Sweet Home 2 of 7

[sam_storyteller]

Autumn turned slowly to mild Alabama winter, and Remus was just as glad; he suddenly wanted time to pass, wanted to be old, wanted to have as much distance between himself and England as possible. The Academy was his home and he was frantic to establish it somehow. He stopped writing to Moody and Dumbledore, not that he had ever written often. He stopped assuming that someday he'd go back. Perhaps a visit. In ten or twelve years.

Home, home, home, it sang like a pulse in his blood. When he came back to his rooms in the evening; when he walked down to breakfast in the morning, back ramrod-straight, high collar of his coat brushing his neck; when he supervised drill, taught classes, took the boys to run the fences -- home.

Home was the Academy and its ridiculous plantation architecture, home was a warm winter, home was the comforting structure of rank.

Home was Gabriel Lareaux, who, in the course of two months, learned every scar on his body with his mouth. There was still fencing, and afterwards there was the changing room, a lock on the door, bodies pressed against the wall. Gabriel's low voice in his ear, telling him precisely what he was going to do to him -- or sometimes, what Remus ought to do to Gabriel. There was Gabriel in his bed, and once, though Remus had been shy at first, down at the river on the warm grassy bank.

There was also The Lie, but Remus put that out of his mind. He would tell Gabriel, of course he would. Gabriel kept secrets. He would understand.

"Take me with you tomorrow," Gabriel said one night in early January, when Remus was almost asleep. The light of the near-full-moon shone through the window, turning Gabriel's brown hair pale, making his green eyes gleam. He was propped on one elbow, hand laid over Remus' heart, and he looked almost ghostly.

"With me where?" Remus mumbled, eyelids drooping. He shifted closer, trying to pull Gabriel down to him, but the other man stayed where he was.

"When you go tomorrow. To the base, to do the exercises with the soldiers."

"What?"

"Remus, mon Anglais, please, to be paying attention. Quarte."

"Parry cinq," Remus answered automatically.

"Take me with you, I want to see what it is you do." Gabriel bent to kiss him. Sometimes Remus wondered if Gabriel was some sort of creature; when they kissed he sometimes felt like fire was being breathed into his body, and sometimes felt as though the last ounce of spirit he had was being taken gently away.

"Non," Remus muttered, but he was slowly beginning to wake up, and to panic as he did so.

"Why not? I want to come with you. Won't the soldiers allow it?"

Remus grasped at this. "Oui. No guests."

"Then I will meet you somewhere. Think -- the wilderness, the light of the moon -- romance!"

Remus writhed as Gabriel's fingers slipped over his ribs and his waist, pulling him over so that Remus lay on top, head on Gabriel's chest.

"Non, Gabriel," he sighed, and rolled off, sitting up. Gabriel pushed himself up on one arm, looking confused, and rested his chin on Remus' shoulder.

"Afraid the soldiers will find out?" he asked, nibbling the side of his neck. Remus sighed, and bowed his head.

"I don't go out with the soldiers," he said. "I don't leave the grounds at all."

Gabriel tilted his head against his shoulder, looking up at his face. "Then...how...? Where?"

Remus pushed himself off the bed, and Gabriel almost fell. "I'm...I have a condition." He smiled a bitter smile that Gabriel couldn't see. "I'm diseased."

Gabriel was silent. When Remus turned to look, his bright green eyes were watching him carefully.

"It's not contagious," he continued. "But I..."

"Merde," Gabriel said. "Of course. Scars and a full moon. Loup garou. Werewolf."

"I never meant to lie to you -- "

Gabriel slid to his feet, moving forward slowly. A shaft of moonlight threw a white streak across his body, illuminating the pocks and dark, marred skin on his arms. Remus stepped backwards, almost stumbling over his chair.

"And you have told no one," Gabriel said.

"The principal knows -- "

"Of course."

"Gabriel, I could lose my position, I didn't -- there are people I've told who wouldn't touch me -- " Remus broke, and covered his face in his hands to escape Gabriel's bright look. "And if you stopped touching me -- "

Gentle hands touched his shoulders and slid up his neck, fingers prying his wrists away.

"You are loup garou," Gabriel said softly, ducking his head so that their eyes met. "I have known every part of you. But always there was something more. I thought perhaps my life would be spent finding it. I was prepared to wait."

"Gabriel please -- "

"These, your scars. Not the Dark Lord. Your own hands. Many, many years, oui?"

"I was six," Remus whispered.

Gabriel kissed him lightly, and Remus felt the tension shudder out of his body.

"I have loved men far worse than you," Gabriel said, against his lips. "I have loved those whom your grace would put to shame by its very presence. I have known men who would be shamed even by your lie."

"I'm so sorry -- "

"Non, mon Anglais, no reason to be sorry," Gabriel said with a small smile. "Come. We will sleep. Tomorrow...eh. We are young, we are handsome, we are well-paid," he said, and Remus couldn't help but smile. "Tomorrow cares for itself."

The morning after the full moon, for the first time since he'd been a boy at school, someone was waiting for him when he tumbled out of his self-imposed prison. There were hands to draw the splinters from his fingers, to salve the new scratches and bandage old re-opened scars. There was warm water trickled into his mouth and over his palms.

And he never once mistook the horror in Gabriel's face for disgust at what he was. For once he saw only the pure, honest shock of a man seeing the sort of damage a werewolf could inflict, given half a chance.

Winter turned to spring and still there were Gabriel's hands, Gabriel's voice calling him mon Anglais. They danced with the lovely female teachers from the Alabama Finishing School for Young Witches at the annual ball -- Gabriel rather more deftly than Remus -- and saluted the students at graduation. That summer they travelled to Maine, to a Yankee boarding school that was running a summer session; Remus took with him a gift from his last graduating class, a briefcase with the legend Professor R.J. Lupin stamped on it, and carried it with an inordinate amount of pride, which amused Gabriel to no end. They were both entertained by the principal of the school, who was very surprised to find that his two Montgomery Academy professors spoke with accents that were distinctly not Southern.

On July thirty-first, Remus was surly and angry and hateful, and Gabriel took him out and got him drunk on moonshine he bought from a suspicious character selling it out of a vacant lot.

Seasons rolled on and Remus got his wish for time to pass; his third Hallowe'en at the Academy, he helped supervise the rites involved in turning frightened fifth-year students into men. It was perhaps the silliest thing he'd ever seen, but then who could fathom American traditions?

And then Gabriel was gone, one full moon, taking some of the younger boys into the wilderness on mandatory survivalist training.

And the world fell apart.

***

His first and third years had already had their classes, and Remus' stomach was rumbling as he looked forward to lunch; once he recovered from the full moon he was always ravenous. The seventh-years filed in, in good order, clothing sharply ironed, boots shined, their signet rings each cocked a little; they'd be straightened on their fingers come graduation.

"Right then, lads," Remus said, tossing a bit of chalk up into the air. It hovered, ready to take down what he said if he gave the proper command. "At ease, there you are -- "

None of them sat. He paused.

"At ease," he repeated.

Silence. All eyes on him.

Something ugly began to twist in his stomach.

"In your seats," he barked, in best drill-instructor tones. Still no movement. "Shall I teach you standing up like errant first-years?" he asked. "Or is this some stunt I was unaware of? Is someone going to speak, or will I write up the entire class for insubordination?"

"We don't take orders from werewolves," said Will Connors, a stocky, dark-haired boy in the second row.

Remus steadied his hands only with great effort.

"And who has been telling you that I'm a werewolf, Connors?" he asked evenly. "Since you seem to be the spokesman for the group."

"Jack Hartnett," Connors said promptly. Harnett, two rows over, stiffened slightly. "He saw you."

"If Jack Hartnett had seen a werewolf, Connors, Jack Harnett would be a part of that werewolf's digestive tract by now," Remus growled.

"Saw you washing, sir," Hartnett said finally. "Scratches and all. Was bringing up some breakfast cos I saw your boots in the hallway and I knew you were back."

"And you're always gone for the full moon," Connors continued insolently. "You haven't been here for one in three years."

"So you are committing insubordination against a professor of this school while three months from graduation on the evidence of Jack Harnett, who doesn't know what he saw, and a little calendar work?" Remus asked. "Brave man."

Connors threw something, and faster than he could think, Remus knocked it aside; as he did so, it burned his hand, and he gripped it, wincing.

A silver blade clattered to the ground.

When Remus looked up again, it was into the barrel of a rifle held by Michael Owens.

"I taught you to use that thing, don't point it at me," Remus said sharply. Owens blanched, but Connors put a hand on his, steadying it.

"There's a silver bullet," he said.

"Brave man, standing behind a rifleman," Remus replied. "Going to shoot me like the cur I am, eh, Owens?"

Owens' lips tightened, and his eyes darted towards Connors, but Connors' finger was covering Owens' on the trigger, and he did not look away.

Connors always did have the biggest balls in his class.

"We're giving you a choice, which is more than you gave us, polluting the school with your filthy blood," Connors said clearly. The other boys were looking uncertain. Shooting a man in cold blood out of sheer force of numbers didn't sit well with Honour, Strength, and Dignity.

"I taught you to be a man, Connors."

"You taught me nothing!" Connors shouted. "You fucking werewolf!"

To his surprise, Jack reached across and touched Connors' free arm, cautiously.

"You can walk out of this school now or you can die here in this classroom," Connors continued. "We won't have a scandal on our school. If you leave now, no-one but us will know."

"And a resignation due to ill health is better than a murder by a seventh-year student," Remus said, still rubbing his hand where the silver had burned it. "Honour first. That much I understand."

"Please leave," Jack said quietly, and Remus realised Jack didn't want to be here. Jack didn't want him to go at all. Jack was a stupid kid who told the wrong person what he'd seen.

"Since we're discussing honour, and dignity," Remus said slowly, "Surely you'll allow me an hour to pack my things. So that they won't pollute your fine school any further."

Connors narrowed his eyes.

"I understand the spirit of the law, as well as the letter, Connors," Remus said calmly, a dead emptiness filling him.

"Let him," Jack urged. "Come on Con, let him get his things and go."

But it was Owens, surprisingly, who lowered the rifle, pushing Connors' hand away.

"You have an hour," he said. "Then I chamber the bullet."

***

He packed quickly and efficiently, wrapping a few precious knicknacks in his spare coat -- he had no clothing but what the school had supplied him -- and piling them on top of his trousers in the rucksack. He would not take his suitcase -- let them see the writing on top before they threw it out or burned it, and remember that it had been a gift from students who loved him.

He left the books. One could always find new copies.

His shaving kit and socks went under the pile of scarlet shirts, his journal-notebook on top; quill and ink could be left behind. His hand paused as it moved past the pot of ink. The clock told him he had twenty minutes.

When the hour turned, Jack was at his door, standing next to Owens with the rifle. Remus shouldered the bag and nodded at them, with as dignified a look as he could muster. They flanked him out of the school, down the steps, across the dirt track that led to the gates. There he stopped, one hand on the fencepost that he'd fallen against over a year ago, and where Gabriel had caught him.

They'd planned this when Gabriel would be away. They knew the man supported him. He wondered how much they knew.

Or if Gabriel would be next.

Owens looked ashamed to be carrying the firearm. Jack looked anxious, and very sorry.

"Jack," Remus said. "I don't blame you."

Owens glanced at the other boy, who swallowed and nodded.

"Would you deliver these for me?" he asked, holding out three folded sheets of parchment. "The names are on them. One to the principal, one for whoever is called to substitute for me, one for Gabriel Lareaux. With your own hands, Jack."

Jack hesitated, then accepted the letters, tucking them in his inside pocket. Remus turned to Owens.

"If I find out you or Connors took those letters from him, I'll come back on the full moon and rip your throats out, as you are apparently so terrified I shall do," Remus said. Owens paled.

"You'd better go," Jack said.

***

Gabriel Lareaux searched for five months before realising that Remus Lupin had long ago learned how to disappear.

He waited for another six before realising that Remus Lupin wasn't coming back.

The night before graduation, Jack Hartnett finally got up the nerve to beat the shit out of Will Connors. Connors never did walk right again.

***

Remus knew he should have waited for Gabriel and asked for his help, his advice; he wanted Gabriel's hands on him, wanted Gabriel to run with him as far and as fast as he could from the Academy. But why should he? It wasn't as though either of them could easily get other jobs. It wasn't as though Gabriel could go back to France, even now.

And why should he leave? Remus loved the Academy, but so did Gabriel.

There is no reason, he wrote in the letter, that you should take share in my disgrace. Were I you, I would stay. Please stay. There's no reason both of us should be unhappy.

He closed his accounts in town, changed his Galleons for Muggle dollars, paid off his tab at the bar they regularly drank at, and vanished back into the wilderness of America.

He at least had more durable shoes, this time around.

He had that thought after the two months it took him, walking and wandering and riding cheap cash-payment buses, to get to New York City. His boots were still good, though somewhat mud-caked.

He sat on a bench in Central Park, feeling like the homeless man that yes, he actually was. They called them that because they had no home and he, Remus Lupin, did not in fact have a single square inch of dirt to call his own.

He did some mental math, and decided that Harry was coming up on seven years old.

He wondered if Sirius was still alive.

He wondered if little Erickson had passed his Charms midterm. The second-year boy's mind was always wandering, though Remus forgave him some of that, as the lad had a keen imagination and an unpredictable way that reminded him of James.

He wondered how Gabriel was.

I should write to him. Or something.

Or not.

There was no way to escape himself. No way out of the beast. Except death, of course, but he'd clung on bitterly by his teeth to life too long to consider the easy way out.

He was a prisoner.

Two hours later he was sneaking onto an airplane bound for Australia.

That was where prisoners were supposed to go, after all.

***

Remus touched down in Sydney and walked unmolested through customs and passport-check without showing even a scrap of identification. He'd had enough money to buy a ticket, and he would never have stooped to stealing food or clothing, but it didn't seem like theft to walk onto an airplane in New York City and walk off in Australia. He barely spared it a thought.

This was a big city, smelling faintly of the ocean, cosmopolitan and full of new things. He'd always avoided living in cities, but now it was good to be lost in the crowds, to touch and be touched casually as he pushed through knots of people on the sidewalk. None of them cared if he lived or died. Which, considering the majority of his acquaintance would prefer him in an early grave, was a nice change.

He had to change his money again; Australian wizardry was not as insular as the European and American magical communities, and they used the same currency as Muggles -- except for the rough equivalent of the Sickle, the Stamp. As he was standing in line, an Australian witch back from a holiday in Japan explained it to him. The Stamp, she said, was minted by the first wizard to come to Australia, on a prison ship along with a handful of Muggles. It was all he could do to carve out one side of a mold for a magical coin, and so he only stamped one face.

The gleaming gold coin was smooth against his fingers on one side, marked with a crude kookaburra on the other. He tucked one away to send to his father as a souvenir.

"Flats or birds?" the witch asked, as they emerged from the changing office into the street.

"Beg pardon?"

"Flats or birds? Call it," she repeated, and flipped the coin.

"Flats," he said promptly. She caught the coin, uncovering it in her palm.

"You win. Let me buy you a beer," she said. He blinked. "Show you a little Australian hospitality. Or are you here with someone? Buy them a beer too."

"Er...no, thank you," he said.

"Don't drink, eh? Buy you a tea then, Englishman?"

He flinched. "Really, I'm sorry -- "

She pouted. "Right. Look me up, if you change your mind," she added, taking his hand and scrawling something on it with a Muggle ballpoint pen. He looked down at the numbers, perplexed.

"Telephone," she said. "Ring me."

"Sure, sure..." he said, pulling away from her on the crowded sidewalk. She gave him a brilliant grin as she passed off in the other direction.

He stared down at his hand for a while, and then looked up again.

Friendly lot, the Australians.

***

He had enough money for a few months' rent near the city centre; he'd have bought a new coat, but the braid and insignia came off his uniform coat easily enough. He ate cheaply at the boarding-house and spent most of his time in his room, reading, or out in the city, walking. He walked a lot. He'd gotten used to it; it was hard to think when one was sitting still.

His room was excellent for his purposes: thick walls enhanced by silencing spells plus another small closet, which he cleaned of shelves and clothes-hangers in preparation for the moon. It was cement, which meant instead of slivers in his fingers, he woke from the Change with broken fingernails and bleeding palms. But it was his own place, and his landlady -- perhaps because greater sins than his were being committed in other rooms -- didn't pry. He knew for a fact that the man across the hallway was doing some kind of Muggle drug, and selling it too from the sound of the late-night visitors.

He wondered if he'd spend his entire life living in rooms like this -- a bed, a dresser, a desk and a closet. Home and Hogwarts; spare bedrooms on his wanderings, the comfortable snug room in the Academy plantation-house, and now here.

Well, it wasn't such a bad way to live. And if he could find work in Australia, illegal as he was, maybe one day a house, with a sunny kitchen all his own, a living room, a cellar to lock himself up in...

It occurred to him, as he wandered the city, getting to know the streets and shops, that he wasn't really much like other people.

He didn't really like other people, either. But he still scrawled the telephone number from his hand onto a sheet of paper stuck to his wall, along with flyers and menus and other handouts picked up from downtown. If he ever figured out how to use a telephone, he might call it.

He didn't feel particularly upset that he didn't know anyone in the entire sub-continent of Australia; he decided he already knew all the people he ever wanted to know, and quite a few he didn't want to know as well. It was easy to simply subsist on his savings, write a letter to his father once a week, and not have to care about anyone else. No birthdays to remember, no responsibilities except to himself, no-one's feelings to hurt.

It was easy to fill the days. He considered walking for a living. Panhandlers must make decent money.

A little spike of pride inside him said I'd rather starve.

He'd have to find a job soon, though. Something where they wouldn't check work permits too closely. It wasn't like England, where he could go to Diagon Alley and not worry about paperwork; wizards generally didn't care about that sort of thing as much as Muggles did. The Wizarding world in Australia was much too integrated.

And that was where not-knowing-anyone-in-the-whole-country did become a problem, because how was he going to find work without talking to people?

He hated talking to people, he decided.

But as he sat on his bed that night, trying to read between the lines of the newspaper adverts -- "Oblivious shopkeeper seeking to hire bookish werewolf, hours flexible, low pay but satisfying position without much customer-service involvement" -- he realised he was going to have to learn to use the telephone anyhow, because they all had those stupid numbers underneath their ads. So he might as well use it to call someone who might be disposed to be friendly to him.

***

"Plucked Emu, Robert speaking."

Remus, sitting in his landlady's living room, looked at her telephone.

"Er..." he said, slowly. "Can you hear me?"

There was a chuckle. "Aye, mate. Can I help you?"

"I think I must have the wrong number..." he said slowly.

"Right then. No harm," the man called Robert said, and hung up. Remus carefully replaced the long-talking-into-thing on the square-dialing-numbers-on thing. After a minute he lifted it and cautiously tried again.

"Plucked Emu, this is Robert."

Remus sighed. "Sorry, it's the wrong number again."

Another good-natured laugh. "Bird give you the number, did she?"

"Bird?" Remus asked, totally lost.

"Did a girl give you the number? Here, you're not slow, are you?"

Remus paused.

"A girl did give me this number..." he said, trying to speak more quickly. "I ah...she must have given me the wrong one."

"Brunette? Witch?"

Remus nodded, then realised he couldn't be seen. "Yes..."

"That'd be Ria. She's on shift tonight. Are you the -- no, you wouldn't be the American surfer. English?"

Remus felt rather as though he was already on a job interview. "Yes."

"You the tourist who wouldn't let her buy you a beer?"

"Er...probably."

"Shoulda called her sooner, mate. Come down to the pub around ten, I'll let her know you're stopping by."

And there was a click. Remus replaced the long-talking-into-thing once more.

Well.

Maybe they needed a dish-washer or something.

***

Remus found the Plucked Emu without too much difficulty; it was advertised in a tourist brochure of the more magical variety, and he knew the street. He'd never paid any attention to the shabby storefront with the quizzical-looking emu on the sign, but once he ducked inside it was friendly enough, like most small pubs in Sydney. In England, for that matter. Americans had never really got hold of the concept of the pub, except for a couple of places in Boston.

"Get you something?" said the man at the bar, as he elbowed his way through the Friday-night crowd.

"Soda water," Remus said, standing on the other side of the bar, hands tapping on the edge nervously. "Uh...I called. Earlier. Twice. The wrong number."

The man grinned. "Right. I'm Robert." He held out a thick-fingered hand, and shook with a surprisingly firm grip. "You're here for a soda water and Ria, then."

"Yes, I suppose so..."

"She's in the back. RIA!" he roared, and there was a crash behind a pair of swinging doors leading into what appeared to be the kitchen. "YOUR BLOKE'S HERE!"

"HE'S NOT MY BLOKE!" came the faint reply. "ASK HIM WHAT HIS NAME IS!"

Robert looked amused.

"Lupin," Remus supplied anxiously. "Remus Lupin. I could...come back, if -- "

"Nah. You wait here. She doesn't want you running off twice," Robert said, as he served up a small soda water in an only slightly grimy glass. Remus sipped, feeling suddenly awkward among all these people in t-shirts and jeans, with him in one of his red uniform shirts and his just-beginning-to-be-threadbare trousers.

"I told you he'd call," Ria said over her shoulder as she emerged. Robert followed, drying his hands on a towel. "You are late!" she said to Remus, who blinked.

"It's not ten past yet," he protested.

"You're six weeks late!"

"Oh." Remus paused. "Sorry," he added finally.

"Doesn't even bring a girl flowers. No manners at all," she continued, rolling her eyes. "Come on, I just got off shift. We're going to a club, you should come. I'm stag if you don't," she added, importuning. "Look, you're dressed up and everything."

Remus followed her out of the pub, caught up in the whirl of conversation between herself and Robert, who was apparently also coming off-shift, and another man introduced to him as Nigel.

Remus hadn't thought men like Nigel actually existed. The phrase "flaming queer" seemed to be an understatement. Then again, coming from a werewolf who'd spent the better part of two years buggering a French fencer, he supposed he hadn't much room to talk. Nigel hung on Robert, complimented Remus on his shirt, and hated his shoes.

The club was very dark and very loud, and very full of people who were apparently trying to have sex with their clothes on under the pretence of "dancing", Nigel and Robert included. Ria settled him in a corner with their drinks and ran off to say hello to someone before popping back to the tiny table to down half her drink in a go. Remus watched the way the muscles of her throat moved as she swallowed. He felt a somewhat bewildering pang of desire.

Je suis un pédé, he heard Gabriel's voice say. He wondered what the word for "confused" was in French.

"So tell me, Remus Lupin," Ria said, dipping her finger in her drink and licking it, "what do you do that kept you from calling me all this time?"

"Um..." he stuttered. "Nothing," he said finally.

"You do nothing?"

"Yes. I...walk a lot. And read. And...sleep?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "How's that working for you?"

He seized the opportunity. "Really rotten, actually, which is why I called -- not that I didn't -- I mean -- " he faltered.

She grinned. "Spit it out then."

"I don't know anyone. At all. In the whole country. And I need to find a job, but I don't know how to use a telephone and I'm sort of...not...legal," he said finally. "That is, I haven't any papers to work."

Ria waved her hand. "Worry not! Handsome bloke like you shouldn't have any trouble. What do you do? Normally, I mean?"

"I teach. Or clerk. Or, I can clean barns. And split wood. Done quite a bit of that. Fixed fences, too. Pretty handy with Dark Arts. Defence and all," he added hastily. "I can fence, too. The sword-fighting kind, I mean."

She looked at him curiously, and somewhat skeptically.

"I don't mind menial labor," he said, unsuccessfully hiding behind his drink. "I'm a quick study."

"Might have some shifts for you at the pub. Isn't much call for fence-fixers, not in downtown Sydney," she said, and he heard a note of amusement in her voice. "Course if you were willing to hitch out into the bush, probably find you a job at a farm. Can you ride?"

"Ride what?" he asked stupidly. She hid a smile.

"Tell you what, I'll ask around. Something's bound to turn up. In the meantime, come dance."

"Oh -- I don't dance," he said, and she shrugged, vanishing into the crush of bodies.

"Your loss!" she called, as she disappeared.

It was loud in the club, but not unpleasant; he drank slowly, making conversation when Ria or Robert or Nigel darted back for their drink, or to sit out a dance and talk. He discovered that Robert was a champion surfer, Ria was a painter, and Nigel was independently wealthy. It was peculiar, talking with people again; the most interaction he'd had with anyone since arriving, not counting Ria and her friends, was with the woman who worked at the cafe where he usually bought tea.

Then all three of them were back at once, and it was overwhelming once more; he was plucked up, pulled along, and whirled back out into the street. Ria stumbled against him, grinning, and they made it perhaps twenty paces down the darkened street before Remus realised Robert and Nigel weren't following.

He turned back to look, nearly putting Ria off-balance, and saw just why they'd lagged behind.

Robert had pinned Nigel up against a wall in a dim corner near an alley, and they were -- well, kissing was something of an understatement, but Remus was more concerned with the way his guts knotted. Gabriel had once --

"Oi! Faggots!"

Ria and Remus both turned as Robert pushed away from Nigel. A gang of skinny, ragged young men were advancing down the street, past the club. One of them glared at Robert, who had turned to face them.

"Don't wanna see that crap on our streets," the boy said, as a streetlamp gleamed off his shaved head.

"Then go back to the hole you crawled out of," Robert retorted. "Nobody's forcing you to look, pervert."

The boy didn't even break stride as he backhanded Robert into the wall. Remus started forward the same time Nigel did, but Nigel was closer; he had his wand halfway out of his coat pocket before one of the other boys wrapped a chain around Robert's neck, and the leader swung a heavy club into Nigel's forehead.

"Let them alone," Remus said, realising he'd left his own wand at home. He hadn't needed it in too long...

"Make us, faggot-lover," a fourth boy said.

"Walk away," Remus warned. Ria tugged on his arm.

"From you?" the leader snorted. Remus' hand shot out and he lifted the boy off his feet by his collar, batting away the swinging club as if it was a fly. Bones snapped in the boy's hand, and he shrieked.

One of the others charged in, but Remus let instinct and a good deal of repressed rage take over, breaking his nose and possibly part of his cheekbone. Something wrapped around his wrist, and he tossed the leader away as he pulled close the idiot who'd tried to chain up his arm.

"That," he said harshly, using a move learned from Gabriel to flip the man's body and twist his arm painfully, "was stupid."

The skinhead struggled against him, but he kept pressure on his throat with one arm until the body went limp. Something cracked across his head and he shook it, trying to clear it; as he released the body in his arms, someone pressed something blunt to the back of his neck.

The last thing he heard before collapsing was a shouted, "Stupefy!"

***

He woke handcuffed to a bed.

Not a good way to wake up, he decided. Not that he'd been in this position before; even Gabriel hadn't been quite that adventurous and Remus certainly hadn't, but he could imagine. Not a comfortable bed, either; in fact, considering the stone on one side and the bars on the other, he would go so far as to say a prison bed.

Oh, dear.

He hardly had time to think, however, before someone was unlocking the cuffs and pulling him upright. The world spun a little until he regained his balance. He found himself looking at a young man in a sort of modified Auror's robe, who was holding his arm.

"Sorry, mate. Didn't know if you were friend or foe," the man said. "Steady on your feet?"

"Sort of," Remus said warily.

"Can you walk? Get you out of this cell. There's coffee," the man added, as if this ought to be enough incentive for anyone. Remus followed him obediently out of the cell and down a corridor noisy with the sounds of snoring and muttering, through a doorway and into a small --

Interrogation room.

A paper cup of coffee was set in front of him.

"I'm locking you in. I'll be back in a mo. For your own safety," the man added.

When he was gone, Remus wrapped his hands around the warm paper cup and breathed steadily.

Aurors. Better than Muggle police, at least. Well, sort of. Muggle police would not, after all, think to look for signs of lycanthropy.

He very quickly went over his options in his head. At best they'd let him off with a fine of some kind for public brawling. If things got bad, they might deport him. Which was, it was true, a free ticket back to Britain.

At worst, he supposed they could have him shot. Dark Creatures who assaulted humans gave up their status as protected species. International wizarding law. He could be imprisoned without a trial. He could be executed with only a perfunctory hearing.

God, what awful coffee.

The door opened again as he was trying to swallow another mouthful of the thin, bitter drink. A rather older man sat down across from him, while the younger one stood respectfully in the background.

"Mr. Lupin," the man said. "My name's Anson. This is Karls."

"Mr. Anson," Remus murmured.

"How's your head?"

"It's fine."

"You'll be happy to know your friends are all right. Big bloke took a bit of a choking. Still, you gave as good as he got. That filth'll be in hospital a lot longer than your friend will. Mean hook you've got."

Remus was silent.

"We've taken reports and we've already determined you were acting in self-defence. Or others-defence, at any rate," Anson continued. "Not that we had to. Karls saw the whole thing. He's the one who Stupefied you."

"Sorry about that. Wasn't sure what was happening at first," Karls put in. Remus nodded at him.

"Does that mean I can go?" he asked, quietly, not wanting to push his luck. Anson exchanged a look with Karls.

"Yes and no," he said. "You are technically free to go. We're not going to charge you with anything. But your young lady informs us you're not a Muggle, as we first suspected the lot of you were. Lose your wand, did you?"

"Left it in my rooms," Remus answered.

"Ah. As I said, you've got a hell of a hook. You as good with your wand as you are with your fists?"

Remus drew his eyebrows together. "Ah...is this a trick question?"

Anson leaned back. "Frankly, your young lady said you're looking for work, and Karls here thinks you'd make a decent Auror. Got your head in the right place, jumping in like that, and it took two men and a Stupefication to pull you off that little Muggle brat. If you're not a complete idiot with a wand, you ought to come up to our offices and apply."

It was definitely too early in the morning for this.

"Apply...to be an Auror?" he asked. Karls nodded.

"It's a bit odd, I know, but we're...more than usually hard up for agents," Anson admitted. "There's a desperate shortage."

"Did Ria pay you to say this?" Remus asked suspiciously. Anson laughed.

"Honestly. You'd have to have an evaluation, of course, but I've seen veterans with less good sense than you showed," Karls said earnestly.

"I'm illegal," Remus blurted. "I can't."

The silence in the room told him he probably shouldn't have said that, but then Anson looked down at the table, and tapped his fingers on it thoughtfully.

"Well, how illegal?" he asked. "I mean, you're not...wanted for anything, are you?"

"No -- but I -- I didn't immigrate -- haven't a passport," Remus said weakly.

"Oh well. That's no problem. Get you a work visa in two days," Karls waved a hand. "Is that all?"

It was one of those moments when it really, really sucked to be a werewolf.

Because there was the Question. And now he had to either wreck his chances at a job or tell The Lie.

"All that matters," he said, finally, and felt his conscience squirm.

"Splendid. Grand. I'll leave you with Karls, then, he'll show you where to go," Anson said. "Welcome to the team -- I'll be seeing you again soon, I'm sure."

When Anson was gone, Karls pushed away from he wall, leaning on the table with both hands. He bowed his head, so that his lips were level with Remus' ear.

"I know what you are," he said, in a voice barely above a whisper. "Stick with me when we go up to the offices, and I'll make sure you get through the physical. We need more like you."

He'd always wanted to be an Auror. But he'd never been able to pass the most basic test for admission -- the blood test. This time Karls steered him deftly around that, and intimidated anyone who got in his way into giving them a pass on to the next examination.

And suddenly there was a new uniform for Remus Lupin to wear. This one was dark blue, and had the Australian flag on one shoulder. It came with a badge.

Ria was very impressed.

***

He didn't get to wear his blue trainee uniform immediately, of course. The new training course wasn't set to start until they'd filled the class, and that took three weeks. During that time the full moon came and went, leaving him sore but whole for the first day of class. As he sat in the small auditorium -- room for sixty or seventy, easily, though there were only twenty recruits -- he tapped his fingers nervously on the edge of the arm.

He'd taken a seat apart from the knot of people who were there when he'd arrived, and he could tell that they were all younger than him, some by several years; at least half looked to be fresh from school.

Being in-uniform again felt odd, like assuming an old life he'd somehow shed temporarily. His back automatically straightened and he kept fiddling with the sleeves, which were longer than the tailored ones of the Academy's coats.

When the instructor entered, he stood automatically and instinctively; one always did, for a superior.

The others snickered. He felt himself flush, but before he could bend to sit down again, the young woman pointed at him.

"Name!" she barked.

"Lupin, Remus John, ma'am," he replied sharply.

"Trainee?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Can you tell me what your comrades in arms are doing wrong, Lupin?"

"Ma'am?" he asked.

"You're a goddamn genius, Lupin," she continued. "The rest of you, on your feet, if you please."

The others rose, quickly and disorganisedly; papers and pens fell to the floor, along with the coat of one of the recruits, who'd slung it across the back of her chair.

"This is not a finishing school," the woman said. "This is not a bloody hobby nor is it a good way to get out of telling your parents you can't get a job anywhere else. This is boot camp, my children, and you are the boots. My name is Hobson, and I am supposed to teach you what you need to know to keep from getting killed." She leaned back against the lectern, crossing her arms. "In Britain, Aurors train for three years. In America they train for sixteen months. In Europe, Aurors are normally selected from military positions and given ten months extra training. How long is this program?" she demanded, glaring at one of the youngest students, and one of only four women.

"E...eight weeks," the woman managed.

"Eight weeks what?"

"Eight weeks...ma'am."

"You're damn right, Eight weeks ma'am. And do you know why? Trainee Lupin?"

"Labour shortage, ma'am?" he ventured.

"D'you see this hall? Every class should fill this hall to capacity. And yet I'm stuck with nineteen half-wits and an English import who still can't get his collar tabs straight."

Remus knew this was a test. He'd seen upperclassmen at the Academy talking to younger boys this way. He didn't fiddle with his collar. Hobson's expression didn't change, but her eyes gleamed, and he knew he'd passed.

"I have eight weeks to make you into competent, fight-ready keepers of law and order. If you cannot kick arse by the end of this, you will at least be able to prod buttock. Is that funny?" she asked, as one of the men stifled a chuckle.

"No ma'am," he replied. "I am sure you are not funny in the slightest, ma'am."

There was a moment of silence.

"Very well then," she said, turning away from her scrutiny of the young man. "Your schedule is as follows. History of Magical Law, Defensive Charms, Tactical Strategy also known as How To Lie Effectively, and Muggle Relations in the morning; in the afternoon, Duelling, Offensive Charms, Handling of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Arms. You will notice that you are wearing blue and I am not. Why is this, miss..." she consulted her notes. "Jones?"

"Trainee, ma'am," said Jones, who seemed to be a quicker learner than some of the others.

"That's right. If you manage not to wash out of this program, you will be provided with uniforms colour-corresponding to your position in the organisation. While you are in blue, you are the lowest of the low. You are also liable to have Muggle tourists asking you questions as if you were a member of their police force. You are to answer courteously and try not to say anything stupid. Do you think you can manage that, Mr. Jackson?"

The smartarse from earlier tossed off a sharp salute. "Known for my tact, ma'am."

"I've no doubt," Hobson said sourly. She was beginning to remind Remus of Professor McGonagall. A very angry, very loud Professor McGonagall.

The others were casting sidelong glances at him. They didn't look friendly.

It was going to be a long eight weeks.

***

The problem was not, Remus finally decided, that he was any more competent than the others; he was just older, and he'd been a teacher for three years. Plus, he had all of the deviousness and trickery he'd learned from James and Sirius at his disposal.

Once in a while he caught himself thinking of James or Sirius or Peter or Lily without his heart seizing up. That was probably a good thing.

At any rate, the other students at the Aurors' Academy didn't like him because he knew how to shine his boots and iron his trousers properly, he knew a lot of charms already, and the instructors took him on as their golden boy -- even if they did berate him worse when he failed. He'd been able to answer competently in Muggle Arms that he knew rifle, pistol, hand-to-hand and (before he'd thought about it, he blurted it out) epee; still, the others did tend to do better in Muggle Relations. Remus didn't relate particularly well to anyone, Muggle or otherwise.

It was little things they did, small revenges. Borrowing his class notes and losing them. Tripping him when he walked down the aisle. Hitting him rather harder than necessary in Muggle Arms. Using the most embarrassing hexes on him during Duelling class.

He fought back by being very quiet and very competent and fleeing as soon as class let out. Besides, the torment of a bunch of nineteen-year-old brats was small in the scheme of things. His world was opening up again. He had friends from the Plucked Emu -- lord knew why they liked him, but they did. Ria got drunk with him occasionally and did the most amazing things with her tongue, and besides she was smart and pretty and helped him in his history courses, where they usually assumed he knew much more Australian history than he did.

And best of all, he was going to be an Auror. He'd known since he was sixteen that he never could be, but here he was. Even if the others didn't like him, even if his father sent him worried letters wondering about the wisdom of his son going into such a dangerous field, Remus didn't care. He was going to be an Auror. He loved the classes, loved the duelling, loved the structure and organisation. You never had to wonder. You knew who your superiors and inferiors were (everyone and civilians, in that order).

What finally got him into trouble, although not exactly trouble he couldn't handle, was ironically just someone trying to do him a favour.

Hobson was shouting Jackson into submission during class one day, after he'd unwisely made a joke that Remus hadn't been paying attention to, when Auror Karls appeared in the doorway. She stopped immediately and gestured the class to their feet.

"Lupin," Karls called, and Remus craned his neck to see over the heads of the others. "Speak with you?"

Remus was heavily aware of the stares directed his way as he walked to the doorway. Nobody was paying attention to Hobson, who had resumed her shouting somewhat half-heartedly.

"Full moon's in three days. Don't want you to lose credit," Karls said, passing him a folded sheet of parchment. "These are your orders. You're on special assignment from the day of the full moon through the two days following. Should give you time to rest up."

"I don't understand. Sir," Remus added, unfolding the sheet. It was a letter of excuse from Karls to Hobson, allowing him three days off for special work under Karls.

"You're to take the time off. You have no actual assignment. This is just for paperwork's sake, so you don't get graded down," Karls said.

"Thank you..." Remus trailed off, surprised. "Can I ask a question, sir?"

Karls nodded.

"Why are you helping me?"

The other man smiled. "There's a shortage of good Aurors, and you're going to be really good, when you're done training. And..." he shrugged. "I've an aunt who's a werewolf."

He clapped Remus on the shoulder, and sent him back into the room. Remus waited until Hobson had finished talking, and presented her with the letter.

"Very well, Lupin," she barked. "Today's Monday. We'll see you again on Friday?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered. The others whispered among themselves until a glare from Hobson silenced them.

"Special duty. Nice work if you can get it," she added, and Remus fought a wince. As if he wasn't unpopular enough.

And sure enough, he was cornered outside the small training gymnasium at the end of the day. By his count, fifteen of the other nineteen were there.

"Special duty," one of the men said. "Nice work if you can get it."

"I'm not here to pick a fight," Remus replied.

"We are," said another, and they all smirked. "We're tired of you making us look bad, Lupin."

Remus bit down the first reply that came to his lips; then perhaps you should work harder. Instead, he answered, "I don't think this was a reward. I think it's a punishment."

"Punishing the golden boy?" Jones asked, her voice almost shrill.

"It's out of my hands -- " Remus began, trying to push past them, but he was shoved backwards.

"Is it now?" Jones demanded. Remus sighed, and bit down on his temper. You can take it out on the punching bag later.

One of the other woman, Maya, touched Jones' shoulder. "All we're asking is for you to tone it down a little, Lupin. Don't be quite so gung-ho."

"Aurors are the best of the best," he answered.

"And you're better than us, is that it?"

"No -- but we should be competing -- instead of trying to pull each other down -- not that I'm -- "

He never got to finish, because Jackson's pal Balcock threw a punch at him.

It was a dirty scuffle, but it was at least fair; none of the others joined in, and Remus knew if he pulled his punches he could win without hurting Balcock too badly. But then Balcock tried a wrestling hold on him, and as he broke free the buttons came off his shirt --

"Oh holy Jesus," someone said, as Balcock froze, Remus' shredded shirt clenched in his hand. Remus took the opportunity to catch his breath, and then realised he was still the centre of attention.

Well, not him. The scars on his bare skin, really.

"What the hell did that?" someone asked in a hushed voice. Remus looked around for his satchel and coat, but they'd gotten lost in the first few moments of grappling.

"None of your concern," he answered, tearing the shirt from Balcock's hand. It ripped further, and he tossed it to the ground in disgust.

Still silence.

"Stare, then," he said finally, spreading his arms. "You've done enough of that. You think I ought to care what you do to me? You think you can beat me worse than what did this?"

Several of the trainees in the back began to sidle away. He whirled on Balcock, who flinched.

"Do you think I've lived this long just to give up because some pissant kid blacks my eye? Do you, Balcock?" he demanded, red rage rising in front of his eyes. The wolf was close to the surface anyway, this near the full moon, and he could almost feel his teeth lengthening, his hands hooking into claws. "Have you any idea what's waiting out there for you?"

And then the answer hit him.

Me.

I'm the sort of thing they're training to fight.

The thought pushed back the rage instantly. He let his hands fall. "Get out of here. All of you. Now."

Balcock kicked up dust, he fled so fast. The others drifted away, until only one person remained.

Hobson was staring at him.

"I saw the crowd," she said. "I came to find out -- I just heard the end. Merlin's fingernails, Lupin, what the hell happened to you?"

He reached for his coat, lying in the dust. He pulled it on apologetically, and she reached out a hand to brush some dirt off one sleeve.

"Voldemort," he said, falling back on the old lie. "I was in Britain when he was on the rise. I got off lightly, compared to some."

"You can make a formal report against Balcock," she said, handing him his satchel.

"No reason to. He's a stupid boy. He doesn't know any better."

"He will after this."

He gave her a smile. "Probably so, ma'am."

When he appeared in class again on Friday, stiff and still feeling tired, nobody tripped him. Nobody looked at him. Nobody said anything to him, in fact, except for Balcock, who pressed a fresh blue uniform shirt into his hands after their first class and muttered an apology.

Well, it was better than outright dislike, he supposed.

***

What Remus came to realise in the days after Balcock ripped off his shirt and the others (much younger and far less haunted) saw his scars, was that the Sydney branch of the Aurors in Australia was not, in fact, the best of the best.

He watched them now, wary in case his fight with Balcock had stirred up resentment further, but clearly the scars had, for once, worked in his favour. (When he'd shown them to Ria she couldn't touch him for a week, but at least she didn't outright hide, and gradually she got used to them -- though she still wouldn't put her hands on them like Gabriel had).

They weren't the best and brightest. Some of them quite clearly had learning gaps that a fourth-year Hogwarts boy could have filled. But they were clever, like criminals were clever, and they understood human nature better than he did. They were street-fighters, gutter-kids, rejects from the rest of the civilised world.

No wonder they'd hated him, with his stiff back and his clipped answers and his perfect courteous respect. He represented everyone who'd ever shoved them around before they were recruited. They hadn't respected him, because they didn't respect the same things he did.

The scars changed all that.

But it didn't change them.

They were slated to graduate on Hallowe'en and it was only when this was announced that Remus realised he'd missed Harry's birthday; he hadn't even thought of it, being so wrapped up in his own new life.

Perhaps that was just as well. He didn't want to think about Harry.

Auroring in Australia was rough-and-tumble: knuckle-breaking fistfights with Muggles, duels with petty thieves, corralling magical creatures who'd happened to get loose. It didn't pay particularly well, but then Remus had never been rich, and he was used enough by now to self-restraint that it wasn't even a hardship anymore; he ordered water instead of alcohol out of habit, bought his books second-hand, and didn't own more than one suit of clothing that wasn't a uniform. He took vacation days, sick leave, or "special assignment" from Karls at the full moon, and if he wasn't actually friends with any of the others in his class, the older Aurors took a shine to him and were at least sociable. He heard the whispers once in a while, about his body, but no-one ever asked to see the scars.

After graduation he expected to get a beat to walk, which was mostly what the new Aurors did; in a few years he might make investigator or go into a specialty -- handling of magical creatures appealed to him, though it wasn't very well-respected. It meant fewer people to deal with.

Instead, at graduation Hobson gave him his order papers and a maroon shirt, and the rest of the trainees looked uneasily at him. Maroon meant jump-out agents, and there was a reason they wore that colour. It hid the bloodstains.

He stared down at it in shock for a little while before opening his papers, which confirmed the assignment. There was a note from Karls explaining that they needed a few indestructible men in the agency.

Jump-out agents had half the life expectancy of a regular Auror, on average. Then again, most of them died a lot easier than a werewolf did. It was an optional assignment, when offered; it meant you spent most of your time at headquarters, keeping busy, and the rest going out on specific calls, filling in where regular Aurors couldn't or reinforcing by strength of numbers. It was risky business, done by men who had grown to habitually expect the unexpected.

Well, it wasn't as though he placed any particularly high value on his life. He took the assignment.

Hallowe'en night they all got out and got very drunk to celebrate graduation, and Remus ordered water and watched them. Then he went home and slept. There didn't seem to be anything else to do. He'd lost James and Lily and Peter; Sirius had lost himself, and good riddance; the Academy and Gabriel had gotten lost.

But Remus Lupin was still living and living people had to sleep, and eat, and go on with their lives. He didn't have the energy for grief anymore; rage took too much effort. He just slept, and woke up the next morning, had his breakfast, pressed his new uniform, put it on, and showed up promptly at nine for work.

The rest of the graduates stumbled in around eleven, bleary-eyed, but Lupin had already hit his first call, and the older agents were impressed that the new bloke hadn't even looked ill when he saw his first dead body. Ambitious, they said. Anson's pet, got recruited by Karls. He'll burn out soon enough. Bet you he throws up in the lav this evening, when he has to look at the photos and write his report.

He wrote his report while devouring a box of cold curry someone left for him on his desk.

Lupin, they decided by consensus, was a little weird. Pretty good, for a trainee, but definitely a little weird.

***

Ria ended things in early January, which was just as well; he hardly had time to take care of himself anymore, let alone pay the sort of attention to her that a friend or an occasional boyfriend required. If he wasn't busy he was sleeping; Ria had never been particularly monogamous, and she'd only been in it for the fun, anyhow. He stopped being fun; she stopped coming round.

Domestic disturbances, misuse of muggle artifacts, Muggle altercations where wizards were involved, cleanup after some mess or another; his life was a cycle of sleeping, eating, fixing other peoples' problems, and long lulls at Headquarters where he helped with research and paperwork, or read newspapers for important clippings. He got called out as backup for Balcock once, with a couple of other agents who happened to be there -- an infestation of Boggarts in a warehouse, which Balcock at least knew better than to tackle alone. Afterwards, Balcock bought him a beer, which was nice, and tried to pump him about why he was afraid of crystal balls, which wasn't so nice, but Remus made up a story about a prophecy someone told him when he was little.

Life was, if not serene, then at least untroubled. There was a lot of bad food in it, and a lot of paperwork, but Remus had never minded paperwork.

Before he knew it a year had passed, and he'd forgotten Harry's birthday again. He realised it'd been years since he'd remembered anyone else's, either. Harry was seven. James and Peter and Lily would have been twenty-six or twenty-seven, like himself.

He didn't even spare a thought for whether Sirius "would have been" or "was"; people died in Azkaban all the time, and it was more than likely that Sirius had. Though if it had happened in the last year, he'd certainly have read about it. He was one of the people in charge of reading and clipping the Prophet, at Headquarters.

Which was why he was surprised when he walked into the office one morning in late November and found his desk empty of newspapers.

"No Prophet today?" he asked Karls, who was digging around in a file cabinet. Karls glanced up, and a guilty look crossed his face.

"Hobson's handling it today," he said.

"Hobson? But hasn't she got the Moscow News?" Remus asked.

"She said she could handle both," Karls shrugged.

Remus set his briefcase down on the table and crossed his arms. "I'm an Auror, Karls. I know when people are lying to me."

"Talk to Hobson then," Karls replied, waving a file at him. "Got what I wanted. Stick around, though, there's been some trouble in the city centre with a couple of half-wits running a magic shop who can't seem to tell Muggles from Wizards."

The rest of the office were watching him warily. He sat down and picked up his wand, spinning it in his fingers idly.

"Accio Prophet," he said, and a flutter of crumpled paper flew out of someone's desk drawer.

"Listen, Lupin, it's for your own good -- " an agent said hastily, but Remus just glanced at him as he smoothed the front page.

Sirius' face stared up at him, and he flinched back.

YEARLY INSPECTION YIELDS ESCAPE TRY, read the typically half-nonsense headline. The words seemed to shift in front of his eyes, and he rubbed his forehead, ignoring the grim, lined face staring at him.

During a routine inspection of Azkaban prison by Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge late yesterday afternoon, life-term convict Sirius Black was caught in Azkaban's first escape attempt in nearly twenty years. Prison officials say they do not know how Black, who was recently transferred from solitary confinement to a lower-security wing, managed to escape his cell. They credit the keen eyesight of an as-yet unnamed administrator in spotting the man, who appeared to have decided to take advantage of the sunset to make a break for the water's edge. Black has been returned to the prison and re-instated in the solitary wing under heavy guard.

Sirius Black has been imprisoned in Azkaban for eight years following his role in the deaths of James and Lily Potter, as a spy for You Know Who...

Below Sirius' photo, inset against it, was that bloody, blasted picture again. They hadn't cropped him out of it; the Prophet never did. It was captioned Remus Lupin, close friend of Sirius Black, views the wreckage of the Potters' House in Godric's Hollow, Nov. 1, 1981.

Everyone in the room was unabashedly watching him.

"Didn't make a very good job of it, did he?" Remus asked, flattening the rest of the paper and sorting it out into neat piles.

"Lupin, if you want to take the day -- " Karls said, from the doorway.

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you."

"It was more of an order than a request."

Remus glanced at his superior officer, a twenty-year veteran who reminded him of Alastor Moody, if old Mad-Eye had lost all his hair instead of his sense of humour. The older man looked at Karls.

"If the boy wants to work, let him work," he said. Remus nodded.

"I wasn't just Sirius' friend," he added, fingers smoothing every small crease of the newspage. "I was James' friend too, and Lily's. And Peter Pettigrew's."

"The article talks about you later on," Karls murmured.

"Just so you don't think I'm a monster."

"Nobody in England seems to know where you are."

"The people who matter do."

Chapter 3