FIC: Out of Darkness (2/9)
Title: Out of Darkness (2/9)
Author: Luna Rosa
Feedback: lovegrrl_in@hotmail.com
Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: Remus Lupin has exiled himself from the wizarding world, unable to deal with the pain of the second war but a near fatal accident reacquaints him with the past and he realises that some old friends may be more in need of him than he thought.
Status: WIP, chapter two of nine.
Archive: SB/RL mailing list, Azkaban's Lair. Anywhere else; just ask.
Rating: PG13 - NC17 (eventually)
Originally posted: lovegrrl.livejournal.com/
Disclaimer: Unfortunately these characters do not belong to me. I am just practising my Imperius Curse on them (shhh).
Dedications: Beta thanks goes to Clara who is the faster beta I’ve ever seen. Thanks.
Author’s note: To catch up go here...
Prologue, Chapter One
Otherwise, on with the show
Chapter Two
***
Hermione sat with Remus and they talked about what she'd been doing in the last years. She worked in the Ministry of Magic’s Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
Remus could feel a cheeky smile pulling at his lips as she talked enthusiastically about the policies which she was proposing to the CMC committee; recognition of house-elves equality status, decriminalisation of unwizarding acts, “defined in the 1297 Statute of Wizarding Constitution as being any feat deemed to promote young wizards and witches to do naughty things!” and reclassification of all part-human creatures including, but not limited to, vampires, hags, werewolves, giants, and veela.
“I wasn’t sure about working for the Ministry after...” she trailed off but he knew she meant ‘after the war’. “Then I thought; who were they to tell us what to do? To act like some people are better than others after seeing what those kinds of ideas started in the first place. I figured the way to make changes was from the inside. This is... this is really important!” she looked just as earnest as she had back in her third year and Remus remembered all over again what a astounding woman Hermione Granger was.
“Sounds like you’ve been busy?” Remus smiled when she finally took a sip of the peppermint tea Healer Eliza had brought over to them.
“Mmmm,” Hermione answered thoughtfully and he noticed a frown form on her forehead. “There’s something else. Something I wanted to ask you about. When I heard you were here... I didn’t just want to barge in and...” she trailed off.
“And what, Hermione?” he prompted when she didn’t continue. She seemed to be doing that a lot.
“It’s just... something’s happened. I thought you might know, or at least have an idea... Ron said I shouldn’t worry but...” she was playing with her sleeve again.
“And what does Harry think?” Remus asked as he leaned forward and placed a comforting hand on Hermione’s knee.
Her eyes shot up and seemed to pierce right through Remus, a tear building on the edge of her eyelid, as if his last words had just knocked the life out of her.
“But that’s just it!” she gasped. “I don’t know what Harry thinks.”
A loud bang rang through the room and Remus’s eyes shot up to see another figure crashing into the ward; the door thrown open so violently that the hinges were now jammed.
This visitor hardly even paused before sprinting down the room towards Remus’s bed. Hermione, quick as a flash, was off her feet and met the visitor halfway.
“He doesn’t know, Ginny!” she said, her voice tinged with pleading as she grasped her friend’s arm firmly. “Calm down, okay?”
“Bollocks he doesn’t know,” the youngest Weasley exclaimed, straining to get away from her friend. “Too much of a coincidence if you ask me!”
She grabbed Hermione by the arms and forced her eyes to Hermione’s. “But you didn’t ask me, did you? Just came sauntering down here for a cosy little chat!” Her eyes flew to Remus. They sparked dangerously and didn’t leave Remus’s face as she asked Hermione. “Did you ask him? Did you even bloody ask him?!”
“Think straight, Ginny,” Hermione pleaded, “This is Remus we’re talking about.”
Ginny wasn’t listening. She had already pushed Hermione aside with the strength built up over years of being the only girl in a family of boys.
She stalked over to Remus’s bed and stared down at him. her fists clenched and her eyes aflame. Remus realised it had been a long time since he had been made to feel so small and defenceless by just a pair of eyes.
“Where is he?” she demanded. “I know you kept in touch. Even owls sent in the middle of the night can be noticed, you know?”
“Owls?” he frowned. “Ginny, I haven't heard from any-”
She moved her face dangerously close to his. “I’m not blind, Remus. I’m not stupid!”
“Ginny!” Remus exclaimed, holding his hands up in defence. “I never thought you-”
“Don’t act all innocent. What do you take me for?” she demanded. “Some kind of ploy, is it? You showing up on the radar again. Some kind of alibi.”
“Alibi?” Remus said becoming more confused. His eyes flicking to Hermione for answers before going back to Ginny. “For what? What do you suppose I’ve done?”
“I swear to god, if you know anything,” Ginny threatened, but her voice was starting to crumble.
Remus didn’t have time to respond before Hermione was pulling Ginny back from the bed. “I told you. He doesn’t know.” She turned Ginny’s head forcibly to make her look away from Remus. “He doesn’t!”
Something seemed to snap in Ginny as Hermione looked at her. Remus saw the ginger head fall and her face crumble. “But he has to,” she whimpered. “Someone has to know. He can’t just be gone.” Ginny wrapped her arms around Hermione and began to sob into her robes.
Remus met Hermione with his eyes, demanding answers.
Hermione closed her eyes and explained in a low whisper, so as not to upset Ginny any more than necessary. “It’s Harry,” she said, “he’s disappeared.”
***
He wasn’t meant to be out of bed but what else could he do. Harry was missing! He fired questions at Hermione as he packed.
“When was he last seen?”
“Two weeks ago, in Hogsmeade.”
“Two weeks!” Remus spun around to stare at her. “What the bloody hell have the Ministry been doing for two weeks!”
“They won’t take it seriously that he’s in danger. They said he’s gone missing before and turned up okay. They’d know if Harry Potter was in danger.”
“ ‘They’d know’,” Remus repeated as he took in the information. “So they’ve been keeping an eye on him, a locator spell or-”
“That’s what we thought,” Hermione interrupted as she started to pace. “Tonks confirmed it when we talked to her but they lost it a week ago. He was in Godrics Hollow then so we still weren’t too worried. He’d been taking a lot of time to himself lately. After all the trials ended he felt,” she stopped herself at these words and rethought them. “I think he felt lost. For half his life all he’d known was Voldermort, and then... it was all over.”
“So we know where he was a week ago, that’s a start,” Remus began.
“No we don’t,” Ginny cut in now, her voice wet but steady through her tear stained face. “It was a decoy. He’d gone there, alright,” her voice tinged with something bitter, “but only to set up a spell, like an echo. He knew they were watching,” she paused. “Or if he didn’t know he had a pretty good idea. He was trying to mislead them. I found the residuals when I went to find him.”
“Residuals? So the spell... died?” Remus said, his voice shaking. He suddenly understood Ginny’s anger, her pain. He slumped onto the bed. “A spell only dies if-”
“-if the caster moves to a magically secure environment,” Hermione continued, “or if...” she glanced at Ginny.
“No!” Ginny said, standing up again. “Don’t say it, Hermione. You know it’s not true.”
“I don’t want it to be, Ginny, but-”
“No!” more steel in her voice now. “I know it’s not true. I know because I can feel him. I can feel he’s still alive.” She grabbed the front of her gown as she spoke. “He saved my life. He saved it in many ways, but that one time, in the Chamber, he saved me. I have a Life Debt to him. I’ve felt it since then, felt it everyday and I feel it now.” Tears were welling in her eyes again even though her voice never cracked.
“You can hypothesise all you want Hermione but this isn’t about books and brains. This is about life!” Her breathing was heavy, she looked about ready to collapse but she turned to Remus instead. “And you feel it too, don’t you?” her tone was accusatory, desperate.
He didn’t look up at her, didn’t dare! If he did he wouldn’t be able to stand again; wouldn’t be able to walk out of this hospital and do what had to be done.
His eyes on the floor, tears threatening, he gave the slightest nod. He heard Ginny release a deep lungful of air that must have been keeping her upright because a second later she collapsed into the chair behind her.
Hermione looked from one to the other. “You... Remus, you can feel him?” Confusion mixed with hope to give her voice an almost drained tone. “How...”
Remus shook his head. He couldn’t talk about it. She hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen what happened.
“I mightn’t have been the bravest man these last years, Hermione, but if I’d known he was in danger...” he pulled back the images springing to his mind. Images of Harry crumpled on the ground, bloodied and lifeless. “I wouldn’t have hesitated.”
That battle, the one that had changed his life forever. They’d been caught unawares. Harry and he had been trying to destroy one of the Horcruces.
When Harry, Ron and Hermione had first come to him and told him about the Horcruces he could hardly imagine it; he might have laughed at them if their faces hadn’t been so damn serious. Maybe he laughed anyway, he couldn’t remember now. They told him about Voldermort splitting his own soul to achieve immortality; told him how the pieces had been sealed into items which interested The Dark Lord and hidden, perhaps in Britain, perhaps further afield, they didn’t know.
He was sure he felt a small piece of his own soul die when Harry told him what Voldermort had planned for the night he killed James and Lily. How callously he would have treated the death of two of Remus’s friends. And, for the first time he thought how mad these three must be. These children, who were going to take on the might of Voldermort and his followers almost single-handedly. But in the midst of the pain and the horror, he had believed them. And so, once again, he was invited into the inner circle of a fight that few would envy.
The task, difficult though it was, wasn’t completely hopeless. They already knew the Ring had been destroyed start thanks to Dumbledore; the Diary thanks to Harry. They assumed about Nagini. Hufflepuff’s cup had been found in a far flung part of Asia thanks to Bill. He had seemed rather proud of himself about that one even though Ron had never told him what it really meant. Only a handful of the Order had been let in on the information and Remus, whether he liked it or not, was one of them.
But Slytherin’s locket eluded them. For all they knew it had already been destroyed but they couldn’t be sure. Harry seemed to hold it as some omen. The loss it had already caused. Causing the death of Dumbledore, as Harry saw it, and allowing Voldemort to extend his own seemed to torment the Boy Who Lived beyond all else. The replacement - the useless, cheap fake - became a sinister talisman to Harry. He carried it in his pocket, would turn it in his hand as he thought, the chain winding around his fingers like a metallic snake.
Remus had almost lost hope of finding the last two Horcruces. They kept thinking ‘the locket and something of Ravenclaws’ that’s what Dumbledore had said, that’s what fitted the puzzle. Then one day, just after Christmas, Ginny had wandered upon Remus in the Burrow (Molly insisted on having him over for all the celebrations now, Christmas, birthdays, it was getting quite tiring if he told the truth). She had a book clasped in her chest but seemed preoccupied by her own thoughts. Remus noticed the title was A Guide to Medieval Sorcery. Hogwarts might be closed but Molly would be damned if she allowed her children to fall behind none-the-less, especially given the times.
He was reading and only looked up momentarily before delving back into an entirely boring account of the early life of Rowena Ravenclaw. Ginny seemed to hover in a completely uncharacteristic way. He hadn’t seen her acting this timid since he taught at Hogwarts; the year after the Diary had been destroyed. That thought made him look up sharply.
“Ginny?” he asked laying the book aside. “Are you okay?”
“Mmm,” she hummed distractedly, not making eye contact with him but idly looking at the bookshelf, her finger momentarily touching one book or another. “I just... I’m trying to figure something out.”
“What is it?” he asked, struggling to keep the worried concern out of his voice.
“I was thinking about the people, I mean the ones who have been killed or gone missing. Most of them seem to make sense, Amelia Bones because she was head of Law Enforcement. Emmeline Vance because of her position in the Order... it’s not nice to say but it makes sense why they were targeted. Then,” she paused for a moment; her head turned to the side, “then Ollivander went missing.” Her face flickered with confusion.
“Wands, Ginny, it’s that simple,” Remus repeated the same summation for the redhead as he had come to himself. “Wizards with no wand are just as vunerable as Muggles... more so.”
She was pacing back and forth now as she thought; something he’d seen Hermione do countless times.
“Yes, that’s logical,” she conceded, her voice becoming harder now, “but it doesn’t make sense. Ollivanders’ wasn’t the only wand maker in Britain. It was the best, the oldest, I remember thinking it amazing that they was older than Hogwarts. How could anything be older than that, right?” she threw Remus a cheeky smile before continuing, “but not the only one. Taking him out doesn’t mean wizards can’t buy wands. It doesn’t leave us defenceless,” she turned to Remus now, and he could see her beginning to put it together. “So it had to be something else, some other reason Voldemort wanted him out of the way. Something Ollivander knew or... or...” she turned to look at Remus her eyes wide. “Something he knew about, or something he had, something only he could have!”
“What is it, Ginny?” Remus asked, standing now as he noticed the colour seem to drain from Ginny’s face.
She threw the book she was holding aside and began frantically searching the bookcase. She eventually pulled out Achievements in Charming and scrambled through the pages. Frantically looking for something.
“There were so many of them maybe he wouldn’t notice right away, maybe he had it somewhere for safe keeping. Gringotts, or...” She finally stopped on a page and ran her finger down it until reaching a footnote added in miniscule writing.
She turned the book around and handed it to Remus, her finger still pointing to the minute text.
Remus gave her a confused look but took the book. Bringing it into the light of the window where he had been sitting. She followed and stood beside him while he read.
67 It is interesting to note that Hogwarts Founder and accomplished Gobstones player, Rowena Ravenclaw, a third cousin five times removed from Flavius Ollivander, founder of Ollivanders wand makers, experimented herself in her early years with some unusual wand combinations. There are no certified examples of her work surviving to date although her estate reverted to the Ollivanders after her death in 1073 leaving no spouse or heirs.
“I remembered something from that year... when Tom was talking to me,” she said.
Remus had never heard her refer to him as anything but Tom when she mentioned that part of her life.
“I was upset because one of the Ravenclaw girls said dragon heart strings were a boys wand core and that’s what I had - what I have,” she corrected. “Tom said a wand’s core is what brings out your true spirit. He said I should be proud of my dragon heart.” She half-smiled. “That was before he had me killing the roosters,” she added darkly.
Remus read over the passage again. “Unusual wand combinations,” he murmured. “He’d like that.” Remus looked up from the book his gaze uncertain. “Brings out your true spirit.” His words half formed in the disquieting stillness of the room. “Phoenix tail feather, born from the ashes of death.” Remus felt his heart beginning to race.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Ginny asked with both fear and excitement. It was only then Remus noticed she was clinging to his arm. His own senses seemed to have deadened as he read the text.
“Quickly,” he said, finally putting the book down but being careful to mark the page. “Get Harry and the others, we need to talk.”
“What will I tell them?”
“Tell them what you told me. Tell them you found the sixth Horcrux!”
***
Remus was pulled from his memory as Hermione sat on the bed beside him. She was still taking in the truth of the situation. He had never told anyone about the Life Debt, never spoken about what had happened that night that made him leave. Forced him into flight.
Ginny tugged her own robes tightly around her and Remus noticed the harsh look on her face give way to something more sympathetic.
“Sorry, Remus,” she said in a whisper but her eyes were still staring at the floor. “I never meant to accuse you... no one was listening and when you showed up...” she frowned. “I’ve learned over the years that coincidences are never just that!” She pushed a loose strand behind her ear. “You... you always believed in me, I should have done the same for you.”
***
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