[Kaleidoscope update] Colours Under the Moon
This busy fall has not been conducive to fic-writing, sadly. But the long Thanksgiving weekend finally gave me a chance to finish the Kaleidoscope chapter I started at the end of the summer. This one takes place near the beginning of HBP, right after Now Wait for the Tide to Turn.
This chapter actually involved an interesting coincidence of timing. Reading over the Christmas Eve scene in HBP, where Remus tells Harry that he had not known for many years that Greyback was the werewolf who bit him, made me wonder just how Remus found out about that -- so this was going to be the chapter with the Greyback revelation. And then, just when I had barely begun drafting an outline for this, the Pottermore bio came out, chock-full of details about Lyall Lupin and Greyback and just what it was that happened to Remus when he was bitten. So, although Kaleidoscope-verse will not be taking into account any of the new Pottermore details of Remus and Tonks's relationship from OotP through DH -- because this is my version of how that all happened -- I did decide to make Remus's childhood compatible with the Pottermore backstory.
(Also: Bonus points to anyone who figures out what the chapter title is supposed to mean, and double bonus points for anyone who figures out a better way to achieve that, heh.)
Colours Under the Moon
Tonks dumped her satchel on the floor of her little bedroom and hung her Auror robes carefully in the wardrobe. Then she pulled open a drawer and rummaged through her T-shirts, looking for something particularly cheerful.
Remus had asked her to smuggle a copy of Fenrir Greyback’s file out of the Auror Department. She had agreed at once, without giving it much thought. After all, one of her main functions in the Order was to spirit information out of the Ministry as needed.
But then, skulking in the dimly lit files vault after hours as she waited for the untraceable copying spell she’d learned from Mad-Eye to finish its job, she’d read some of the pages from Greyback’s file.
Nasty characters were all in a day’s work, for an Auror. Tonks had seen quite a few already in her handful of years on the force. But what she’d glimpsed just from flipping through the Auror reports on the most notorious werewolf in Britain was enough to make her take deep gulping breaths and swallow bile.
She really, really didn’t want to think about why Remus needed this particular information just now. Hagrid, after all, had been sent to negotiate with the giants-
“Aha.” Her fingers closed around a fluorescent-green Weird Sisters concert T-shirt, which she pulled on in place of the staid button-down shirt she’d been wearing under her work robes.
“A bit bright, isn’t it, dearie?” opined the mirror that hung on the wall.
This mirror, in her room in the Aurors’ hired cottage in Hogsmeade, obviously hadn’t seen anything yet. Tonks turned around to stick an impudent tongue out at it.
But when she caught sight of her own reflection, she stopped and stared.
She’d changed her hair to bubble-gum pink as soon as she left the Ministry, in anticipation of this evening. She knew she had. Pink was, she strongly suspected, Remus’s favourite of her habitual hair colours, for all that he chose his own clothes in such drab and unobtrusive shades. It was her own favourite, anyhow.
Now her hair had faded to a sort of pale strawberry, with some of the natural brown showing through. And the spikes drooped.
Tonks frowned.
Maybe she wasn’t as fully recovered from Bellatrix’s hex as she’d thought. But it was already more than a week since she’d been let out of St. Mungo’s.
She wrinkled her nose and pushed bright pink from the roots of her hair to the tips of her spikes.
“Goodness,” said the mirror. “Really? With the green shirt?”
This time Tonks did stick her tongue out, before scooping up her satchel and thumping downstairs to the Floo.
~ * ~
“Wotcher!”
Tonks lurched out of the Floo into Remus’s flat (catching herself just before she went sprawling) and found him sitting at his table, reading through a stack of parchment covered in his own neat, square handwriting.
She looked him over, trying to be quick and subtle about it. The last time she’d been here, only two nights ago, he’d been off his face on pain potions, recovering from the worst transformation she’d ever seen him have.
“Hello, Tonks.” Remus looked up and smiled. But it was a swift careful smile, not the warm, open smile she missed so much. Careful was no good-the last thing she needed was for him to be overthinking things again.
And she did wish he hadn’t stopped calling her Nymphadora. Even if she’d rather cut her own tongue out than admit it.
He started to stand.
“Don’t get up,” she said quickly, slipping into the chair next to his and dropping her satchel on the floor at her feet. “How are you feeling? You look better today.” He did; even the black eye and the swollen jaw had healed, and his arm was out of the sling.
“I’m all right, thank you.” His eyes were warm now, for all that his smile, still careful, was a little bit sad.
That particular combination was her utter undoing.
“Well, I’m not.” Her voice wobbled. “I want to kiss you so much it’s driving me completely barmy.” She leaned toward him, curling her hand around his. “Especially since I know perfectly well you want to kiss me, too, no matter how many times you tell yourself it’s not allowed.”
He swallowed, hard, and disentangled his fingers from hers, shifting back a little in his chair. “Don’t, Tonks. Please. Don’t make this more difficult for us than it has to be.”
“I’m not the one who’s bloody well making things difficult!” She threaded her fingers through her hair instead, squeezing until her scalp burned, because, contrarily, it kept the tears at bay. She would not cry. “It’s you who keeps pushing me away!”
He froze, eyes wide, and started to reach for her after all, before he caught himself and jerked his hand back, clenching his fingers into a fist. “No-never that-I don’t mean to push you away. Your friendship means everything to me. I-” He swallowed again, visibly forcing himself to hold her gaze. “May I still keep that?”
Tonks tried to breathe, hypnotised by the flicker of raw longing she saw hiding behind the pain and resolve in his eyes.
It was an enormous temptation to back him all the way into the corner. To say no, we can’t just be friends any longer-it’s love between us, or it’s nothing. If keeping her friendship was as important to him as he said it was, she could use it as a bargaining chip, to win them what they both truly wanted-
But that was dangerous. Remus being Remus, there was a very good chance he would decide he had to plump for the nothing. She couldn’t risk that-not when he’d just lost Sirius. Not when whatever he was working on for the Order had him asking her to smuggle Fenrir Greyback’s file out of the Ministry. She couldn’t bear to take this one last source of support away from him.
Or, to be perfectly honest, from herself.
So she sighed, and folded her hands in front of her on the table so she would remember not to try to touch him. “Of course you have my friendship. It’s important to me, too, you daft prat. Don’t ever forget that.”
The flash of relief that crossed his face made her blink very hard for a second or two.
Right, then. She would keep hold of Remus’s friendship, for now, and make sure that he knew he had hers.
This did not mean that she was giving up on trying to talk him round.
~ * ~
“Let me make you some tea,” said Remus. “I have some rather nice Darjeeling now, as you know.”
Tonks looked up and caught the bitter edge of his smile just before he smoothed it over into blandness again. Bloody stubborn pride. What good was having friends, if they couldn’t give you a hand from time to time?
“I’m glad you like it,” she said, simply. “It’s one of my favourites, and I thought it might be just the thing while you were recovering from the moon.”
“It has been, thank you,” he said, less stiffly now, and he even gave her a shadow of a real grin.
She had to sit on her hands to keep from reaching out to touch him again.
He stood, then, and turned to his kitchen cupboard. The familiar ritual was back this time-he heated water and measured scoops of tea into his little teapot with utmost care, and did not cast the Steeping Charm.
Tonks drew a careful breath and let it out again. At least she had found a way to give him back something that he’d had at Grimmauld Place.
Remus floated two fragrant cups of tea over to the table and followed, lowering himself creakily into his seat. They sipped for a moment, in appreciative silence, and Tonks even got to see the tiny little blissful smile that sometimes slipped out when Remus was drinking nice tea.
But then he squared his shoulders and set his cup carefully down on his saucer. “Were you able to make a copy of anything from Greyback’s file at the Ministry?”
The Darjeeling turned acrid in her mouth.
She nodded, swallowing her tea hastily, and bent down to dig through her satchel. “I got all of it.” She surfaced with a bulging file, stuffed with magical copies of creased and yellowed sheets of parchment. “It’s-ruddy awful, frankly. I knew Greyback was on the Ministry’s Most Wanted list, but I had no idea he was so-so-vile. And I haven’t even read half of what’s in here.”
“Yes,” said Remus, quietly, still gazing into his teacup. “He’s a nasty one, indeed.”
The stiff edges of the file bit into her fingers as she gripped it, oddly reluctant to hand it over. “Is this for a mission, then?”
Remus looked up, meeting her eyes at last. His grim expression was her answer.
“You’re going off to negotiate with him.” Tonks shivered. “Like Hagrid did with the giants.”
“Not exactly.” Remus huffed something sharp and bitter that he had probably meant as a laugh. “I don’t think there’s any point in trying to negotiate with Greyback, given his history, and what I’ve seen this last week or so.”
“What you’ve seen?”
He gestured at the notes he’d been reading through when she’d arrived. “Dumbledore has had me on a surveillance mission.”
“You’ve been out in the wood with Greyback’s pack?” With no backup? Tonks clutched the file even more tightly, to keep her hands from shaking. Greyback had killed a couple of Hit Wizards from the Ministry in the first war. Had torn their throats out, if she remembered correctly. And that wasn’t at the full moon.
“I’ve been using one of Moody’s Invisibility Cloaks, of course.” Remus shrugged. “Even with the Cloak, I haven’t been able to get close enough to hear them talking, but I’ve begun to put together some idea of the structure of the pack.” He drew a deep breath. “The plan is for me to infiltrate the group-pretend I’ve given up trying to live as a normal wizard-and do whatever I can to stop the other werewolves from following Greyback over to the Death Eaters. I’ll be able to keep the Order informed about what the pack is up to, as well.”
“You mean to say you’re going to go and live out there? It could be months.” Tonks huddled into herself, wrapping her arms around her middle. Remus had spent his life fighting an uphill battle against his condition, gradually losing everything he’d ever had except his pride and his humanity. And now Dumbledore was sending him off to throw his lot in with a pack of rough, destitute, likely violent werewolves. At least one of whom was undeniably a monster, in ways that had nothing to do with lycanthropy itself and everything to do with how Greyback used his affliction.
A lock of hair-limp and mousy-brown-drooped over one eye. She scowled, forcing her hair to go pink and spiky again.
It took more effort than she’d expected.
“I’m ony doing what is necessary.” Remus set his jaw. “If there is anything at all that will stop Greyback’s werewolves from fighting on Voldemort’s side, then I must do it, no matter what it takes. And I’m the only one in the Order who can.”
His voice was steady. Calm. And he was right, of course. The mission was essential, and he was the only Order member in a position to carry it out.
But his eyes were so bleak.
Tonks shivered, again.
Remus must have seen it, because he gave her a little half-smile that wasn’t even bitter, and his eyes warmed a little. “It’s all right, truly. I’ve lived rough plenty of times before. These werewolves actually have a roof over their heads, and they keep themselves fed. It won’t be so bad-there’s really no need to worry.”
She blinked at him in utter disbelief. No need to-
“Greyback goes after children, Remus. On purpose. He’s been doing it since at least-” she flipped to the back of the file-“1962. Although it seems they didn’t know it was him, at first-these early reports were all filed much later than the incidents themselves.”
“Yes.” Remus’s voice was still mild, but Tonks could see that his fingers were clenched around his teacup. “I understand Voldemort was quite interested in him the first time around, as well, although for reasons the Order never understood, Greyback kept his distance back then.”
“He plans his attacks,” she said. “He deliberately places himself where he knows he can do damage, and waits for the moon to rise. That’s just appalling.”
“Indeed,” said Remus, staring fixedly at the table again. “One of the many well-known facts about Fenrir Greyback.”
Tonks could only imagine what he was thinking, this man for whom infecting an innocent person with lycanthropy was the most hellish fate imaginable.
She turned a few pages. “Bloody hell. Listen to this one-‘16th February, 1965. St. Mellons, South Glamorgan, Wales. Victim male, age four. Greyback entered dwelling through bedroom window prior to full moon and attacked victim after transforming.’” She drew a shaky breath. “‘Victim’s father was able to drive Greyback out before attack turned fatal, but victim was infected.’” She bit her lip. “The poor kid was only four-”
“That can’t be right-”
Tonks looked up to find that Remus had gone whiter than chalk.
“St. Mellons?” he rasped. “In-February of 1965-?”
His teacup rattled dangerously when he dropped it into his saucer. His right hand went to his left shoulder, and his thumb rubbed at a spot just above his collarbone.
No-oh, bloody hell-no-
Tonks felt the colour drain from her own face. She forced herself to keep reading, even though her throat had gone completely dry.
“‘Victim bitten on left shoulder,’” she whispered. “‘Skin lacerated, muscles badly torn, clavicle fractured.’”
She looked up again, straight into Remus’s horrified gaze.
~ * ~
“May I see that?” Remus’s voice was very quiet, and very nearly steady.
Tonks, struck speechless for once, passed him the wrinkled piece of parchment. There was only one sentence left, in any case.
This report filed 3 March 1971 by A.P.B.W. Dumbledore on behalf of the victim’s father, who wishes to remain anonymous.
Reading over Remus’s shoulder put Tonks close enough to see that he was shaking. Without thinking, she reached out and covered his hand with hers. But as soon as she felt his skin under her fingers, warm and rough and trembling, she braced herself for him to pull away again.
He didn’t.
He turned his wrist a little and closed his hand around hers, almost tightly enough to hurt.
Tonks breathed a sigh that was half a sob, and covered their joined hands with her other one. Holding on.
He’d been four.
“I should have realised,” said Remus, hoarsely. “It was the screaming that woke me-the ungodly, blood-curdling screaming.”
He was flat-out shivering now.
“I always thought the werewolf who bit me must have been roaming loose that night by some horrible chance. That he’d only bitten me because the wolf had taken over his mind. I-pitied him.”
Tonks kept a tight hold on Remus’s hand with both of hers, and scooted her chair closer to his until their arms touched. He leaned into her.
“I should have realised.” His free hand found his left shoulder again, rubbing fretfully at that spot above his collarbone. “It wasn’t howling, not at first-it was screaming. It could only have been a werewolf in the throes of the transformation. He had to have come inside before moonrise.” He drew a shuddering breath. “I can’t believe I never saw that.”
“You had no reason to see it,” said Tonks, softly. “Why would you ever think that Fenrir Greyback had attacked you deliberately?”
“Greyback,” Remus whispered, staring at the case report. “It was Greyback who did this to me. My father-” His voice broke. “My father never told me.”
“Dumbledore knew!” Tonks spat the words, suddenly furious. “He knew, and he never told you either, and now he wants to send you straight to Greyback-”
Remus gave his head a sharp shake, as though trying to clear it. “I think-I think he would have told me, now that it matters. He knew I was going to ask you for the file. Surely he would have suggested that himself if I hadn’t thought of it.” He brushed a finger over the date at the bottom of the case report. “March, 1971. That would have been when Dumbledore came to talk my parents into letting me go to Hogwarts.” He tried to smile, but it was a twisted thing. “I suppose my father told him then.”
“You can’t go through with this mission, Remus. What if Greyback works out who you are?” Tonks could hardly force the words out. “Will he want to-to-finish what he started?”
“From what I’ve heard, I think he’ll be more likely to welcome me into the fold.” Remus’s voice was decidedly bitter, now. “He made me, after all.”
“He did not.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “He’s had nothing to do with the clever, funny, kind man you are.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Remus straightened his spine, sitting tall in his chair, pulling away from where she sat leaning into him. “I’ll be one of his pack now, regardless.”
He drew his hand out from between hers, leaving her hands cold and empty.
“Can you really do this?” A whisper was all she could manage. “Can you look him in the eye-can you live alongside him-knowing he’s the one who’s caused you so much pain all your life?”
Remus pressed his lips together. “There’s still no choice. Nothing about this war has changed, just because I know now what happened to me more than thirty years ago.” He drew a deliberate breath. “And this mission is nothing compared to the dangers you and Kingsley and the other Aurors have to face every day. Certainly nothing compared to what Severus has to endure, every time Voldemort summons him. I must do my part as well.”
His jaw was set, his eyes resolute, his hands curled into fists.
Even so, Tonks could still feel him shaking.
And then her hair came down, all of it, the jaunty pink spikes melting into dull brown strands that flopped into her face.
She closed her eyes, and clenched her teeth, and pushed with all her will.
She couldn’t change it back.
~ * ~
[ Kaleidoscope series index ]
.
This chapter actually involved an interesting coincidence of timing. Reading over the Christmas Eve scene in HBP, where Remus tells Harry that he had not known for many years that Greyback was the werewolf who bit him, made me wonder just how Remus found out about that -- so this was going to be the chapter with the Greyback revelation. And then, just when I had barely begun drafting an outline for this, the Pottermore bio came out, chock-full of details about Lyall Lupin and Greyback and just what it was that happened to Remus when he was bitten. So, although Kaleidoscope-verse will not be taking into account any of the new Pottermore details of Remus and Tonks's relationship from OotP through DH -- because this is my version of how that all happened -- I did decide to make Remus's childhood compatible with the Pottermore backstory.
(Also: Bonus points to anyone who figures out what the chapter title is supposed to mean, and double bonus points for anyone who figures out a better way to achieve that, heh.)
- Colours Under the Moon (3090 words | PG/mild profanity)
The more Tonks learns about Remus's mission to infiltrate Greyback's pack, the more reasons she has to worry.
Colours Under the Moon
Tonks dumped her satchel on the floor of her little bedroom and hung her Auror robes carefully in the wardrobe. Then she pulled open a drawer and rummaged through her T-shirts, looking for something particularly cheerful.
Remus had asked her to smuggle a copy of Fenrir Greyback’s file out of the Auror Department. She had agreed at once, without giving it much thought. After all, one of her main functions in the Order was to spirit information out of the Ministry as needed.
But then, skulking in the dimly lit files vault after hours as she waited for the untraceable copying spell she’d learned from Mad-Eye to finish its job, she’d read some of the pages from Greyback’s file.
Nasty characters were all in a day’s work, for an Auror. Tonks had seen quite a few already in her handful of years on the force. But what she’d glimpsed just from flipping through the Auror reports on the most notorious werewolf in Britain was enough to make her take deep gulping breaths and swallow bile.
She really, really didn’t want to think about why Remus needed this particular information just now. Hagrid, after all, had been sent to negotiate with the giants-
“Aha.” Her fingers closed around a fluorescent-green Weird Sisters concert T-shirt, which she pulled on in place of the staid button-down shirt she’d been wearing under her work robes.
“A bit bright, isn’t it, dearie?” opined the mirror that hung on the wall.
This mirror, in her room in the Aurors’ hired cottage in Hogsmeade, obviously hadn’t seen anything yet. Tonks turned around to stick an impudent tongue out at it.
But when she caught sight of her own reflection, she stopped and stared.
She’d changed her hair to bubble-gum pink as soon as she left the Ministry, in anticipation of this evening. She knew she had. Pink was, she strongly suspected, Remus’s favourite of her habitual hair colours, for all that he chose his own clothes in such drab and unobtrusive shades. It was her own favourite, anyhow.
Now her hair had faded to a sort of pale strawberry, with some of the natural brown showing through. And the spikes drooped.
Tonks frowned.
Maybe she wasn’t as fully recovered from Bellatrix’s hex as she’d thought. But it was already more than a week since she’d been let out of St. Mungo’s.
She wrinkled her nose and pushed bright pink from the roots of her hair to the tips of her spikes.
“Goodness,” said the mirror. “Really? With the green shirt?”
This time Tonks did stick her tongue out, before scooping up her satchel and thumping downstairs to the Floo.
~ * ~
“Wotcher!”
Tonks lurched out of the Floo into Remus’s flat (catching herself just before she went sprawling) and found him sitting at his table, reading through a stack of parchment covered in his own neat, square handwriting.
She looked him over, trying to be quick and subtle about it. The last time she’d been here, only two nights ago, he’d been off his face on pain potions, recovering from the worst transformation she’d ever seen him have.
“Hello, Tonks.” Remus looked up and smiled. But it was a swift careful smile, not the warm, open smile she missed so much. Careful was no good-the last thing she needed was for him to be overthinking things again.
And she did wish he hadn’t stopped calling her Nymphadora. Even if she’d rather cut her own tongue out than admit it.
He started to stand.
“Don’t get up,” she said quickly, slipping into the chair next to his and dropping her satchel on the floor at her feet. “How are you feeling? You look better today.” He did; even the black eye and the swollen jaw had healed, and his arm was out of the sling.
“I’m all right, thank you.” His eyes were warm now, for all that his smile, still careful, was a little bit sad.
That particular combination was her utter undoing.
“Well, I’m not.” Her voice wobbled. “I want to kiss you so much it’s driving me completely barmy.” She leaned toward him, curling her hand around his. “Especially since I know perfectly well you want to kiss me, too, no matter how many times you tell yourself it’s not allowed.”
He swallowed, hard, and disentangled his fingers from hers, shifting back a little in his chair. “Don’t, Tonks. Please. Don’t make this more difficult for us than it has to be.”
“I’m not the one who’s bloody well making things difficult!” She threaded her fingers through her hair instead, squeezing until her scalp burned, because, contrarily, it kept the tears at bay. She would not cry. “It’s you who keeps pushing me away!”
He froze, eyes wide, and started to reach for her after all, before he caught himself and jerked his hand back, clenching his fingers into a fist. “No-never that-I don’t mean to push you away. Your friendship means everything to me. I-” He swallowed again, visibly forcing himself to hold her gaze. “May I still keep that?”
Tonks tried to breathe, hypnotised by the flicker of raw longing she saw hiding behind the pain and resolve in his eyes.
It was an enormous temptation to back him all the way into the corner. To say no, we can’t just be friends any longer-it’s love between us, or it’s nothing. If keeping her friendship was as important to him as he said it was, she could use it as a bargaining chip, to win them what they both truly wanted-
But that was dangerous. Remus being Remus, there was a very good chance he would decide he had to plump for the nothing. She couldn’t risk that-not when he’d just lost Sirius. Not when whatever he was working on for the Order had him asking her to smuggle Fenrir Greyback’s file out of the Ministry. She couldn’t bear to take this one last source of support away from him.
Or, to be perfectly honest, from herself.
So she sighed, and folded her hands in front of her on the table so she would remember not to try to touch him. “Of course you have my friendship. It’s important to me, too, you daft prat. Don’t ever forget that.”
The flash of relief that crossed his face made her blink very hard for a second or two.
Right, then. She would keep hold of Remus’s friendship, for now, and make sure that he knew he had hers.
This did not mean that she was giving up on trying to talk him round.
~ * ~
“Let me make you some tea,” said Remus. “I have some rather nice Darjeeling now, as you know.”
Tonks looked up and caught the bitter edge of his smile just before he smoothed it over into blandness again. Bloody stubborn pride. What good was having friends, if they couldn’t give you a hand from time to time?
“I’m glad you like it,” she said, simply. “It’s one of my favourites, and I thought it might be just the thing while you were recovering from the moon.”
“It has been, thank you,” he said, less stiffly now, and he even gave her a shadow of a real grin.
She had to sit on her hands to keep from reaching out to touch him again.
He stood, then, and turned to his kitchen cupboard. The familiar ritual was back this time-he heated water and measured scoops of tea into his little teapot with utmost care, and did not cast the Steeping Charm.
Tonks drew a careful breath and let it out again. At least she had found a way to give him back something that he’d had at Grimmauld Place.
Remus floated two fragrant cups of tea over to the table and followed, lowering himself creakily into his seat. They sipped for a moment, in appreciative silence, and Tonks even got to see the tiny little blissful smile that sometimes slipped out when Remus was drinking nice tea.
But then he squared his shoulders and set his cup carefully down on his saucer. “Were you able to make a copy of anything from Greyback’s file at the Ministry?”
The Darjeeling turned acrid in her mouth.
She nodded, swallowing her tea hastily, and bent down to dig through her satchel. “I got all of it.” She surfaced with a bulging file, stuffed with magical copies of creased and yellowed sheets of parchment. “It’s-ruddy awful, frankly. I knew Greyback was on the Ministry’s Most Wanted list, but I had no idea he was so-so-vile. And I haven’t even read half of what’s in here.”
“Yes,” said Remus, quietly, still gazing into his teacup. “He’s a nasty one, indeed.”
The stiff edges of the file bit into her fingers as she gripped it, oddly reluctant to hand it over. “Is this for a mission, then?”
Remus looked up, meeting her eyes at last. His grim expression was her answer.
“You’re going off to negotiate with him.” Tonks shivered. “Like Hagrid did with the giants.”
“Not exactly.” Remus huffed something sharp and bitter that he had probably meant as a laugh. “I don’t think there’s any point in trying to negotiate with Greyback, given his history, and what I’ve seen this last week or so.”
“What you’ve seen?”
He gestured at the notes he’d been reading through when she’d arrived. “Dumbledore has had me on a surveillance mission.”
“You’ve been out in the wood with Greyback’s pack?” With no backup? Tonks clutched the file even more tightly, to keep her hands from shaking. Greyback had killed a couple of Hit Wizards from the Ministry in the first war. Had torn their throats out, if she remembered correctly. And that wasn’t at the full moon.
“I’ve been using one of Moody’s Invisibility Cloaks, of course.” Remus shrugged. “Even with the Cloak, I haven’t been able to get close enough to hear them talking, but I’ve begun to put together some idea of the structure of the pack.” He drew a deep breath. “The plan is for me to infiltrate the group-pretend I’ve given up trying to live as a normal wizard-and do whatever I can to stop the other werewolves from following Greyback over to the Death Eaters. I’ll be able to keep the Order informed about what the pack is up to, as well.”
“You mean to say you’re going to go and live out there? It could be months.” Tonks huddled into herself, wrapping her arms around her middle. Remus had spent his life fighting an uphill battle against his condition, gradually losing everything he’d ever had except his pride and his humanity. And now Dumbledore was sending him off to throw his lot in with a pack of rough, destitute, likely violent werewolves. At least one of whom was undeniably a monster, in ways that had nothing to do with lycanthropy itself and everything to do with how Greyback used his affliction.
A lock of hair-limp and mousy-brown-drooped over one eye. She scowled, forcing her hair to go pink and spiky again.
It took more effort than she’d expected.
“I’m ony doing what is necessary.” Remus set his jaw. “If there is anything at all that will stop Greyback’s werewolves from fighting on Voldemort’s side, then I must do it, no matter what it takes. And I’m the only one in the Order who can.”
His voice was steady. Calm. And he was right, of course. The mission was essential, and he was the only Order member in a position to carry it out.
But his eyes were so bleak.
Tonks shivered, again.
Remus must have seen it, because he gave her a little half-smile that wasn’t even bitter, and his eyes warmed a little. “It’s all right, truly. I’ve lived rough plenty of times before. These werewolves actually have a roof over their heads, and they keep themselves fed. It won’t be so bad-there’s really no need to worry.”
She blinked at him in utter disbelief. No need to-
“Greyback goes after children, Remus. On purpose. He’s been doing it since at least-” she flipped to the back of the file-“1962. Although it seems they didn’t know it was him, at first-these early reports were all filed much later than the incidents themselves.”
“Yes.” Remus’s voice was still mild, but Tonks could see that his fingers were clenched around his teacup. “I understand Voldemort was quite interested in him the first time around, as well, although for reasons the Order never understood, Greyback kept his distance back then.”
“He plans his attacks,” she said. “He deliberately places himself where he knows he can do damage, and waits for the moon to rise. That’s just appalling.”
“Indeed,” said Remus, staring fixedly at the table again. “One of the many well-known facts about Fenrir Greyback.”
Tonks could only imagine what he was thinking, this man for whom infecting an innocent person with lycanthropy was the most hellish fate imaginable.
She turned a few pages. “Bloody hell. Listen to this one-‘16th February, 1965. St. Mellons, South Glamorgan, Wales. Victim male, age four. Greyback entered dwelling through bedroom window prior to full moon and attacked victim after transforming.’” She drew a shaky breath. “‘Victim’s father was able to drive Greyback out before attack turned fatal, but victim was infected.’” She bit her lip. “The poor kid was only four-”
“That can’t be right-”
Tonks looked up to find that Remus had gone whiter than chalk.
“St. Mellons?” he rasped. “In-February of 1965-?”
His teacup rattled dangerously when he dropped it into his saucer. His right hand went to his left shoulder, and his thumb rubbed at a spot just above his collarbone.
No-oh, bloody hell-no-
Tonks felt the colour drain from her own face. She forced herself to keep reading, even though her throat had gone completely dry.
“‘Victim bitten on left shoulder,’” she whispered. “‘Skin lacerated, muscles badly torn, clavicle fractured.’”
She looked up again, straight into Remus’s horrified gaze.
~ * ~
“May I see that?” Remus’s voice was very quiet, and very nearly steady.
Tonks, struck speechless for once, passed him the wrinkled piece of parchment. There was only one sentence left, in any case.
This report filed 3 March 1971 by A.P.B.W. Dumbledore on behalf of the victim’s father, who wishes to remain anonymous.
Reading over Remus’s shoulder put Tonks close enough to see that he was shaking. Without thinking, she reached out and covered his hand with hers. But as soon as she felt his skin under her fingers, warm and rough and trembling, she braced herself for him to pull away again.
He didn’t.
He turned his wrist a little and closed his hand around hers, almost tightly enough to hurt.
Tonks breathed a sigh that was half a sob, and covered their joined hands with her other one. Holding on.
He’d been four.
“I should have realised,” said Remus, hoarsely. “It was the screaming that woke me-the ungodly, blood-curdling screaming.”
He was flat-out shivering now.
“I always thought the werewolf who bit me must have been roaming loose that night by some horrible chance. That he’d only bitten me because the wolf had taken over his mind. I-pitied him.”
Tonks kept a tight hold on Remus’s hand with both of hers, and scooted her chair closer to his until their arms touched. He leaned into her.
“I should have realised.” His free hand found his left shoulder again, rubbing fretfully at that spot above his collarbone. “It wasn’t howling, not at first-it was screaming. It could only have been a werewolf in the throes of the transformation. He had to have come inside before moonrise.” He drew a shuddering breath. “I can’t believe I never saw that.”
“You had no reason to see it,” said Tonks, softly. “Why would you ever think that Fenrir Greyback had attacked you deliberately?”
“Greyback,” Remus whispered, staring at the case report. “It was Greyback who did this to me. My father-” His voice broke. “My father never told me.”
“Dumbledore knew!” Tonks spat the words, suddenly furious. “He knew, and he never told you either, and now he wants to send you straight to Greyback-”
Remus gave his head a sharp shake, as though trying to clear it. “I think-I think he would have told me, now that it matters. He knew I was going to ask you for the file. Surely he would have suggested that himself if I hadn’t thought of it.” He brushed a finger over the date at the bottom of the case report. “March, 1971. That would have been when Dumbledore came to talk my parents into letting me go to Hogwarts.” He tried to smile, but it was a twisted thing. “I suppose my father told him then.”
“You can’t go through with this mission, Remus. What if Greyback works out who you are?” Tonks could hardly force the words out. “Will he want to-to-finish what he started?”
“From what I’ve heard, I think he’ll be more likely to welcome me into the fold.” Remus’s voice was decidedly bitter, now. “He made me, after all.”
“He did not.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “He’s had nothing to do with the clever, funny, kind man you are.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Remus straightened his spine, sitting tall in his chair, pulling away from where she sat leaning into him. “I’ll be one of his pack now, regardless.”
He drew his hand out from between hers, leaving her hands cold and empty.
“Can you really do this?” A whisper was all she could manage. “Can you look him in the eye-can you live alongside him-knowing he’s the one who’s caused you so much pain all your life?”
Remus pressed his lips together. “There’s still no choice. Nothing about this war has changed, just because I know now what happened to me more than thirty years ago.” He drew a deliberate breath. “And this mission is nothing compared to the dangers you and Kingsley and the other Aurors have to face every day. Certainly nothing compared to what Severus has to endure, every time Voldemort summons him. I must do my part as well.”
His jaw was set, his eyes resolute, his hands curled into fists.
Even so, Tonks could still feel him shaking.
And then her hair came down, all of it, the jaunty pink spikes melting into dull brown strands that flopped into her face.
She closed her eyes, and clenched her teeth, and pushed with all her will.
She couldn’t change it back.
~ * ~
[ Kaleidoscope series index ]
.