform came forward. "You remember Jack Hartnett, no doubt. Marine Captain Hartnett, now."
Jack Hartnett held out his hand, hesitantly. Remus examined his face; yes, he could see hints of a skinny, frightened seventeen-year-old there. Jack had been the reason he was thrown out of the Academy; Jack had told Will Connors what he was, and Will had organised an insurrection against him. And Connors, he recalled, had not been man enough to hold the gun; that was --
"Michael Owens said if I ever saw you again I was to say sorry for him," Jack said. "He died a few years ago. Gulf war."
Remus took Jack's hand, bewilderedly.
"I'm sorry," he said, unsure what else to say.
"So was he," Jack answered.
"News about You-Know-Who has been filtering into America," Arthur said, somewhere in the background. "Apparently they're keeping it quiet, but Mr. Lareaux tells me he heard about it and...er...."
"Rallied the troops," Gabriel finished smoothly, and he smiled again. There were new lines in his face, but it was Gabriel, here, in the kitchen of the Black house, Gabriel's eyes, Gabriel's hands --
"Troops?" Remus asked. He realised he knew the rest of the men in the kitchen; they had been his students, once upon a time, when they were Harry's age. Now they were grown men....
"To fight the good fight," Gabriel supplied. "Thirty-two willing bodies, plus a small corps of military wizards under the command of Captain Hartnett and another under the command of Second Lieutenant Ceros."
"Fifty-one men and nine women total," Jack supplied. "Not all here, of course; we've bivouac'd the enlisted soldiers elsewhere. We have five specialists in covert operations, three rifle sharpshooters, four Healers, and various other civilian trades. At your service, Mr. Lupin."
Remus stared at him.
"What am I supposed to do with an army?" he blurted.
"Command it," Gabriel said with a smile.
***
By the time most of the newcomers had found rooms in Grimmauld Place or gone to stay with the soldiers, Remus had almost adjusted to the idea of Gabriel Lareaux standing before him again, not to mention the concept of an Order suddenly swollen to the size of a small army.
Gabriel was not, in fact, standing before him; he was sitting across from him at the kitchen table, drinking tea spiked with the bottle of Southern Comfort while Arthur excitedly discussed Muggle armaments with Hartnett and Ceros nearby.
"I don't understand," Remus said. "You just...?"
"Owled," Lareaux said. "And some of the men, you know, have young siblings who are my students. Word traveled; men wrote to me saying they had heard their old Master was wanted by les mangeurs de mort, the Death Eaters, because he was a soldier in the Army of the Phoenix."
"It's not an army," Remus murmured. "It's just us."
"It is an army now. There is a great fear growing in America, that if once this evil takes root here again, they will be next." Gabriel hummed a few bars of the Academy anthem -- If we're asked we can provide -- before continuing. "These men feel you are owed, and many of them..." he waved a hand. "They are young still. This is a...a last adventure. The soldiers have wanted to come at any rate, they feel it is their duty."
"Merlin," Remus murmured, rubbing his forehead.
"Non. Lareaux," Gabriel grinned. "It is good to see you, Mon Anglais. Though you look very weary. And these, these are new, eh?" he added, fingers following, in the air, the scar-lines that crossed Remus' face from hairline to jaw. "Very dashing."
"A stupid accident," Remus muttered. His pulse had quickened when the fingers nearly grazed his cheek, and at once he hated himself for a foolish emotional reaction to a man he hadn't seen in ten years while at the same time wishing Gabriel would please just touch his skin.
"I looked for you," Gabriel said softly.
"I was hiding."
"Yes, I know."
"You sent my suitcase to my father."
"After a time, one stops looking," Gabriel answered. "One understands that perhaps to be found is worse than to hide. But I thought after all this time...we could meet on equal terms; you were not hiding any longer, and I had things to bring to you."
"We can use the manpower," Remus said, swallowing to avoid sounding hoarse. "It might be what tips the balance."
"Were there others?"
Remus looked up then. He knew he was exhausted, but he couldn't read Gabriel as he had done, once, and he didn't understand. "Others?"
"I would have spent the rest of my life with you," Gabriel said calmly. "I would have followed you anywhere you went, I would have gladly died for you. There is no blame, Loupahn, I understand; nothing to forgive. But confessions, yes."
"Gabriel -- "
"There was one other I loved. Not what we had. He was a fool but he was a fool who asked me no questions, an easy fool. And yet when I saw him he had your eyes, always your eyes. He was my other. Were there others?"
Remus studied the grain of the table. Had there been?
"There were women," he said quietly. "Three or four. I thought I loved one of them. There were men too, for a short while, but I never learned their names."
"That sort."
"That sort," Remus agreed. Gabriel was silent.
"You are tired," he said finally. "And I have kept you long enough with reminiscence. Is there room for me? A bed for me here?"
"I don't know," Remus said. "If the others haven't taken them all."
"I will ask M'seur Weasley."
Gabriel stood, but Remus grabbed his wrist before he could move, and the green eyes looked down at him curiously.
"This fool," Remus said urgently. "Did you bring him with you?"
Gabriel laughed.
"He left a long time ago," he said. "He could not compete with your ghost, you see."
"Ten years, Gabriel."
"Oui."
"Ten years."
"It was not my decision," Gabriel said gently, and he freed his hand from Remus' grip, gently. This time, his fingertips touched the skin as they traced the scars. "This woman you thought you loved?"
Remus merely shook his head. Gabriel smiled.
"We will sleep now," he said. "Tomorrow we must talk. You have stories to tell me. I have to meet you all over again, you see, so that I know the man I'm in love with."
***
They didn't have time to talk, however, at least not the following day; Dumbledore returned from his journey and there were plans to make, arrangements that had to be readjusted to include sixty new people. With reinforcements such as these, even Dumbledore was willing to begin taking action, and soon enough Grimmauld Place began to resemble a military headquarters. The ones who weren't soldiers looked to Remus and Gabriel for orders, even after meeting Dumbledore.
They had precious little time to tell stories, but still Remus found himself re-learning Gabriel as he had Sirius, though the two were hardly comparable otherwise. In the essential things, Gabriel hadn't altered much; Remus suspected that he himself was a much more difficult man to adjust to, and yet Gabriel rarely left his side. He could almost believe he was worth the quiet, subtle devotion of the other man.
The tide didn't turn easily, but by Christmas that year the strangling fear had gone, and they all breathed a little more freely. Some of those who had come with Gabriel went home, to do what good they could in keeping the Death Eaters out of the country; others had gone to the continent to work with Fleur and Bill, who were operating out of eastern France. Gabriel showed no inclination to return to his home; he seemed content as long as Remus was nearby, though he never said as much. They were good friends, comrades in arms; that was all, Remus told himself.
It was shortly after the children had arrived for the holiday, and most of the Order were celebrating their return with a large dinner while Remus worked to assemble some new information Moody had unearthed in Wales, when he felt a light touch between his shoulders, a habit Gabriel had re-developed in the past few weeks.
"No more tonight, mon Anglais," Gabriel said, using the name he hadn't spoken since his first night in Grimmauld Place. "We should be celebrating."
"I'd rather not," Remus answered. "Too many people."
"It makes you nervous."
"I suppose so."
"Here, then," Gabriel said with a smile, and put a cup of fresh tea on the table for him. "You and I. You keep promising me, you know, that you will tell me where you went after you left the Academy."
"It's not very interesting," Remus answered.
"It is to me."
"Why?"
"It is part of you."
Remus looked down, and the touch became a palm pressed flat against his back, fingers curled slightly. Gabriel's other hand tipped his head a little, so that their eyes met.
"Tell me your life," he said. "I wish to hear it."
"I can't," Remus answered, brokenly.
"You can," Gabriel said, and kissed him.
It was sweet, like the alcohol the first time they'd ever kissed, the peach liqueur that had flavored his mouth then, but Gabriel hadn't been drinking; that was just his memory...
Gabriel's hand slid up his back, fingers twining in his hair now, as Remus turned to accept the kiss more fully, as if the ten years between parting and reunion had never even happened. This was home; he had been right all along. Home was Gabriel's hands on his body and Gabriel's mouth on his, home was his arm sliding around Gabriel's waist to pin them together against the broad writing desk.
"Tell me," Gabriel said, breaking the kiss for a moment, and Remus felt a hand at his throat, undoing the buttons of his shirt. He fumbled with the scarlet shirt Gabriel wore, kissing him again, now the corner of his mouth and his jaw, now the sensitive line of his throat -- and there was the half-gasp he remembered, faded with time and so, so immediate.
Gabriel's hands were under his shirt, cool on his skin, and this too he remembered, how he never differentiated the scars from the skin, though there were dozens more now. Gabriel had his own scars, and understood them thoroughly; he shrugged out of his shirt and guided Remus' hands up his arms, over his shoulders to the places on either side of his spine where -- though he knew they were burns and nothing more -- it felt as though perhaps wings had once been cut away.
"Angel," Remus mumbled against his shoulder, and Gabriel laughed.
"Conqueror," he replied, allowing Remus to push him backwards onto the bed. The world narrowed to skin and moans and sharp thrusts, things he had learned under Gabriel's hands and gone out into the world and forgotten, and now was finding again -- the way their hips fit together, the tease of Gabriel's tongue across his collarbone, the specific rhythm of their bodies that seemed to match their very heartbeats. He remembered the way it felt when Gabriel was close, the small noise he made in the back of his throat that always made Remus lightheaded with the idea that he could do this, could make Gabriel arch and pull him close and hold him there while they pressed against each other and came and tried like hell to keep breathing.
Remus, face pressed to the safety of Gabriel's neck, relaxed now and much safer than he had been in a decade of hiding, drew a deep breath when rational thought returned.
"After I left the Academy, I began walking," he said, softly, and felt Gabriel's hands holding him, knew that Gabriel was listening. "In the summer of 1986 I reached New York City, and there was an airplane leaving for Australia..."
***
The presents have been opened and the Christmas goose eaten, and the pudding and stuffing and the candy in the crackers, too; all through the dinner feast, Gabriel has smiled just as much as anyone, but his green eyes have said that he is only smiling for Remus Lupin, and Remus likes it very much.
While the other adults sit and drink and discuss the day, which has been an excellent day, a really lovely Christmas, Remus has disappeared upstairs and Gabriel shortly after. The night before, one of many nights of tangled sheets around bodies that move together, mouths that lick and kiss and hands that touch and clutch and demand now, now, now -- the night before, lying together, talking of a thousand unimportant things and one very important thing, Remus almost finished his story, which is why they disappear; Gabriel wants to know how it ends.
Remus has a head of dark brown hair cradled on his chest, dark brown hair with not even a hint of grey in it yet; the lines in his own face are relaxed, and he doesn't care that he has aged less gracefully, nor that he has new scars, not anymore. Gabriel has learned each new one as he learned the old ones, with his mouth and teeth and fingertips. And Remus does not care, because Gabriel's dark brown hair is soft under his fingers and Gabriel breathes evenly against his chest as Remus speaks.
"So I came home," he says, "covered in mud and tired, wet and cold, and Arthur tried to stop me in the doorway."
"You were too tired," Gabriel supplies. Remus smiles.
"I went upstairs and washed, and when I came out there was a bottle of alcohol on my desk, and that's when I heard men singing. It was an old song I knew, but I didn't know why anyone would be singing it, so I ran downstairs and into the kitchen, and there was my old fencing instructor -- "
"Is that what they call it in England?" Gabriel asks, kissing the nearest available patch of skin, just below his neck.
"...with a handful of former students and some soldiers, for the Order to use in the fight," Remus finishes, ignoring him except for a gentle, amused tug on his hair.
"A good story," Gabriel yawns a little. "How does it end?"
"I'm not telling you."
"Why not?" Gabriel demands, sounding a little alarmed. He lifts his head to look down at Remus, curious.
"Because you'll be here for the rest of it," Remus answers. The silence is thick and a little worry creeps in as he asks, "Won't you?"
"Oui," Gabriel breathes, when he understands, and the fear ebbs again.
"Then you don't need to know the rest," Remus says. It feels proper this way; right that Gabriel should be the only one who knows everything, that his secrets are all contained in someone who has spent ten years waiting for him to return. Gabriel owns those years now, as much as Remus ever did, and it eases the dull ache of so many things -- Lacon Chaney and Alice Derwent, the Green Man's dance and the Wolfsbane Potion, the squat in Victoria Park and the ghosts of old friends.
"That was my story," Remus says, and yawns, and closes his eyes, because tomorrow the story begins again.
But for now he is home.
END
It wasn't hard to find a room to stay in for the night, especially when he offered the other squatters cash to clear out; his salary hadn't been royal, but it had been good enough when one didn't have to pay room or board, and what did he have to spend money on? He had no particular desires or hungers then, and the only ones he had now were for silence and darkness and the absence of other people. Money could buy that, especially from the disenfranchised homeless who had made the abandoned houses their own.
He could have found a hotel, but there were bellhops and attendants and maids and for the first time since he had shot Lacon Chaney he let the wolf out just enough to find a dark corner in which to lick its wounds, as filthy and squalid as could possibly be. He charmed the door shut, transfigured a mattress out of a few bits of lumber in a corner, and lay down.
On his second night in the squatter's house, a young man who shared a room with two dogs downstairs stopped him on the staircase as he went lethargically out to get food, and asked him if he had a fix; realising this was some Muggle custom he was unaware of, Remus replied no, and then the man asked if he wanted one, and flashed something Remus did recognise -- a hypodermic syringe. He shook his head and went on his way, but the next night the man seemed so desperate for money that Remus simply pressed some into his hand. The man shoved him against the wall and kissed him on the mouth and Remus didn't resist, didn't bother to. The man smelled of wild things and animals and Remus never did get his name but he did get a cigarette habit off of him, as well as a couple of dark-hallway blowjobs that might have been handshakes for all Remus paid them any mind. He had no desire to see people or speak to them, but he hadn't the energy to avoid them, and it was a release of sorts.
He did go out, to get food and to distract himself, because he found that a small empty room was just as much a prison for grief as the cheerful, people-filled house he'd left behind. Sometimes it was a solace and sometimes it was an insane asylum he had to escape, and he followed the man who gave him the cigarettes, and the other men he met. He didn't always remember where he'd gone, but he had images of crowded places, the smell of Muggle alcohol and smoke.
The windows had no panes anymore but he blocked them up with wood and sticking charms. They held against the wolf on the full moons. He had half-wanted the wolf on Halloween, and now he had it; he lived from moon to moon, and the rest of the month was spent marking time, eating if he starved and smoking if he hadn't the energy for food, following others out at night.
His cash slowly dwindled. He wrote to his father dutifully once a month, usually when he was too sick from the Change to do anything else, and he never had a reply. How could he, after all. He didn't live properly. He just existed. He had no fixed address, no income, no purpose, no desires, nothing to occupy himself with and no need for occupation. He was a name with a stomach attached, and sometimes claws.
And Remus Lupin commenced to die. Little by little, day by day.
It wasn't unusual. In the early nineties there were lots of young people -- young men in particular -- dying slowly, and some not so slowly, in the slums of London. They succumbed to poverty-starvation or addiction or most popularly a new Muggle plague that was ripping its way across the world and which those in power, because it was a disease of perverts and scum, generally ignored. Remus liked the dying men best, because they understood; their bodies were failing them, too, and all they had for their scars was the disdain of the rest of the world. They had lost as much as he had, some of them more, and now they were dying and he wished he could die too, though the wolf's survival instincts made sure he ate -- not enough -- and slept -- not peacefully -- and one day his lungs rejected the cigarette smoke forcibly and that was the end of that habit.
His clothes wore out and he didn't bother to replace them; someone who moved in across the hallway showed him how to patch them for a few pounds and his remaining, now useless, cigarettes.
There were rallies he was dragged along to though he stood dumbly and tried to avoid the thick of the crowds; there were activists in the building sometimes, who disturbed his sleep with their conversations. There were musicians who called themselves post-Punk and played loud music, thumping up through the floorboards: Telegram Sam you're my main man and Sister sister he's just a plaything and Here I am Dr. John here I am do you know what to do?
At least he didn't dream of Lacon Chaney anymore, and if he dreamed that Gabriel slept with an arm across his waist, it was only a sign that he ought to find someone with a willing mouth and the ability to ignore a scar or two.
When James and Lily and Peter died, he had not lost his reason or shut himself away or beaten the walls; he had quietly and calmly gone home for a bit, to collect himself, and then he'd gone away from England, most sensibly and most reasonably. He had never simply given up; he had worked his way from place to place and found ways to force himself into a world that wanted no part of him. Dumbledore had written to him once that he ought to grieve; well, fine. He would grieve now, because he had no choice. He couldn't will away the shattered bits inside that he really physically felt there, the shards that worked their way into his heart and stomach and sometimes would kill him if he moved. When that happened he lay on the bed in the dusty, unlit room and stayed still, as he had when he was a child and the nightmares seemed real even after waking up.
One morning he woke to find the pressure on his chest was very real.
Alastor Moody's horrifying, asymmetrical face leered down at him, and Remus yelped and skidded backwards, fleeing the heavy hand on his chest, his first physical contact in days. Light filtered in through the cracks in the window-coverings. His locking charms on the door had been neatly picked.
"Tisn't easy to find ye," Moody said, complacently, as Remus caught his breath and slowed his pounding heart. The man rose from his stoop, his good knee popping as he did so and his wooden leg clacking against the floor. "Look a right mess, you do."
"Why are you here?" Remus asked.
"Business for ye," Moody answered. "Sent by Dumbledore. World's becomin' a dangerous place."
He held out a scrap of paper, and Remus took it numbly. Sirius' face looked up at him, waxy and drawn, hair matted, eyes dark. It was eerie the way the head never moved, though the text clearly proved it was a Wizarding paper.
"Gone and done a runner, and nobody knows a thing," Moody continued, as Remus read the article. Sirius had made it past the beach this time. He'd made it off Azkaban. Sirius was free.
"Oh," Remus said hollowly. "Fine. You catch him. If he comes for me he can kill me."
"Tut! Keep yer tongue in yer head for a moment," Moody said sternly. "He ain't comin' for you."
"Good, because I'd rather not see him."
"Comin' for the boy," Moody said. "The Potter boy."
Remus glanced up from the clipping. "For Harry?" he said hoarsely.
"Aye, it's on good authority. You're wanted to protect the boy."
"Me?" Remus laughed and gestured at himself. "Do I look in a position to protect anyone, Moody? Go on, find an Auror to babysit him. I won't go near him. Do more harm than good," he added, rolling over to put his back to Moody.
"Tisn't a request," Moody answered. "Tis a command as a member of the Order. Straight from Dumbledore."
"Tell Dumbledore to go fuck himself."
"Nah, lad, tell him yerself. He's offerin' a teachin' position and some perks ye may not know of, livin' like a Muggle," Moody said. "And it's a shame to bribe a man I taught better," he added. Remus cringed at the tone in his voice. There was a time when Moody's frown or smile meant the difference between failure and success to Remus, back before.
"Teaching at Hogwarts?" he asked, when his voice was steady.
"Defence Against the Dark Arts."
"Why would he ever allow me back there? Even the Shack isn't that safe -- "
"That's the perks," Moody said triumphantly, and Remus sat up, turning reluctantly to face him. Moody regarded him, his magical false eye rolling around in its socket. "New potion out. Wolfsbane potion. Just been discovered. Not a cure, mind you, but close as makes no difference. None more o' these," he added, indicating the scars on Remus' shoulders where the shirt he wore gapped open. Remus pulled it up, a little.
"I'm hardly fit to be a teacher," he said.
"Doubt that. Doubt that very much," Moody answered. "But it's no matter to me for if you don't, I'll be forced to. If ye're inclined to change yer mind, be on the Hogwarts Express in ten days' time. Otherwise," he gestured at the room, which seemed more awful and bare to Remus even than it normally did, "stay in yer hole and may ye rot here for the coward ye are."
Remus couldn't meet his eyes, and instead plucked at the frayed edge of the blanket. Moody snorted, and left the clipping behind him as he went, storming down the stairway and shouting at loiterers in the hall to move out of his way or he'd arrest the lot of them.
It was Harry's green eyes in his memory or Sirius' blue ones staring up at him from the newspaper clipping; the rock and the hard place. If he stayed here, he would feel Sirius' eyes upon him; if he went to Dumbledore like the prodigal son, he would be forced to see Harry every day.
Hunger swept through him suddenly, hunger that had nothing to do with his empty belly, and a new thought rose dimly in his mind through the howling of the wolf that had been drowning out all other rational thought for nearly two years:
If he went to Dumbledore, he would be allowed to see Harry.
Every day.
***
So Remus Lupin went to Hogwarts.
Again.
He had just enough money left after changing it at Gringotts (the Goblins looking down their noses at the shaggy, ill-dressed, pale-faced man) to buy what he needed. A halfway-decent haircut, some second-hand robes and clothing, a few books that would help him teach, quills and parchment; an owl to Dumbledore to say he'd accepted the job, and could Dumbledore please send him a train ticket for the Hogwarts Express. He went back to the squat that evening and began to pack, piling everything into the old, much-battered, too-worthless-to-sell suitcase.
He had no money for food. He'd gone hungry before, but now the gnawing pangs when he didn't eat made him wonder how. Or why. Moody had known what to do right enough, he reckoned; swear at him a bit, offer him a job, and then disdain him when he was too frightened to take it. He felt as though he'd woken after two years of sleepwalking.
His latest neighbour-across-the-hall was a heroin cook, with a little bit of cash to her name, and he nipped across to ask if he could sell her his haversack for a few quid, told her he was moving out in three days' time. She gave him five for it, which was probably about twice what it was worth, and he bought enough food to at least keep the hunger away. An owl arrived the following day with a congratulatory letter from the Headmaster, a train ticket, and three or four large bars of chocolate. Dementors, the letter said, might harass the train.
Remus thought back to his singular encounter with them, in America years ago, and practiced his patronus that night. The slivery thestral scared the bejesus out of a junkie who happened to look in the wrong room at the wrong time.
He arrived early at the train, unable to sleep the night before, and finally dropped off huddled under his coat in an empty compartment, wondering how he would manage what he would find at Hogwarts; wondering if McGonagall and Flitwick were still teaching -- Binns was, he was sure of it -- and if Severus was still there. He would be teaching Ackerly again, and Harry, and there must be others. Hadn't little Neville Longbottom been born around the same time Harry was?
When the high, not-quite-adult voices woke him a while later, he listened and learned. He protected them as well, when he had to; that was what he was really being paid to do, wasn't it?
The first time he saw Harry's eyes on the train, they were clouded with fear and confusion and he was far too distracted by the necessity of protecting the children to wonder if Harry would shatter him again. Harry was a boy who needed to eat that chocolate, a boy who needed his protection. Harry had no idea who he was or that he knew who had given Harry such a handsome young face and such brilliant green eyes.
No; he would survive. Once was enough, and he still felt the odd pull on his insides at times. He had already broken, and had not reassembled himself well enough to be broken again.
He would just have to get on with things, as normal people did. Spar with Severus on the occasions they had to meet, neither of them willing to bring up the evening in Australia when they had been almost-friends -- now he was the usurper of a position Severus wanted, and at Hogwarts he was a living symbol of the torments the other man had suffered at the hands of James and Sirius. Severus brewed Wolfsbane potion against his will, and Remus drank it nearly against his own, because it made the wolf docile, and the wolf was not meant to be controlled. It had been his only release, and though it relieved him to awaken without scratchmarks and bruises, there was an itch, somewhere around the base of his spine, that spoke of wilder things he could no longer express even in the beast's howl.
But he tolerated that too, and he taught, falling easily into the rhythm of a lecturer's speech, re-learning the trick of marking a paper tactfully when it was terrible and not-too-enthusiastically when it was excellent. He saw Ack again, a third-year Ravenclaw with an affinity for Magical History, and was proud of the boy in his own way, as proud as Ack was to be old-friends with the popular Defence instructor. There was Frank and Alice's shy young son, and the Patil twins, and some older Gryffindor boys whose siblings and parents he had known when they were young. He was kept busy, which was all for the best.
Sometimes at the end of the day the memories of the Academy were a little too overwhelming, and the desire for someone like Gabriel to comfort him a little too strong, but he could always put his pale face and sunken eyes down to his illness, convenient and vague.
He did have Harry to look after, especially in the spring, during the patronus lessons. Harry was not as inherently masterful as James or as quietly brilliant as Lily; he had talent, there was no doubt of that, but he was uncertain of himself, and he worked for what he got. He was more sensitive than his father -- kinder, though no less quick to anger. Remus studied him as he might have studied a red-cap or a boggart, to see what made him who he was, and he began to understand that perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps the years he had spent thinking he could give Harry nothing he didn't already receive from the Dursleys was the most grievous error of his life. The boy was starved for love, and now it was too late to give it to him. Remus was his teacher, after all.
But you know all this, don't you?
You were there too.
The year passed by too quickly, and then there was Sirius and the Shack, and Peter and Severus and a mess he himself made when he forgot the potion, one more mistake in a series of mistakes that once more cost him his job. There was a year of searching-for-work, of living-on-savings, of reading about Harry and his friends in the papers because he couldn't be there himself, and reading more about them in rare letters from Sirius. He worried, in the vague way a distant relative might, about Harry, but it was not his place to help him, it was Sirius', and anyway he couldn't have done anything if it was his place.
The next summer there was the horrible death of Cedric Diggory, and suddenly there was Sirius.
He arrived in late June after a circuit that must have covered most of Britain; he'd even gone to the Lupin farm, far off from the flat Remus was barely making payments on in Newcastle. He'd lurked at the farm for five or six days, he said, before he found out by eavesdropping where Remus was. All that came later, though; the afternoon Sirius arrived was a sunny late-summer day and Remus had come back from a part-time tutoring job, to find a large black dog slumped on his doorstep, fur matted, the pads of his paws cracked and dry, tongue lolling out. He stopped and leaned against the railing up to the building, regarding the creature with a mixture of amusement and surprise.
"You've never looked better," he said, and the dog scrambled to its feet, slowly and tremblingly. Remus saw at once it was not a time for jokes; instead he unlocked the door and led Padfoot inside. He used to say Padfoot was part Newf and part Grizzly Bear, but aside from the size of him, he was whip-thin and weak, and Remus had to carry him up the flight of stairs to his flat.
Inside, Sirius changed and was suddenly a weight on one shoulder instead of across both; Remus helped him to a chair in the tiny kitchen and poured him water, which Sirius accepted with hands that bled when he flexed his fingers. The next half hour was spent not in greetings but in medical attention, first hands and feet and then a hot bath. Remus didn't dare leave him for fear he'd fall asleep and slide under, so instead he sat on the edge of the tub and combed through the tangled hair, using scissors when he had to. The result wasn't haute couture, but it was clean and didn't look too terrible.
He helped Sirius back up out of the water, remembering other years, almost other lives, in which Sirius and James would carry him to a bed after a Change and bind up his injuries while he slept. He had never thought to be the one Sirius leaned on; Sirius didn't lean, for starters, and if he had it would have been on James --
"A strange reversal, isn't it?" Sirius rasped, as if he had read his mind.
"Let's get you something to eat," Remus answered, mentally cataloguing the sad assortment of food in his larder. Enough for a vegetable soup, he decided, and left Sirius to dress, shaky but a little more steady now, in patched clothing that was ill-fitting but better than rags, and at least clean and tidy. The shirt was too long, but narrow across the shoulders, and Sirius left it unbuttoned at the throat as he wandered back in and sniffed appreciatively.
"Onions?" he asked, with the fervor of a man who has been fantasising about vegetable soup for years.
"Onions and garlic, some celery, potatoes, carrots...I'm afraid it's not much," Remus replied. "I'll be paid tomorrow, though, and can buy some meat then."
"Quite a pair of ragged beggars we are," Sirius murmured.
"We do what we must," Remus answered simply, and was met with silence. He turned from the stove to see Sirius watching him. "Dumbledore sent an owl that there was news coming, but I didn't think you'd be the one to bring it."
"If there's no room I needn't stay long," Sirius said, and a hint of the old arrogant Black pride cut his tone.
"There's room," Remus answered. "You need a safe place to stay."
Sirius nodded, and studied the white kitchen table, fingers dancing across it aimlessly. "I have some money," he said softly, and rose, leaving the room. He returned with the remains of the trousers he'd been wearing before, and ripped the pocket right out, tossing it on the table. Remus leaned over and was surprised to see a thick roll of Muggle fifty-pound notes and a handful of pound coins and pence. Sirius saw his surprise, and shrugged.
"I had other bank accounts," he said simply. "I didn't learn absolutely nothing from my family."
"That would buy steak, if you want it," Remus said. "There's a shop two doors down -- "
"Soup," Sirius said, inhaling again. "Tonight, soup."
Remus nodded, and returned to the pan, adding water and chicken-stock-powder and tapping it with his wand to speed the cooking process. "This needs to simmer," he said. "Shall I buy bread? I have a little margarine."
"No," Sirius answered. "Soup is enough."
Remus saw the tiredness and uncertainty in his face then, and realised that Sirius was not asking for soup because he wanted soup; he didn't want Remus to go down to buy meat, because he didn't want to be left alone.
"Soup it is," he said, with a cheer he didn't feel. He located a half-full box of cheap crackers and poured some into a bowl while he quickly heated water for tea, filling two cups and using (extravagance!) a tea-bag each. He set them down on the table, pulling out the other, less sturdy chair as Sirius picked up a cracker and broke it into pieces before eating each shard individually.
"I have some news from the Order, nothing that can't wait a bit," Sirius began quietly. "I assume Dumbledore's been in contact with you about Voldemort's rise."
"More or less. Owl post isn't very safe," Remus answered. "Is that where you've been? Rallying the Order?"
Sirius nodded wearily and blew on his tea to cool it. "You're the last stop. Dumbledore thought I should stay with you."
"Dumbledore was right. How's Harry?"
"Holding up, as far as I know. He's a good lad," Sirius added, summoning the energy for a smile. "Reminds me of James."
Remus wondered how, since Harry was so inherently his own person, but then Sirius had known James better than he had. "He's a good student," he added haplessly, and they sat in silence for a while, Sirius breaking crackers and eating them slowly, Remus wondering if he ought to say anything. It was a relief when they at least had hunger as an excuse to be silent; between the pair of them they finished every last lump of potato, and Sirius seemed better for the food.
"You should sleep," Remus suggested, as Sirius ran the spoon idly around the bottom of the bowl. "You look done-in, Pads."
Sirius looked up sharply at the old name that fell off Remus' tongue before it meant to. Remus nearly flinched.
"I suppose I do," Sirius replied finally, looking away. Remus stood and led him to the bedroom and the old but comfortable twin bed that had come with the flat. Sirius, too tired to protest the offer of a bed, even if it was the only bed, slipped off the shirt and trousers, and Remus closed the door on a sleepy murmur of gratitude.
Later, he suspected, if there was to be shouting it would come; there was too much left unsaid between them, and Sirius was a shouter by nature. He wondered how he seemed to Sirius, all patched clothing and cheap soup, scars on his face that the Shack's ill light had hidden, living like a Muggle in a shoddy flat.
He cancelled his work for the rest of the week and stayed in the flat more or less, though he went out to spend some of Sirius' money on better food than his salary could provide. Sirius told him what the rest of the Order was up to, and they began plans for recruitment of a few new members, slowly and through safe channels; otherwise they were often silent. Sirius, who had been deprived of books for even longer than he'd been deprived of his freedom devoured the books Remus had, voraciously, and for once Remus was content to sit and read as well, keeping quiet company.
The third day after his arrival, in newly-purchased clothes that fit him better, Sirius looked up from the book he was reading and asked who Gabriel was.
Remus stared in surprise for a moment, before realising that the book Sirius had was inscribed by Gabriel, a gift from years ago.
"He was a friend," he said.
"He calls you Mon Anglais."
"He was French -- we knew each other in America. It's a big country; Europeans have to keep close ranks with each other."
Sirius nodded. "Did he die?"
"I don't know -- why?"
"You keep saying was."
Remus shrugged -- there didn't seem to be anything else to say. It occurred to him that Sirius might be jealous of the friends he'd had in the decade-plus since Voldemort's fall, of the places he'd been and the things he'd done, but they had said they forgave each other, and with Sirius, to say was to do. It was that simple.
Or perhaps Sirius was afraid of these people -- the Aurors in the photographs on Remus' walls, the names in his books. Perhaps Sirius was afraid these people held more claim on him now. Remus was not so stupid as to think he and Harry weren't all Sirius had left in the world. Remus understood what it would be to lose that.
"Sirius," he said, and then, "Padfoot."
Sirius looked up.
"It's over now," Remus said. "Azkaban. All of that. You and I, it's down to us. You won't ever want for someone."
"I didn't -- "
"You didn't have to say it." Remus closed his book. The book Sirius held was shaking in his hands. "For as long as it's needed -- the rest of our lives if you need it. I'm here. I'm not going to go away or abandon you. Not again."
Sirius looked like a starving man who saw a feast -- which was not entirely inaccurate.
"All right then, Moony," he said, trying to sound easy, though his voice was strained.
"All right then," Remus agreed. "And you can stay here as long as you like."
Sirius looked down. "Not for long."
"Sirius -- "
"No, I had an owl from Dumbledore this morning. I offered him the old town-house in London as a headquarters for the Order. It's mine now. You remember it?"
Remus cast his mind back. He remembered mention of it, true, but he'd never been inside -- even if Sirius' parents hadn't disapproved of his half-blood friend, there had been wards on the house against dark creatures, including werewolves, and Remus couldn't risk detection.
"I remember James talking about it," he ventured.
"Old Moody's been working on it. Adding some new charms and taking off some others." Sirius shrugged. "I didn't really want to say anything, but you...Dumbledore says he needs me there, and if you want to, there'll be no rent, and -- "
" -- you don't want to live there alone," Remus finished.
"You've learned how to be blunt," Sirius muttered.
"When do we go?"
Sirius shrugged. "Dumbledore says as soon as possible."
"I'll start packing," Remus said, and set his book down. As he passed, Sirius touched his wrist.
"Did you mean that?" he asked plaintively.
"Yes," Remus answered, unflinching.
"Why?"
"Because I remember when I was you," Remus said.
***
The year that followed their move to the house on Grimmauld Place wasn't easy, by any stretch of the imagination; Order meetings were tense, and Remus remembered the last time the Order had assembled, when the count of heads at each one was the most efficient way of seeing who had died. They'd lost so many, and already there was the danger of losing others. Arthur in the hospital, his oldest son taking dangerous missions to prove himself, the Aurors who were always in harm's way -- and the children. Some were mischievous, risking the safety of the organisation, while others were secretive and angry. Remus had been a teacher and an Auror and a homeless drifter and he understood the overflow of emotions that filled the house, but he was helpless in the face of them, and Sirius was a part of the storm.
So he focused on Sirius, because Sirius was always there and Sirius was someone he could at least try to fix. Starved for those things that make up a normal life, Sirius took anything he could gladly; a hot meal, a touch on the shoulder, a midnight conversation when he couldn't sleep. And slowly Remus re-learned Sirius and his place in Sirius' life, because it couldn't be what it used to be at school. He wasn't the prefect who looked the other way, the third best friend, the comrade in rulebreaking anymore. He knew it frightened Sirius, but what was he to do? He couldn't change who he had become, or he would have done so for reasons that really had nothing to do with Sirius Black in the first place.
Instead he comforted in other ways. He touched Sirius constantly, reassuringly; he spoke a lot, when they were together, filling the silence so Sirius didn't go off into some place in his head that was dangerous for Sirius and impossible for anyone else to follow. He anchored him, as much as he could, in the insanity that was Grimmauld Place. It was good to be needed.
When Sirius died he missed that almost more than Sirius himself, and couldn't find it in him to be horrified. Sirius had been brave and reckless and wonderful when they were boys, and everything Remus wanted to be but knew he never would. When they were men, Sirius was frightened, more than he would ever show, and trying desperately to be a man at all, after twelve years of standing still in Azkaban prison. There was no place for Sirius in the world, and they both knew it, and Remus was relieved for Sirius that the time of trying was over.
But he did miss his friend, and grieve him, and he knew that the rest of the Order paid him respectful mind because of it. If he was short with them or his occasional mission went badly, they put it down to Sirius, and perhaps they were right to do so. Out of anyone that year, even Molly Weasley, Harry listened only to Remus, which was strange because he ought to hate him; Remus could have understood hate, but the quiet obedience in the otherwise near-uncontrollable boy was baffling.
Then he remembered the Academy, and the young boys there who had been sent away by their parents because they were hopeless cases -- because the Academy had taken only the very best and the very worst. Death before mediocrity. The children who came angry and disobedient and rebellious to the Academy had been his favourites because if only you gave them reason to love you, they did so; they had nothing to lose. They wanted order in their lives. Harry wanted order in his life. Harry was afraid.
Remus did what he could. It was what he had always done.
The summer after Sirius' death was not a good time for the Order. Voldemort's followers had become more aggressive, despite their trouncing in the Department of Mysteries, and Dumbledore was still reluctant to put anyone on any kind of offensive, so they were stuck reacting instead of acting, cleaning up messes instead of preventing them from happening. Remus understood Dumbledore was waiting for something, but he didn't know what, and in the meantime people were getting hurt. Nearly half the Order was out with minor injuries after a disastrous scrap in Knockturn Alley, and it was a miracle nobody had been killed; word was coming in through Dung Fletcher and some of Kingsley's less savoury contacts that the ranks of the Death Eaters were swelling. The familiar, overwhelmed feeling from the last time they'd fought this war was welling up, and a pall hung over the meetings. If Dumbledore wasn't careful, it was going to turn to resentment and rebellion soon.
They needed time. They needed people and information. They had some money from Sirius, but most of it was in trust for Harry when he turned eighteen. In the meantime, Harry could only offer his inheritance from his parents, which no-one was about to ask for. Remus worked for the Order and took their support because he couldn't find a steady job at any rate -- a real job, people sometimes said by mistake. There was no malice in it, but it stung all the same because he knew it was true.
He was tired, and still sometimes he was broken in places he couldn't reach into to fix, and there was no-one to be for him what he had been for Sirius. He took comfort in Harry, oddly, and in the minutiae of preparing Harry for his sixth year. He had a responsibility. He couldn't run away any longer.
Though some days he was sorely tempted.
There was a mission that August, to recover a valuable magic artifact recently uncovered in a Muggle antique shop; he had to fight tooth and nail to get it, and on the way back his steps were dogged by Death Eaters almost ceaselessly. He'd had to take refuge in a ditch at one point, and the handle had finally snapped off his beloved suitcase, leaving him with, essentially, a large box carried with the same twine that held it together. By the time he reached Grimmauld Place he was filthy, cold and wet, hungry and angry and exhausted, his last good pair of robes in tatters and the trousers underneath going at the knees. He hadn't dared magic outside of the house; it would attract attention.
"Remus," Arthur said, coming to the doorway as he stepped in out of the muggy August night and set the case down, shedding his robes and with them the worst of the mud. "We were wondering -- "
"It's safe," he said tiredly, waving a hand at the box, squinting in the dim light and wanting only to go to his bedroom and wash, and lie down on clean sheets for a while. "Put it in the kitchen. Moody will know what to do with it. You'll probably have to do some paperwork about it, I took it off a Muggle, but they didn't really have a clue, so I think that's all right...."
"No, that wasn't it -- are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm not hurt. Just filthy."
"There are people -- "
"They'll have to wait, Arthur. Surely there's food we can distract them with," he said, already heading for the stairs up to his room.
"But Remus -- "
"Please, handle it for twenty minutes?" he asked. "Give me time to wash the mud off my face?"
Arthur heard the hard tone in his voice, and to his relief, the other man nodded.
"When you're ready, in the kitchen..."
Remus waved his hand in a gesture of agreement, and went up the stairs as fast as his tired legs would take him, beginning to shed his shirt almost before he was inside his rooms and leaving a trail of dirty clothing on his way to the bath. He turned on the water and cupped it in his hands, pouring it over his head and shoulders. He let the filthy water swirl down the drain before plugging it and filling the tub, dropping into it with a sigh of relief. The hot water soothed the ache in his muscles, and the steam cleared his head a little; he started feeling bad about snapping at Arthur before long. The people in the kitchen were probably important, were probably recruits or refugees who needed to talk to someone in charge, and right now, with Dumbledore out of the country (hopefully finding whatever he'd been waiting for), that was Remus.
He groaned and pushed himself out of the fast-cooling water, drying himself with a quick spell instead of a towel, and locating clean clothing. They would have to take him barefoot; his shoes were crusted with mud and he didn't appear to have any respectable socks.
He passed his desk as he was buttoning his collar, and paused.
Slowly, he turned.
There was an object on the desk, a cylinder wrapped in scarlet paper, without a tag or an explanation. If he hadn't thought the house was safe....but no-one could have left this here without access to his room, which was warded against those with ill-intentions.
He picked it up and peeled off the red paper slowly; underneath was a green cardboard cylinder of the sort wine bottles were packed in. He prised the lid off and grasped the black-wrapped neck of a bottle, easing it out slowly in case it was a trigger on some kind of peculiar bomb. It never hurt to be cautious.
The bottle glowed brilliant red-amber, catching the candlelight from the lit brackets in his bedroom walls and a hint of the silver moonlight outside.
Established 1874
The Grand Old Drink of the South
Originated on the Banks of the Mississippi
in New Orleans Louisiana U.S.A.
by Southern Comfort Company.
The Grand Old Drink of the South
Originated on the Banks of the Mississippi
in New Orleans Louisiana U.S.A.
by Southern Comfort Company.
He studied it for a minute, and then he became aware of the background noise he'd been hearing for a few minutes without noticing it; a song half-remembered, but the sort that, once learned -- like the Hogwarts school anthem -- is never forgotten.
...and we'll whip any Yankee magic
You just name the place and time;
If we're called on we can stand and
We will die or we'll live free....
He ran out of the bedroom and onto the landing, almost falling in his haste to get down the stairs. Another turn and he was in the kitchen stairwell, and in a spare second he was skidding to a stop in the kitchen, the neck of the bottle still clenched in his hand.
If we're called on we can stand and
We will die or we'll live free
For there are no fiercer Wizards
Than Montgomery Academy.
The sudden noise washed over him, the voices of men, grown men, singing in various degrees of harmony and several different keys. The note died faster than it might have, when he arrived; all eyes turned to him, and there were a lot of eyes.
Easily thirty men filled the kitchen sub-level, and that wasn't including Arthur, Kingsley, or the children -- Ginny and Ron, Harry and Hermione. Most of the men were in their twenties, it looked like; a lot of them wore short, bristling military haircuts, and some wore uniforms as well. A few wore red shirts and grey flannel jackets, and to a man they had, on their left index fingers, the insignia ring of a graduate of the Montgomery Academy for Young Wizards.
A brown-haired man had been conducting them, and when Remus paused just past the bottom step, he turned.
"Bonjour, Loupahn," Gabriel Lareaux said quietly.
Remus became suddenly aware that he was damp and disheveled and barefoot, his hair slick against his head from the bath, but he didn't care; the little shattered fragments inside of him were realigning themselves in his soul and it hurt, it was so good. A small smile appeared on Gabriel's lips, and he gestured, mild and graceful -- a fencer's gesture. It took in at once the men surrounding him and Remus himself. "I've brought you an army," he said.
"Gabriel," Remus said stupidly.
"Oui, mon Anglais." Gabriel gestured again, and one of the men in American military uniform came forward. "You remember Jack Hartnett, no doubt. Marine Captain Hartnett, now."
Jack Hartnett held out his hand, hesitantly. Remus examined his face; yes, he could see hints of a skinny, frightened seventeen-year-old there. Jack had been the reason he was thrown out of the Academy; Jack had told Will Connors what he was, and Will had organised an insurrection against him. And Connors, he recalled, had not been man enough to hold the gun; that was --
"Michael Owens said if I ever saw you again I was to say sorry for him," Jack said. "He died a few years ago. Gulf war."
Remus took Jack's hand, bewilderedly.
"I'm sorry," he said, unsure what else to say.
"So was he," Jack answered.
"News about You-Know-Who has been filtering into America," Arthur said, somewhere in the background. "Apparently they're keeping it quiet, but Mr. Lareaux tells me he heard about it and...er...."
"Rallied the troops," Gabriel finished smoothly, and he smiled again. There were new lines in his face, but it was Gabriel, here, in the kitchen of the Black house, Gabriel's eyes, Gabriel's hands --
"Troops?" Remus asked. He realised he knew the rest of the men in the kitchen; they had been his students, once upon a time, when they were Harry's age. Now they were grown men....
"To fight the good fight," Gabriel supplied. "Thirty-two willing bodies, plus a small corps of military wizards under the command of Captain Hartnett and another under the command of Second Lieutenant Ceros."
"Fifty-one men and nine women total," Jack supplied. "Not all here, of course; we've bivouac'd the enlisted soldiers elsewhere. We have five specialists in covert operations, three rifle sharpshooters, four Healers, and various other civilian trades. At your service, Mr. Lupin."
Remus stared at him.
"What am I supposed to do with an army?" he blurted.
"Command it," Gabriel said with a smile.
***
By the time most of the newcomers had found rooms in Grimmauld Place or gone to stay with the soldiers, Remus had almost adjusted to the idea of Gabriel Lareaux standing before him again, not to mention the concept of an Order suddenly swollen to the size of a small army.
Gabriel was not, in fact, standing before him; he was sitting across from him at the kitchen table, drinking tea spiked with the bottle of Southern Comfort while Arthur excitedly discussed Muggle armaments with Hartnett and Ceros nearby.
"I don't understand," Remus said. "You just...?"
"Owled," Lareaux said. "And some of the men, you know, have young siblings who are my students. Word traveled; men wrote to me saying they had heard their old Master was wanted by les mangeurs de mort, the Death Eaters, because he was a soldier in the Army of the Phoenix."
"It's not an army," Remus murmured. "It's just us."
"It is an army now. There is a great fear growing in America, that if once this evil takes root here again, they will be next." Gabriel hummed a few bars of the Academy anthem -- If we're asked we can provide -- before continuing. "These men feel you are owed, and many of them..." he waved a hand. "They are young still. This is a...a last adventure. The soldiers have wanted to come at any rate, they feel it is their duty."
"Merlin," Remus murmured, rubbing his forehead.
"Non. Lareaux," Gabriel grinned. "It is good to see you, Mon Anglais. Though you look very weary. And these, these are new, eh?" he added, fingers following, in the air, the scar-lines that crossed Remus' face from hairline to jaw. "Very dashing."
"A stupid accident," Remus muttered. His pulse had quickened when the fingers nearly grazed his cheek, and at once he hated himself for a foolish emotional reaction to a man he hadn't seen in ten years while at the same time wishing Gabriel would please just touch his skin.
"I looked for you," Gabriel said softly.
"I was hiding."
"Yes, I know."
"You sent my suitcase to my father."
"After a time, one stops looking," Gabriel answered. "One understands that perhaps to be found is worse than to hide. But I thought after all this time...we could meet on equal terms; you were not hiding any longer, and I had things to bring to you."
"We can use the manpower," Remus said, swallowing to avoid sounding hoarse. "It might be what tips the balance."
"Were there others?"
Remus looked up then. He knew he was exhausted, but he couldn't read Gabriel as he had done, once, and he didn't understand. "Others?"
"I would have spent the rest of my life with you," Gabriel said calmly. "I would have followed you anywhere you went, I would have gladly died for you. There is no blame, Loupahn, I understand; nothing to forgive. But confessions, yes."
"Gabriel -- "
"There was one other I loved. Not what we had. He was a fool but he was a fool who asked me no questions, an easy fool. And yet when I saw him he had your eyes, always your eyes. He was my other. Were there others?"
Remus studied the grain of the table. Had there been?
"There were women," he said quietly. "Three or four. I thought I loved one of them. There were men too, for a short while, but I never learned their names."
"That sort."
"That sort," Remus agreed. Gabriel was silent.
"You are tired," he said finally. "And I have kept you long enough with reminiscence. Is there room for me? A bed for me here?"
"I don't know," Remus said. "If the others haven't taken them all."
"I will ask M'seur Weasley."
Gabriel stood, but Remus grabbed his wrist before he could move, and the green eyes looked down at him curiously.
"This fool," Remus said urgently. "Did you bring him with you?"
Gabriel laughed.
"He left a long time ago," he said. "He could not compete with your ghost, you see."
"Ten years, Gabriel."
"Oui."
"Ten years."
"It was not my decision," Gabriel said gently, and he freed his hand from Remus' grip, gently. This time, his fingertips touched the skin as they traced the scars. "This woman you thought you loved?"
Remus merely shook his head. Gabriel smiled.
"We will sleep now," he said. "Tomorrow we must talk. You have stories to tell me. I have to meet you all over again, you see, so that I know the man I'm in love with."
***
They didn't have time to talk, however, at least not the following day; Dumbledore returned from his journey and there were plans to make, arrangements that had to be readjusted to include sixty new people. With reinforcements such as these, even Dumbledore was willing to begin taking action, and soon enough Grimmauld Place began to resemble a military headquarters. The ones who weren't soldiers looked to Remus and Gabriel for orders, even after meeting Dumbledore.
They had precious little time to tell stories, but still Remus found himself re-learning Gabriel as he had Sirius, though the two were hardly comparable otherwise. In the essential things, Gabriel hadn't altered much; Remus suspected that he himself was a much more difficult man to adjust to, and yet Gabriel rarely left his side. He could almost believe he was worth the quiet, subtle devotion of the other man.
The tide didn't turn easily, but by Christmas that year the strangling fear had gone, and they all breathed a little more freely. Some of those who had come with Gabriel went home, to do what good they could in keeping the Death Eaters out of the country; others had gone to the continent to work with Fleur and Bill, who were operating out of eastern France. Gabriel showed no inclination to return to his home; he seemed content as long as Remus was nearby, though he never said as much. They were good friends, comrades in arms; that was all, Remus told himself.
It was shortly after the children had arrived for the holiday, and most of the Order were celebrating their return with a large dinner while Remus worked to assemble some new information Moody had unearthed in Wales, when he felt a light touch between his shoulders, a habit Gabriel had re-developed in the past few weeks.
"No more tonight, mon Anglais," Gabriel said, using the name he hadn't spoken since his first night in Grimmauld Place. "We should be celebrating."
"I'd rather not," Remus answered. "Too many people."
"It makes you nervous."
"I suppose so."
"Here, then," Gabriel said with a smile, and put a cup of fresh tea on the table for him. "You and I. You keep promising me, you know, that you will tell me where you went after you left the Academy."
"It's not very interesting," Remus answered.
"It is to me."
"Why?"
"It is part of you."
Remus looked down, and the touch became a palm pressed flat against his back, fingers curled slightly. Gabriel's other hand tipped his head a little, so that their eyes met.
"Tell me your life," he said. "I wish to hear it."
"I can't," Remus answered, brokenly.
"You can," Gabriel said, and kissed him.
It was sweet, like the alcohol the first time they'd ever kissed, the peach liqueur that had flavored his mouth then, but Gabriel hadn't been drinking; that was just his memory...
Gabriel's hand slid up his back, fingers twining in his hair now, as Remus turned to accept the kiss more fully, as if the ten years between parting and reunion had never even happened. This was home; he had been right all along. Home was Gabriel's hands on his body and Gabriel's mouth on his, home was his arm sliding around Gabriel's waist to pin them together against the broad writing desk.
"Tell me," Gabriel said, breaking the kiss for a moment, and Remus felt a hand at his throat, undoing the buttons of his shirt. He fumbled with the scarlet shirt Gabriel wore, kissing him again, now the corner of his mouth and his jaw, now the sensitive line of his throat -- and there was the half-gasp he remembered, faded with time and so, so immediate.
Gabriel's hands were under his shirt, cool on his skin, and this too he remembered, how he never differentiated the scars from the skin, though there were dozens more now. Gabriel had his own scars, and understood them thoroughly; he shrugged out of his shirt and guided Remus' hands up his arms, over his shoulders to the places on either side of his spine where -- though he knew they were burns and nothing more -- it felt as though perhaps wings had once been cut away.
"Angel," Remus mumbled against his shoulder, and Gabriel laughed.
"Conqueror," he replied, allowing Remus to push him backwards onto the bed. The world narrowed to skin and moans and sharp thrusts, things he had learned under Gabriel's hands and gone out into the world and forgotten, and now was finding again -- the way their hips fit together, the tease of Gabriel's tongue across his collarbone, the specific rhythm of their bodies that seemed to match their very heartbeats. He remembered the way it felt when Gabriel was close, the small noise he made in the back of his throat that always made Remus lightheaded with the idea that he could do this, could make Gabriel arch and pull him close and hold him there while they pressed against each other and came and tried like hell to keep breathing.
Remus, face pressed to the safety of Gabriel's neck, relaxed now and much safer than he had been in a decade of hiding, drew a deep breath when rational thought returned.
"After I left the Academy, I began walking," he said, softly, and felt Gabriel's hands holding him, knew that Gabriel was listening. "In the summer of 1986 I reached New York City, and there was an airplane leaving for Australia..."
***
The presents have been opened and the Christmas goose eaten, and the pudding and stuffing and the candy in the crackers, too; all through the dinner feast, Gabriel has smiled just as much as anyone, but his green eyes have said that he is only smiling for Remus Lupin, and Remus likes it very much.
While the other adults sit and drink and discuss the day, which has been an excellent day, a really lovely Christmas, Remus has disappeared upstairs and Gabriel shortly after. The night before, one of many nights of tangled sheets around bodies that move together, mouths that lick and kiss and hands that touch and clutch and demand now, now, now -- the night before, lying together, talking of a thousand unimportant things and one very important thing, Remus almost finished his story, which is why they disappear; Gabriel wants to know how it ends.
Remus has a head of dark brown hair cradled on his chest, dark brown hair with not even a hint of grey in it yet; the lines in his own face are relaxed, and he doesn't care that he has aged less gracefully, nor that he has new scars, not anymore. Gabriel has learned each new one as he learned the old ones, with his mouth and teeth and fingertips. And Remus does not care, because Gabriel's dark brown hair is soft under his fingers and Gabriel breathes evenly against his chest as Remus speaks.
"So I came home," he says, "covered in mud and tired, wet and cold, and Arthur tried to stop me in the doorway."
"You were too tired," Gabriel supplies. Remus smiles.
"I went upstairs and washed, and when I came out there was a bottle of alcohol on my desk, and that's when I heard men singing. It was an old song I knew, but I didn't know why anyone would be singing it, so I ran downstairs and into the kitchen, and there was my old fencing instructor -- "
"Is that what they call it in England?" Gabriel asks, kissing the nearest available patch of skin, just below his neck.
"...with a handful of former students and some soldiers, for the Order to use in the fight," Remus finishes, ignoring him except for a gentle, amused tug on his hair.
"A good story," Gabriel yawns a little. "How does it end?"
"I'm not telling you."
"Why not?" Gabriel demands, sounding a little alarmed. He lifts his head to look down at Remus, curious.
"Because you'll be here for the rest of it," Remus answers. The silence is thick and a little worry creeps in as he asks, "Won't you?"
"Oui," Gabriel breathes, when he understands, and the fear ebbs again.
"Then you don't need to know the rest," Remus says. It feels proper this way; right that Gabriel should be the only one who knows everything, that his secrets are all contained in someone who has spent ten years waiting for him to return. Gabriel owns those years now, as much as Remus ever did, and it eases the dull ache of so many things -- Lacon Chaney and Alice Derwent, the Green Man's dance and the Wolfsbane Potion, the squat in Victoria Park and the ghosts of old friends.
"That was my story," Remus says, and yawns, and closes his eyes, because tomorrow the story begins again.
But for now he is home.
END
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