To Believe by Jess Pallas
Title: To Believe
Author: jesspallas
Rating & Warnings: PG 13 bit grim
Prompts: Everlasting Icicles and:
Christmas is coming,
The geese are getting fat,
Please put a penny
In the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny,
A ha'penny will do,
If you haven't got a ha'penny,
Then God bless you.
- Christmas Is Coming
Word Count: 3347 words
Summary: In the face of Voldemort’s horrific world at Christmas, Remus and Tonks try to do one good thing for one poor Muggleborn…
Author’s Notes: I always thought on reading DH and the plight of the Muggleborns how much Remus would be able to relate to them and when I got this prompt I started to picture him trying to find ways to help them and the idea, after several false starts, turned into this. Because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get Remus to overlook the indignity of charity to someone perfectly capable of fending for themselves if society would let them. I have a sneaking suspicion this isn’t my best work as I wrote it in a bit of a hurry ahead of an advancing challenge deadline and leaving for my parents for Christmas. It’s a bit disjointed and a bit grim, without much romance and I kind of ran out of steam with the ending and fudged it a bit but I hope you enjoy it, as far as possible. :)
There were times, Remus had to admit, when he couldn’t quite believe Lee Jordan’s cheek.
It was a brilliant idea; that much was undeniable. By setting up his Potterwatch equipment in Florean Fortescue’s boarded up shop so close to the broadcast transmitter for the main Wizarding Wireless station, Lee had succeeded in disguising his transmissions beneath the larger signal, making their illegal programme almost impossible to magically trace. But Diagon Alley was no easy place to reach for Wizarding Britain’s most wanted - Kingsley had already had one narrow squeak outside Madam Malkins involving his former colleague Dawlish and Selwyn the Death Eater, and Remus himself had been forced to duck into an alley and freeze as none other than Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband strode imperiously by. Brilliant as the theory had been, Remus had a feeling that it wouldn’t be long before their position became untenable and they would be forced to move on once more. He could only hope it would happen before any of the broadcasters were captured.
Which was why he wished rather heartily that he had been able to persuade his five-month-pregnant wife to forgo this last pre-Christmas broadcast and stay safe and sound at home.
But Dora had been adamant. Rainbow was as much a part of Potterwatch as Romulus, she insisted, and although she had accepted that once her pregnancy reached a certain point she would be forced to bow out of the majority of risk taking, she was damned well going to do her part for as long as she could. Remus, in what Dora had described afterwards as a piece of sneaky underhandedness, had promptly recruited Andromeda onto his side, but even the powers of persuasion her mother wielded had not been enough. Although she had conceded that this broadcast would indeed be her last, Dora was still insistent that she was going to come.
In the face of a full-blown attack of Tonksian stubbornness, Remus had simply had no choice. He’d given in.
And so here they were, both shrouded in dark, hooded cloaks, Dora’s robes expansive in an effort to hide her rounded stomach as they ducked out of the private Floo in the back room of Flourish and Blotts that Andromeda’s old friend Mr Blott, who was stacking books and looking very determinedly the other way as they moved quickly outside, had risked his life in allowing them to use. The shop, disconcertingly for the week before Christmas, was deserted but for its owner and a couple of nervous looking browsers and the street outside was little better. Remus remembered so many Diagon Alley Christmases; how magical it looked swathed in gleaming white snow that never seemed to melt or turn dirty no matter how many feet trampled through it, the brightness of the holly berry garlands, the colourful Christmas trees, the shining baubles, the fairy lights that flitted from eave to eave as they were carried through the air by real, smiling fairies. He remembered smiling faces and laughing children and wizards and witches carrying armfuls of brightly wrapped packages as they headed for the Leaky Cauldron and home. He remembered carrying a few packages himself over the years; small but valued presents for his mother in the years before her death, gifts for his friends that he always felt were too little, but that they treated on receipt like the Treasures of Eldorado, and two years before, the first Christmas gift he ever bought for Dora and last for Sirius and his father before that devastating summer when he lost both with a month of each other. So many Christmases here and so many memories.
But the street before him now was a mockery of that so familiar scene, straggly clumps of holly tacked over peeling doors, one scraggy tree in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, lumps of slushy, discoloured snow heaped up beneath boarded windows and clustered in the doorways, their hands outreaching, ragged and desperate looking Muggleborns begging for Christmas charity that those who hurried past them were simply too terrified to give.
It was painful to see. Voldemort’s corrupting touch was slowing destroying every good thing about their world and he could do nothing more than protect his wife and their unborn child and bat ineffectually at the trim of his robes with minor missions against Death Eaters that accomplished little and a true and honest radio broadcast.
Oh Harry, where are you?
He felt Dora’s touch, soft and gentle, as she threaded her arm through his, her pale face contrasting vividly with the dark folds of her cloak as her own eyes betrayed her horror at the devastated Christmas she saw before them. But she said nothing, merely jerked his arm as they started forwards towards what remained of Florean Fortescue’s ice cream parlour.
And they were perhaps three quarters of the way there when Remus spotted the old man.
He was huddled in the doorway of the dimly lit apothecary shop, wrapped in filthy, ragged robes that had obviously been ripped and torn by some cruel, human hand. His hat had been ripped and squashed down in on itself and he grasped it in shivering, claw like fingers, holding it out to every passer by, his unshaven, wrinkled face contorted by a mixture of desperation, despair and self-disgust. The expression that passed over his face when each one of them hurried, blinkered, past him was a potent mixture of relief, shame and misery that Remus knew all too well.
No one knew better than he did how painful it could be to take charity. Even when it was a matter of survival, for an intelligent, competent man, it would only ever be torture.
He barely realised he had stopped until he felt Dora’s arm jerk against his. She glanced at him in bewilderment for an instant before following his gaze, her eyes widening at once.
“Isn’t that Mr Twilley?” he heard her whisper. “The apothecary?”
And it was, Remus could see now, though it took some squinting to recognise him as the immaculately dressed Diagon Alley apothecary with his ruler straight parting, shiny hair and expensive robes. He’d done well for himself over the years, had Cecil Twilley, running his own shop in Wizarding Britain’s prime location, training up many an apprentice, including none other than the famous Damocles Belby, and earning a reputation as the best commercial potion brewer in the business. He’d scared Remus to death as a schoolboy, a stern, patrician figure with a quizzical eyebrow and a penetrating gaze that seemed able to pierce straight through to his heart and to see that within lay a complete lack of any talent as a potion brewer. But his mother, also a potion brewer of no little talent, had held him in great respect and Remus had spent many an hour of his life standing and staring at wriggling jars of newt eyes and frogs legs as his mum and Mr Twilley talked shop. She’d always said there was no one better to test the waters with Cecil Twilley of Diagon Alley.
But it seemed that reputation and talent meant nothing now in the face of Muggle blood. The wizarding world’s best apothecary was cowering in the cold, begging for coins from passers by in the shadow of the very shop he founded.
And these people, who’d purchased his potions and benefited from his talents for decades, would not now even look him in the face.
It made Remus feel sick to his stomach. He knew what it was to have people look straight past him, to treat him as though he wasn’t even a human being. It had taken him years and a strong dose of Dora to make him realise that life was not supposed to be that way and he couldn’t bear to see so many talented witches and wizards being subjected to the same simply because of fear of one monster of a man and his power and prejudice.
Well no more. Not today.
He was already halfway to Twilley when the man saw him coming, his eyes widening with confusion and no little fear at this sudden acknowledgment of his existence. He clutched his battered hat against his chest as Remus dropped to a crouch beside him, forcing himself to smile at the hagged remnants of a once proud man. Dora, after taking a slightly more prudent moment to check the street for any sign of Ministry or Death Eater activity, made to lower herself awkwardly down beside him.
Remus forestalled her. “Stay standing,” he told her softly. “It’ll make it easier for you to move on quickly.” He smiled more gently. “Keep a look out while you’re up there, will you?”
Dora smiled briefly in return. “That’s me. The rotund sentry post. I’ll kick you if anyone comes.”
“Not too hard, if you wouldn’t mind. I’m sensitive.”
He heard Dora snort. “Yeah right, Lupin. Whatever you say. It’s not as though you slept through me trying to shake you awake this morning, is it?”
“Lupin?” Mr Twilley had always possessed one of those rich, carrying, booming voices that could petrify any young boy who had just spilled a jar of dragon bile at twenty paces. But now his voice was a tremulous rasp as he stared up at Remus, his eyes suddenly filled with recognition. “Why, you’re Diana Lupin’s boy, aren’t you? She used to bring you into the shop sometimes…” His sentence broke off as a hacking cough forced its way up out of his lungs - gently wrapping one arm around his shoulders, Remus held the older man until the coughing had subsided.
“Hello Mr Twilley,” he said quietly.
Mr Twilley stared at him blankly for a long moment. “Dear Merlin,” he whispered softly. “It feels like so long since someone looked me in my eye and said my name. I was starting to forget I had one.” He grasped Remus’ hand sharply with his own. “Thank you, my boy. Thank you so much.”
Remus smiled more sincerely. “Nobody deserves to be ignored.”
Mr Twilley’s lip twisted. “They’re afraid,” he murmured, his voice was low as to be almost inaudible - Remus had to bend closer to catch the words. “Afraid for their families, afraid for themselves. I can’t blame them. My wife has been dragged away to Azkaban. I don’t even know what’s happened to my son. But his wife’s a half blood so I can only hope… My grandchildren…” He shook his head slowly. “How can they say we aren’t wizards? I remember when I was a boy, living over my father’s chip shop in Margate, the day I got the letter… It seemed so right. And the moment I first leant over a cauldron to brew, I knew it was meant to be, I just knew…”
Leaning down awkwardly, Dora’s hand closed gently on the old man’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Don’t worry, Mr Twilley. We know too. And whatever they say, whatever they do, don’t let them make you believe this isn’t right. You’re more of a wizard than they are.”
Mr Twilley’s eyes were misting as he glanced up at her - he swallowed hard before switching his gaze back to Remus.
“Why did you stop?” he whispered suddenly. “It’s so dangerous to even talk to me and I can see your… wife?” At Remus nod, he continued. “I can see your wife is pregnant.”
Dora smiled down at him - indeed, on looking up, Remus could see the heavy folds of her robe did nothing to conceal her condition when viewed from below. “You’re not seeing me at my most flattering angle, I’m afraid,” she offered. Her eyes darted cautiously across the street once more as she lowered her voice. “But we’ve been trying to help people like you, Mr Twilley. We’ve got contacts. We might be able to get you out of the country…”
But Mr Twilley was already shaking his head. “No. No, I won’t leave. I won’t leave my shop. I built my business up from the ground, from nothing, I worked so hard! And they say it isn’t mine, that I stole it all and they gave it to my pureblood apprentice Higgs to run into the ground, but I won’t leave it for them, I won’t! And… my wife is prison here and… and he knows… My son, my David, he knows I’d never leave my shop. If he comes looking, I have to be here…” He breathed sharply, fighting back another cough only with difficulty as his eyes rose to meet Remus, filled with a desperate plea. “I have to believe, Mr Lupin, I have to… I have to believe I’ll see my son again. I have to believe they’ll free my wife. I have to believe I’ll get my shop back. Because if I don’t believe, I don’t see what there is to keep me going on…”
He broke down. Remus held the older man, once so proud, so dignified, so self-assured, now sobbing his heart out to a near stranger in the snow and found himself fighting a sudden urge to find the nearest Death Eater and beat the bastard to death.
It was Dora’s voice that eventually slipped through the silence, reticent, reluctant and sad.
“Remus,” she said softly. “We can’t stay much longer. We can’t be late. And there’s someone in Auror robes down near Gringotts. If they head this way and see me…”
Mr Twilley’s head rose slowly, staring at them both, his eyes red, his skin pockmarked. “Yes,” he muttered almost desperately. “Yes, you must go. You’re risking so much just talking to me… and your child…”
“We won’t leave you here with nothing…” Remus could see that Dora was groping in her robes in search of her purse but he reached his hand and stilled her fingers, his expression pointed as she stared down at him in surprise. He loved her dearly but, like Sirius, she had never known what it was to go without, the swallowing of pride that taking charity, even from a well-off friend, involved. No, Mr Twilley had lost his family and his livelihood already - Remus was not going to be the one to take his dignity.
I just need something, anything, that he can do without a wand…
A drop of water splashed against Remus’ nose. He looked up.
Icicles.
Icicles!
It had been a particularly hard year for his parents but he’d known he couldn’t let Christmas pass without giving something to his friends… So he’d snapped some icicles off the eave outside of the dormitory window and, once he’d charmed them so they wouldn’t ever melt, he’d carved patterns into the surface. And then he’d taken some of the detritus from Padfoot and Prongs’ latest potions experiment and used the ingredients to colour the patterns so they showed up more vividly…
If he lent his wand to Mr Twilley for a few minutes to do the charm work, then the carving could be done with any old implement at leisure. And taking leftover ingredients from the rubbish bins behind the apothecary would be galling, but it was his business, his money had bought those supplies and he had every right to use them. And then all he’d need was a market…
But he’d be providing for himself and any other Muggleborn on the street who chose to help him. He wouldn’t have to beg.
“No money, Dora,” he said quietly. “I’ve got a better idea…”
* * *
Lee Jordan had looked at him rather strangely when he’d requested a moment at the end of the broadcast to advertise something, but Kingsley had joked that they must be getting big if people were requesting advertising space. Dora had weighed in with a daft remark about lobbying businesses for sponsorship and Lee had laughed and agreed.
And now, he just had to work out what to say.
Next to him, still wrapped warmly in her cloak in the unheated ice cream parlour, Dora was leaning down towards the microphone.
“…probably be the last time you’ll hear from me for a while. I can’t say why but I’ll be back because Potterwatch isn’t going anywhere. I can only hope that by the time I’m free to return, there won’t be a need for Potterwatch any longer. The wizarding world will be free and this unjust nightmare will be over. There’ll be no more families ripped apart, no more rightful witches and wizards stripped of their wands, no more imprisonment, no more death. I believe this will be over, that everything will be set right and I’m not the only one.” He heard her voice crack slightly. “I met a man today, a Muggleborn wizard forced onto the streets. He was one of our best, our most respected, most worthy wizards… and now he’s begging for coins outside of a shop that used to be his. But he still believes that someday that shop will be his again, that his wife will be released from jail, that he’ll see his son. That’s why I’m going to say - David, if you’re listening, I’m sure you must realise who I mean. And he’s waiting for you. He won’t leave until he knows you and your children are safe. Please, if you can, find him. And on that note, this is Rainbow, handing over to Romulus for one final word.”
He felt Dora squeeze his hand as she leaned back, making way for him. He smiled at her.
“Thank you, Rainbow. To believe. I know, it is so difficult and so fragile, but if a man such as the one Rainbow just described can still hold hope in his heart that our world can be restored, so can any of you. It’s the week before Christmas, a time of hope, a time to believe and believe we must because if we give in, we will surely lose everything once and for all. And that is why I say to you all - show that you believe. There is a man in Diagon Alley who is selling everlasting icicles, a man with nothing but the dregs of his life and his belief to keep him going. I ask you all, go to Diagon Alley, buy from him and display it proudly as a sign that you believe; that you believe in a future for the Wizarding world without blood prejudice and segregation, without cruelty and tyranny, that you believe in Harry Potter. Show him. Show the world. Don’t look away. Don’t be ashamed.” He felt Dora’s hand tight around his once more, felt her love, felt the hope and belief that she had given him and willed the feeling out into the air with the sound of his voice. “Because we have to believe. And above all we have to stand together. Perhaps we can do little to change things as they stand. But we can show that we want to.”
As Lee wrapped the broadcast up with the next password, Remus felt his wife’s arms slip around him, felt her hair whisper against his chin.
“I believe,” she murmured softly. “I believe in Harry. I believe in a future that our baby can be safe and happy in. And I believe in you.”
Remus smiled in spite of himself. “I should think so too. Because if I’m imaginary, who on earth got you pregnant?”
A small fist took a moment to pummel his arm. “Git.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“It’s what I know.” The fist gave a final punch. “But I mean it, Remus. What you did for Mr Twilley today was wonderful. The look on his face when you gave him a way to look after himself…” She shook her head. “I just hope he finds his son.”
Remus wrapped his arm around her and pressed his cheek against her head. “I believe he will. That man deserves a miracle.”
“I know.” Dora’s grasp tightened as her eyes drifted up to meet hers. “And he met one.”
Author: jesspallas
Rating & Warnings: PG 13 bit grim
Prompts: Everlasting Icicles and:
Christmas is coming,
The geese are getting fat,
Please put a penny
In the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny,
A ha'penny will do,
If you haven't got a ha'penny,
Then God bless you.
- Christmas Is Coming
Word Count: 3347 words
Summary: In the face of Voldemort’s horrific world at Christmas, Remus and Tonks try to do one good thing for one poor Muggleborn…
Author’s Notes: I always thought on reading DH and the plight of the Muggleborns how much Remus would be able to relate to them and when I got this prompt I started to picture him trying to find ways to help them and the idea, after several false starts, turned into this. Because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get Remus to overlook the indignity of charity to someone perfectly capable of fending for themselves if society would let them. I have a sneaking suspicion this isn’t my best work as I wrote it in a bit of a hurry ahead of an advancing challenge deadline and leaving for my parents for Christmas. It’s a bit disjointed and a bit grim, without much romance and I kind of ran out of steam with the ending and fudged it a bit but I hope you enjoy it, as far as possible. :)
There were times, Remus had to admit, when he couldn’t quite believe Lee Jordan’s cheek.
It was a brilliant idea; that much was undeniable. By setting up his Potterwatch equipment in Florean Fortescue’s boarded up shop so close to the broadcast transmitter for the main Wizarding Wireless station, Lee had succeeded in disguising his transmissions beneath the larger signal, making their illegal programme almost impossible to magically trace. But Diagon Alley was no easy place to reach for Wizarding Britain’s most wanted - Kingsley had already had one narrow squeak outside Madam Malkins involving his former colleague Dawlish and Selwyn the Death Eater, and Remus himself had been forced to duck into an alley and freeze as none other than Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband strode imperiously by. Brilliant as the theory had been, Remus had a feeling that it wouldn’t be long before their position became untenable and they would be forced to move on once more. He could only hope it would happen before any of the broadcasters were captured.
Which was why he wished rather heartily that he had been able to persuade his five-month-pregnant wife to forgo this last pre-Christmas broadcast and stay safe and sound at home.
But Dora had been adamant. Rainbow was as much a part of Potterwatch as Romulus, she insisted, and although she had accepted that once her pregnancy reached a certain point she would be forced to bow out of the majority of risk taking, she was damned well going to do her part for as long as she could. Remus, in what Dora had described afterwards as a piece of sneaky underhandedness, had promptly recruited Andromeda onto his side, but even the powers of persuasion her mother wielded had not been enough. Although she had conceded that this broadcast would indeed be her last, Dora was still insistent that she was going to come.
In the face of a full-blown attack of Tonksian stubbornness, Remus had simply had no choice. He’d given in.
And so here they were, both shrouded in dark, hooded cloaks, Dora’s robes expansive in an effort to hide her rounded stomach as they ducked out of the private Floo in the back room of Flourish and Blotts that Andromeda’s old friend Mr Blott, who was stacking books and looking very determinedly the other way as they moved quickly outside, had risked his life in allowing them to use. The shop, disconcertingly for the week before Christmas, was deserted but for its owner and a couple of nervous looking browsers and the street outside was little better. Remus remembered so many Diagon Alley Christmases; how magical it looked swathed in gleaming white snow that never seemed to melt or turn dirty no matter how many feet trampled through it, the brightness of the holly berry garlands, the colourful Christmas trees, the shining baubles, the fairy lights that flitted from eave to eave as they were carried through the air by real, smiling fairies. He remembered smiling faces and laughing children and wizards and witches carrying armfuls of brightly wrapped packages as they headed for the Leaky Cauldron and home. He remembered carrying a few packages himself over the years; small but valued presents for his mother in the years before her death, gifts for his friends that he always felt were too little, but that they treated on receipt like the Treasures of Eldorado, and two years before, the first Christmas gift he ever bought for Dora and last for Sirius and his father before that devastating summer when he lost both with a month of each other. So many Christmases here and so many memories.
But the street before him now was a mockery of that so familiar scene, straggly clumps of holly tacked over peeling doors, one scraggy tree in the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, lumps of slushy, discoloured snow heaped up beneath boarded windows and clustered in the doorways, their hands outreaching, ragged and desperate looking Muggleborns begging for Christmas charity that those who hurried past them were simply too terrified to give.
It was painful to see. Voldemort’s corrupting touch was slowing destroying every good thing about their world and he could do nothing more than protect his wife and their unborn child and bat ineffectually at the trim of his robes with minor missions against Death Eaters that accomplished little and a true and honest radio broadcast.
Oh Harry, where are you?
He felt Dora’s touch, soft and gentle, as she threaded her arm through his, her pale face contrasting vividly with the dark folds of her cloak as her own eyes betrayed her horror at the devastated Christmas she saw before them. But she said nothing, merely jerked his arm as they started forwards towards what remained of Florean Fortescue’s ice cream parlour.
And they were perhaps three quarters of the way there when Remus spotted the old man.
He was huddled in the doorway of the dimly lit apothecary shop, wrapped in filthy, ragged robes that had obviously been ripped and torn by some cruel, human hand. His hat had been ripped and squashed down in on itself and he grasped it in shivering, claw like fingers, holding it out to every passer by, his unshaven, wrinkled face contorted by a mixture of desperation, despair and self-disgust. The expression that passed over his face when each one of them hurried, blinkered, past him was a potent mixture of relief, shame and misery that Remus knew all too well.
No one knew better than he did how painful it could be to take charity. Even when it was a matter of survival, for an intelligent, competent man, it would only ever be torture.
He barely realised he had stopped until he felt Dora’s arm jerk against his. She glanced at him in bewilderment for an instant before following his gaze, her eyes widening at once.
“Isn’t that Mr Twilley?” he heard her whisper. “The apothecary?”
And it was, Remus could see now, though it took some squinting to recognise him as the immaculately dressed Diagon Alley apothecary with his ruler straight parting, shiny hair and expensive robes. He’d done well for himself over the years, had Cecil Twilley, running his own shop in Wizarding Britain’s prime location, training up many an apprentice, including none other than the famous Damocles Belby, and earning a reputation as the best commercial potion brewer in the business. He’d scared Remus to death as a schoolboy, a stern, patrician figure with a quizzical eyebrow and a penetrating gaze that seemed able to pierce straight through to his heart and to see that within lay a complete lack of any talent as a potion brewer. But his mother, also a potion brewer of no little talent, had held him in great respect and Remus had spent many an hour of his life standing and staring at wriggling jars of newt eyes and frogs legs as his mum and Mr Twilley talked shop. She’d always said there was no one better to test the waters with Cecil Twilley of Diagon Alley.
But it seemed that reputation and talent meant nothing now in the face of Muggle blood. The wizarding world’s best apothecary was cowering in the cold, begging for coins from passers by in the shadow of the very shop he founded.
And these people, who’d purchased his potions and benefited from his talents for decades, would not now even look him in the face.
It made Remus feel sick to his stomach. He knew what it was to have people look straight past him, to treat him as though he wasn’t even a human being. It had taken him years and a strong dose of Dora to make him realise that life was not supposed to be that way and he couldn’t bear to see so many talented witches and wizards being subjected to the same simply because of fear of one monster of a man and his power and prejudice.
Well no more. Not today.
He was already halfway to Twilley when the man saw him coming, his eyes widening with confusion and no little fear at this sudden acknowledgment of his existence. He clutched his battered hat against his chest as Remus dropped to a crouch beside him, forcing himself to smile at the hagged remnants of a once proud man. Dora, after taking a slightly more prudent moment to check the street for any sign of Ministry or Death Eater activity, made to lower herself awkwardly down beside him.
Remus forestalled her. “Stay standing,” he told her softly. “It’ll make it easier for you to move on quickly.” He smiled more gently. “Keep a look out while you’re up there, will you?”
Dora smiled briefly in return. “That’s me. The rotund sentry post. I’ll kick you if anyone comes.”
“Not too hard, if you wouldn’t mind. I’m sensitive.”
He heard Dora snort. “Yeah right, Lupin. Whatever you say. It’s not as though you slept through me trying to shake you awake this morning, is it?”
“Lupin?” Mr Twilley had always possessed one of those rich, carrying, booming voices that could petrify any young boy who had just spilled a jar of dragon bile at twenty paces. But now his voice was a tremulous rasp as he stared up at Remus, his eyes suddenly filled with recognition. “Why, you’re Diana Lupin’s boy, aren’t you? She used to bring you into the shop sometimes…” His sentence broke off as a hacking cough forced its way up out of his lungs - gently wrapping one arm around his shoulders, Remus held the older man until the coughing had subsided.
“Hello Mr Twilley,” he said quietly.
Mr Twilley stared at him blankly for a long moment. “Dear Merlin,” he whispered softly. “It feels like so long since someone looked me in my eye and said my name. I was starting to forget I had one.” He grasped Remus’ hand sharply with his own. “Thank you, my boy. Thank you so much.”
Remus smiled more sincerely. “Nobody deserves to be ignored.”
Mr Twilley’s lip twisted. “They’re afraid,” he murmured, his voice was low as to be almost inaudible - Remus had to bend closer to catch the words. “Afraid for their families, afraid for themselves. I can’t blame them. My wife has been dragged away to Azkaban. I don’t even know what’s happened to my son. But his wife’s a half blood so I can only hope… My grandchildren…” He shook his head slowly. “How can they say we aren’t wizards? I remember when I was a boy, living over my father’s chip shop in Margate, the day I got the letter… It seemed so right. And the moment I first leant over a cauldron to brew, I knew it was meant to be, I just knew…”
Leaning down awkwardly, Dora’s hand closed gently on the old man’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Don’t worry, Mr Twilley. We know too. And whatever they say, whatever they do, don’t let them make you believe this isn’t right. You’re more of a wizard than they are.”
Mr Twilley’s eyes were misting as he glanced up at her - he swallowed hard before switching his gaze back to Remus.
“Why did you stop?” he whispered suddenly. “It’s so dangerous to even talk to me and I can see your… wife?” At Remus nod, he continued. “I can see your wife is pregnant.”
Dora smiled down at him - indeed, on looking up, Remus could see the heavy folds of her robe did nothing to conceal her condition when viewed from below. “You’re not seeing me at my most flattering angle, I’m afraid,” she offered. Her eyes darted cautiously across the street once more as she lowered her voice. “But we’ve been trying to help people like you, Mr Twilley. We’ve got contacts. We might be able to get you out of the country…”
But Mr Twilley was already shaking his head. “No. No, I won’t leave. I won’t leave my shop. I built my business up from the ground, from nothing, I worked so hard! And they say it isn’t mine, that I stole it all and they gave it to my pureblood apprentice Higgs to run into the ground, but I won’t leave it for them, I won’t! And… my wife is prison here and… and he knows… My son, my David, he knows I’d never leave my shop. If he comes looking, I have to be here…” He breathed sharply, fighting back another cough only with difficulty as his eyes rose to meet Remus, filled with a desperate plea. “I have to believe, Mr Lupin, I have to… I have to believe I’ll see my son again. I have to believe they’ll free my wife. I have to believe I’ll get my shop back. Because if I don’t believe, I don’t see what there is to keep me going on…”
He broke down. Remus held the older man, once so proud, so dignified, so self-assured, now sobbing his heart out to a near stranger in the snow and found himself fighting a sudden urge to find the nearest Death Eater and beat the bastard to death.
It was Dora’s voice that eventually slipped through the silence, reticent, reluctant and sad.
“Remus,” she said softly. “We can’t stay much longer. We can’t be late. And there’s someone in Auror robes down near Gringotts. If they head this way and see me…”
Mr Twilley’s head rose slowly, staring at them both, his eyes red, his skin pockmarked. “Yes,” he muttered almost desperately. “Yes, you must go. You’re risking so much just talking to me… and your child…”
“We won’t leave you here with nothing…” Remus could see that Dora was groping in her robes in search of her purse but he reached his hand and stilled her fingers, his expression pointed as she stared down at him in surprise. He loved her dearly but, like Sirius, she had never known what it was to go without, the swallowing of pride that taking charity, even from a well-off friend, involved. No, Mr Twilley had lost his family and his livelihood already - Remus was not going to be the one to take his dignity.
I just need something, anything, that he can do without a wand…
A drop of water splashed against Remus’ nose. He looked up.
Icicles.
Icicles!
It had been a particularly hard year for his parents but he’d known he couldn’t let Christmas pass without giving something to his friends… So he’d snapped some icicles off the eave outside of the dormitory window and, once he’d charmed them so they wouldn’t ever melt, he’d carved patterns into the surface. And then he’d taken some of the detritus from Padfoot and Prongs’ latest potions experiment and used the ingredients to colour the patterns so they showed up more vividly…
If he lent his wand to Mr Twilley for a few minutes to do the charm work, then the carving could be done with any old implement at leisure. And taking leftover ingredients from the rubbish bins behind the apothecary would be galling, but it was his business, his money had bought those supplies and he had every right to use them. And then all he’d need was a market…
But he’d be providing for himself and any other Muggleborn on the street who chose to help him. He wouldn’t have to beg.
“No money, Dora,” he said quietly. “I’ve got a better idea…”
* * *
Lee Jordan had looked at him rather strangely when he’d requested a moment at the end of the broadcast to advertise something, but Kingsley had joked that they must be getting big if people were requesting advertising space. Dora had weighed in with a daft remark about lobbying businesses for sponsorship and Lee had laughed and agreed.
And now, he just had to work out what to say.
Next to him, still wrapped warmly in her cloak in the unheated ice cream parlour, Dora was leaning down towards the microphone.
“…probably be the last time you’ll hear from me for a while. I can’t say why but I’ll be back because Potterwatch isn’t going anywhere. I can only hope that by the time I’m free to return, there won’t be a need for Potterwatch any longer. The wizarding world will be free and this unjust nightmare will be over. There’ll be no more families ripped apart, no more rightful witches and wizards stripped of their wands, no more imprisonment, no more death. I believe this will be over, that everything will be set right and I’m not the only one.” He heard her voice crack slightly. “I met a man today, a Muggleborn wizard forced onto the streets. He was one of our best, our most respected, most worthy wizards… and now he’s begging for coins outside of a shop that used to be his. But he still believes that someday that shop will be his again, that his wife will be released from jail, that he’ll see his son. That’s why I’m going to say - David, if you’re listening, I’m sure you must realise who I mean. And he’s waiting for you. He won’t leave until he knows you and your children are safe. Please, if you can, find him. And on that note, this is Rainbow, handing over to Romulus for one final word.”
He felt Dora squeeze his hand as she leaned back, making way for him. He smiled at her.
“Thank you, Rainbow. To believe. I know, it is so difficult and so fragile, but if a man such as the one Rainbow just described can still hold hope in his heart that our world can be restored, so can any of you. It’s the week before Christmas, a time of hope, a time to believe and believe we must because if we give in, we will surely lose everything once and for all. And that is why I say to you all - show that you believe. There is a man in Diagon Alley who is selling everlasting icicles, a man with nothing but the dregs of his life and his belief to keep him going. I ask you all, go to Diagon Alley, buy from him and display it proudly as a sign that you believe; that you believe in a future for the Wizarding world without blood prejudice and segregation, without cruelty and tyranny, that you believe in Harry Potter. Show him. Show the world. Don’t look away. Don’t be ashamed.” He felt Dora’s hand tight around his once more, felt her love, felt the hope and belief that she had given him and willed the feeling out into the air with the sound of his voice. “Because we have to believe. And above all we have to stand together. Perhaps we can do little to change things as they stand. But we can show that we want to.”
As Lee wrapped the broadcast up with the next password, Remus felt his wife’s arms slip around him, felt her hair whisper against his chin.
“I believe,” she murmured softly. “I believe in Harry. I believe in a future that our baby can be safe and happy in. And I believe in you.”
Remus smiled in spite of himself. “I should think so too. Because if I’m imaginary, who on earth got you pregnant?”
A small fist took a moment to pummel his arm. “Git.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“It’s what I know.” The fist gave a final punch. “But I mean it, Remus. What you did for Mr Twilley today was wonderful. The look on his face when you gave him a way to look after himself…” She shook her head. “I just hope he finds his son.”
Remus wrapped his arm around her and pressed his cheek against her head. “I believe he will. That man deserves a miracle.”
“I know.” Dora’s grasp tightened as her eyes drifted up to meet hers. “And he met one.”