Fic: What It Takes
Title: What It Takes
Author: shimotsuki
Rating & Warnings: PG-13 for profanity, discussion of offstage violence
Prompt: “D’you think you managed to get all the signs?” “One: he’s sitting on my chair. Two: he’s wearing my clothes. Three: his name’s Remus Lupin.” (OotP)
Format & Word Count: Fic, 4750 words
Summary: Remus has been living with Greyback’s pack for months without making any tangible progress at all. Loving someone he can never have certainly does not improve matters. But one day, Greyback goes a little too far, and some things, at least, begin to change.
Author’s Notes: This is a stand-alone story, but it also forms part of the Kaleidoscope series. The OC werewolves Matthias and Bess were first introduced in Out of Sight, and the recent encounter with Tonks that gave Remus his final resolve to push her away completely occurred in Reaction. Also, I’m taking the liberty of imagining that aconite affects werewolves somewhat differently from the way it affects humans. (And finally, I’m afraid this story isn’t much of a holiday piece, but I’m trying to come up with a fluffy drabble to make up for that!)
What It Takes
March 1997
“Try not to touch the monkshood any more than you must,” said Remus quickly, when Bess started to reach out with a curious finger. “It will burn your skin on contact.”
Bess, who was quite shortsighted, leaned closer instead, squinting at the bundle of dried, shriveled flowers with deeply lobed leaves that Remus had wrapped in a piece of old newspaper. “But you eat it.”
“Yes,” said Matthias, “and as you might expect, it’s not pleasant at all. Still, the retching and the cramps are worth it for the peace of mind.”
Remus watched the young man and the middle-aged woman eyeing each other, and thanked the Fates for the dozenth time that he had found the beginnings of an ally in Matthias Malkin. Bess Ogilvie was very senior in the pack, second only to Greyback himself-and he had a feeling that if her eyesight had been better, she might have been a real threat to Greyback years before. Bess didn’t have much use for an unproven newcomer like Remus. But Matthias had been in the pack ever since he was cursed, almost five years ago, and she listened to him.
“The retching and the cramps,” she repeated dubiously.
“The peace of mind,” Matthias countered.
Dumbledore had assigned Remus a nearly impossible task-to undermine Greyback’s (and the Death Eaters’) control of the pack without being exposed, and then most likely ripped limb from limb by Greyback himself. Remus couldn’t be honest about his motives to anyone until he was absolutely certain that they would join him. Which meant that, so far, he hadn’t been honest with anyone at all.
He had been living this life for eight months now, and it felt as though he had made no progress on his mission whatsoever. His time here had done nothing but show that he was just as capable of hunting, stealing, and surviving in near destitution as any other werewolf.
But Matthias’s acceptance of the aconite was a start. And now, if Bess was willing to take it as well...
“Tell me how it works, Lupin.”
He took a deep breath. “Too much monkshood is fatal, to human or to a werewolf. But a small dose merely causes acute stomach pains for us. If we eat a leaf or two right before moonrise, we’ll be too ill to want to hunt while transformed-which means we’re unlikely to harm anyone.”
“And you’ve taken it,” she said to Matthias.
“Three times,” he assured her. “This will be the fourth.”
Bess frowned at the lethal bundle, wrapped in its newspaper.
“Well,” she said at last, “I wouldn’t wish this curse on anyone, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be the cause of it.” She nodded. “I’ll try your monkshood tonight and see what happens.”
Remus suppressed the triumphant smile that was threatening to erupt. He tore a piece from the edge of the newspaper and used it to pull two small leaves from the bunch. “Here.” He passed the tiny packet to Bess, who took it from him gingerly. “Chew and swallow these right before moonrise.”
Maybe this month there would be three werewolves who wouldn’t be much of a danger to anyone.
Maybe that counted as progress.
“Come on, you lot!” came a hoarse shout. Greyback’s voice, summoning his pack. “There’s somewhere we need to be before the moon-let’s get going!”
The three of them exchanged wary looks. This did not bode well, for someone.
. * . * .
Tonks was still working most of her shifts in Hogsmeade, but on the Sunday morning after the full moon, there was a squad meeting scheduled at Auror Headquarters.
She arrived at the Ministry a few minutes early, even though her eyes felt like they were full of sand, and her head hurt; she never slept well on full-moon nights. She worried about Remus all the time-worried about how thin and ill he looked whenever she saw him. About the lonely, aching, desperate look in his eyes on those few occasions when he let his mask slip. About the way he had suddenly turned cold and distant when she’d tried to talk to him at the Burrow the last time. But most of all, she worried about Remus at the full moon, when he had no control over his own mind and had to be left free to run wild in the fields and forests in the company of Fenrir bloody Greyback, with nothing but a little aconite to keep him from turning into his own worst nightmare. And not even the aconite could protect him from the danger posed by the other werewolves-who had nearly torn him to pieces just last month.
At least Mad-Eye would be seeing Remus tomorrow, for his post-moon debriefing. She supposed she could manage to wait one day to hear from Mad-Eye that he was all right.
“Wotcher,” she muttered blearily to Proudfoot, helping herself to a cup of tea from the table in the corner of the room.
“Apparently things got pretty interesting last night.” Proudfoot reached past her for a slice of lemon. “Did you hear?”
“What happened?” Tonks concentrated on adding lots of sugar to her cup.
“Werewolf attack!” He was practically quivering with excitement. “Probably Fenrir Greyback’s forest group.”
Tonks set her cup carefully down on the table before it went crashing to the floor. “Really?” she croaked.
“A little boy was savaged so badly he died in hospital afterward.” Proudfoot shook his head. “Quite horrible. But Peterson and Moseby got one of the werewolves, for once!”
“They arrested one, you mean?”
“No-they killed one.” Proudfoot mimed a vicious wand thrust. “They were trying to subdue it so they could turn it over to the Capture Unit, but it went after them, so...”
Tonks felt her blood turn to ice.
“Wish I’d been there!” Proudfoot went on, oblivious. “It might even have been Greyback himself, although that’s hard to say, because the creature was still transformed when it was killed, and a wolf is a wolf.” He sipped his tea. “No use checking with the Registry. Those forest werewolves aren’t registered.”
One of them was. But Tonks couldn’t ask the Registry to check the corpse for a match without jeopardising Remus’s mission. Assuming he isn’t the corpse-
She started to shake.
Proudfoot shrugged. “The only way to tell is to see if Greyback turns up somewhere, I suppose.” He frowned and peered at Tonks. “You feeling all right? You look a little grey yourself.”
“Erm,” she said, faintly. “I do feel a bit off. Maybe I need to go home for the day.”
Actually, she needed to find Mad-Eye. Or Arthur and Molly, or even Dumbledore.
Anyone who might know whether Remus was all right.
. * . * .
Remus emerged from the searing pain of the transformation and immediately began retching violently, fingers clawing at the rich cold earth of the forest floor. At least his stomach was still empty; the aconite had done its job.
He spat, wiped his mouth on the back of his arm, and climbed shakily to his feet. He was in a clearing he didn’t recognize, and of course he was naked and freezing. He sighed and tried calling out. “Hullo! Anyone there?”
A few voices answered, and after a few minutes he had found three other exhausted, shivering werewolves. They all observed the pack’s custom of not looking directly at each other while unclothed, but with four of them searching it would be easier to find the river so they could follow it back to their camp. They were no longer in the place where Greyback had led them last night, a spot on the edge of the forest that looked out onto a prosperous farm. This was not unusual-there was often a lot of running and chasing under the full moon. But it made it that much more difficult to get back to where they could find warmth and food (of a sort, anyway).
They made it to the camp after an hour or so of weary, silent stumbling. Each of them slipped into one of the abandoned houses that the pack used for shelter, in search of something to wear.
Remus pulled on a pair of faded trousers and three threadbare jumpers that he’d salvaged from rubbish bins over the last month, plus his cracked and leaking boots, left behind last night because they were too difficult to replace. Then he suppressed an enormous yawn and went back outside. Now that his shivering had slowed and his stomach had recovered from the aconite, he needed to find something to eat before he collapsed into his exhausted post-moon sleep for the rest of the day. He saw Matthias digging up a plastic bag that contained a roasted rabbit from the day before, and went over to help him recover it.
The two men had already begun gnawing hungrily at the tough, stringy meat when the Death Eater appeared.
It was Mulciber, Remus saw, shifting slightly behind a tree to keep out of the man’s line of sight. Fortunately, he wasn’t paying attention to anyone but Greyback, who was arguing with him.
“You and your interfering friends ruined it for us,” the werewolf accused, looking sullen. “That was the first child we’ve had a real chance at for months-we should have been able to make him one of the pack.”
Remus and Matthias stared at each other. What had happened last night? Remus couldn’t imagine the Death Eaters intervening to prevent a werewolf attack...
“I went back to get him this morning, and heard people saying he’d been chewed to a pulp and taken to St. Mungo’s.” Greyback shook his head, scowling. “You lot must have been stirring us up, to make us keep going at him like that. I reckon he won’t last the day. What a waste.”
Moving in tandem, the eavesdroppers set down their pieces of meat. Matthias looked green, and Remus supposed he must as well.
“And I heard that one of my wolves was killed by the Aurors,” Greyback complained, more out of petulance than any apparent sense of bereavement. “I’ll have to get everyone together tomorrow before I can work out who is missing.”
Remus looked frantically about for Bess, relaxing slightly when he saw her sharing a bowl of something with Cathy, a young Muggle werewolf who had been raised in the pack.
“We needed the Montgomery boy to be killed,” said Mulciber. “We needed to teach his mother a lesson she would never forget.” Greyback sneered, but the Death Eater chuckled coldly. “Just wait until after you have helped the Dark Lord prevail. Then you and your pack can have all the children you want.”
Greyback grimaced, but he nodded, appeased for the moment.
The eavesdroppers sat motionless until Mulciber and Greyback had moved on toward the river. Then Matthias grabbed Remus by the arm and pulled him silently into the forest, away from the drowsy ravenous werewolves who were hunched around the cooking fires.
“Lupin.” Matthias leaned toward him, his haggard post-moon face red with fury. “We have to stop this. Greyback on his own is bad enough, but with the Death Eaters egging him on, there’s no knowing how many people he will kill, or how many children’s lives he will-we will-destroy. This calls for something more than just a few of us starting to take aconite each month.”
Remus froze, heart pounding. This was it. His first real chance, after all this time.
But Matthias misinterpreted his shocked silence. “Come on, Lupin. You try not to show it, but I know you hate what Greyback is doing just as much as I do. We have to challenge him-no one else will do it.”
Remus shook his head. “If the two of us try to challenge him now, we’ll only be killed. He still has too many supporters in the pack.”
Matthias frowned, and started to speak, but Remus held up his hand.
“Malkin, listen. Despite what I’ve told everyone, I’m not really here because the last of my friends finally turned on me and left me with nowhere else to go.”
The younger man’s eyes widened.
Remus took a deep breath.
“I’m actually here on the direct orders of Albus Dumbledore.”
. * . * .
Tonks huddled at the edge of the Hogwarts lake, fighting back tears. Tears, for Merlin’s sake-she never cried in front of people, but she had nearly started bawling right in front of Harry just now.
But she couldn’t find Mad-Eye, and no one was home at the Burrow, and even Dumbledore had apparently gone haring off somewhere. She felt half-mad herself with fear and frustration.
What if Remus was dead, and no one knew it?
Plan, Auror. You need a plan.
She swallowed hard, scrubbed at her face, and resolved to spend the rest of her sick day sitting Disillusioned on Mad-Eye’s front steps, waiting for him to turn up.
. * . * .
“So,” said Remus, his voice hoarse from exhaustion and aconite after the long explanation, “what do you say? Will you work with me, on behalf of the Order of the Phoenix, to try to move the balance of power in the pack away from Greyback and the Death Eaters?”
“You’ve got that right,” said Matthias fiercely. “What do I need to do?”
“We’ll have to develop some new strategies, now that there are two of us.” Remus thought for a moment. “I’m meeting my Order contact tomorrow. Will you come along and let me introduce you? His name is Alastor Moody-we call him ‘Mad-Eye,’ because he’s got a magical eye to replace one he lost fighting Death Eaters. He’s a paranoid old bastard, but he was a damned good Auror in his day, and he’ll trust you if I vouch for you.”
“I’ve heard of Moody,” said Matthias, with a look bordering on awe. “You’re in with him, and with Dumbledore? I had no idea.”
“That,” said Remus grimly, “was intentional. And now you’ve got to be just as careful. We can’t let anyone else into our confidence unless we know for certain that they won’t go betraying us to Greyback.”
“Understood.” Matthias smiled slightly. “As much as I want to see Greyback stopped, I have no real desire to have my entrails removed before it’s absolutely necessary.”
Remus returned the bitter smile, and then the two of them stood, stiffly, and limped back to the camp. The cold stringy rabbit that they had abandoned had, of course, been claimed and devoured by someone else. Remus sighed. When he woke tomorrow, he would regret not having eaten more now, but the very thought of food threatened to make him start retching again. And it wasn’t because of the aconite this time.
He crawled into his clammy bedroll and pulled the blankets over his head, shutting out the weak watery sunlight that crept in through the broken windows of the derelict house. As sleepy as he was, though, his mind continued to bombard him with horrific images of small boys and slavering werewolves. To make it stop, he broke his own cardinal rule and lost himself in thoughts of Tonks instead.
That wasn’t hard to do. As soon as he let his guard down, the flood of memories was overwhelming. Her bright colours and crazy T-shirts-her brilliant sense of humour-her low husky laugh-the way she had never been reluctant to rest her fingers on his hand or his arm when they talked or drank together, not even when she learned what he was...
...the faint scent of lavender from her shampoo-the graceful beauty in her heart-shaped face that was almost hard to spot under the spiky hair and tough expressions-the look of bewildered hurt and anger in her eyes every time he told her she mustn’t love him...
...the warm insistent press of her lips against his that one evening in Hogsmeade, and the feel of her nestled in his arms...
Remus began to shiver again.
Thoughts of Tonks were never very far away, especially when he was alone, but usually he managed to stop them before he got to that one. It was wrong to do this, to let himself wallow in these memories that he had no right to keep. Especially now that he had resolved to end even what remained of their friendship, so that he could give Tonks a chance to forget about him and move on. A chance to recover the bright colours and brilliant smile that loving him had stolen from her.
But now that he had let himself start remembering, he couldn’t stop.
Remus reached under the wadded-up blanket he used for a pillow and pulled out the muffler that Tonks had knitted for him last winter. He curled up tightly around it, pressing it to his cheek with both hands, until the exhaustion from the transformation overpowered his wretched racing mind and he fell asleep at last.
. * . * .
Tonks waited on her mentor’s doorstep for nearly two hours before a faint pop told her he had Apparated in under his Invisibility Cloak.
“Finite,” she muttered, ending the Disillusionment spell and scrambling to her feet. “Mad-Eye?”
The old Auror was silent, and he didn’t emerge from under his Cloak, but she knew he would be looking at her with both eyes.
“What was the name of your mother’s pet canary when she was at Hogwarts?” he asked at last.
She sighed. “Mephistopheles. It’s me, Mad-Eye.”
“You can’t be too careful, girl.”
He set about disabling his security charms-a process that took nearly a whole minute-and then stepped inside, presumably checking for intruders, before returning to the doorway, cloakless now, to invite her in.
“And what brings you here to startle an old man out of his wits?” he asked gruffly as he shut the door behind her.
“I’ve heard-there was an attack-Mad-Eye, have you had any word at all from Remus?” Her words tumbled out in a rush.
He shook his head. “I know about the attack on the Montgomery boy, and that an unidentified werewolf was killed. But I’ve not heard anything directly from Lupin.”
Tonks sagged, and blinked hard again. “At least we know he’s supposed to meet you tomorrow.” She caught at Mad-Eye’s sleeve, a gesture that might have earned her an automatic hex if she had been anyone else. “Will you let me know right away if you find him? If he’s all right?”
The scarred, craggy face softened. “Why don’t you go tomorrow, instead of me? You’re the emergency back-up contact, after all, and I’d say this is something of an emergency. Your face is all white, lass.”
“Yeah, I’m not feeling so well at the moment.” Tonks closed her eyes and let out a long breath, torn between elation at the prospect of actually being able to see Remus herself, and fear of what she might learn when she tried to find him. “But thanks. I’ll go.”
. * . * .
“Moody should be here momentarily,” said Remus the following day, as he peered out from behind a large oak tree toward a clearing in the forest. “We generally try to meet when the sun has about reached the tops of the trees.”
“Should I stay hidden until you’ve told him I’m here?”
Remus laughed. “No, that would only make things worse-he’d see you with his magical eye and assume you were here to ambush me. We’ll stay together. But let’s both keep out of sight until Moody appears, just in case.”
Just then came the familiar pop of Apparition. Remus looked up, expectantly.
But he froze for an instant when he saw who had appeared.
“That’s Moody’s emergency back-up,” he whispered to Matthias. “Stay here while I find out what’s wrong.”
The younger man nodded, his eyes alert and intent and a little bit curious.
Remus stepped out from the cover of the trees. “Tonks?” He focused on keeping his breathing even, his voice steady. On keeping his desperate longing from showing on his face. “What’s happened? Where’s Mad-Eye?”
Tonks didn’t answer. She only stared at him, her face turning white, then red. And then, before he could even guess what she was about to do, she launched herself across the clearing at him.
She hit him full-on, like a cannonball. He was still weak and shaky from the transformation and the aconite, so the force of her impact nearly knocked him off his feet. That was the only reason why his arms went around her-so very tightly-or why his fingers clenched, so convulsively, at the fabric of her robes.
Or so he would try to tell himself, when he thought about it afterward.
“Remus!” she gasped, with her face buried in his shoulder. He could feel her shaking, great wrenching shudders. “Oh, Remus, oh, god, I was so afraid you were the one they had killed-it’s been two days and I didn’t know if you were alive or dead-”
He breathed in one last taste of lavender from the fine brown hair that hovered right below his nose, moved his hands to her shoulders, and gently but firmly pushed her away until she had to let go of him. If doing so made him feel as though he had just ripped out his own heart, well, it was unavoidable.
“I’m fine,” he said quietly, waiting for his pulse to stop racing. “It was Soames that was killed.” Soames had been rather thug-like, and a close follower of Greyback’s; Remus couldn’t say that he was entirely sorry.
Tonks nodded, still looking as though she wanted to devour him with her eyes.
“Is Moody all right?” He frowned, remembering his initial concern for the old Auror.
“Yeah.” She managed almost half a smile. “He told me to come in his place, because he knew I was worried about you.”
“Tonks-” His voice broke, and he told himself it was just the usual post-moon hoarseness. “You mustn’t worry about me so. You can’t. You need your strength for your job, and for your work for the Order.” He turned and walked a couple of paces away from her. “In fact-” He swung around to face her again, his face as closed as he could make it. “I think it’s better if we make sure not to see each other for a while. Let someone else be Moody’s back-up for this mission. Arthur, maybe, or Hestia. And...” He swallowed. This was going to hurt her-but it was the only way. “Give my wand to Molly. She can keep it for me. In an emergency, I’d likely be headed for the Burrow anyway.”
Now her cheeks were flushed with anger. “What’s happened, Remus? Last summer you told me that you couldn’t love me, but that I could have your friendship. When you asked me to keep your wand for you, you said it was because I was your best mate. And now you’re taking that away from me as well?”
The pain in her eyes made his heart ache all over again. “It’s for the best,” was all he could say, turning away once more.
She stalked across to him and caught his arm, pulling him around to face her. “This is some kind of protection thing again, isn’t it.” Her voice was bitter now, and he winced a little. “That’s all it is.”
He forced himself to hold still and say nothing.
“Don’t you see?” There were tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, but he thought they were tears of frustration more than anything else. “We need each other, Remus. Even if you have to be here, now, and I can’t see you very often, I feel stronger when I know I have your friendship. Or your-”
She broke off, and a look of uncertainty crossed her face for the first time.
“Do you still love me?”
It was only a whisper, but it hit him like a shout.
Remus had lied all his life-he had lied to the world about his lycanthropy for nearly thirty years, and now he was lying to the werewolf pack about his reasons for joining them. But he could not lie to Tonks. Not about this. Not even when he knew that it would be better for her if he did.
Instead, he turned away. Again.
“Aha.” There was a disconcerting ring of triumph in her voice as she stepped around in front of him.
Their eyes met. Hers were bright and fierce.
“As long as you love me, Remus,” she whispered, “I will wait for you.” Her chin went up. “I’m just as stubborn as you are. Maybe more.”
“There’s no point in waiting for something that can never happen,” he said, very quietly.
“Mm-hmm,” was all she said, but the chin stayed up.
Remus sighed, and rubbed a hand over his face. “Tonks. We have Order business.”
“Right,” she muttered, and it was suddenly hard for him not to smile fondly as he watched her posture shift automatically into an Auror’s stance. “Order business.”
“This is important,” he told her soberly. “Something for you to announce at the next meeting. We have a new ally.” He turned back toward the oak at the edge of the clearing. “Malkin?”
Matthias emerged from the brush. Remus thought he saw Tonks go red again, but it flickered like a flame and vanished. He decided that she must have Metamorphosed the blush away.
Introductions and explanations followed; it all passed in something of a blur. What Remus did remember afterward was the defiant look on Tonks’s face as she turned on her heel to Disapparate.
“I’ll wait, Remus,” she whispered as she vanished.
The words hung in the air like smoke.
“Well, well,” said Matthias, as they started back toward the camp. “That’s something else you weren’t telling me.”
“Hmm?” said Remus, watching his feet in their leaky boots, and putting all of his energy into trying to breathe around the gnawing ache in his chest.
“You’re not so completely alone in this world, after all.”
Remus felt his head snap up. “Yes, I am. That’s the way it has to be.”
Matthias stared at him, bemused. “That woman loves you, Lupin. And it’s as clear as bells that you love her too. You could make a life together.”
“No,” Remus hissed, “we could not.” He slammed his fist against the trunk of a tree as they passed it, and Matthias jumped. “I can never make any kind of life with the woman I love, because I am a bloody god-damned werewolf.” Remus rounded on the younger man, who actually backed away slightly. “You should understand that better than anyone.”
Matthias said nothing more, but he looked thoughtful.
Remus scowled and went back to staring at his feet.
They were still some distance from the camp when a soft voice called out from behind a thicket. “Matt!”
It was Bess. She stepped out to join them. “Lupin,” she added, looking at him for a longer time than she usually spared.
They walked on in silence for a few dozen steps, but finally Bess spoke again. “I’ve heard you hint, Lupin, that it might not be a good idea for the pack to get used to accepting favours from those Death Eater people.”
Remus blinked, holding his breath.
“After what happened at the moon,” she said slowly, “I’m beginning to think you might be right. I think maybe I’ll talk to some of the others about it.”
“I see.” He gave a careful nod.
Inwardly, however, he was sending up another exuberant thank-you to the Fates. He might have broken Tonks’s heart, and his own too. But by Godric’s sword, he was going to make something out of this mission for the Order, after all.
. * fin * .
Author: shimotsuki
Rating & Warnings: PG-13 for profanity, discussion of offstage violence
Prompt: “D’you think you managed to get all the signs?” “One: he’s sitting on my chair. Two: he’s wearing my clothes. Three: his name’s Remus Lupin.” (OotP)
Format & Word Count: Fic, 4750 words
Summary: Remus has been living with Greyback’s pack for months without making any tangible progress at all. Loving someone he can never have certainly does not improve matters. But one day, Greyback goes a little too far, and some things, at least, begin to change.
Author’s Notes: This is a stand-alone story, but it also forms part of the Kaleidoscope series. The OC werewolves Matthias and Bess were first introduced in Out of Sight, and the recent encounter with Tonks that gave Remus his final resolve to push her away completely occurred in Reaction. Also, I’m taking the liberty of imagining that aconite affects werewolves somewhat differently from the way it affects humans. (And finally, I’m afraid this story isn’t much of a holiday piece, but I’m trying to come up with a fluffy drabble to make up for that!)
What It Takes
March 1997
“Try not to touch the monkshood any more than you must,” said Remus quickly, when Bess started to reach out with a curious finger. “It will burn your skin on contact.”
Bess, who was quite shortsighted, leaned closer instead, squinting at the bundle of dried, shriveled flowers with deeply lobed leaves that Remus had wrapped in a piece of old newspaper. “But you eat it.”
“Yes,” said Matthias, “and as you might expect, it’s not pleasant at all. Still, the retching and the cramps are worth it for the peace of mind.”
Remus watched the young man and the middle-aged woman eyeing each other, and thanked the Fates for the dozenth time that he had found the beginnings of an ally in Matthias Malkin. Bess Ogilvie was very senior in the pack, second only to Greyback himself-and he had a feeling that if her eyesight had been better, she might have been a real threat to Greyback years before. Bess didn’t have much use for an unproven newcomer like Remus. But Matthias had been in the pack ever since he was cursed, almost five years ago, and she listened to him.
“The retching and the cramps,” she repeated dubiously.
“The peace of mind,” Matthias countered.
Dumbledore had assigned Remus a nearly impossible task-to undermine Greyback’s (and the Death Eaters’) control of the pack without being exposed, and then most likely ripped limb from limb by Greyback himself. Remus couldn’t be honest about his motives to anyone until he was absolutely certain that they would join him. Which meant that, so far, he hadn’t been honest with anyone at all.
He had been living this life for eight months now, and it felt as though he had made no progress on his mission whatsoever. His time here had done nothing but show that he was just as capable of hunting, stealing, and surviving in near destitution as any other werewolf.
But Matthias’s acceptance of the aconite was a start. And now, if Bess was willing to take it as well...
“Tell me how it works, Lupin.”
He took a deep breath. “Too much monkshood is fatal, to human or to a werewolf. But a small dose merely causes acute stomach pains for us. If we eat a leaf or two right before moonrise, we’ll be too ill to want to hunt while transformed-which means we’re unlikely to harm anyone.”
“And you’ve taken it,” she said to Matthias.
“Three times,” he assured her. “This will be the fourth.”
Bess frowned at the lethal bundle, wrapped in its newspaper.
“Well,” she said at last, “I wouldn’t wish this curse on anyone, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be the cause of it.” She nodded. “I’ll try your monkshood tonight and see what happens.”
Remus suppressed the triumphant smile that was threatening to erupt. He tore a piece from the edge of the newspaper and used it to pull two small leaves from the bunch. “Here.” He passed the tiny packet to Bess, who took it from him gingerly. “Chew and swallow these right before moonrise.”
Maybe this month there would be three werewolves who wouldn’t be much of a danger to anyone.
Maybe that counted as progress.
“Come on, you lot!” came a hoarse shout. Greyback’s voice, summoning his pack. “There’s somewhere we need to be before the moon-let’s get going!”
The three of them exchanged wary looks. This did not bode well, for someone.
. * . * .
Tonks was still working most of her shifts in Hogsmeade, but on the Sunday morning after the full moon, there was a squad meeting scheduled at Auror Headquarters.
She arrived at the Ministry a few minutes early, even though her eyes felt like they were full of sand, and her head hurt; she never slept well on full-moon nights. She worried about Remus all the time-worried about how thin and ill he looked whenever she saw him. About the lonely, aching, desperate look in his eyes on those few occasions when he let his mask slip. About the way he had suddenly turned cold and distant when she’d tried to talk to him at the Burrow the last time. But most of all, she worried about Remus at the full moon, when he had no control over his own mind and had to be left free to run wild in the fields and forests in the company of Fenrir bloody Greyback, with nothing but a little aconite to keep him from turning into his own worst nightmare. And not even the aconite could protect him from the danger posed by the other werewolves-who had nearly torn him to pieces just last month.
At least Mad-Eye would be seeing Remus tomorrow, for his post-moon debriefing. She supposed she could manage to wait one day to hear from Mad-Eye that he was all right.
“Wotcher,” she muttered blearily to Proudfoot, helping herself to a cup of tea from the table in the corner of the room.
“Apparently things got pretty interesting last night.” Proudfoot reached past her for a slice of lemon. “Did you hear?”
“What happened?” Tonks concentrated on adding lots of sugar to her cup.
“Werewolf attack!” He was practically quivering with excitement. “Probably Fenrir Greyback’s forest group.”
Tonks set her cup carefully down on the table before it went crashing to the floor. “Really?” she croaked.
“A little boy was savaged so badly he died in hospital afterward.” Proudfoot shook his head. “Quite horrible. But Peterson and Moseby got one of the werewolves, for once!”
“They arrested one, you mean?”
“No-they killed one.” Proudfoot mimed a vicious wand thrust. “They were trying to subdue it so they could turn it over to the Capture Unit, but it went after them, so...”
Tonks felt her blood turn to ice.
“Wish I’d been there!” Proudfoot went on, oblivious. “It might even have been Greyback himself, although that’s hard to say, because the creature was still transformed when it was killed, and a wolf is a wolf.” He sipped his tea. “No use checking with the Registry. Those forest werewolves aren’t registered.”
One of them was. But Tonks couldn’t ask the Registry to check the corpse for a match without jeopardising Remus’s mission. Assuming he isn’t the corpse-
She started to shake.
Proudfoot shrugged. “The only way to tell is to see if Greyback turns up somewhere, I suppose.” He frowned and peered at Tonks. “You feeling all right? You look a little grey yourself.”
“Erm,” she said, faintly. “I do feel a bit off. Maybe I need to go home for the day.”
Actually, she needed to find Mad-Eye. Or Arthur and Molly, or even Dumbledore.
Anyone who might know whether Remus was all right.
. * . * .
Remus emerged from the searing pain of the transformation and immediately began retching violently, fingers clawing at the rich cold earth of the forest floor. At least his stomach was still empty; the aconite had done its job.
He spat, wiped his mouth on the back of his arm, and climbed shakily to his feet. He was in a clearing he didn’t recognize, and of course he was naked and freezing. He sighed and tried calling out. “Hullo! Anyone there?”
A few voices answered, and after a few minutes he had found three other exhausted, shivering werewolves. They all observed the pack’s custom of not looking directly at each other while unclothed, but with four of them searching it would be easier to find the river so they could follow it back to their camp. They were no longer in the place where Greyback had led them last night, a spot on the edge of the forest that looked out onto a prosperous farm. This was not unusual-there was often a lot of running and chasing under the full moon. But it made it that much more difficult to get back to where they could find warmth and food (of a sort, anyway).
They made it to the camp after an hour or so of weary, silent stumbling. Each of them slipped into one of the abandoned houses that the pack used for shelter, in search of something to wear.
Remus pulled on a pair of faded trousers and three threadbare jumpers that he’d salvaged from rubbish bins over the last month, plus his cracked and leaking boots, left behind last night because they were too difficult to replace. Then he suppressed an enormous yawn and went back outside. Now that his shivering had slowed and his stomach had recovered from the aconite, he needed to find something to eat before he collapsed into his exhausted post-moon sleep for the rest of the day. He saw Matthias digging up a plastic bag that contained a roasted rabbit from the day before, and went over to help him recover it.
The two men had already begun gnawing hungrily at the tough, stringy meat when the Death Eater appeared.
It was Mulciber, Remus saw, shifting slightly behind a tree to keep out of the man’s line of sight. Fortunately, he wasn’t paying attention to anyone but Greyback, who was arguing with him.
“You and your interfering friends ruined it for us,” the werewolf accused, looking sullen. “That was the first child we’ve had a real chance at for months-we should have been able to make him one of the pack.”
Remus and Matthias stared at each other. What had happened last night? Remus couldn’t imagine the Death Eaters intervening to prevent a werewolf attack...
“I went back to get him this morning, and heard people saying he’d been chewed to a pulp and taken to St. Mungo’s.” Greyback shook his head, scowling. “You lot must have been stirring us up, to make us keep going at him like that. I reckon he won’t last the day. What a waste.”
Moving in tandem, the eavesdroppers set down their pieces of meat. Matthias looked green, and Remus supposed he must as well.
“And I heard that one of my wolves was killed by the Aurors,” Greyback complained, more out of petulance than any apparent sense of bereavement. “I’ll have to get everyone together tomorrow before I can work out who is missing.”
Remus looked frantically about for Bess, relaxing slightly when he saw her sharing a bowl of something with Cathy, a young Muggle werewolf who had been raised in the pack.
“We needed the Montgomery boy to be killed,” said Mulciber. “We needed to teach his mother a lesson she would never forget.” Greyback sneered, but the Death Eater chuckled coldly. “Just wait until after you have helped the Dark Lord prevail. Then you and your pack can have all the children you want.”
Greyback grimaced, but he nodded, appeased for the moment.
The eavesdroppers sat motionless until Mulciber and Greyback had moved on toward the river. Then Matthias grabbed Remus by the arm and pulled him silently into the forest, away from the drowsy ravenous werewolves who were hunched around the cooking fires.
“Lupin.” Matthias leaned toward him, his haggard post-moon face red with fury. “We have to stop this. Greyback on his own is bad enough, but with the Death Eaters egging him on, there’s no knowing how many people he will kill, or how many children’s lives he will-we will-destroy. This calls for something more than just a few of us starting to take aconite each month.”
Remus froze, heart pounding. This was it. His first real chance, after all this time.
But Matthias misinterpreted his shocked silence. “Come on, Lupin. You try not to show it, but I know you hate what Greyback is doing just as much as I do. We have to challenge him-no one else will do it.”
Remus shook his head. “If the two of us try to challenge him now, we’ll only be killed. He still has too many supporters in the pack.”
Matthias frowned, and started to speak, but Remus held up his hand.
“Malkin, listen. Despite what I’ve told everyone, I’m not really here because the last of my friends finally turned on me and left me with nowhere else to go.”
The younger man’s eyes widened.
Remus took a deep breath.
“I’m actually here on the direct orders of Albus Dumbledore.”
. * . * .
Tonks huddled at the edge of the Hogwarts lake, fighting back tears. Tears, for Merlin’s sake-she never cried in front of people, but she had nearly started bawling right in front of Harry just now.
But she couldn’t find Mad-Eye, and no one was home at the Burrow, and even Dumbledore had apparently gone haring off somewhere. She felt half-mad herself with fear and frustration.
What if Remus was dead, and no one knew it?
Plan, Auror. You need a plan.
She swallowed hard, scrubbed at her face, and resolved to spend the rest of her sick day sitting Disillusioned on Mad-Eye’s front steps, waiting for him to turn up.
. * . * .
“So,” said Remus, his voice hoarse from exhaustion and aconite after the long explanation, “what do you say? Will you work with me, on behalf of the Order of the Phoenix, to try to move the balance of power in the pack away from Greyback and the Death Eaters?”
“You’ve got that right,” said Matthias fiercely. “What do I need to do?”
“We’ll have to develop some new strategies, now that there are two of us.” Remus thought for a moment. “I’m meeting my Order contact tomorrow. Will you come along and let me introduce you? His name is Alastor Moody-we call him ‘Mad-Eye,’ because he’s got a magical eye to replace one he lost fighting Death Eaters. He’s a paranoid old bastard, but he was a damned good Auror in his day, and he’ll trust you if I vouch for you.”
“I’ve heard of Moody,” said Matthias, with a look bordering on awe. “You’re in with him, and with Dumbledore? I had no idea.”
“That,” said Remus grimly, “was intentional. And now you’ve got to be just as careful. We can’t let anyone else into our confidence unless we know for certain that they won’t go betraying us to Greyback.”
“Understood.” Matthias smiled slightly. “As much as I want to see Greyback stopped, I have no real desire to have my entrails removed before it’s absolutely necessary.”
Remus returned the bitter smile, and then the two of them stood, stiffly, and limped back to the camp. The cold stringy rabbit that they had abandoned had, of course, been claimed and devoured by someone else. Remus sighed. When he woke tomorrow, he would regret not having eaten more now, but the very thought of food threatened to make him start retching again. And it wasn’t because of the aconite this time.
He crawled into his clammy bedroll and pulled the blankets over his head, shutting out the weak watery sunlight that crept in through the broken windows of the derelict house. As sleepy as he was, though, his mind continued to bombard him with horrific images of small boys and slavering werewolves. To make it stop, he broke his own cardinal rule and lost himself in thoughts of Tonks instead.
That wasn’t hard to do. As soon as he let his guard down, the flood of memories was overwhelming. Her bright colours and crazy T-shirts-her brilliant sense of humour-her low husky laugh-the way she had never been reluctant to rest her fingers on his hand or his arm when they talked or drank together, not even when she learned what he was...
...the faint scent of lavender from her shampoo-the graceful beauty in her heart-shaped face that was almost hard to spot under the spiky hair and tough expressions-the look of bewildered hurt and anger in her eyes every time he told her she mustn’t love him...
...the warm insistent press of her lips against his that one evening in Hogsmeade, and the feel of her nestled in his arms...
Remus began to shiver again.
Thoughts of Tonks were never very far away, especially when he was alone, but usually he managed to stop them before he got to that one. It was wrong to do this, to let himself wallow in these memories that he had no right to keep. Especially now that he had resolved to end even what remained of their friendship, so that he could give Tonks a chance to forget about him and move on. A chance to recover the bright colours and brilliant smile that loving him had stolen from her.
But now that he had let himself start remembering, he couldn’t stop.
Remus reached under the wadded-up blanket he used for a pillow and pulled out the muffler that Tonks had knitted for him last winter. He curled up tightly around it, pressing it to his cheek with both hands, until the exhaustion from the transformation overpowered his wretched racing mind and he fell asleep at last.
. * . * .
Tonks waited on her mentor’s doorstep for nearly two hours before a faint pop told her he had Apparated in under his Invisibility Cloak.
“Finite,” she muttered, ending the Disillusionment spell and scrambling to her feet. “Mad-Eye?”
The old Auror was silent, and he didn’t emerge from under his Cloak, but she knew he would be looking at her with both eyes.
“What was the name of your mother’s pet canary when she was at Hogwarts?” he asked at last.
She sighed. “Mephistopheles. It’s me, Mad-Eye.”
“You can’t be too careful, girl.”
He set about disabling his security charms-a process that took nearly a whole minute-and then stepped inside, presumably checking for intruders, before returning to the doorway, cloakless now, to invite her in.
“And what brings you here to startle an old man out of his wits?” he asked gruffly as he shut the door behind her.
“I’ve heard-there was an attack-Mad-Eye, have you had any word at all from Remus?” Her words tumbled out in a rush.
He shook his head. “I know about the attack on the Montgomery boy, and that an unidentified werewolf was killed. But I’ve not heard anything directly from Lupin.”
Tonks sagged, and blinked hard again. “At least we know he’s supposed to meet you tomorrow.” She caught at Mad-Eye’s sleeve, a gesture that might have earned her an automatic hex if she had been anyone else. “Will you let me know right away if you find him? If he’s all right?”
The scarred, craggy face softened. “Why don’t you go tomorrow, instead of me? You’re the emergency back-up contact, after all, and I’d say this is something of an emergency. Your face is all white, lass.”
“Yeah, I’m not feeling so well at the moment.” Tonks closed her eyes and let out a long breath, torn between elation at the prospect of actually being able to see Remus herself, and fear of what she might learn when she tried to find him. “But thanks. I’ll go.”
. * . * .
“Moody should be here momentarily,” said Remus the following day, as he peered out from behind a large oak tree toward a clearing in the forest. “We generally try to meet when the sun has about reached the tops of the trees.”
“Should I stay hidden until you’ve told him I’m here?”
Remus laughed. “No, that would only make things worse-he’d see you with his magical eye and assume you were here to ambush me. We’ll stay together. But let’s both keep out of sight until Moody appears, just in case.”
Just then came the familiar pop of Apparition. Remus looked up, expectantly.
But he froze for an instant when he saw who had appeared.
“That’s Moody’s emergency back-up,” he whispered to Matthias. “Stay here while I find out what’s wrong.”
The younger man nodded, his eyes alert and intent and a little bit curious.
Remus stepped out from the cover of the trees. “Tonks?” He focused on keeping his breathing even, his voice steady. On keeping his desperate longing from showing on his face. “What’s happened? Where’s Mad-Eye?”
Tonks didn’t answer. She only stared at him, her face turning white, then red. And then, before he could even guess what she was about to do, she launched herself across the clearing at him.
She hit him full-on, like a cannonball. He was still weak and shaky from the transformation and the aconite, so the force of her impact nearly knocked him off his feet. That was the only reason why his arms went around her-so very tightly-or why his fingers clenched, so convulsively, at the fabric of her robes.
Or so he would try to tell himself, when he thought about it afterward.
“Remus!” she gasped, with her face buried in his shoulder. He could feel her shaking, great wrenching shudders. “Oh, Remus, oh, god, I was so afraid you were the one they had killed-it’s been two days and I didn’t know if you were alive or dead-”
He breathed in one last taste of lavender from the fine brown hair that hovered right below his nose, moved his hands to her shoulders, and gently but firmly pushed her away until she had to let go of him. If doing so made him feel as though he had just ripped out his own heart, well, it was unavoidable.
“I’m fine,” he said quietly, waiting for his pulse to stop racing. “It was Soames that was killed.” Soames had been rather thug-like, and a close follower of Greyback’s; Remus couldn’t say that he was entirely sorry.
Tonks nodded, still looking as though she wanted to devour him with her eyes.
“Is Moody all right?” He frowned, remembering his initial concern for the old Auror.
“Yeah.” She managed almost half a smile. “He told me to come in his place, because he knew I was worried about you.”
“Tonks-” His voice broke, and he told himself it was just the usual post-moon hoarseness. “You mustn’t worry about me so. You can’t. You need your strength for your job, and for your work for the Order.” He turned and walked a couple of paces away from her. “In fact-” He swung around to face her again, his face as closed as he could make it. “I think it’s better if we make sure not to see each other for a while. Let someone else be Moody’s back-up for this mission. Arthur, maybe, or Hestia. And...” He swallowed. This was going to hurt her-but it was the only way. “Give my wand to Molly. She can keep it for me. In an emergency, I’d likely be headed for the Burrow anyway.”
Now her cheeks were flushed with anger. “What’s happened, Remus? Last summer you told me that you couldn’t love me, but that I could have your friendship. When you asked me to keep your wand for you, you said it was because I was your best mate. And now you’re taking that away from me as well?”
The pain in her eyes made his heart ache all over again. “It’s for the best,” was all he could say, turning away once more.
She stalked across to him and caught his arm, pulling him around to face her. “This is some kind of protection thing again, isn’t it.” Her voice was bitter now, and he winced a little. “That’s all it is.”
He forced himself to hold still and say nothing.
“Don’t you see?” There were tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, but he thought they were tears of frustration more than anything else. “We need each other, Remus. Even if you have to be here, now, and I can’t see you very often, I feel stronger when I know I have your friendship. Or your-”
She broke off, and a look of uncertainty crossed her face for the first time.
“Do you still love me?”
It was only a whisper, but it hit him like a shout.
Remus had lied all his life-he had lied to the world about his lycanthropy for nearly thirty years, and now he was lying to the werewolf pack about his reasons for joining them. But he could not lie to Tonks. Not about this. Not even when he knew that it would be better for her if he did.
Instead, he turned away. Again.
“Aha.” There was a disconcerting ring of triumph in her voice as she stepped around in front of him.
Their eyes met. Hers were bright and fierce.
“As long as you love me, Remus,” she whispered, “I will wait for you.” Her chin went up. “I’m just as stubborn as you are. Maybe more.”
“There’s no point in waiting for something that can never happen,” he said, very quietly.
“Mm-hmm,” was all she said, but the chin stayed up.
Remus sighed, and rubbed a hand over his face. “Tonks. We have Order business.”
“Right,” she muttered, and it was suddenly hard for him not to smile fondly as he watched her posture shift automatically into an Auror’s stance. “Order business.”
“This is important,” he told her soberly. “Something for you to announce at the next meeting. We have a new ally.” He turned back toward the oak at the edge of the clearing. “Malkin?”
Matthias emerged from the brush. Remus thought he saw Tonks go red again, but it flickered like a flame and vanished. He decided that she must have Metamorphosed the blush away.
Introductions and explanations followed; it all passed in something of a blur. What Remus did remember afterward was the defiant look on Tonks’s face as she turned on her heel to Disapparate.
“I’ll wait, Remus,” she whispered as she vanished.
The words hung in the air like smoke.
“Well, well,” said Matthias, as they started back toward the camp. “That’s something else you weren’t telling me.”
“Hmm?” said Remus, watching his feet in their leaky boots, and putting all of his energy into trying to breathe around the gnawing ache in his chest.
“You’re not so completely alone in this world, after all.”
Remus felt his head snap up. “Yes, I am. That’s the way it has to be.”
Matthias stared at him, bemused. “That woman loves you, Lupin. And it’s as clear as bells that you love her too. You could make a life together.”
“No,” Remus hissed, “we could not.” He slammed his fist against the trunk of a tree as they passed it, and Matthias jumped. “I can never make any kind of life with the woman I love, because I am a bloody god-damned werewolf.” Remus rounded on the younger man, who actually backed away slightly. “You should understand that better than anyone.”
Matthias said nothing more, but he looked thoughtful.
Remus scowled and went back to staring at his feet.
They were still some distance from the camp when a soft voice called out from behind a thicket. “Matt!”
It was Bess. She stepped out to join them. “Lupin,” she added, looking at him for a longer time than she usually spared.
They walked on in silence for a few dozen steps, but finally Bess spoke again. “I’ve heard you hint, Lupin, that it might not be a good idea for the pack to get used to accepting favours from those Death Eater people.”
Remus blinked, holding his breath.
“After what happened at the moon,” she said slowly, “I’m beginning to think you might be right. I think maybe I’ll talk to some of the others about it.”
“I see.” He gave a careful nod.
Inwardly, however, he was sending up another exuberant thank-you to the Fates. He might have broken Tonks’s heart, and his own too. But by Godric’s sword, he was going to make something out of this mission for the Order, after all.
. * fin * .