black eyed dog, he knew my name
Not so much an off-the-cuff ficlet, this fic has existed in some form or another since freshman year of college, when I first heard the song.
Title: Black Eyed Dog
Summary: Remus gets an unexpected visitor.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Remus/Sirius (obliquely)
Rating: G
Length: 1,780 words
Genre: Angst and introspection, my favorite.
Growin' old, and I wanna go home
Growin' old, and I don't wanna know
Remus Lupin awoke in the stifling heat of a late-July morning to find that his ancient charmed Muggle fan had finally given up the ghost. He rose slowly, creakily; the full moon had been only two nights before, and his muscles ached with the strain of the transformation, his knees protesting as always their abrupt change in direction. He carried his thirty-four years like a man two decades older, and it showed in the graying of his hair, the thin web of lines at the corners of his eyes.
There was no use trying to sleep any longer; it was hardly dawn, but already it was hotter than it had any right to be at this time of year. Perhaps he ought to spend the morning planning for the coming school year--he'd have to import a kappa and a hinkypunk at least, if he wanted to give his third-years a good grasp on Dark creatures, and then there was the matter of his monthly...arrangements to consider.
A rattle outside suggested that the milkman had just gone, so Remus dressed quickly and wandered down the narrow cottage's narrow stairs and out onto the narrow stoop.
As he bent down to pick up the milk bottle, the hedgerow rustled, and he froze. A shadow moved beneath the shrubbery. Very slowly, glancing around to make sure no neighbors were watching, he drew his wand from the pocket of his robes and whispered, "Lumos."
The sudden beam picked out two spots of brilliance under the garden hedge. Remus swept the beam lower and saw the shape of a large black dog. Never having put much faith in divination, in portents and death omens, the hound's sight inspired no terror in him. It was almost certainly a stray; after all, its behavior was hardly Grim-like, cringing by the garden gate as though expecting an attack.
Remus felt an abrupt wash of pity for the poor mistreated thing. He crouched down slowly, ignoring the flare of pain in his knees, and held his hand out, palm up. The dog whined and limped forward a step. "Come on, boy," Remus coaxed softly. "It's all right, I won't hurt you, come on..."
The dog stepped fully out from under the hedge, and Remus understood its hesitancy. It had clearly been neglected, if not outright abused; it was rail-thin, its coat dull with dust, and it limped wearily as though it had traveled a long way.
As the dog continued its tentative pilgrimage towards him, Remus thought of the last bit of bacon he had in the house. He had meant it to be his breakfast this morning, but surely this poor ragged hound had more need of it than he.
After a long minute, the dog climbed up the stairs to where Remus sat. Remus reached out a hand to pet it and abruptly recoiled. Up close, the dog looked shockingly, impossibly familiar. The great dark eyes, the thick, shaggy black fur and massive body, wasted now but still so like...
No, he thought firmly. No, that's not possible. He shook his head and held out his hand for the dog to sniff. "Come here, lad, let's have a look at you," he murmured.
The dog sidled up and allowed Remus to scratch behind its pricked-up ears, leaning heavily against him. Remus ran a hand down the dog's side and felt its ribs clearly under its matted fur. "Oh, I bet you're hungry, aren't you?" he asked, half to himself. The dog whined and strained forward to lick at his face.
Remus chuckled, pushing the dog back. "All right, all right. Sit?" he asked hopefully. The dog settled obediently on its haunches. "Oh, good boy. Now stay," he added firmly, rising with some difficulty. "I'll bring you some food--just stay."
Remus retrieved the bottle of milk he'd come out for and went back inside. With a flick of his wand he set the bacon frying, then he took a shallow earthenware bowl from the cupboard and filled it with water from the sink.
He set the bacon on a plate and carried both dishes out to the stoop, half-afraid that the dog might have vanished already. But when he pushed the door open, he found it still sitting where he'd left it, panting in the early heat.
As soon as Remus set the dishes down, the dog bounded forward, and the next few moments were filled with the sounds of frantic lapping and chewing. Remus settled himself gingerly beside the dog.
"I hope you're enjoying that," he said wryly. "That's my breakfast you're devouring, after all."
Almost as though it understood, the dog nosed a gnawed rind of bacon towards him. Remus laughed. "No, no, you might as well finish it," he said, tossing the bacon in the air. The dog leapt and caught it before it hit the ground.
After it had finished, the dog padded over and rested its head on Remus' crossed legs. Ignoring the drool now seeping into the knee of his trousers, Remus scratched absently under the dog's chin, just at Sirius' favorite spot.
The thought of Sirius startled Remus again, and he shook his head. "You gave me quite a turn," he murmured to the dog, who was looking up at him with wide eyes. "Obviously you're not him--you couldn't be. People simply don't escape from--well. It doesn't matter." He sighed. "If you were him, I don't know what I'd do. I know that I ought to hex him right off and send him back to the dementors. But first--first I would have to ask him. I would have to know--why, how. James and Lily...I can still hardly believe it. He had us all so completely fooled for so long...I still wonder at it. Was he planning it when he stood beside James at his wedding? When he held Harry at his christening? When we took that flat above the pub--"
He broke off; the last of the pink sunrise faded into bright hot blue while he sat in silence, still carding his fingers through the dog's thick fur. "I miss him," he said at last. "I know I shouldn't, I know he orphaned his own godson and sold us all to Voldemort, but...I do."
The dog licked his hand apologetically and whuffled softly. Remus shook his head. "I'm being ridiculous. You know, I think there's a bite of sausage left over inside, and I suppose I could spare it." He pointed his wand at the bowl. "Aguamenti," he said, and the bowl refilled itself.
The dog bounded over to drink some more, and Remus got up and went back inside. He was already wondering if the dog might be persuaded to come inside, to stay for awhile. He could write to Dumbledore, ask if perhaps Hagrid could keep the dog for him during the year...true, there had been times when he could scarcely afford to feed himself, much less a dog that, when well-fed, would probably rival the mass of a small pony. But he if could keep his position for a few years, he might be able to put a little aside, to keep them both in bacon and sausage for a while before things got knotty again.
He was just putting the sausages on a plate when he heard a high-pitched shriek soaring over the neighborhood. He frowned. The Prophet wasn't due to arrive for another two hours, and they only sent out a screech owl for emergency bulletins. The last time he'd received such a bulletin, it had been to tell him that the Potters were dead, that Pettigrew was gone and Sirius, his own dear Sirius, had turned against them all...
Something thumped gently to the ground in front of the door--the owl had dropped the bulletin on the stoop. Forgetting the sausage, Remus slammed open the front door, filled with a formless half-panic. He bent to retrieve the paper, and was dismayed to find that the dog had gone, the water bowl only half-empty. Must have been a Muggle's dog, then, and the diving owl had frightened him off.
Perhaps it would return later. He'd leave out a bowl of water tonight, just to see.
He could put off looking at the bulletin no longer. He untied the roll of parchment and found himself faced with a grim portrait of a hollow-eyed madman, his long, lank hair hanging over his face. The scrolling headline, two inches tall, announced above the image--
MASS MURDERER SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES FROM AZKABAN.
Notorious mass murderer Sirius Black has escaped from
Azkaban, a representative of the wizard prison announced this
morning. A witch employed by the prison reported his absence
during a morning inspection of the prison. "It seems incredible--it
is incredible, but it's absolutely true," reports Catena Carcerous.
"He was not in his cell this morning, and searches of the prison have
turned up no trace of him. The dementors are livid, absolutely
livid, and we are confident of his imminent apprehension."
Black, of course, was imprisoned twelve years ago after blowing
up a Muggle street, resulting in the death of promising young
wizard Peter Pettigrew and some twelve Muggles the night after
his master, You-Know-Who, met his defeat at the hands of
then-one-year-old Harry Potter...
The article continued over the next two pages, but the words blurred in front of Remus' eyes. He looked up again, searching the street for any sign of the big black dog, the dog that had looked so familiar, so much like the Animagus he used to know.
Surely it was only a coincidence. Surely, if Sirius had escaped, he wouldn't have come here. He couldn't have known where Remus was living now, and even if he had...why sit on the porch, why take the food and lay his head in Remus' lap? Why not catch him off-guard, overpower him, steal his wand and finish him off? He'd have known that the moon had only just begun to wane--he was always conscientious about that, always aware--and it would have been a simple thing to lull Remus into complacency and take him by surprise.
It couldn't possibly have been Sirius. And yet the dog had looked so familiar...
He stood on the doorstep for a long time, the headline still scrolling wildly across the page. Finally, very calmly, he rolled up the parchment again and went back inside.
In the end, Remus decided, he didn't want to know.