Be the Light in My Lantern, chapter 3
BE THE LIGHT IN MY LANTERN
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Chapter 3: Werewolves and Woes
If I have been unkind
I hope that you can just let it go by
If I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you
-Leonard Cohen, Bird on the Wire
Maybe werewolves just really aren't very nice people, Remus thought, then felt slightly sickened with himself. He leaned his forehead against the cool windowpane of the rattling train. The full moon was two days past already, but he still had a pounding headache.
He reminded himself that, as he very well knew, werewolves were not innately bad. All too often it was wizards' prejudice - something with which he was also, unfortunately, deeply familiar - that drove werewolves to extremes and often ended up turning them into, well, rather nasty people. At least I have a clear answer for Dumbledore this time, he thought. Bulgaria's a wash, no point in going back there.
Remus groaned softly and closed his eyes, fairly counting the seconds until he would be close enough to England to Disapparate. Soon he would be back at Grimmauld Place, where Sirius, whatever other faults he might have, was good about not asking too many questions about how the mission had gone. And where Remus could live more or less normally until the next full moon.
- - - - -
"Dumbledore stopped by two nights ago," Sirius muttered, as he shuffled round the kitchen in the too-early morning, putting the kettle on.
"Oh?" Remus asked, flicking aside the newspaper he wasn't managing to concentrate on, the remnants of yesterday's headache still fading behind his eyes. "Anything new?"
"For me, you, Harry, or the world?" Sirius asked dourly, poking the kettle with his wand harder than necessary to start it heating.
"Any of the above."
"For me, same delightful assignment of staying here and doing nothing. For you, you get to cavort with werewolves again next month, lucky boy. And Dumbledore seems to think he can work his usual magic today and get them to let Harry off those ridiculous trumped-up charges."
Sirius flung himself gracelessly into the nearest chair, and Remus honestly couldn't tell which Sirius was angrier about, that the Wizengamot might unjustly charge Harry with breaching the International Statute of Secrecy, or that the court might drop the charges and let Harry disappear from their lives again when the Hogwarts school year started in a few scant weeks. Probably both.
"Sirius -" he began, about to admonish him at least to put on a brave face once Harry came down to breakfast, but one look at his friend's face and he didn't have the heart. It turned out to be unnecessary anyway, since the near-telepathy of their boyhood seemed to be up and running again.
"I'm not going to do anything to make things harder on Harry, Remus," Sirius said. "Give me a little credit."
"Good morning, you two," Molly called out with attempted cheer, as she came into the kitchen with Arthur just behind her. "It's nice that you're both here for Harry before the hearing, he can use the support, I mean, not that there's anything to be worried about -" she broke off and began fussing about distractedly, trying to start the kettle heating before she realised it was already near boiling.
Arthur took a seat at the table and picked up the Daily Prophet Remus had discarded, but only made it halfway through the front page, his expression darkening all the while, before muttering, "Lies," and similarly tossing the paper aside.
"Morning, Molly and Arthur," Tonks yawned from the doorway. "Wotcher, Remus, Sirius. Thought I'd stop by, I just got off guard du-u-u-uty."
She succumbed to another giant yawn, and stumbled her way into a chair as well. She was smartly dressed in her Auror robes, but her hair was tousled and looked as though it might have got stuck somewhere halfway through one of her colourful transformations. The contrast with her official robes only made her more charming.
Remus shook himself, asking himself what he was doing gazing at Tonks at all, and got up to pour them all the day's first cup of tea. Molly joined the rest of them at the table, looking anxious.
"Arthur, I don't know how you manage it so well," Tonks sighed, resting her chin on her hand. "I'm having a lot of trouble keeping up an innocent front. Scrimgeour's been nosing round, asking me and Kingsley questions. Kind of like he knows we're doing something not officially sanctioned, but can't figure out quite what it is."
"What you do is dodge and feint," Arthur advised. "Distract him with something else more harmless now and then, so he thinks he's got something on you."
Remus stopped attending to their conversation as he followed Sirius' gaze to the kitchen doorway, where Harry stood, looking very young.
"Breakfast," Molly announced, jumping up to put actions to her words. Tonks pulled out a chair for Harry, knocking another over in the process and righting it again, as Molly subjected Harry to a verbal barrage of breakfast options.
Remus looked at Harry and decided the boy probably didn't feel like being forced to join in the conversation right now. "What were you saying about Scrimgeour?" he asked Tonks instead.
Once Harry had eaten and Molly had fussed almost to her satisfaction over his clothing and that impossible hair he'd inherited from James, they all gave him what little encouragement they could, and Harry trailed out of the room after Arthur, on his way to the Ministry.
Those left in the basement kitchen gazed at each other bleakly.
"I've got to get to work too," Tonks said, standing up. "I'll stop by again as soon as I can, to hear how things are. But it'll be fine, you'll see." She gave Sirius' shoulder a gentle nudge, which he ignored, then came and rested a hand on Remus' arm. Without thinking, he reached up to rest a hand on hers in thanks.
Molly muttered something about waking the other children and rose as well, then she and Tonks disappeared up the stairs.
Remus looked at Sirius, who was resting his chin on his hands, gazing into space.
"I've got to go too," Remus told him. "I've got a meeting with Moody. If Harry gets back before I do, will you let me know how it turned out?"
Sirius nodded, never breaking eye contact with the opposite wall.
Remus sighed, started a couple different times to say something, but didn't manage to get any of it out. In the end, he clapped a hand on Sirius' shoulder and headed upstairs.
- - - - -
Over the next few days, Remus watched Sirius fall into an impenetrable sulk. There had been a time, now very long past, when he and James and Peter had known all the remedies for shaking Sirius out of his moods: a joke (Peter knew surprisingly dirty ones), some idea for a new midnight adventure (generally James' department) or just teasing him with merciless wit until Sirius growled in frustration, attempted to hex the offending party, then finally gave in to laughter instead - Remus himself had been a specialist in this last method. These days, though, neither of them possessed much fodder for light-hearted teasing.
Harry, on the other hand, finally looked happier, which was a relief. As someone who remembered well what it was to find a home away from home at Hogwarts, Remus didn't begrudge Harry his excitement over going back there. But Sirius, who also should have known better - Sirius sulked.
With only a few days left until Harry and the others would return to Hogwarts, Remus determined the sulk had gone on long enough and went looking for Sirius, on one of the long afternoons when the others were scattered through the house, wrestling with its demons and dirt.
He found the man in question, unsurprisingly, holed up in his parents' former bedroom, which Sirius had exulted in converting into a makeshift stable for a stolen Hippogriff. Remus closed the door carefully behind himself, crossed his arms and leaned back against it, with no particular plan. He waited.
It was Sirius who spoke first, not looking up from where he sat trimming Buckbeak's claws, his voice low and defeated. "I know I'm being an idiot, Remus. You don't have to tell me."
"I wasn't going to say that, Sirius. Give me a little credit as well."
Remus hesitated, then crossed the room, bowing first to the Hippogriff and waiting for an answering bow, before settling himself carefully on the floor near Sirius, by the creature's side.
The conversation, such as it had been, trailed off again. Remus watched Sirius groom Buckbeak, his movements careful and methodical - not adjectives Remus would have thought he would ever associate with his most impetuous friend.
"Autumns must have been the worst," Sirius said into the silence.
"Sorry?"
"It didn't matter to me, it was always the same in Azkaban. I didn't even know how many years had passed. But I imagine, for you, autumn always stirred up memories."
"I suppose so," Remus admitted, unwilling.
"I've noticed it these last two years, since I've been out. I smell fallen leaves and I can almost see myself walking up to James and Lily's that last night."
"Sirius, please."
Sirius shifted, giving Buckbeak a reassuring pat before sliding back so he could lean against the frame of the bed. "I just mean, it must have been even harder for you. Just trying to say I recognise that."
"It's good to have Harry back," Remus agreed, as if this were what Sirius had said. "But you know it's not like we can keep him."
"Thank you, Professor Obvious. I know that."
"I do mean it, though. It's good to have him here. I never thought there would be a time when I would get to see Harry again, every day, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. We're lucky, I suppose."
Sirius let out that laugh like a bark, one thing about him the years in Azkaban hadn't managed to take away. "Yes, indeed, Remus, when I think of good luck, I swear you and I come to mind as the very first example."
Remus smiled ruefully. "I've learned to be satisfied with fairly little, I think."
"I'm never satisfied with little," Sirius growled.
"I know, mate, believe me, I know."
"I don't know how you do it. You've always been a better man than I."
"No, it’s not that. Surviving simply gets easier with practice."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Typical Remus wisdom." He stared pensively at Buckbeak, who was now grooming his own feathers, then asked, "Does it startle you over and over, to look at him and see James looking back at you?"
"Yes."
"And Lily in his eyes, when he's being kind and thoughtful?"
"Yes."
"I suppose I'm not completely mad, then."
"You're far from mad, Sirius."
Sirius gave a short, wry sigh. “And, tell me, should I be glad about that or sorry?”
When it really came down to it, Remus found he had no answer.
- - - - -
Remus looked from dead Harry sprawled on the drawing room floor, to shocked Harry frozen just inside the doorway, to Molly sobbing and trying to hold her wand steady.
Feeling a surge of anger that had nothing to do with this particular Boggart and everything to do with the state of the world as a whole, Remus shifted Harry gently out of the way, took aim with his wand and calmly forced the Boggart to transform into the orb that was his own greatest fear, then vanished it into a harmless puff of smoke.
"Molly," he said, at a loss, and went to her where she was cowering against the wall, Sirius and Moody and Harry still watching from the doorway. Then he did something that surprised even himself, putting his arms around Molly Weasley and holding her as she cried into his shoulder.
"It was just a Boggart," he soothed, though he knew as well as she did that Boggarts were surely the least of their collective worries.
"I see them d - d - dead all the time," Molly gasped and Remus stroked her hair, wishing there were anything he could say. It was strange to him and somehow sweet, that Molly Weasley would accept his comfort this way. He knew she’d been wary of him, as a werewolf, when they were first introduced, though she’d done her best to hide it.
Now, if only there were anything he could say or do that would actually help.
"We're much better off than we were last time," he told her, after her sobs and her litany of fears had run their course, and she'd dried her eyes on his handkerchief. It was the only thing he could promise honestly - not that no one would get hurt, only that the odds were somewhat more in their favour this time round.
Molly dredged up a smile for Harry's sake, and Remus sent her off to bed with a firm suggestion that she get some rest and under no account attempt to clean up from the celebration they’d had that evening. The rest of them would take care of that. He murmured a few discreet words to Arthur and sent him in Molly's direction too, while the rest of them gathered up plates and Butterbeer bottles, and Bill took over the task of shepherding his younger siblings to bed.
Remus returned to the kitchen to find Sirius, Tonks, Moody and Kingsley still talking quietly. Bill rejoined them shortly afterwards.
"I'm impressed, mate," came Sirius' voice, low and amused from his favourite lurking spot in the shadow of the kitchen doorway, when Bill returned. They had all heard Ginny's indignant shrieks at her oldest brother, which had nonetheless somehow ended with her and all the others tucked safely into bed. "Practising up to have a whole batch of sprogs yourself?"
"I think I've already had enough practice to last a lifetime," Bill groaned, dropping into a chair. He gratefully accepted the strong black tea Tonks proffered in an incongruously delicate teacup. "You've got to hand it to my mum. Despite all the fussing and shouting and what have you, she's certainly done it well, on the whole."
Remus wasn't sure, but he thought he saw Bill flick the briefest of significant glances in Sirius' direction, and Sirius took the hint. "I'm grateful for everything she's done for Harry when I couldn't," he muttered. Remus figured it was probably the closest anyone was going to get to an apology over the repeated how-best-to-raise-Harry disagreements, but perhaps it was enough.
"I can't say I agree with Dumbledore," Moody growled suddenly into his cup, where he was drinking, as usual, something unidentifiable of his own that he'd brought along to dinner. It was a surprising sentiment, coming from Moody, and they all turned to him. "How's the boy supposed to prepare himself for whatever tricks You-Know-Who's got up his sleeve, if Dumbledore doesn't even want him to know there might be tricks at all?"
"Harry is very brave, but he's only 15," Kingsley replied in his deep, measured voice. "And he's impetuous, as we know. I can see why Dumbledore thinks it's better that he not know more than he needs to."
"It might be a bit much," Bill agreed, "to know about the -" out of habit, he broke off to glance around for underage eavesdroppers, "- about the Prophecy. He's been through a lot these last couple months, seeing You-Know-Who come back, watching a classmate get killed, being dragged through the mud by the Ministry. I imagine Dumbledore thinks he doesn't need any more to worry about right now."
"Harry can handle it," Sirius disagreed.
"I imagine he can," said Kingsley, "But should he have to, if it isn't absolutely necessary?"
"I don't know, though," Tonks put in. "The kids get frustrated, not being allowed to know what's going on. You never know what they might get it in their heads to do if they feel like they're being kept in the dark. And isn't it Harry's fate, after all? I mean, the Prophecy is about him, so why shouldn't he know?"
"Constant vigilance," agreed Moody's rough voice. "If he knows there's a Prophecy and that You-Know-Who might use him to get it, Harry'll be better prepared when he strikes."
Remus sighed. "Dumbledore will have his reasons. Just as he's keeping his distance from Harry to protect him, on the hunch Voldemort might try to use Harry to get to him. And we've rarely gone wrong by following Dumbledore's hunches."
"If it were up to me, I'd tell Harry everything," Sirius put in. "He's got a right to know." Then, heading Remus off before he could protest: "But I'm not going to go against Dumbledore, you know that. None of us is."
"I'm not sure what's best either," Remus said, addressing the group at large, but meaning those words of admission for Sirius. "We'll just have to keep an even closer eye on Harry. He's well protected at Hogwarts, but still, we should keep a lookout for anything suspicious in Hogsmeade or around the castle. And someone should always be there when Harry has his Hogsmeade weekends, though I imagine Dumbledore has thought of that already. We'll just have to keep our eyes open for him, all of us."
"Listen to Lupin," said Sirius from the shadows. "He's almost always right."
Remus turned in surprise, but there was no sarcasm on Sirius' face.
Tonks shrugged. "It's a fairly moot point anyway. It's not like we're going to start telling him things Dumbledore doesn't want him to know."
"Regularly checking in on Hogsmeade is a good idea," Moody said. "Keeping an ear to the ground. I'll go up there this week, once they're back, and after that we can rotate, maybe once a week or so. I'll ask Dumbledore what he thinks."
Remus was still thinking about Sirius' words, his quiet expression of faith, probably more faith than Remus had in himself. Remus was not used to this, having friends around to stand up for him and believe in him. It made for a strange sensation.
"Well," said Moody. They all looked round at each other and realised they'd reached as much of an agreement as they could for this particular evening. Nearly of one mind, they rose to go.
As Sirius showed Moody, Kingsley and Bill up to the ground floor, Remus found himself again the last one in the kitchen with Tonks, who stifled a yawn as she gathered up her things.
"We have to be up pretty early tomorrow to get them to King's Cross," Remus said. "Are you sure you don't want to just sleep here with us?" Then his brain caught up with his mouth and he felt his cheeks heat. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean -"
There was just a breath's length of an embarrassing pause, then the corners of Tonks' eyes crinkled. "I know you didn't mean." She stretched up and gave Remus a peck on the cheek, then followed after the others. "Good night, Remus. See you in the a.m."
Remus considered for a moment, then decided the most appropriate reaction was simply to laugh at himself. He hadn't had the opportunity to make a fool of himself in front of a woman in a long time, and certainly not a woman as impressive and delightful and completely beyond what he should even be thinking about as Nymphadora Tonks. It was very nearly an enjoyable sensation.
Remus shook his head at himself, and gathered up the rest of the teacups.
- - - - -
(continue to CHAPTER FOUR)
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Chapter 3: Werewolves and Woes
If I have been unkind
I hope that you can just let it go by
If I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you
-Leonard Cohen, Bird on the Wire
Maybe werewolves just really aren't very nice people, Remus thought, then felt slightly sickened with himself. He leaned his forehead against the cool windowpane of the rattling train. The full moon was two days past already, but he still had a pounding headache.
He reminded himself that, as he very well knew, werewolves were not innately bad. All too often it was wizards' prejudice - something with which he was also, unfortunately, deeply familiar - that drove werewolves to extremes and often ended up turning them into, well, rather nasty people. At least I have a clear answer for Dumbledore this time, he thought. Bulgaria's a wash, no point in going back there.
Remus groaned softly and closed his eyes, fairly counting the seconds until he would be close enough to England to Disapparate. Soon he would be back at Grimmauld Place, where Sirius, whatever other faults he might have, was good about not asking too many questions about how the mission had gone. And where Remus could live more or less normally until the next full moon.
- - - - -
"Dumbledore stopped by two nights ago," Sirius muttered, as he shuffled round the kitchen in the too-early morning, putting the kettle on.
"Oh?" Remus asked, flicking aside the newspaper he wasn't managing to concentrate on, the remnants of yesterday's headache still fading behind his eyes. "Anything new?"
"For me, you, Harry, or the world?" Sirius asked dourly, poking the kettle with his wand harder than necessary to start it heating.
"Any of the above."
"For me, same delightful assignment of staying here and doing nothing. For you, you get to cavort with werewolves again next month, lucky boy. And Dumbledore seems to think he can work his usual magic today and get them to let Harry off those ridiculous trumped-up charges."
Sirius flung himself gracelessly into the nearest chair, and Remus honestly couldn't tell which Sirius was angrier about, that the Wizengamot might unjustly charge Harry with breaching the International Statute of Secrecy, or that the court might drop the charges and let Harry disappear from their lives again when the Hogwarts school year started in a few scant weeks. Probably both.
"Sirius -" he began, about to admonish him at least to put on a brave face once Harry came down to breakfast, but one look at his friend's face and he didn't have the heart. It turned out to be unnecessary anyway, since the near-telepathy of their boyhood seemed to be up and running again.
"I'm not going to do anything to make things harder on Harry, Remus," Sirius said. "Give me a little credit."
"Good morning, you two," Molly called out with attempted cheer, as she came into the kitchen with Arthur just behind her. "It's nice that you're both here for Harry before the hearing, he can use the support, I mean, not that there's anything to be worried about -" she broke off and began fussing about distractedly, trying to start the kettle heating before she realised it was already near boiling.
Arthur took a seat at the table and picked up the Daily Prophet Remus had discarded, but only made it halfway through the front page, his expression darkening all the while, before muttering, "Lies," and similarly tossing the paper aside.
"Morning, Molly and Arthur," Tonks yawned from the doorway. "Wotcher, Remus, Sirius. Thought I'd stop by, I just got off guard du-u-u-uty."
She succumbed to another giant yawn, and stumbled her way into a chair as well. She was smartly dressed in her Auror robes, but her hair was tousled and looked as though it might have got stuck somewhere halfway through one of her colourful transformations. The contrast with her official robes only made her more charming.
Remus shook himself, asking himself what he was doing gazing at Tonks at all, and got up to pour them all the day's first cup of tea. Molly joined the rest of them at the table, looking anxious.
"Arthur, I don't know how you manage it so well," Tonks sighed, resting her chin on her hand. "I'm having a lot of trouble keeping up an innocent front. Scrimgeour's been nosing round, asking me and Kingsley questions. Kind of like he knows we're doing something not officially sanctioned, but can't figure out quite what it is."
"What you do is dodge and feint," Arthur advised. "Distract him with something else more harmless now and then, so he thinks he's got something on you."
Remus stopped attending to their conversation as he followed Sirius' gaze to the kitchen doorway, where Harry stood, looking very young.
"Breakfast," Molly announced, jumping up to put actions to her words. Tonks pulled out a chair for Harry, knocking another over in the process and righting it again, as Molly subjected Harry to a verbal barrage of breakfast options.
Remus looked at Harry and decided the boy probably didn't feel like being forced to join in the conversation right now. "What were you saying about Scrimgeour?" he asked Tonks instead.
Once Harry had eaten and Molly had fussed almost to her satisfaction over his clothing and that impossible hair he'd inherited from James, they all gave him what little encouragement they could, and Harry trailed out of the room after Arthur, on his way to the Ministry.
Those left in the basement kitchen gazed at each other bleakly.
"I've got to get to work too," Tonks said, standing up. "I'll stop by again as soon as I can, to hear how things are. But it'll be fine, you'll see." She gave Sirius' shoulder a gentle nudge, which he ignored, then came and rested a hand on Remus' arm. Without thinking, he reached up to rest a hand on hers in thanks.
Molly muttered something about waking the other children and rose as well, then she and Tonks disappeared up the stairs.
Remus looked at Sirius, who was resting his chin on his hands, gazing into space.
"I've got to go too," Remus told him. "I've got a meeting with Moody. If Harry gets back before I do, will you let me know how it turned out?"
Sirius nodded, never breaking eye contact with the opposite wall.
Remus sighed, started a couple different times to say something, but didn't manage to get any of it out. In the end, he clapped a hand on Sirius' shoulder and headed upstairs.
- - - - -
Over the next few days, Remus watched Sirius fall into an impenetrable sulk. There had been a time, now very long past, when he and James and Peter had known all the remedies for shaking Sirius out of his moods: a joke (Peter knew surprisingly dirty ones), some idea for a new midnight adventure (generally James' department) or just teasing him with merciless wit until Sirius growled in frustration, attempted to hex the offending party, then finally gave in to laughter instead - Remus himself had been a specialist in this last method. These days, though, neither of them possessed much fodder for light-hearted teasing.
Harry, on the other hand, finally looked happier, which was a relief. As someone who remembered well what it was to find a home away from home at Hogwarts, Remus didn't begrudge Harry his excitement over going back there. But Sirius, who also should have known better - Sirius sulked.
With only a few days left until Harry and the others would return to Hogwarts, Remus determined the sulk had gone on long enough and went looking for Sirius, on one of the long afternoons when the others were scattered through the house, wrestling with its demons and dirt.
He found the man in question, unsurprisingly, holed up in his parents' former bedroom, which Sirius had exulted in converting into a makeshift stable for a stolen Hippogriff. Remus closed the door carefully behind himself, crossed his arms and leaned back against it, with no particular plan. He waited.
It was Sirius who spoke first, not looking up from where he sat trimming Buckbeak's claws, his voice low and defeated. "I know I'm being an idiot, Remus. You don't have to tell me."
"I wasn't going to say that, Sirius. Give me a little credit as well."
Remus hesitated, then crossed the room, bowing first to the Hippogriff and waiting for an answering bow, before settling himself carefully on the floor near Sirius, by the creature's side.
The conversation, such as it had been, trailed off again. Remus watched Sirius groom Buckbeak, his movements careful and methodical - not adjectives Remus would have thought he would ever associate with his most impetuous friend.
"Autumns must have been the worst," Sirius said into the silence.
"Sorry?"
"It didn't matter to me, it was always the same in Azkaban. I didn't even know how many years had passed. But I imagine, for you, autumn always stirred up memories."
"I suppose so," Remus admitted, unwilling.
"I've noticed it these last two years, since I've been out. I smell fallen leaves and I can almost see myself walking up to James and Lily's that last night."
"Sirius, please."
Sirius shifted, giving Buckbeak a reassuring pat before sliding back so he could lean against the frame of the bed. "I just mean, it must have been even harder for you. Just trying to say I recognise that."
"It's good to have Harry back," Remus agreed, as if this were what Sirius had said. "But you know it's not like we can keep him."
"Thank you, Professor Obvious. I know that."
"I do mean it, though. It's good to have him here. I never thought there would be a time when I would get to see Harry again, every day, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. We're lucky, I suppose."
Sirius let out that laugh like a bark, one thing about him the years in Azkaban hadn't managed to take away. "Yes, indeed, Remus, when I think of good luck, I swear you and I come to mind as the very first example."
Remus smiled ruefully. "I've learned to be satisfied with fairly little, I think."
"I'm never satisfied with little," Sirius growled.
"I know, mate, believe me, I know."
"I don't know how you do it. You've always been a better man than I."
"No, it’s not that. Surviving simply gets easier with practice."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Typical Remus wisdom." He stared pensively at Buckbeak, who was now grooming his own feathers, then asked, "Does it startle you over and over, to look at him and see James looking back at you?"
"Yes."
"And Lily in his eyes, when he's being kind and thoughtful?"
"Yes."
"I suppose I'm not completely mad, then."
"You're far from mad, Sirius."
Sirius gave a short, wry sigh. “And, tell me, should I be glad about that or sorry?”
When it really came down to it, Remus found he had no answer.
- - - - -
Remus looked from dead Harry sprawled on the drawing room floor, to shocked Harry frozen just inside the doorway, to Molly sobbing and trying to hold her wand steady.
Feeling a surge of anger that had nothing to do with this particular Boggart and everything to do with the state of the world as a whole, Remus shifted Harry gently out of the way, took aim with his wand and calmly forced the Boggart to transform into the orb that was his own greatest fear, then vanished it into a harmless puff of smoke.
"Molly," he said, at a loss, and went to her where she was cowering against the wall, Sirius and Moody and Harry still watching from the doorway. Then he did something that surprised even himself, putting his arms around Molly Weasley and holding her as she cried into his shoulder.
"It was just a Boggart," he soothed, though he knew as well as she did that Boggarts were surely the least of their collective worries.
"I see them d - d - dead all the time," Molly gasped and Remus stroked her hair, wishing there were anything he could say. It was strange to him and somehow sweet, that Molly Weasley would accept his comfort this way. He knew she’d been wary of him, as a werewolf, when they were first introduced, though she’d done her best to hide it.
Now, if only there were anything he could say or do that would actually help.
"We're much better off than we were last time," he told her, after her sobs and her litany of fears had run their course, and she'd dried her eyes on his handkerchief. It was the only thing he could promise honestly - not that no one would get hurt, only that the odds were somewhat more in their favour this time round.
Molly dredged up a smile for Harry's sake, and Remus sent her off to bed with a firm suggestion that she get some rest and under no account attempt to clean up from the celebration they’d had that evening. The rest of them would take care of that. He murmured a few discreet words to Arthur and sent him in Molly's direction too, while the rest of them gathered up plates and Butterbeer bottles, and Bill took over the task of shepherding his younger siblings to bed.
Remus returned to the kitchen to find Sirius, Tonks, Moody and Kingsley still talking quietly. Bill rejoined them shortly afterwards.
"I'm impressed, mate," came Sirius' voice, low and amused from his favourite lurking spot in the shadow of the kitchen doorway, when Bill returned. They had all heard Ginny's indignant shrieks at her oldest brother, which had nonetheless somehow ended with her and all the others tucked safely into bed. "Practising up to have a whole batch of sprogs yourself?"
"I think I've already had enough practice to last a lifetime," Bill groaned, dropping into a chair. He gratefully accepted the strong black tea Tonks proffered in an incongruously delicate teacup. "You've got to hand it to my mum. Despite all the fussing and shouting and what have you, she's certainly done it well, on the whole."
Remus wasn't sure, but he thought he saw Bill flick the briefest of significant glances in Sirius' direction, and Sirius took the hint. "I'm grateful for everything she's done for Harry when I couldn't," he muttered. Remus figured it was probably the closest anyone was going to get to an apology over the repeated how-best-to-raise-Harry disagreements, but perhaps it was enough.
"I can't say I agree with Dumbledore," Moody growled suddenly into his cup, where he was drinking, as usual, something unidentifiable of his own that he'd brought along to dinner. It was a surprising sentiment, coming from Moody, and they all turned to him. "How's the boy supposed to prepare himself for whatever tricks You-Know-Who's got up his sleeve, if Dumbledore doesn't even want him to know there might be tricks at all?"
"Harry is very brave, but he's only 15," Kingsley replied in his deep, measured voice. "And he's impetuous, as we know. I can see why Dumbledore thinks it's better that he not know more than he needs to."
"It might be a bit much," Bill agreed, "to know about the -" out of habit, he broke off to glance around for underage eavesdroppers, "- about the Prophecy. He's been through a lot these last couple months, seeing You-Know-Who come back, watching a classmate get killed, being dragged through the mud by the Ministry. I imagine Dumbledore thinks he doesn't need any more to worry about right now."
"Harry can handle it," Sirius disagreed.
"I imagine he can," said Kingsley, "But should he have to, if it isn't absolutely necessary?"
"I don't know, though," Tonks put in. "The kids get frustrated, not being allowed to know what's going on. You never know what they might get it in their heads to do if they feel like they're being kept in the dark. And isn't it Harry's fate, after all? I mean, the Prophecy is about him, so why shouldn't he know?"
"Constant vigilance," agreed Moody's rough voice. "If he knows there's a Prophecy and that You-Know-Who might use him to get it, Harry'll be better prepared when he strikes."
Remus sighed. "Dumbledore will have his reasons. Just as he's keeping his distance from Harry to protect him, on the hunch Voldemort might try to use Harry to get to him. And we've rarely gone wrong by following Dumbledore's hunches."
"If it were up to me, I'd tell Harry everything," Sirius put in. "He's got a right to know." Then, heading Remus off before he could protest: "But I'm not going to go against Dumbledore, you know that. None of us is."
"I'm not sure what's best either," Remus said, addressing the group at large, but meaning those words of admission for Sirius. "We'll just have to keep an even closer eye on Harry. He's well protected at Hogwarts, but still, we should keep a lookout for anything suspicious in Hogsmeade or around the castle. And someone should always be there when Harry has his Hogsmeade weekends, though I imagine Dumbledore has thought of that already. We'll just have to keep our eyes open for him, all of us."
"Listen to Lupin," said Sirius from the shadows. "He's almost always right."
Remus turned in surprise, but there was no sarcasm on Sirius' face.
Tonks shrugged. "It's a fairly moot point anyway. It's not like we're going to start telling him things Dumbledore doesn't want him to know."
"Regularly checking in on Hogsmeade is a good idea," Moody said. "Keeping an ear to the ground. I'll go up there this week, once they're back, and after that we can rotate, maybe once a week or so. I'll ask Dumbledore what he thinks."
Remus was still thinking about Sirius' words, his quiet expression of faith, probably more faith than Remus had in himself. Remus was not used to this, having friends around to stand up for him and believe in him. It made for a strange sensation.
"Well," said Moody. They all looked round at each other and realised they'd reached as much of an agreement as they could for this particular evening. Nearly of one mind, they rose to go.
As Sirius showed Moody, Kingsley and Bill up to the ground floor, Remus found himself again the last one in the kitchen with Tonks, who stifled a yawn as she gathered up her things.
"We have to be up pretty early tomorrow to get them to King's Cross," Remus said. "Are you sure you don't want to just sleep here with us?" Then his brain caught up with his mouth and he felt his cheeks heat. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean -"
There was just a breath's length of an embarrassing pause, then the corners of Tonks' eyes crinkled. "I know you didn't mean." She stretched up and gave Remus a peck on the cheek, then followed after the others. "Good night, Remus. See you in the a.m."
Remus considered for a moment, then decided the most appropriate reaction was simply to laugh at himself. He hadn't had the opportunity to make a fool of himself in front of a woman in a long time, and certainly not a woman as impressive and delightful and completely beyond what he should even be thinking about as Nymphadora Tonks. It was very nearly an enjoyable sensation.
Remus shook his head at himself, and gathered up the rest of the teacups.
- - - - -
(continue to CHAPTER FOUR)