[fic] Weighed Down With Good Intentions

[thistlerose]

Weighed Down With Good Intentions

Fandom: Harry Potter / Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: R
Ships: Remus/Jenny, allusions to Remus/Sirius and Giles/Jenny
Summary: If my people can restore a vampire's soul, why couldn't they help a werewolf?
A/N: Many thanks to my beta reader, r_becca. Approx. 7,900 words. There are allusions to characters and events in The Secret Language of Cats, but both stories stand alone. I invented Jenny's past to fit the story.



They met under a waning gibbous moon, when she tried to get into the bar just as he was closing it for the night. He took pity on her because she was young, foreign, and obviously lonely, and by the time the moon had dwindled to a yellow fang, he had learned that her name wasn't Jenny Calendar. They'd laughed about it. "Really," she'd said, her head on his shoulder, strands of her dark hair clinging to his mouth, "it should be the other way around. Remus Lupin should be made up. Such a funny name. You weren't raised by wolves, by any chance, were you?"

By the waxing gibbous, he still hadn't learned her real name, but that was all right because by then he thought of her as Jenny, not just the girl who shared his bed and bought groceries. She was Jenny, born here in Romania, raised in America, and about to start her first year at Oxford. Jenny, who had somehow talked someone into lending her an electronic device that she called a laptop, which was the size and shape of a Hogwarts textbook, and weighed roughly as much as a young erumpent. It was the reason they were paying for electricity; before Jenny and the laptop, Remus had made do with candles and some preservation charms.

She said she'd come back to Romania to trace her ancestors, many of whom had gone missing during World War II. She had a passion for contact sports, especially - to Remus's dismay - American football. She was entirely Muggle, but believed fervently in the existence of ritual magic and carried around all sorts of baubles and charms. Sloe-eyed, small-breasted, slender as a reed, she took ridiculously long showers and liked to be on top during sex. She couldn't abide pulp in her orange juice, or coconut shavings. She borrowed his jumpers and left them smelling of freesia and incense.

He didn't mind not knowing her real name, partly because she was already more familiar to him than most of his partners in the past seven years, and partly because he knew that what they had wouldn't last much longer. One of them had to be gone by the full moon, and there would be no reconciliation afterward because it was nearly September and she would be going to England, and he preferred to be alone in the autumn.

Breaking up was easy enough. Over the years, Remus had made an art of it, mostly deliberately. He knew how to play at apathy, how to degrade casually. Some were easier to shake off than others.

Jenny proved to be one of the easy ones. When the door slammed and her footsteps - erratic, because she was lugging her rucksack and the bloody laptop - faded, Remus sagged into the nearest chair and sat there for a long time, studying the odd stain on the ceiling, and trying not to feel disappointed. He hadn't wanted to fight with her, after all.

But his mouth tasted sour, and his stomach hurt like he'd swallowed a sack of stones.

Stupid. He hadn't loved her. He hadn't even fancied her that much. She'd been a good shag, and reasonably good fun these past few weeks. It had been pleasant waking each morning to the smell of good coffee, and to the sound of her slim fingers clicking away on the laptop's keys. They'd distracted each other from Romania's poverty and political unrest. They'd hiked in the woods and hills, keeping wide of the stricken villages. Since food was scarce, they'd invented their own recipes using what they could find, and used each other as guinea pigs. They'd necked in darkened cinemas and against alley walls.

But he'd have all that with the next one to come along, Remus told himself. And Jenny would have no trouble finding someone else; she was a cracker.

On the day before the full moon, Remus Apparated to a shop in Cluj-Napoca's small wizarding district. He bought a few things from a witch with eyes like apple seeds and skin like ancient parchment. Then he Apparated back to his flat, got his cauldron from the secret compartment in his trunk, and lit a fire.

The recipe he'd been given called for just a pinch of aconitum, but he recklessly added three. The stench that rose when the crushed petals struck the liquid already boiling in the cauldron stung his nostrils and eyes. Blinking tears away, he stirred in the remaining ingredients, tried not to be alarmed by the puff of acrid smoke, then stepped back and waited for the stuff to cool.

He'd never had much talent for potion brewing. He'd done well enough with the basics, had never poisoned anyone, despite the occasional temptation, but he had no flair, and the more complex potions usually eluded him.

At that moment, though, he didn't care. The sun was setting. Burnished light filled the west-facing window and splayed across the floor. Remus checked the doors; they were locked. He cast an Imperturbability Charm, and went back to his potion.

It was cooler now, but the smoke still hung over the cauldron like a greenish storm cloud. It raised the hairs on the back of Remus's hand when he reached through it to scoop some of the potion into a goblet.

"If I were smart," Remus began, studying the goblet doubtfully. "But I'm really not." He threw his head back. The potion was thick, bitter, and it pooled in his gullet. He swallowed hard and drew air in through his nostrils.

It's like toffee, he told himself. Or peanut butter. Lots of it.

But it wasn't because the potion seemed to fill every channel and cavity in his body, blocking the air. He felt it rising in his throat and he wanted to gag, but he clenched his teeth, groped for something to clutch, something that would hold him up. He flailed and his fingers brushed what he thought might be the curtains, but he could not be sure because suddenly he could not see. His heart teetered, then rolled over and plunged through the swamp of his insides and there was nothing.

*

There was blood under his fingernails. And in his mouth.

An arm around his shoulders, holding him up. The rim of a cup against his lips. Cold water. He choked.

Lily.

But it couldn't be her because she'd died seven years ago and the eyes that now wavered above him were dark.

Professor McGonagall. How many points did I just cost Gryffindor?

"Remus, you jackass." It was a woman's voice, but neither Lily's nor McGonagall's. "I found the cauldron and the cup. What the hell did you take?"

She didn't seem to expect an answer, which was just as well because his mouth flopped open and only a groan fluttered out. All of his bones had been yanked through his skin, twisted into knots, and shoved back in. His lungs were snarled in his ribs.

She made him drink a little more, then took the cup away. "It's going to be all right," Remus thought she said, just before he passed out. "God, you're stupid."

When he woke again, he felt nothing but the mattress beneath his back and supreme exhaustion pressing him into it. He panicked for a moment, thinking that he'd done more damage to himself than he'd thought initially, but relaxed when he tilted his head slightly and saw Jenny stretched beside him, asleep. She must have given him something. Muggle medicine.

She should not be here. People vanished from his life all the time and did not return. That was simply how it was. The door only swung one way.

From where he lay, Remus could see the flat's one window. It was day, though how early or late he could not tell. Rain was falling heavily. He heard it on the roofs and eaves, and the air in the flat was heavy and cold. Remus's gaze flicked back to Jenny. Wan light from the window limned her slender form, but her face was shadowed, her lashes only slightly darker than the cheeks they fanned. He couldn't smell her, and that might have been an aftereffect of his potion or evidence that she wasn’t really there.

Which was a possibility. It would not be the first time he'd imagined someone rescuing him from a situation when he couldn't be bothered to do it himself.

He hoped he was imagining her. If she were real, he would have to explain at least some things. He did not want her to think he'd tried to kill himself. Let her think he was a bastard; he could live with that, and she wouldn't be wrong. But he did not want her to think that he was weak or unstable. Even if he never saw her again, he did not want that.

Real or imagined, she was very pleasant to watch. Though she barely moved and her features were obscured, there was grace in every line and curve of her. She was a curl of smoke, rainbow spray over a breaking wave. If he moved even a little, he thought, she would vanish. After what seemed a very short while, his eyelids began to quiver. He resisted until it became painful, then he let them fall.

He did not dream.

When he awoke, Jenny was gone.

"I thought so," he said and couldn't be sure whether or not he was pleased. The numbness had receded; his limbs now ached, as did his temples. His throat was parched. He was sure there'd been a cup of water earlier. He saw it on his bedside table and tried to push himself up. A wave of nausea broke over him and he fell back against his pillow with a gasp.

"Don't try to get up yet," Jenny called from the kitchen. "If you need the bathroom, I'll be there to help you in a second."

He said nothing because he felt completely empty. Not that he'd have asked for help had he needed the loo.

As he came further awake he became aware of cooking smells. His stomach recoiled. He spread his hands palms-down on the blanket, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply until his insides settled.

Remus did not hear Jenny approach but when she spoke again he knew that she was standing very close. "I made broth. I actually made it from scratch. I had time. You've been sick for two days." Her fingertips touched his. "Remus."

He waited, not sure how he'd answer.

But she did not ask him what he'd been trying to do, then or ever. She simply said his name again, then sat beside him, gently, on the bed. "I didn't come back for you. I forgot some software."

"You left your key too," Remus said weakly.

"Yes."

"I locked the door. I remember doing that."

"Yes." She moved her hand so that her palm rested over his. "We've both been keeping secrets. It's a good thing you're a European werewolf, I guess. If you were American, I'd have stayed away an extra night, so by the time I'd have found you…" She let the sentence go unfinished, not because the rest was unutterable but because, Remus thought, she knew that he knew what would have happened had she stayed away longer.

It's a good thing I'm a European werewolf. Then he thought inanely, What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen werewolf? American or European? Was he smiling? He had little control over his body. Someone - a teacher he'd had before Hogwarts - used to remind him on a regular basis that it took more muscles to frown than to smile. Was he smiling?

"Remus," Jenny said evenly, "I don't love you. I don't even like you very much, after the things you said."

Remus opened his eyes. The world above him wobbled uncertainly, but he concentrated on the tip of Jenny's nose. It was her one unbeautiful feature, and he'd always liked it. "No," he said, smiling faintly and rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. "Why would you?"

*

They fell back into each other. There was no need for her to stay once he could walk across the flat unaided, and he did not ask her to. But then one afternoon when Jenny was slicing apples at the counter, Remus came up behind her. He still moved clumsily, so she had to have heard him but she didn't turn. She just tilted her head slightly to the side so that her hair spilled back from her smooth, smooth neck and Remus leaned in and kissed her right there. She dropped the knife. His arms went around her, his hands found her breasts and a few minutes later, on the peeling linoleum he proved to her much he'd improved under her care.

They fell back into each other, but it wasn't like before. The manager of the bar sacked Remus. They didn't read the newspapers or listen to the wireless and were only vaguely aware of the upcoming election and the revolutions igniting the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. The rain cleared but the air stayed cold and he and Jenny spent more time in the flat, in bed. Sometimes they had sex. Sometimes Jenny brought the laptop and Remus watched her while she typed. Sometimes they simply lay together, clothed or naked, and watched the moon melt into the night like butter on hot iron, then begin to swell again.

They talked more. Remus told her why he was in Romania. One of the reasons.

"My great-grandmother Sofia was one of the Romani," he said. "I met her only once, when I was six. She was living in France at the time. She'd come from this part of Europe, but one night her caravan stopped outside a German village and she met my great-grandfather, Henri Beausoleil. A Frenchman, obviously. He was studying music and played the piano in some restaurant or café. She and some of her friends had snuck into the village and she saw him through a window, playing."

He had seen a picture of his great-grandmother as a young woman once. She'd been dainty and dark-haired, with beautiful dark eyes. Rather like Jenny, he thought wryly. He didn't care to dwell on what that implied. Instead, he pictured his great-grandmother Sofia, wrapped in hand-made shawls and scarves, standing on her toes to peer into the lighted window of a café where a handsome young Frenchman was playing Beethoven. People drifted by her in the streets like dried leaves in the wind, frail, withered. They were between wars. They didn't know there was worse to come, more to lose. Her nose and fingers to the glass, her feet beginning to ache, Sofia must have thought only of finding and being found.

"She married him?" Jenny asked.

"Yes," said Remus. "Her family didn't approve. I don't know how strenuously. I think - from what she said - that they lost contact. Which doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't accept her choice. It's not as if they had telephones, or even an address."

"I don't know," Jenny said thoughtfully. "My ancestors are Romani too. I don't know how things used to be. Nowadays, some care more than others. My mother was Romani, my father gadjé. My mother's parents weren't happy with her choice, but they didn't shun her. What happened next? You said you met your great-grandmother in France. Did she move there before the war?"

"After," said Remus. "Her husband was killed by the Nazis. Their son had already moved to France and started a family there. After the war, my great-grandmother followed him. My mother grew up in France, in Provence. My father - who's Scottish - met her while he was traveling." On Dumbledore's orders - but Remus decided that that wasn't something Jenny needed to know.

"You really are from all over."

"I said I was."

"I thought you just didn't want to talk about it."

"I didn't." Romania. Germany. France. Scotland. Hogwarts. Train cars, schoolrooms, bars, one-room flats, rusty beds. They all jangled in his mind like charms on a bracelet.

"But you spent most of your life in Scotland."

"Yes. Well, two-thirds. Which is most, I suppose. For the past seven years I've lived here and there." He smiled and touched her cheek with his index finger. "Living job to job, moon to moon. My father died about ten years ago. My mother doesn't need looking after."

"And your friends? Come on, Remus. You had to have had some. Outgoing, personable guy like you." Her tone was light, the kiss she pressed against the corner of his mouth playful.

"They're dead too," he said, his smile fading. "All of them. There were never many," he added when she looked at him, her eyebrows raised. "Three. Four. One turned out not to be a friend after all."

"And he - or she - "

"He."

"Is he dead too?"

"Prison," Remus said. He closed his eyes and saw Sirius's face instead of Jenny's. Rough black hair, storm-colored eyes, lightning smile. Grease under fingernails. How many different kinds of lightning had he discovered that summer?

Remus hoped that she wouldn't say she was sorry or ask any more questions. He was tired of talking.

"Oh," Jenny said. That was all she said. Her lips grazed his chin, then the pulse below his jaw. He shivered when her teeth slid over his skin and threw his head back against the pillows.

She was fooled by his submissive posture. He pretended for a little while that she'd mastered him, but as soon as she straddled his waist and tossed her hair triumphantly he grabbed her wrists and rolled over on top of her. His mouth caught her startled gasp.

They tussled on the bed, but somehow ended up on their hands and knees on the floor. He was rough, though he tried not to be, and he would have stopped if she'd told him to. She seemed to like it though, so he kept going, in and out, going in and out, harder, faster, the sweat dripping from his chin and earlobes, the rug burning his knees. She was so slender, so delicate, as pale as the moon. He went at her as if she were the moon, thrusting, biting, hungry, feverish. He grunted her name when he came, but her hair was almost black with sweat and the way it flicked back from her neck and shoulders made him think of someone else.

Afterward, he regretted his impulsiveness. She was on the Pill, but they used condoms anyway, as an extra precaution. As far he knew, he was clean. He hadn't slept with anyone but Jenny since they'd met. But in the days that followed, Jenny never reproached him and she didn't seem nervous so he supposed he had nothing to worry about.

When the moon was half-full, Jenny said, "What are you going to do when I go to England?"

She was crouched beside him in bed. He could see the moon over her bare shoulder and wondered if there was a poem about the moon getting tangled in some woman's hair. If there wasn't, he thought, there ought to be.

"I'm not asking you to come with," Jenny said, smiling. "I'm just wondering."

Remus touched the satiny inside of her elbow. "I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. I don't make plans like that. What would I do in England?"

"The same thing you do here."

"I don't do anything here anymore. I could do even less in England. The Ministry of Magic knows what I am."

"But regular people… Sorry," she added quickly. "I don't mean… I mean, people who aren't wizards and witches. They wouldn't know, would they?"

"No," Remus said, amused by her fluster, "but if I had to miss work for a few days each month…" He traced circles on her skin, delighting in her shivers.

"You might as well come to England," Jenny said. "Since you'd have to deal with the same thing here. You can't afford to stay in this place much longer. You should come. You'd be my older lover. People would pretend to disapprove, but they'd really be jealous." She frowned slightly. "How old are you, anyway?"

"This is the first time you've asked me that," Remus said.

"I know. I just always thought…"

"What? How old do you think I am?" He ran his finger down her arm to the pulse at her wrist, following her veins like streams. "You can't offend me. Old to a Muggle and old to a wizard are not the same thing."

"There's grey in your hair."

"Yes."

"And those monthly changes probably don't do much for your health. I don't know. In your thirties, I've always thought. Late thirties. That's not old. Sometimes you seem pretty young. Right now, you look young."

Remus pushed himself off the pillows, slid his hand into her hair and guided her face to his. "I'm twenty-nine," he said as he kissed her.

The moon continued to grow and Remus became restless. "We should talk about what we're going to do."

She knew what he meant. "We will," she said.

But they didn't. Not then.

*

The moon was an eyeball turning in a dark socket. An occiput. A spatter of grease. A stagnant pool full of drowned things.

One night Jenny said, "Remus, I haven't been completely honest." When he did not reply, she went on quietly. "I didn't come here to find my people. Some were killed in the war, but I've known all along where the survivors are. I haven't seen them, but I know. I think… I have an idea."

He hadn’t been alarmed before and he wasn't now, but something in Jenny's tone made him sit up in bed, draw his knees to his chest, and look away when she touched his shoulder.

"Listen," Jenny said.

"There's no cure," said Remus. He held himself tightly to keep the bitter laugh in.

"You don't know what I'm going to say."

"I can guess. Jenny, I've been this way longer than you've been alive. My parents took me everywhere, tried everything. There's no cure."

"Did they take you to the Kalderash clan?" Her voice was hard, cold. She gripped his shoulders with her small hands. "My people guard themselves well. They rarely let themselves be found, even by other Romani."

He could have lied or shrugged her off, but somehow he hadn't the strength. His hands flopped uselessly at his sides.

"Listen to me." Jenny's voice buzzed against his ear with an odd intensity. "The Kalderash are powerful magic users. They're not the same as you. They're not wizards. But they can do things. Almost a hundred years ago, they restored a vampire's soul. This vampire…he was a monster." She clutched his shoulders, almost spasmodically. "He killed one of the clan's most beloved daughters and as punishment, they gave him back his soul. His conscience. Awareness of all the horrible things he'd done for the past hundred years. If they can do that, if they can find a soul that's lost and put it back where it belongs, surely they can…"

Remus reached up and squeezed her fingers. "There's no need."

"There is. It might work."

"There's no point," said Remus with a sigh. He'd heard this sort of thing before, from his parents, from his friends.

"You don't know that," Jenny insisted. "It's something that hasn't been tried before, at least as far as I know. Maybe it can't be done. But maybe… How many vampires before Angelus got their souls back? Let's try it. Please. What's the worst that could happen?"

It could work, he thought, and then he would be indebted to her forever. He would owe her more than his life; he would owe her his soul, his humanity. There were worse things, he told himself, but at that moment, he'd have gnawed through her small wrists, through his own bones, to free himself.

"Please." Her voice came at him like darts of moonlight.

He couldn't move. His shoulders bowed, not under her hand but the weight of all his wanderings. I'm so tired, he thought. Too tired to fight.

"Do you love me?" The words came low and hoarse, as if they'd been pushed through a very small space. His throat hurt.

"No," Jenny said.

Remus turned his head. Moonlight shimmered over half her face, down the side of her neck and shoulder. Her eyes were shiny and dark, almost unreadable. Remus touched the funny tip of her nose, then her cheek.

"Do you love me?" he asked again.

"No," said Jenny. "I just-"

He covered her mouth. "Take me."

*

They took an old, dented and rusty bus away from Cluj-Napoca and up into the wooded hills. It was a long, bumpy trip with frequent stops, frequent demands for identification papers. His forehead pressed against the smeared glass, Remus watched the scenery and was dazzled by the colors. He felt as if he'd just come out of hibernation; he'd stayed in the flat too long.

The landscape seemed to shiver restlessly. In the distance, blue-grey mountains rippled like smoke. Red, brown, and gold leaves trembled on branches. Most of the small villages they passed were abandoned, their inhabitants fled, imprisoned, or forced to move to the cities, but Remus was half-aware of something teeming behind the darkened, vacant windows. Something was coming.

Something that didn't affect him.

Jenny was quiet. She'd left the laptop in the flat, and spent most of the ride either scribbling notes that made little sense to Remus in a spiral notebook, or sleeping with her legs tucked under her and her head on his shoulder.

He was glad when she slept because he did not want to talk, though he sensed that they were nearing the end of their time together. Even if her people could help him, she had to know that he wasn't going to Oxford with her. It wasn't in him to belong to someone, to follow. Not anymore. Why he was traveling with her now, he was not entirely sure.

He thought, watching the night sky while Jenny slept, breathing warm puffs of air against his wrist, he'd always found it easier to plunge into the unknown. Sirius used to tease him about that. I can get you to do anything, so long as I don't tell you anything about it or give you any time to think. Thinking too much trips you up, Moony.

Why was he thinking about Sirius? He didn't want to.

There were very few lights along the road. He only knew where the trees stopped and the sky began because of the stars. There were so many of them, and they seemed fixed to the sky while the bus carrying him, Jenny, and the other passengers bounced and rattled across the countryside, hurrying toward something he could not see.

I think I know how the stars feel, Sirius said in his imagination. I'm fixed to the night, to borrow your phrase. Not going anywhere. Not aging. Well, physically. But I haven't learned a single thing in eight years. Have you?

"Be quiet," Remus muttered.

Jenny stirred.

Remus watched her lashes flutter and her lips part around a sigh. Her breath ghosted over the pulse at his wrist and he must have been very tired because when something lurched, he thought for a moment that it might be something inside him and not the bus. She was so bloody beautiful, and so young. He'd never been as young as she was, had never had so much to look forward to. Oxford. Young men. Well, he'd had those, as well as women, but she would have better. Prospects.

It burned a little. If he was jealous, he told himself, it was of her, not of her future partners.

Well, maybe…

You're going to leave her, said Sirius confidently. You tosser. Look at her. You could make her love you if you tried. You never try.

"I mean it," Remus snapped.

Look at her.

"Mean what?" Jenny's voice was thick with drowsiness. Her eyelids lifted and something lurched again, but this time Remus knew what it was.

"Nothing," he said, smiling down at her. It didn't matter. These past few weeks weren't meant to be his, he thought as he smoothed away the strands of hair that had caught on her lashes. He'd stolen them from somewhere, or someone. But he wasn't sorry.

"We'll be there soon," Jenny said.

*

They got off the bus at a station marked only by a slab of cracked concrete and a wooden post. A sign swung on a rusted nail, but time and the elements had so faded the writing that it was no longer legible. The air was cold and thin. Remus turned and turned and in each direction, the Carpathian Mountains rose blue-grey against the cloudless sky. To the east stood a clump of small houses, but Jenny hoisted her rucksack to her shoulder and pointed in the opposite direction.

"Do they know we're coming?" Remus asked as they began to walk. His legs, cramped and stiff, wobbled slightly.

"They know we're here," said Jenny.

He followed her across the road and up into the tree-studded hills. It was quiet except for the tread of their feet and the occasional rustle of branches. The air was knife-sharp on the back of his neck, but that was pleasant after the bus's stale air and the cracked vinyl seat backs. After only a few minutes it seemed almost possible that they had left the rest of the world behind them and that, wherever they were, they were the only living creatures. Remus thought that if that were true, he would be content to stay. Jenny didn't seem to want to talk, so he fantasized in silence. When the moon was full, he could lock himself up or lock Jenny up and tear through these hills. It had been a long time since he'd felt raw earth beneath his paws or heard his own howl bounce back to him from tree trunks and boulders. They'd use magic to support themselves.

It was the sort of inane idea he might have had ten years ago and he laughed at it. Jenny turned at looked at him quizzically.

"What? Is there something on my butt?" She swiped at herself.

"Your bum is lovely. Don't mind me."

A smile touched her lips and Remus thought for a moment that she would say something more. But the dark hair swished and fell in her eyes as she shook her head, and then she turned and started to walk again.

They shared a bag lunch on the crest of a hill, then rose and brushed the crumbs from their trousers, and continued. After an hour or so, the trees began to thicken and little while after that, they came to the shack.

Unlike the Shrieking Shack, it was a proper shack, a single-roomed structure made of weathered planks and stone. The windows were covered with yellowed newsprint; some of the panes were cracked. Half an inch of dust lay on the floor and there were cobwebs in every corner. There was an iron stove, a table, and a single chair. No shelves, no cabinets, no dishes. The air was cold and very dry. Remus felt the hairs on his forearms and the back of his neck rise.

"Something about this place…isn't right," he observed.

"No." Jenny set her rucksack on the table. "The Kalderash put an enchantment on this place many years ago. "You see it as an abandoned shack or something, don't you? I thought maybe with your gypsy blood… But it doesn't matter. This is a place of meeting. The clan always knows when one of its own is here."

Remus's gaze swept the shack again. Its appearance hadn't changed. He squinted and thought that he almost saw the shadows of other things trembling behind the simple furniture, but he could not be certain. "And when a non-gypsy is in residence?"

"They're not. They don't. A gadjé will sometimes come in to escape the rain, but they don't stay long. Nothing bad happens to them," she answered his unspoken question. "The enchantment just…repels them somehow. I don't really know what happens. You'll have to tell me."

"I don't feel anything," Remus said, shrugging. "Cold. A little uneasy, that's all."

"Maybe with time… Or maybe the enchantment senses your Romani blood after all."

"So, it's good for something. Not that I want to stay here," he added when her eyes narrowed. "Unless there's a four-poster that I can't see."

She cocked her head and her hair slid back, revealing a white flash of neck. "Why, Remus. Whatever would you want do to with a four-poster?"

"Not with. On." He hadn't thought about sex since they'd left the bus, but suddenly he was hardening. It was the magic, he thought. The chill of it was seeping through his clothes and skin. Shivers of ice tingled in his blood. He wanted to clasp something warm, bury himself in it.

Jenny walked right up to him and cupped him through his trousers. He hissed.

"Why, Remus." She leaned closer. Her hot breath fanned his chin. "There's a mattress in the corner. We have until dark."

*

By nightfall Remus could barely walk, but, at Jenny's urging, he dressed and stumbled out of the shack to wait. He knew that the air had cooled, but he didn't feel it right away. A film of sweat lay over him, and when he closed his eyes he could see Jenny, could almost feel her writhing under him, her mouth clinging to his, her legs tight around his waist. He licked his lips and tasted her.

The sweat dried and a chill wind came at him, stinging every bit of skin that it grazed. He gritted his teeth and thought determinedly of Jenny, of her lips around his cock and her slim fingers teasing his balls, and, later, of the way she'd whimpered when he'd pushed her back against the mattress, spread her with his thumbs, and thrust his tongue inside.

It made him smile, but it didn't bring the warmth back. He opened his eyes. In the moonlight, the trees were pale as ghosts.

Behind him, the door opened and closed and then he was aware of Jenny beside him. He could hear her breathing, and he wanted to touch her but because she seemed to be standing very still, her hands at her sides, he did not reach for her.

The man appeared without a sound. Short and white-haired, his swarthy face wrinkled as a walnut, he stared at Remus and Remus stared back, his tongue frozen to the roof of his mouth. "Janna," the man said at length, followed by words in a language that Remus did not know. It must have been a command to Jenny, because she snapped something back falteringly.

"Janna," said the man again. There was something in his voice of matches striking, or sparks snapping in a fire.

"Tobar," Jenny protested.

The man pointed to the door.

Jenny stood stiffly for a moment more. Then she lowered her chin and, without a glance at Remus, turned and went into the shack. When the door had closed behind her, then man tapped his chest with his index finger. "I'm Tobar. So, you are the werewolf." His tone was harsh, but Remus sensed no scorn in it. "And you're part-gypsy. Janna thinks that entitles you to our help."

Remus swallowed. He wished that he were inside the shack with Jenny. Janna, he thought. "It was her idea," he said. Tobar's expression did not change, but Remus felt the air draw back in a sneer at his cowardice.

"You must be very good," Tobar said.

"I'm not."

"In bed, I mean."

"No." The word was out before Remus could think. He flushed and hoped that Tobar could not see. "That is, I don't believe she would bother if-"

Tobar waved a hand dismissively. "Her intentions don't matter. I cannot help you, Remus Lupin. Not even our Elder Woman can help you."

"I see."

The wrinkles in Tobar's forehead deepened as his eyebrows went up. "That's it? You will not protest? Or plead? Most would."

Something flickered in Remus's stomach, but the breath he drew snuffed it. His body felt oddly light. I'm going to fly away, he thought helplessly. Or fall. Or laugh. Oh god, don't make me laugh. I'd rather fall.

Tobar scratched his chin. "Do you understand why?"

"No," said Remus. "But tell me. Please. It doesn't matter, but I'm curious." He sounded drunk. He wished he had a pint of beer. Or eight pints. Anything that could banish his self-awareness. "You can return a vampire's soul, but you can't-"

"It's different," Tobar interjected. "It is easy to put back something that's been taken out. But in your case, in the case of all werewolves, to extract the thing that's made itself part of you…" He spread his hands. "It is too much, even for us. It was tried centuries ago, when we knew much more than we do now. The werewolf died in great pain. Janna was very young when her parents took her to America. She would not have known. I must speak to her."

He went into the shack, leaving Remus alone in the woods. Nothing had changed, he told himself. Nothing would change. He was going to laugh, he knew. It was wrong, but he felt it coming and hugged his arms tightly to his chest to keep it in.

How long he struggled, he would never know. When the door slammed he looked up, expecting Tobar.

It was Jenny.

"I have to go." Something in her voice made the laughter sink back into his stomach.

"I'll get my things," he said. "Where's Tobar?"

"Gone. He went through the back door."

"The-"

"You can't see it. You're not one of us." Her words were clipped, cold. "I have to go."

"Wouldn't it make more sense to spend the night? I doubt there'll be another bus until morning and-"

"I have to go," Jenny said. "Alone. I'm going back to the flat to get my things. I want you to stay here just for another day or so. Or until after the full moon. Whatever you want. I'm sorry. I just need to go back alone and get my things."

She started to leave. He stepped in front of her.

"Jenny."

"That's not my name," she whispered.

"Janna." He puts his hands on her shoulders. She was trembling. "It's all right. I think you're taking this worse than me. I suppose I don't know how to feel. But I'm not angry. It didn't work. To be honest, I didn't expect it to. I'm used to it. Don't worry. Let's go back inside."

Her head was lowered, so he couldn't see her eyes, only the curled tips of her lashes. "I'm sorry it didn't work, Remus. I should have done more research. I just hoped…"

"It's all right," he said again in what he hoped was a soothing tone. He had little control of it. If he could convince her, maybe he could convince himself. If he needed convincing.

"It's not. For you, maybe it is. You never hoped. You haven't lost anything. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he said, releasing her. "You're right."

"Remus, I'm sorry."

"Please stop saying that. You sound like my parents. This is something I'm used to. It's all right."

"You stop saying that!" she shouted. "It's all right for you. You don't care. What about me? I wanted to go to Oxford."

"Wanted…" he said, taken aback. "What's changed?"

"Everything!" He heard her rasping breath, saw the white puffs. "The clan wants me to go to America. I'm to find Angelus and watch him. He's the vampire I told you about. The one with the soul. Someone has to watch him to make sure he stays cursed." Her laugh was bitter. "That's the price for asking them to help you."

"But that's not fair," protested Remus, wishing he could sit down. Things were happening too abruptly; they were dizzying him.

"That's the price," said Jenny simply. She turned away.

"But they don't have any power over you. They didn't raise you. You don't owe them anything. Call Tobar back. I'll do what he says. I'll pay. But this-" He fell silent.

He heard nothing for such a long time that he thought she must have left him. He stood among the trees by the shack and looked up at the moonlit tangle of branches. A snarl of branches, he thought. A snare. A trap. You were wrong, Sirius. But it looks like neither of us is going anywhere.

"Jenny." His throat was closing; the word barely squeaked out. Janna.

Her voice floated back to him, sweetly, sadly. "They're my people. I have to. I can't explain it. I wish they cared more about me than a girl who's been dead for ninety years, but all I can do is what I'm told."

She was quiet and once again Remus thought she'd gone. He sagged in the doorway. As his eyes closed, she said, "I don't love you."

That was what he thought she'd said. But he was so tired and she was so far away that he might have been mistaken.

*

As the years passed, Remus came to believe that no parting was ever truly permanent. People drifted into his life and drifted out, but, it seemed, they always came back to him in some form, usually unexpected.

James and Lily came back in the form of their son, whom Remus taught and tried to help. Sirius returned seeking absolution that Remus had no right to grant. They had just enough time to catalogue each other's wounds, to relearn the faltering rhythm of being together. Then Sirius was gone again. Occasionally, Remus caught glimpses of him in Tonks, during their brief relationship, but he knew better than to hope.

Peter returned twice, once when Sirius was still alive and once when he was not. Remus killed him that second time. For many nights afterward, he dreamed of rats with blood-red eyes and tails naked as worms.

It was many years after that night in the Romanian forest that Remus found Jenny again. The war with Voldemort had been over for some time. Harry had survived and was now traveling the world with some friends, much as any young man newly done with school should. Minerva McGonagall was Headmistress at Hogwarts, and had asked Remus to come back and teach either Defense Against the Dark Arts or Transfiguration. He was tempted, but had not yet decided. On the one hand, it was steady work, something he had not been offered in a long while. On the other hand, he was in his forties, which was young for wizards, but not werewolves. His joints ached more with each winter, and the thought of moving to northern Scotland, even to a well-heated castle, did not have the appeal it once had.

One night toward the end of summer, he was drinking in a nearly empty pub in Cornwall. He hadn’t come with the intention of getting pissed, but the beer and the food were good, and the salty breeze coming through the open window was lulling. He was mildly curious about the man at the table closest to his; he did not speak a word, but the sadness dragging at his shoulders and the corners of his mouth was obvious.

Once, the man's glance met Remus's, and he raised his pint in a silent salute. Remus copied the gesture. They drank deeply, simultaneously.

"Buffy," the man muttered, setting his glass on the table with a thud.

To his chagrin, Remus felt flutter of amusement. He'd known plenty of people who'd been deeply attached to their pets, but not one who'd gone drinking after the pet's death. "Padfoot," he said at length, because the man seemed to be expecting something.

"Stupid, really. She'd lived longer than most Slayers, I - I suppose to thought she was indestructible. Or different. Or that I was lucky. She was different. But I failed her."

His words made no sense to Remus, who offered only a shallow smile in response.

"I've been over it a hundred times," the man insisted, scratching at his short, grey-flecked dark hair. "She was stronger than Glory. It should have… But the rift, you see. None of us could have reached her in time. Still. And for some reason, I can't stop thinking about Jenny. So bloody stupid."

The breeze licked Remus's knuckles. "Jenny?"

"Someone else that I lost. Years ago."

"I lost a Jenny," Remus said slowly. "Also years ago. She left me. It was my fault. At least, I think it was my fault."

"Mine," said the man, "was killed by a vampire."

So, the breeze seemed to say. But Jenny was a common enough name, and vampires were not rare. But it fit the pattern of his life.

Patterns are stupid, Remus thought. He pushed his glass away and stood, gathering his jacket and scarf. The man saluted him again as he left.

Outside, Remus could hear the surf not far away. The breeze was crisp, but he only draped his scarf loosely across his shoulders. His throat hurt, as though something had been dragged roughly from it and when he inhaled, the air seemed to thicken in his lungs.

She was never mine to lose. Anyway, he'd barely known her. What he remembered mostly from the two months they'd spent together was good sex while the country around them dreamed fitfully of revolution.

And standing by the kitchen counter, her back to him, twisting her dark hair, piling it on her head, then letting it fall like a veil.

The weight of her head on his arm as the bus bumped and rattled across the Romanian countryside. Ghosts of her dreams still swimming in her brown eyes when she woke to find him cradling her.

That last afternoon in the shack in the woods, rolling off her and looking down at her through the dwindling sunlight. What little light there'd been had pooled wherever it could: in the slope of her nose, the curve of her hip, between her breasts, in her limp, upturned palm. It had lingered as if it had known, as he must have, he now thought, that they were almost at the end and he'd never see her again.

She'd pulled him off the floor, literally and metaphorically. He'd been down there many times. She'd been one of many. He'd left Romania very shortly after the coup d'etat at the end of the year, as soon as travel had been allowed, and he'd not been back.

Remus shoved his hands into his pockets and started to walk in the direction of the sea. His bones ached, but he had to think, had to come up with an answer for McGonagall.

Thinking always trips you up, someone had said to him once. Had it been Jenny?

So, I'll be tripped up. There's no one left for me to hurt with my mistakes. If you're gone, you're gone. If you're still alive…

"Patterns are stupid," Remus said again, and continued down toward the sea.

2/4/07