FIC: Once in a Blue Moon - Ch 44 (WIP)
Start of the story, including full ratings, warnings, pairings etc. Here
Summary for the new readers watching my journal: In a world where Remus Lupin didn't receive his Hogwarts invitation, and where Sirius Black wasn't accepted by the rest of the Gryffindors, the two lonely boys form an unlikely friendship, that eventually develops into something more.
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
Happy Birthday (PG)
It wasn’t easy trying to talk Charlene out of accompanying them to Remus’s house when the next full moon came round. In the end though, it was Professor McGonagall who put her foot down and refused her permission.
Sirius suspected that she might have decided differently if Remus had been enthusiastic about the idea. But since he had made it clear that he would rather it was just Sirius with him, McGonagall had told Charlene that she was to remain at Hogwarts, and that she would be keeping a close eye on her, to ensure that she kept to that rule.
Charlene wasn’t happy about it, and she and Remus had had their first real fight over the whole messy business.
Sirius had consoled Remus, telling him that he didn’t have to worry, he was still there for him, just like always.
He would have been happy if that had been the end of Remus’s relationship with Charlene, but when he returned to the boys’ dormitory one evening a week after the fight, he found Remus and Charlene sitting on Remus’s bed, clearly having made things up.
Sirius stood in the doorway, gaping stupidly at the two of them.
Remus’s shirt was untucked and his tie was undone. His face was flushed and his hair was messy.
Charlene’s back was to the door, but from her hurried actions at his entrance, he could tell that her own blouse was undone, too.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Didn’t know anyone was up here.”
“Sirius!” Remus called after him, but Sirius was already hurrying back out of the door, trying to push the image of what he had seen out of his mind.
They didn’t speak of it, although Sirius spent far more time than he wanted to thinking about it. He wondered how far Remus had gone with Charlene, but he didn’t dare ask the question.
-o-xXx-o-
When Remus woke up on the morning of his seventeenth birthday, it was to find a small scroll waiting for him on his bedside table.
“Is this from you?” he asked Sirius, after he had woken the other boy up.
Sirius shook his head and yawned. “Not me. It looks like one of the scrolls McGonagall sends to the prefects when she wants to call a meeting.”
“But I’m not a prefect.”
“Never said you were,” Sirius replied. “I’m just saying what it looks like.”
“Then what do you think it is?” Remus asked.
“Why not just open it and find out?” Peter suggested as he crawled out of bed.
Remus nodded and snapped the seal of the scroll.
“Well?” Sirius asked.
“It’s from Dumbledore,” Remus said quietly. “He wants me to go to his office after breakfast.”
“What have you done?” James asked curiously.
“Nothing that warrants a summons from the headmaster,” Remus said with a frown.
“Maybe he wants to wish you a happy birthday?” Peter teased. “You being the teachers’ pet and all.”
Remus laughed and put the scroll on the bedside table.
“Hey! Does that have the password to Dumbledore’s office in it?” James asked.
Remus laughed again. “I’m sure he’ll change it as soon as I’ve used it. He knows we’re not to be trusted with such important information.”
“Spoilsport.”
Remus dressed as quickly as he could, and bolted down the stairs to the Great Hall, eager to eat his breakfast as fast as he could, in order to find out that much sooner what Dumbledore wanted to speak to him about.
“You could have waited for us,” Sirius scolded as he slid onto the bench beside Remus.
Remus, who had almost finished his breakfast by the time the other boys joined him, apologised round a mouthful of toast and stood up.
He was just grabbing his things together, when Professor McGonagall appeared behind him. “I’m sure that when Professor Dumbledore asked to see you after breakfast, he meant at the time that you would normally finish breakfast, not as soon as you could hurry through it.” She pointed her wand back at the table and summoned a full English breakfast into Remus’s place.
“But, Professor…” Remus began.
“Eat your breakfast,” McGonagall ordered, cutting him off with a glare that brooked no arguments. “All of it. Or I’ll tell Madam Pomfrey that you’re not eating properly.”
“You wouldn’t!” Remus exclaimed, though he sat back down.
“Eat,” McGonagall repeated, her facial expression and tone making it quite clear that she certainly would.
Remus nodded and picked up his knife and fork. “Professor, do you know why Professor Dumbledore wants to see me?”
“Yes,” McGonagall replied. “But that’s for him to tell you, not myself. Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. I can’t prove that you and your friends are responsible for Professor Delphi’s crystal balls suddenly picking up muggle television signals, even if I have my suspicions.”
James snorted pumpkin juice out of his nose at McGonagall’s comment. Of course their head of house would know they were responsible, and everyone knew that the reason she was probably not looking too hard for that proof was because Gryffindor were currently in joint last place with Hufflepuff for the House Cup.
McGonagall huffed at the appalling table manners of her student before she swept away, leaving the boys to finish eating.
Remus was just cleaning up the last of his egg yoke when the owl post arrived.
“Bloody hell!” Sirius swore as four birds descended on his plate, two of them far more interested in stealing his last slice of bacon than delivering their mail.
“Where’d they all come from?” Peter asked, batting away a third owl, that had decided that rather than fight the two bigger birds for Sirius’s bacon, he would try his luck with Peter’s plate of sausages instead.
“Well, that one’s from my mother,” Sirius said, pointing to the bird Peter was shooing away. He gave up on his breakfast and instead grabbed at his letters. “One from Regulus.” He placed it on the table and moved onto the second owl. “And this one seems to be for Remus, whose plate looks far less appetising than mine. Here you go.” He passed the letter to Remus.
“It’s from Greyback,” Remus commented.
“What’s he got to say for himself?” Sirius asked as he took his mother’s letter from Peter and tackled the final bird to see who else had written to him. “Ah, one from Benjy, too.”
“You’re still writing to him?” Remus asked, looking up from his own letter with an annoyed expression.
“Don’t start,” Sirius muttered, putting the letter to one side and opening Regulus’s first. “Looks like Reg has found himself a girlfriend,” he commented as he skimmed through the letter. “She’s a muggle from London who visits her father in Australia near his school during the holidays.”
“Your mother will love that,” James commented with a grin.
Remus scowled across the table. What did James know about Sirius’s mother? He hadn’t even met the woman! Even more annoying, Sirius didn’t seem to mind his comment and was nodding in wholehearted agreement.
“Wonder if he’s written to tell her,” Sirius said as he opened his mother’s letter.
“Has he?” Remus asked.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Sirius replied. “Though she could have sent this before hearing from him. I’m sure she would have mentioned it, if she knew when she wrote to me. There’s nothing she hates more than muggles, unless it’s muggles who dare to get mixed up with wizards, of course.”
“Will she be really angry?”
“Well, she won’t exactly be pleased about it,” Sirius said with a sigh. “So, what does Greyback have to say for himself?”
“He wants me to visit him,” Remus replied. “Apparently he knows it’s my birthday today, and that I come of age this year. Minors aren’t allowed to visit the camp, unless they are being locked up in one, but now I’m an adult I can visit him.”
“Are you going to?” Sirius asked.
“I don’t know,” Remus said. “I want to know why he stepped in to help me, but I know a lot more about him now than I did then.”
“You do?” Sirius asked curiously. “I thought he was really cagey about giving you any information about him?”
“He is. But I looked him up in the Werewolf Register at the Ministry last summer.”
“You never mentioned that.”
“I forgot, what with looking up my real parents and all that. Anyway, I looked him up and…”
“What did it say?” Sirius asked quietly.
“He’s just what everyone says he is. The list of his victims was huge, I’m just one name amongst the many.”
“I’ll bet he hasn’t become a guardian for any of the others though,” Sirius pointed out.
“Me neither,” Remus muttered. “So, why did he?”
“Maybe if you visit him, he’ll tell you why,” Sirius guessed.
“I’m not entirely sure I want to visit him,” Remus admitted. “He’s the sort of werewolf that makes it so difficult for the rest of us to get accepted by the rest of society. If he had been caged up on full moons then I wouldn’t be a werewolf either. It’s those that run free that force the Ministry to lock us up.”
“Maybe he’s changed?”
“Maybe he hasn’t.”
“You won’t know unless you visit him.”
Remus shrugged. “I’ll think about it. It’s not like I can go until the summer holidays anyway.”
“Maybe you should speak to Dumbledore about it, since you’re seeing him anyway?”
“I don’t want to bother him with this,” Remus replied with a shake of his head. “I’m supposed to be an adult now; I shouldn’t need to be asking whether I should or shouldn’t go and see my guardian. I’m supposed to be making my own decisions about stuff.”
“You could still ask his advice.”
“I’ll think about it,” Remus repeated. “I still don’t know what he wants to see me about.”
“At least we know we’re in the clear about the crystal balls,” James said, a shade too loudly, thus drawing the attention of a prefect from the Hufflepuff table, who immediately docked them another twenty points.
“Puts us just ahead of you in the Cup now,” the student sitting next to the prefect said with a grin.
James glared, made an obscene gesture, and immediately started plotting how he was going to prank the Hufflepuffs before the week was out.
Remus shoved the letter from Greyback into the pocket of his robes and stood up once more. “Will one of you let Professor Sprout know where I am?” he asked.
Sirius nodded. “’Course we will, though I’ll bet she already knows that Dumbledore’s summoned you. See you later.”
By the time that Remus arrived at Dumbledore’s office he was thoroughly regretting eating so much. Even though Professor McGonagall had said he wasn’t in trouble, he was still very nervous, and now that the moment was upon him, he was starting to feel slightly sick.
“Ah, Remus,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “Take a seat. Thank you for coming.”
Remus blinked in confusion a time or two and sat down. Dumbledore was acting as though he had every right to refuse a summons to the headmaster’s office.
“We have quite a lot to get through this morning,” Dumbledore said, rifling through the papers that were scattered all over his desk. “Feel free to help yourself to a lemon drop or a chocolate frog if you find yourself getting peckish.”
“Pardon?” Remus asked.
“A lemon drop or a chocolate frog,” repeated Dumbledore, pointing at the bowl of sweets on his desk. “I don’t imagine you’re hungry just yet, but you probably will be later. Incidentally, I often find that I get some of the rarer chocolate frog cards in the ones that are sent to me from the factory, so don’t be surprised if your own collection has a rarity or two by the end of the morning.”
“You get sweets sent to you straight from the factory?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” Dumbledore confirmed. “Have done for years, though I’m still not sure why. Perhaps I signed up for it accidentally… it has been known to happen with so much paperwork to get through. You know how it is?”
Remus nodded, even though he had no idea how it was, and wondered even more why he had been summoned.
“Ah, you’ll be wanting to know why you’re here,” Dumbledore announced, giving every impression of having plucked that very thought right from Remus’s mind.
Remus nodded again and shifted nervously.
“I’m afraid it’s bad news,” Dumbledore told him. “It’s paperwork, and lots of it. A rather arduous and tedious task, but a necessary one.”
“Paperwork?” Remus echoed.
“Yes. You’re seventeen today, which means, of course, that you are now of age. It also means that we have a lot to sort out. I’d have left it until the weekend, but I’m afraid that I’m sitting at the Wizengamot most weekends during term time. I hope you don’t mind my pulling you out of Herbology…”
Remus shook his head.
“Good, good,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “First of all, your residence in Hogsmeade…”
“What about it?”
“Well, as you know, the house was purchased by your brother, under a false name of course, but we need to get it transferred into your name now.”
Remus nodded as Dumbledore pulled a thick bunch of papers from the pile on his desk.
“Romulus sorted out the messy business regarding the false name before he was sentenced and imprisoned in Azkaban; he also started the paperwork that would enable the property to be transferred to yourself on your seventeenth birthday. It has been held in trust for you until now. As you are now of age, you can finish what he started and take over the ownership of the property.”
“Do I have to?” Remus asked. It was stupid. He knew that Romulus wasn’t coming back, he was a ghost after all, but there was something rather final about signing the paperwork that would make the house his.
“It would be advisable,” Dumbledore said. “You can’t apply to get connected to the Floo Network unless the property is in your name, and then there are the bills to consider.”
“Bills?”
“Oh, yes,” Dumbledore assured him with a smile. “I’m afraid that coming of age brings with it responsibility and all sorts of expenses. Until now, the bills for your house have been paid from money out of the trust fund that Romulus set up for you. As the appointed trustee, I have been keeping things running for you for the last few years. However, once the relevant paperwork is completed, that fund will be yours to access as you wish, and you will be responsible for ensuring that the bills are paid.”
“Wait a minute?” Remus interrupted. “I have money?”
“It’s not much,” Romulus told him and Remus spun round to face him.
“Would you not creep up on me like that?” Remus snapped.
“I’ve been here nearly the whole time,” Romulus replied. “The money isn’t much, just what I saved after the bills were paid. It should be enough to cover all the essential bills until you leave school though, and maybe for six months afterwards, just until you find a job of your own and have your own income. Though to be on the safe side, you might want to consider looking for a holiday job in the summer.”
“You’ll need to notify the various establishments of your intention to take over the payments,” Dumbledore explained, waving a large pile of papers with a sigh.
“There’s a lot of them,” Remus said with a grimace.
“I’m afraid that’s always the case,” Dumbledore replied with a chuckle. “Some of them could probably wait until the summer, but others will require your immediate attention. Accio Water Services will cut off your water supply if you don’t keep up payments, which, I’m sure you’ll agree, would be rather inconvenient during the full moons. Likewise, Muggins’ Anti-Muggle Spells should be kept up. While not all Hogsmeade residences have them, most do, and in view of your condition, well, we wouldn’t want any muggles wandering up to your house during a full moon, would we?”
“No,” Remus confirmed immediately.
“I also took the liberty of obtaining the necessary application forms to get you connected to the Floo Network,” Dumbledore continued. “It normally takes about six weeks to get on the network, so you should be able to go home by floo for the full moon after this next one. I’m afraid there is a rather hefty set up fee, although the yearly payments for the connection are not as steep. Once the jar of floo powder you receive at the set up is gone, I’m afraid you’ll have to pay to replace it. I’ll let you have the details of the company who supplies the school with ours, they’re quite competitive with their pricing.”
Remus grimaced and chewed on his lip. “Can I afford the set up fee?” he asked.
Professor Dumbledore smiled. “Perhaps, as a coming of age present, you won’t mind if I pay the set up fee for you?” he suggested. “Though the rest of the payments will be your responsibility once you are connected.”
“You’d do that?” Romulus asked, echoing Remus’s own thoughts.
Dumbledore smiled and took the payment details part of the application form, filling it in as they watched.
Remus pulled his chair closer to the desk and picked up the rest of the application. Dumbledore nodded approvingly and passed Remus a quill. “Might as well get started,” he said. “Unfortunately, when it comes to this sort of thing, there is no magical way of getting the forms to write themselves. The parchment disallows such actions in order to prevent fraud.”
Remus finished the Floo Network application and then turned to the papers regarding the ownership of the house itself. He felt his hand shaking as he looked at the signature line he was supposed to be signing.
“Rem?” Romulus asked quietly.
“It seems so final,” Remus replied. “Why did you sign the house over to me as soon as you were captured?”
“Because you need it more than I do,” Romulus told him. “It’s not like I need it where I am.”
Remus frowned. “But what would have happened if you’d been released after six years? What if you hadn’t…?”
“I’d have trusted that my little brother wouldn’t turn me out onto the streets,” Romulus replied with a chuckle. “This was just a precaution to make sure that you were taken care of, in the event of something happening to me.”
“Do I have to sign it?” Remus whispered.
Romulus looked at Dumbledore, who shook his head at the unspoken question before answering the other. “I’m afraid so,” he told him. “The trust is only active until today, which means I can only act as trustee until today. If you don’t take over the responsibility for the property I’m afraid it will be repossessed within six months at the most. Hogsmeade properties are very highly sought after, and you do still need the house, and more importantly, the basement, for the foreseeable future.”
“I didn’t think that houses in the area were wanted so badly,” Remus commented as he signed the paper with a flourish and pushed it back across the desk. “If they’re that hard to get, how did Rom manage it?”
Dumbledore smiled mysteriously. “Let’s just say that as soon as I discovered that an underage wizard, with another in tow, was enquiring about properties, I made sure that your home was entirely unsuitable for every other purchaser who asked about it. It’s surprising how the prices drop when rumours start flying around.”
“Rumours you started?” Remus guessed.
Dumbledore merely smiled. “Now, the trust fund papers for Gringott’s…”
Remus slowly worked his way through the various piles of paperwork and didn’t even notice how quickly the morning was passing.
It was nearly time for lunch when he arrived at the paperwork for the Werewolf Registry.
“But I’m already registered?” Remus queried. “I saw my name in the book last summer.”
“Yes, you’re quite correct, you are indeed registered,” Dumbledore confirmed. “However, this is paperwork that you must sign to confirm that you are taking the appropriate precautions on full moon nights. You are also giving your permission to be inspected by the Ministry on full moon nights, so that they can see that you’re complying with the measures.”
“Do I have to?” Remus asked with a frown of annoyance. He didn’t want people poking around his home, especially during the full moons, it would only aggravate Moony to have strangers in the place.
“No,” Dumbledore confirmed. “But there is a Bill being passed by the Ministry, which will no doubt be in force before the end of the year, which gives them permission to inspect all werewolves in this manner, regardless of whether they have given their permission. I suspect that those who have not given their consent, will be those who are visited both first and most frequently.”
Remus turned back to the form and continued to read it. “It says that if I fail to take the appropriate precautions, I can be sent to a Dangerous Creatures’ Camp for life.”
“It does,” Dumbledore agreed. “However, I assure you that the spells at your home are more than adequate. The Camps are a last resort for those who have nowhere else to go and are therefore a danger to the rest of the population. There’s no need for you to worry about that.”
Remus nodded and signed the papers. “Next?” he asked with tired resignation.
“Have a pear drop,” Dumbledore said instead. “I did warn you it would be a rather long and tedious morning. However, there are some advantages to getting all this done now.”
Remus smiled and reached for a sweet. “Like what?” he asked.
“Well, for one thing, when the summer holiday comes, you can, if you choose, stay at Hogsmeade permanently. You won’t need permission from anyone to come and go as you please; you can also invite anyone you wish to stay with you. As a legal adult, you will have a lot more freedom, and can spend your summer however you wish.”
Remus nodded. “I got a letter from Fenrir Greyback this morning,” he suddenly found himself saying.
“I thought you might,” Dumbledore replied. “I can assure you that he has already paid your fees for next year, so nothing that happens between the two of you will threaten your place at Hogwarts. He paid all the school fees as soon your place here was confirmed.”
Remus breathed a sigh of relief, although the thought had not even occurred to him that he might have to find the money to pay his own school fees for the final year of his education.
Dumbledore nodded understandingly before he continued. “He’s asking you to visit in the summer, isn’t he?”
Remus nodded.
“You can’t go!” Romulus ordered.
“Now, now,” Dumbledore intervened. “I believe it could be good for Remus to meet the werewolf who is responsible for his condition.”
“I don’t see why,” Romulus snapped. “That monster is best left where he is, and the farther away he is from Remus, the better.”
“On the other hand, Remus has never had the chance of speaking to another werewolf before…”
“If he wants to speak to werewolves then he can visit the Werewolves Support Service at the Ministry. He doesn’t need to see Greyback.”
“I disagree,” Dumbledore said quietly.
“What could he possibly have to gain from a visit with that monster?”
“A better understanding of what he is, perhaps?”
“He knows what he is! He’s had over ten years to get used to what he is!”
“But has he?” Dumbledore countered.
“Of course he has!” Romulus shouted. It was clear to Remus that Romulus was becoming more and more angry in the face of Dumbledore’s calm demeanour.
Remus sat back in his seat as his brother proceeded to shout at Albus Dumbledore, the latter of which just sat calmly, not even so much as raising his voice.
“Romulus,” Dumbledore said quietly, when it seemed that Romulus had finally run out of steam. “Remus deals with his Lycanthropy remarkably, but I do not believe that he has completely accepted what he is.”
“He’s a bloody werewolf! He knows that!”
“Of course he does,” Dumbledore agreed. “That isn’t what I meant. Remus sees himself as a monster because of his Lycanthropy. He has yet to realise that just as there are good and bad amongst wizards and witches, there is also good and bad amongst the werewolves of this world.”
“The wolf is a monster,” Remus interrupted. “I know that, but it doesn’t mean I’ll become like Greyback.”
“No,” Dumbledore agreed. “I don’t believe you will. But you still struggle to accept the werewolf part of you.”
“What do you suggest?” Remus asked. “I can’t let the wolf run free and attack people, the only thing I can do is lock myself up when the full moon rises.”
“I’m not suggesting you do anything different with regard to your security. The Ministry regulations are for the safety of everyone, including yourself. But Remus, you are a werewolf, and the wolf is going to be a part of you for the rest of your life, you cannot continue to hate it as much as you do.”
“How do you know I hate it?” Remus interrupted.
“Because you just told me so,” Dumbledore replied with a small, rather smug smile. “The wolf is a part of you and if you don’t accept it, it will eventually drive you mad. The wolf will sense your anger and resentment towards it, and will punish you each time the full moon rises.”
“What do you mean?” Remus whispered.
“You’re an adult now,” Dumbledore explained. “This means that the wolf is also fully matured, and it will be even more attuned to your feelings. You will already have found that when you are upset or angry the wolf is more violent…”
Remus nodded. “When I’ve had a fight with Sirius, it gets pretty angry.”
“Exactly,” Dumbledore said. “How was the full moon the first month after you didn’t receive your Hogwarts invitation?”
“Bad,” Romulus replied for him.
“I’m not surprised,” Dumbledore said. “Remus, you are going to be facing prejudices at every turn. You will find yourself struggling to find work because of your Lycanthropy. You will find that your life will always need to be arranged to fit around the full moons, and it won’t always be convenient. The resentment will grow with each rejection and with each missed opportunity. The part of you that is the wolf will sense that resentment and, if you don’t learn to accept what you are, it will eventually kill you.”
Remus paled as he looked at the headmaster.
“There’s no need to scare him like that!” Romulus snapped.
“There’s every need,” Dumbledore replied firmly. “I understand why you’ve never explained this to him, it’s hard to determine when a child is capable of understanding something as complex as Lycanthropy. But if the full ramifications aren’t explained to him, it puts him in even more danger.”
“He still doesn’t need to see Greyback!” Romulus huffed.
“Although the decision is Remus’s to make, I disagree,” Dumbledore said. “He needs to know that the monster isn’t necessarily the wolf inside the man, but sometimes it’s the man himself. He cannot truly know that until he sees him for himself.”
“He can see his Registry record,” Romulus argued.
“I already have,” Remus interrupted. “I saw it last summer.”
“Is there anything you weren’t snooping into last summer?” Romulus asked with a trace of his usual humour.
“Didn’t get much chance to meddle in your love life,” Remus teased in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Romulus rolled his eyes. “I can’t come with you to the Camp,” he said. “They have wards up to keep out spirits in case we antagonise the inmates.”
“Residents,” Dumbledore amended. “They prefer to call them residents.”
“Whatever,” Romulus muttered. “I still can’t get inside the perimeter. There’s a barrier about fifty feet away from the grounds in every direction except north, where the barrier stops at the stream, about forty feet away.”
“That’s rather specific,” Dumbledore commented with a smile.
Romulus looked suitably guilty as he admitted that he had tried to get inside the Camp to see Greyback for himself.
Remus chuckled as Romulus found himself under the scrutiny of Dumbledore, almost as if he were a student who had been caught getting into mischief.
Eventually, Romulus sat back down in his seat and sulkily agreed that it was for Remus to make the decision as to whether he visited Greyback or not.
“I’m not going to decide right away,” Remus said. “I need some time to think about it first.”
His reply at last brought Dumbledore and Romulus to agreement. He just wished that he knew whether going to see Greyback was a good thing or a bad.
He was curious about the werewolf who had bitten him, and he knew that he would never get answers to his questions through the letters they exchanged. But he didn’t know whether he would like those answers or not.
Now, in addition to his curiosity, he had the conflicting views of Dumbledore and Romulus to consider. He trusted both of them, but now that they were giving him different advice he didn’t know which one to listen to.
“Rem?” Romulus said as Remus made his way to the Great Hall to get some lunch.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want you to visit Greyback,” Romulus began, holding up his hand to cut off Remus’s reply before he could make it. “But if you want to see him that badly, don’t let me be the only thing stopping you.”
Remus nodded. “Thanks, Rom.”
Romulus glided along the corridor with Remus, at least until Myrtle appeared at the far end of the hallway, cooing in eagerness when she spotted him.
“Hi, Myrtle!” Remus called.
“You little git!” Romulus hissed as he high-tailed it back the way they had come.
Remus laughed as Myrtle continued her pursuit, and he was still chuckling when he sat down in the Great Hall with his friends.
“So, what did Dumbledore want?” Sirius asked.
“He’d organised a birthday party for me,” Remus teased.
“Funny!”
“Nah, just a lot of paperwork to sort out because of coming of age. Boring property issues, bills and application forms. Thoroughly tedious.”
“Did you ask him about Greyback?”
“Yeah. He and Rom both told me what they thought about the idea of visiting him.”
“And?”
“And Dumbledore says yes, while Rom says no. I don’t know whose opinion to trust.”
Sirius nodded in understanding and Remus watched him for a moment. Then he realised that he had come to value Sirius’s opinion just as much as those of the other two men. “What do you think?” he asked.
Sirius smiled. “I don’t know. But if you want me to go with you when you visit, I’ll be right beside you.”
“Thanks.” Remus turned to his lunch. “You want to come and stay at my place this summer?” he asked casually.
“You mean at Hogwarts?” Sirius replied, slightly confused.
“No, Hogsmeade,” Remus answered with a grin. “I don’t have to stay here during the summer any more. I can live at home. Isn’t it great?”
Sirius looked dubious. “The place is kind of messy, isn’t it? Only the downstairs ever gets used, and not even all of that.”
“Guess my project for the summer is fixing it up then, isn’t it?” Remus said with a grin. “So, fancy helping me make the place liveable?”
“Let me see…” Sirius replied with mock seriousness. “Sitting through boring dinner parties and listening to my parents ranting on incessantly, or hanging out at your place… which should I choose?”
“You think they’d let you stay the whole summer?” Remus asked.
“I doubt it,” Sirius replied. “And, I don’t like to leave Regulus alone there all summer.”
“He could visit, too.”
Sirius grinned. “I’ll write and let him know then.”
“Even if you can’t stay all summer, maybe you could stay here at the start of the holidays,” Remus suggested. He had not been looking forward to watching everyone else leave from Hogsmeade Station again, and at least this way the person he would miss the most would be waving the train off with him.
“What’s this about the summer?” Charlene asked as she spied Remus from further down the table and moved places to talk to him.
“Just making arrangements for Sirius to visit me in the summer,” Remus explained. “Dumbledore says I can stay at my place in Hogsmeade during the holidays now that I’m of age.”
“That’s great,” Charlene replied enthusiastically. “I wonder if my parents would let me come visit, too.”
Remus shrugged, ashamed that he hadn’t even thought of asking Charlene to visit as well. “You’ll have to write and ask them,” he said, trying to ignore Sirius’s expression of misery at his offer.
It wasn’t until the summer, he reasoned. There was plenty of time before then for Sirius, and himself, to come to terms with the idea of Charlene staying over.
-
Chapter 45
Summary for the new readers watching my journal: In a world where Remus Lupin didn't receive his Hogwarts invitation, and where Sirius Black wasn't accepted by the rest of the Gryffindors, the two lonely boys form an unlikely friendship, that eventually develops into something more.
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise. J K Rowling retains all copyright.
Happy Birthday (PG)
It wasn’t easy trying to talk Charlene out of accompanying them to Remus’s house when the next full moon came round. In the end though, it was Professor McGonagall who put her foot down and refused her permission.
Sirius suspected that she might have decided differently if Remus had been enthusiastic about the idea. But since he had made it clear that he would rather it was just Sirius with him, McGonagall had told Charlene that she was to remain at Hogwarts, and that she would be keeping a close eye on her, to ensure that she kept to that rule.
Charlene wasn’t happy about it, and she and Remus had had their first real fight over the whole messy business.
Sirius had consoled Remus, telling him that he didn’t have to worry, he was still there for him, just like always.
He would have been happy if that had been the end of Remus’s relationship with Charlene, but when he returned to the boys’ dormitory one evening a week after the fight, he found Remus and Charlene sitting on Remus’s bed, clearly having made things up.
Sirius stood in the doorway, gaping stupidly at the two of them.
Remus’s shirt was untucked and his tie was undone. His face was flushed and his hair was messy.
Charlene’s back was to the door, but from her hurried actions at his entrance, he could tell that her own blouse was undone, too.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Didn’t know anyone was up here.”
“Sirius!” Remus called after him, but Sirius was already hurrying back out of the door, trying to push the image of what he had seen out of his mind.
They didn’t speak of it, although Sirius spent far more time than he wanted to thinking about it. He wondered how far Remus had gone with Charlene, but he didn’t dare ask the question.
-o-xXx-o-
When Remus woke up on the morning of his seventeenth birthday, it was to find a small scroll waiting for him on his bedside table.
“Is this from you?” he asked Sirius, after he had woken the other boy up.
Sirius shook his head and yawned. “Not me. It looks like one of the scrolls McGonagall sends to the prefects when she wants to call a meeting.”
“But I’m not a prefect.”
“Never said you were,” Sirius replied. “I’m just saying what it looks like.”
“Then what do you think it is?” Remus asked.
“Why not just open it and find out?” Peter suggested as he crawled out of bed.
Remus nodded and snapped the seal of the scroll.
“Well?” Sirius asked.
“It’s from Dumbledore,” Remus said quietly. “He wants me to go to his office after breakfast.”
“What have you done?” James asked curiously.
“Nothing that warrants a summons from the headmaster,” Remus said with a frown.
“Maybe he wants to wish you a happy birthday?” Peter teased. “You being the teachers’ pet and all.”
Remus laughed and put the scroll on the bedside table.
“Hey! Does that have the password to Dumbledore’s office in it?” James asked.
Remus laughed again. “I’m sure he’ll change it as soon as I’ve used it. He knows we’re not to be trusted with such important information.”
“Spoilsport.”
Remus dressed as quickly as he could, and bolted down the stairs to the Great Hall, eager to eat his breakfast as fast as he could, in order to find out that much sooner what Dumbledore wanted to speak to him about.
“You could have waited for us,” Sirius scolded as he slid onto the bench beside Remus.
Remus, who had almost finished his breakfast by the time the other boys joined him, apologised round a mouthful of toast and stood up.
He was just grabbing his things together, when Professor McGonagall appeared behind him. “I’m sure that when Professor Dumbledore asked to see you after breakfast, he meant at the time that you would normally finish breakfast, not as soon as you could hurry through it.” She pointed her wand back at the table and summoned a full English breakfast into Remus’s place.
“But, Professor…” Remus began.
“Eat your breakfast,” McGonagall ordered, cutting him off with a glare that brooked no arguments. “All of it. Or I’ll tell Madam Pomfrey that you’re not eating properly.”
“You wouldn’t!” Remus exclaimed, though he sat back down.
“Eat,” McGonagall repeated, her facial expression and tone making it quite clear that she certainly would.
Remus nodded and picked up his knife and fork. “Professor, do you know why Professor Dumbledore wants to see me?”
“Yes,” McGonagall replied. “But that’s for him to tell you, not myself. Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. I can’t prove that you and your friends are responsible for Professor Delphi’s crystal balls suddenly picking up muggle television signals, even if I have my suspicions.”
James snorted pumpkin juice out of his nose at McGonagall’s comment. Of course their head of house would know they were responsible, and everyone knew that the reason she was probably not looking too hard for that proof was because Gryffindor were currently in joint last place with Hufflepuff for the House Cup.
McGonagall huffed at the appalling table manners of her student before she swept away, leaving the boys to finish eating.
Remus was just cleaning up the last of his egg yoke when the owl post arrived.
“Bloody hell!” Sirius swore as four birds descended on his plate, two of them far more interested in stealing his last slice of bacon than delivering their mail.
“Where’d they all come from?” Peter asked, batting away a third owl, that had decided that rather than fight the two bigger birds for Sirius’s bacon, he would try his luck with Peter’s plate of sausages instead.
“Well, that one’s from my mother,” Sirius said, pointing to the bird Peter was shooing away. He gave up on his breakfast and instead grabbed at his letters. “One from Regulus.” He placed it on the table and moved onto the second owl. “And this one seems to be for Remus, whose plate looks far less appetising than mine. Here you go.” He passed the letter to Remus.
“It’s from Greyback,” Remus commented.
“What’s he got to say for himself?” Sirius asked as he took his mother’s letter from Peter and tackled the final bird to see who else had written to him. “Ah, one from Benjy, too.”
“You’re still writing to him?” Remus asked, looking up from his own letter with an annoyed expression.
“Don’t start,” Sirius muttered, putting the letter to one side and opening Regulus’s first. “Looks like Reg has found himself a girlfriend,” he commented as he skimmed through the letter. “She’s a muggle from London who visits her father in Australia near his school during the holidays.”
“Your mother will love that,” James commented with a grin.
Remus scowled across the table. What did James know about Sirius’s mother? He hadn’t even met the woman! Even more annoying, Sirius didn’t seem to mind his comment and was nodding in wholehearted agreement.
“Wonder if he’s written to tell her,” Sirius said as he opened his mother’s letter.
“Has he?” Remus asked.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Sirius replied. “Though she could have sent this before hearing from him. I’m sure she would have mentioned it, if she knew when she wrote to me. There’s nothing she hates more than muggles, unless it’s muggles who dare to get mixed up with wizards, of course.”
“Will she be really angry?”
“Well, she won’t exactly be pleased about it,” Sirius said with a sigh. “So, what does Greyback have to say for himself?”
“He wants me to visit him,” Remus replied. “Apparently he knows it’s my birthday today, and that I come of age this year. Minors aren’t allowed to visit the camp, unless they are being locked up in one, but now I’m an adult I can visit him.”
“Are you going to?” Sirius asked.
“I don’t know,” Remus said. “I want to know why he stepped in to help me, but I know a lot more about him now than I did then.”
“You do?” Sirius asked curiously. “I thought he was really cagey about giving you any information about him?”
“He is. But I looked him up in the Werewolf Register at the Ministry last summer.”
“You never mentioned that.”
“I forgot, what with looking up my real parents and all that. Anyway, I looked him up and…”
“What did it say?” Sirius asked quietly.
“He’s just what everyone says he is. The list of his victims was huge, I’m just one name amongst the many.”
“I’ll bet he hasn’t become a guardian for any of the others though,” Sirius pointed out.
“Me neither,” Remus muttered. “So, why did he?”
“Maybe if you visit him, he’ll tell you why,” Sirius guessed.
“I’m not entirely sure I want to visit him,” Remus admitted. “He’s the sort of werewolf that makes it so difficult for the rest of us to get accepted by the rest of society. If he had been caged up on full moons then I wouldn’t be a werewolf either. It’s those that run free that force the Ministry to lock us up.”
“Maybe he’s changed?”
“Maybe he hasn’t.”
“You won’t know unless you visit him.”
Remus shrugged. “I’ll think about it. It’s not like I can go until the summer holidays anyway.”
“Maybe you should speak to Dumbledore about it, since you’re seeing him anyway?”
“I don’t want to bother him with this,” Remus replied with a shake of his head. “I’m supposed to be an adult now; I shouldn’t need to be asking whether I should or shouldn’t go and see my guardian. I’m supposed to be making my own decisions about stuff.”
“You could still ask his advice.”
“I’ll think about it,” Remus repeated. “I still don’t know what he wants to see me about.”
“At least we know we’re in the clear about the crystal balls,” James said, a shade too loudly, thus drawing the attention of a prefect from the Hufflepuff table, who immediately docked them another twenty points.
“Puts us just ahead of you in the Cup now,” the student sitting next to the prefect said with a grin.
James glared, made an obscene gesture, and immediately started plotting how he was going to prank the Hufflepuffs before the week was out.
Remus shoved the letter from Greyback into the pocket of his robes and stood up once more. “Will one of you let Professor Sprout know where I am?” he asked.
Sirius nodded. “’Course we will, though I’ll bet she already knows that Dumbledore’s summoned you. See you later.”
By the time that Remus arrived at Dumbledore’s office he was thoroughly regretting eating so much. Even though Professor McGonagall had said he wasn’t in trouble, he was still very nervous, and now that the moment was upon him, he was starting to feel slightly sick.
“Ah, Remus,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “Take a seat. Thank you for coming.”
Remus blinked in confusion a time or two and sat down. Dumbledore was acting as though he had every right to refuse a summons to the headmaster’s office.
“We have quite a lot to get through this morning,” Dumbledore said, rifling through the papers that were scattered all over his desk. “Feel free to help yourself to a lemon drop or a chocolate frog if you find yourself getting peckish.”
“Pardon?” Remus asked.
“A lemon drop or a chocolate frog,” repeated Dumbledore, pointing at the bowl of sweets on his desk. “I don’t imagine you’re hungry just yet, but you probably will be later. Incidentally, I often find that I get some of the rarer chocolate frog cards in the ones that are sent to me from the factory, so don’t be surprised if your own collection has a rarity or two by the end of the morning.”
“You get sweets sent to you straight from the factory?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” Dumbledore confirmed. “Have done for years, though I’m still not sure why. Perhaps I signed up for it accidentally… it has been known to happen with so much paperwork to get through. You know how it is?”
Remus nodded, even though he had no idea how it was, and wondered even more why he had been summoned.
“Ah, you’ll be wanting to know why you’re here,” Dumbledore announced, giving every impression of having plucked that very thought right from Remus’s mind.
Remus nodded again and shifted nervously.
“I’m afraid it’s bad news,” Dumbledore told him. “It’s paperwork, and lots of it. A rather arduous and tedious task, but a necessary one.”
“Paperwork?” Remus echoed.
“Yes. You’re seventeen today, which means, of course, that you are now of age. It also means that we have a lot to sort out. I’d have left it until the weekend, but I’m afraid that I’m sitting at the Wizengamot most weekends during term time. I hope you don’t mind my pulling you out of Herbology…”
Remus shook his head.
“Good, good,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “First of all, your residence in Hogsmeade…”
“What about it?”
“Well, as you know, the house was purchased by your brother, under a false name of course, but we need to get it transferred into your name now.”
Remus nodded as Dumbledore pulled a thick bunch of papers from the pile on his desk.
“Romulus sorted out the messy business regarding the false name before he was sentenced and imprisoned in Azkaban; he also started the paperwork that would enable the property to be transferred to yourself on your seventeenth birthday. It has been held in trust for you until now. As you are now of age, you can finish what he started and take over the ownership of the property.”
“Do I have to?” Remus asked. It was stupid. He knew that Romulus wasn’t coming back, he was a ghost after all, but there was something rather final about signing the paperwork that would make the house his.
“It would be advisable,” Dumbledore said. “You can’t apply to get connected to the Floo Network unless the property is in your name, and then there are the bills to consider.”
“Bills?”
“Oh, yes,” Dumbledore assured him with a smile. “I’m afraid that coming of age brings with it responsibility and all sorts of expenses. Until now, the bills for your house have been paid from money out of the trust fund that Romulus set up for you. As the appointed trustee, I have been keeping things running for you for the last few years. However, once the relevant paperwork is completed, that fund will be yours to access as you wish, and you will be responsible for ensuring that the bills are paid.”
“Wait a minute?” Remus interrupted. “I have money?”
“It’s not much,” Romulus told him and Remus spun round to face him.
“Would you not creep up on me like that?” Remus snapped.
“I’ve been here nearly the whole time,” Romulus replied. “The money isn’t much, just what I saved after the bills were paid. It should be enough to cover all the essential bills until you leave school though, and maybe for six months afterwards, just until you find a job of your own and have your own income. Though to be on the safe side, you might want to consider looking for a holiday job in the summer.”
“You’ll need to notify the various establishments of your intention to take over the payments,” Dumbledore explained, waving a large pile of papers with a sigh.
“There’s a lot of them,” Remus said with a grimace.
“I’m afraid that’s always the case,” Dumbledore replied with a chuckle. “Some of them could probably wait until the summer, but others will require your immediate attention. Accio Water Services will cut off your water supply if you don’t keep up payments, which, I’m sure you’ll agree, would be rather inconvenient during the full moons. Likewise, Muggins’ Anti-Muggle Spells should be kept up. While not all Hogsmeade residences have them, most do, and in view of your condition, well, we wouldn’t want any muggles wandering up to your house during a full moon, would we?”
“No,” Remus confirmed immediately.
“I also took the liberty of obtaining the necessary application forms to get you connected to the Floo Network,” Dumbledore continued. “It normally takes about six weeks to get on the network, so you should be able to go home by floo for the full moon after this next one. I’m afraid there is a rather hefty set up fee, although the yearly payments for the connection are not as steep. Once the jar of floo powder you receive at the set up is gone, I’m afraid you’ll have to pay to replace it. I’ll let you have the details of the company who supplies the school with ours, they’re quite competitive with their pricing.”
Remus grimaced and chewed on his lip. “Can I afford the set up fee?” he asked.
Professor Dumbledore smiled. “Perhaps, as a coming of age present, you won’t mind if I pay the set up fee for you?” he suggested. “Though the rest of the payments will be your responsibility once you are connected.”
“You’d do that?” Romulus asked, echoing Remus’s own thoughts.
Dumbledore smiled and took the payment details part of the application form, filling it in as they watched.
Remus pulled his chair closer to the desk and picked up the rest of the application. Dumbledore nodded approvingly and passed Remus a quill. “Might as well get started,” he said. “Unfortunately, when it comes to this sort of thing, there is no magical way of getting the forms to write themselves. The parchment disallows such actions in order to prevent fraud.”
Remus finished the Floo Network application and then turned to the papers regarding the ownership of the house itself. He felt his hand shaking as he looked at the signature line he was supposed to be signing.
“Rem?” Romulus asked quietly.
“It seems so final,” Remus replied. “Why did you sign the house over to me as soon as you were captured?”
“Because you need it more than I do,” Romulus told him. “It’s not like I need it where I am.”
Remus frowned. “But what would have happened if you’d been released after six years? What if you hadn’t…?”
“I’d have trusted that my little brother wouldn’t turn me out onto the streets,” Romulus replied with a chuckle. “This was just a precaution to make sure that you were taken care of, in the event of something happening to me.”
“Do I have to sign it?” Remus whispered.
Romulus looked at Dumbledore, who shook his head at the unspoken question before answering the other. “I’m afraid so,” he told him. “The trust is only active until today, which means I can only act as trustee until today. If you don’t take over the responsibility for the property I’m afraid it will be repossessed within six months at the most. Hogsmeade properties are very highly sought after, and you do still need the house, and more importantly, the basement, for the foreseeable future.”
“I didn’t think that houses in the area were wanted so badly,” Remus commented as he signed the paper with a flourish and pushed it back across the desk. “If they’re that hard to get, how did Rom manage it?”
Dumbledore smiled mysteriously. “Let’s just say that as soon as I discovered that an underage wizard, with another in tow, was enquiring about properties, I made sure that your home was entirely unsuitable for every other purchaser who asked about it. It’s surprising how the prices drop when rumours start flying around.”
“Rumours you started?” Remus guessed.
Dumbledore merely smiled. “Now, the trust fund papers for Gringott’s…”
Remus slowly worked his way through the various piles of paperwork and didn’t even notice how quickly the morning was passing.
It was nearly time for lunch when he arrived at the paperwork for the Werewolf Registry.
“But I’m already registered?” Remus queried. “I saw my name in the book last summer.”
“Yes, you’re quite correct, you are indeed registered,” Dumbledore confirmed. “However, this is paperwork that you must sign to confirm that you are taking the appropriate precautions on full moon nights. You are also giving your permission to be inspected by the Ministry on full moon nights, so that they can see that you’re complying with the measures.”
“Do I have to?” Remus asked with a frown of annoyance. He didn’t want people poking around his home, especially during the full moons, it would only aggravate Moony to have strangers in the place.
“No,” Dumbledore confirmed. “But there is a Bill being passed by the Ministry, which will no doubt be in force before the end of the year, which gives them permission to inspect all werewolves in this manner, regardless of whether they have given their permission. I suspect that those who have not given their consent, will be those who are visited both first and most frequently.”
Remus turned back to the form and continued to read it. “It says that if I fail to take the appropriate precautions, I can be sent to a Dangerous Creatures’ Camp for life.”
“It does,” Dumbledore agreed. “However, I assure you that the spells at your home are more than adequate. The Camps are a last resort for those who have nowhere else to go and are therefore a danger to the rest of the population. There’s no need for you to worry about that.”
Remus nodded and signed the papers. “Next?” he asked with tired resignation.
“Have a pear drop,” Dumbledore said instead. “I did warn you it would be a rather long and tedious morning. However, there are some advantages to getting all this done now.”
Remus smiled and reached for a sweet. “Like what?” he asked.
“Well, for one thing, when the summer holiday comes, you can, if you choose, stay at Hogsmeade permanently. You won’t need permission from anyone to come and go as you please; you can also invite anyone you wish to stay with you. As a legal adult, you will have a lot more freedom, and can spend your summer however you wish.”
Remus nodded. “I got a letter from Fenrir Greyback this morning,” he suddenly found himself saying.
“I thought you might,” Dumbledore replied. “I can assure you that he has already paid your fees for next year, so nothing that happens between the two of you will threaten your place at Hogwarts. He paid all the school fees as soon your place here was confirmed.”
Remus breathed a sigh of relief, although the thought had not even occurred to him that he might have to find the money to pay his own school fees for the final year of his education.
Dumbledore nodded understandingly before he continued. “He’s asking you to visit in the summer, isn’t he?”
Remus nodded.
“You can’t go!” Romulus ordered.
“Now, now,” Dumbledore intervened. “I believe it could be good for Remus to meet the werewolf who is responsible for his condition.”
“I don’t see why,” Romulus snapped. “That monster is best left where he is, and the farther away he is from Remus, the better.”
“On the other hand, Remus has never had the chance of speaking to another werewolf before…”
“If he wants to speak to werewolves then he can visit the Werewolves Support Service at the Ministry. He doesn’t need to see Greyback.”
“I disagree,” Dumbledore said quietly.
“What could he possibly have to gain from a visit with that monster?”
“A better understanding of what he is, perhaps?”
“He knows what he is! He’s had over ten years to get used to what he is!”
“But has he?” Dumbledore countered.
“Of course he has!” Romulus shouted. It was clear to Remus that Romulus was becoming more and more angry in the face of Dumbledore’s calm demeanour.
Remus sat back in his seat as his brother proceeded to shout at Albus Dumbledore, the latter of which just sat calmly, not even so much as raising his voice.
“Romulus,” Dumbledore said quietly, when it seemed that Romulus had finally run out of steam. “Remus deals with his Lycanthropy remarkably, but I do not believe that he has completely accepted what he is.”
“He’s a bloody werewolf! He knows that!”
“Of course he does,” Dumbledore agreed. “That isn’t what I meant. Remus sees himself as a monster because of his Lycanthropy. He has yet to realise that just as there are good and bad amongst wizards and witches, there is also good and bad amongst the werewolves of this world.”
“The wolf is a monster,” Remus interrupted. “I know that, but it doesn’t mean I’ll become like Greyback.”
“No,” Dumbledore agreed. “I don’t believe you will. But you still struggle to accept the werewolf part of you.”
“What do you suggest?” Remus asked. “I can’t let the wolf run free and attack people, the only thing I can do is lock myself up when the full moon rises.”
“I’m not suggesting you do anything different with regard to your security. The Ministry regulations are for the safety of everyone, including yourself. But Remus, you are a werewolf, and the wolf is going to be a part of you for the rest of your life, you cannot continue to hate it as much as you do.”
“How do you know I hate it?” Remus interrupted.
“Because you just told me so,” Dumbledore replied with a small, rather smug smile. “The wolf is a part of you and if you don’t accept it, it will eventually drive you mad. The wolf will sense your anger and resentment towards it, and will punish you each time the full moon rises.”
“What do you mean?” Remus whispered.
“You’re an adult now,” Dumbledore explained. “This means that the wolf is also fully matured, and it will be even more attuned to your feelings. You will already have found that when you are upset or angry the wolf is more violent…”
Remus nodded. “When I’ve had a fight with Sirius, it gets pretty angry.”
“Exactly,” Dumbledore said. “How was the full moon the first month after you didn’t receive your Hogwarts invitation?”
“Bad,” Romulus replied for him.
“I’m not surprised,” Dumbledore said. “Remus, you are going to be facing prejudices at every turn. You will find yourself struggling to find work because of your Lycanthropy. You will find that your life will always need to be arranged to fit around the full moons, and it won’t always be convenient. The resentment will grow with each rejection and with each missed opportunity. The part of you that is the wolf will sense that resentment and, if you don’t learn to accept what you are, it will eventually kill you.”
Remus paled as he looked at the headmaster.
“There’s no need to scare him like that!” Romulus snapped.
“There’s every need,” Dumbledore replied firmly. “I understand why you’ve never explained this to him, it’s hard to determine when a child is capable of understanding something as complex as Lycanthropy. But if the full ramifications aren’t explained to him, it puts him in even more danger.”
“He still doesn’t need to see Greyback!” Romulus huffed.
“Although the decision is Remus’s to make, I disagree,” Dumbledore said. “He needs to know that the monster isn’t necessarily the wolf inside the man, but sometimes it’s the man himself. He cannot truly know that until he sees him for himself.”
“He can see his Registry record,” Romulus argued.
“I already have,” Remus interrupted. “I saw it last summer.”
“Is there anything you weren’t snooping into last summer?” Romulus asked with a trace of his usual humour.
“Didn’t get much chance to meddle in your love life,” Remus teased in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Romulus rolled his eyes. “I can’t come with you to the Camp,” he said. “They have wards up to keep out spirits in case we antagonise the inmates.”
“Residents,” Dumbledore amended. “They prefer to call them residents.”
“Whatever,” Romulus muttered. “I still can’t get inside the perimeter. There’s a barrier about fifty feet away from the grounds in every direction except north, where the barrier stops at the stream, about forty feet away.”
“That’s rather specific,” Dumbledore commented with a smile.
Romulus looked suitably guilty as he admitted that he had tried to get inside the Camp to see Greyback for himself.
Remus chuckled as Romulus found himself under the scrutiny of Dumbledore, almost as if he were a student who had been caught getting into mischief.
Eventually, Romulus sat back down in his seat and sulkily agreed that it was for Remus to make the decision as to whether he visited Greyback or not.
“I’m not going to decide right away,” Remus said. “I need some time to think about it first.”
His reply at last brought Dumbledore and Romulus to agreement. He just wished that he knew whether going to see Greyback was a good thing or a bad.
He was curious about the werewolf who had bitten him, and he knew that he would never get answers to his questions through the letters they exchanged. But he didn’t know whether he would like those answers or not.
Now, in addition to his curiosity, he had the conflicting views of Dumbledore and Romulus to consider. He trusted both of them, but now that they were giving him different advice he didn’t know which one to listen to.
“Rem?” Romulus said as Remus made his way to the Great Hall to get some lunch.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want you to visit Greyback,” Romulus began, holding up his hand to cut off Remus’s reply before he could make it. “But if you want to see him that badly, don’t let me be the only thing stopping you.”
Remus nodded. “Thanks, Rom.”
Romulus glided along the corridor with Remus, at least until Myrtle appeared at the far end of the hallway, cooing in eagerness when she spotted him.
“Hi, Myrtle!” Remus called.
“You little git!” Romulus hissed as he high-tailed it back the way they had come.
Remus laughed as Myrtle continued her pursuit, and he was still chuckling when he sat down in the Great Hall with his friends.
“So, what did Dumbledore want?” Sirius asked.
“He’d organised a birthday party for me,” Remus teased.
“Funny!”
“Nah, just a lot of paperwork to sort out because of coming of age. Boring property issues, bills and application forms. Thoroughly tedious.”
“Did you ask him about Greyback?”
“Yeah. He and Rom both told me what they thought about the idea of visiting him.”
“And?”
“And Dumbledore says yes, while Rom says no. I don’t know whose opinion to trust.”
Sirius nodded in understanding and Remus watched him for a moment. Then he realised that he had come to value Sirius’s opinion just as much as those of the other two men. “What do you think?” he asked.
Sirius smiled. “I don’t know. But if you want me to go with you when you visit, I’ll be right beside you.”
“Thanks.” Remus turned to his lunch. “You want to come and stay at my place this summer?” he asked casually.
“You mean at Hogwarts?” Sirius replied, slightly confused.
“No, Hogsmeade,” Remus answered with a grin. “I don’t have to stay here during the summer any more. I can live at home. Isn’t it great?”
Sirius looked dubious. “The place is kind of messy, isn’t it? Only the downstairs ever gets used, and not even all of that.”
“Guess my project for the summer is fixing it up then, isn’t it?” Remus said with a grin. “So, fancy helping me make the place liveable?”
“Let me see…” Sirius replied with mock seriousness. “Sitting through boring dinner parties and listening to my parents ranting on incessantly, or hanging out at your place… which should I choose?”
“You think they’d let you stay the whole summer?” Remus asked.
“I doubt it,” Sirius replied. “And, I don’t like to leave Regulus alone there all summer.”
“He could visit, too.”
Sirius grinned. “I’ll write and let him know then.”
“Even if you can’t stay all summer, maybe you could stay here at the start of the holidays,” Remus suggested. He had not been looking forward to watching everyone else leave from Hogsmeade Station again, and at least this way the person he would miss the most would be waving the train off with him.
“What’s this about the summer?” Charlene asked as she spied Remus from further down the table and moved places to talk to him.
“Just making arrangements for Sirius to visit me in the summer,” Remus explained. “Dumbledore says I can stay at my place in Hogsmeade during the holidays now that I’m of age.”
“That’s great,” Charlene replied enthusiastically. “I wonder if my parents would let me come visit, too.”
Remus shrugged, ashamed that he hadn’t even thought of asking Charlene to visit as well. “You’ll have to write and ask them,” he said, trying to ignore Sirius’s expression of misery at his offer.
It wasn’t until the summer, he reasoned. There was plenty of time before then for Sirius, and himself, to come to terms with the idea of Charlene staying over.
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Chapter 45