Half of a Heart's Desire: Entre Deux Guerres

Chapter 6: Magical Mystery Tour

"Who's there?"

Remus turned around. He nearly faded into the twilight of the crisp English evening, all lines and angular planes, holding a walking stick and dressed in a nondescript overcoat over washed out corduroy trousers. He had dressed in this manner at least partly so that he could pass undetected, but he smiled pleasantly and nodded at the old man approaching him, holding up a hefty torch that lit up the grave behind them.

"Hello. I'm just having a look around. I was wondering if I could have a look at the church. I've heard a lot about the Lancaster stained glass."

"You'll have to come back tomorrow. The church's closed now. So's the graveyard. I'm afraid you'll have to leave. I'd just come by to lock things up for the night."

"Pity. I was just admiring some of these graves. Rather intricate, aren't they?"

"The Riddles? Fancy enough, I suppose, but those aren't the ones the people from the archeological society keep poking around in."

"I suppose not. They do rather catch the eye, though. I take it the Riddles were the squires around here?"

"For just about a century, which is old enough by some standards, I suppose. They certainly did build rather large houses to bury their dead in."

The old caretaker waved his torch around at a veritable necropolis of large, rather ornate looking mausoleums, inscribed with all sorts of figures. Remus tapped his walking stick on a rough looking inscription of a caduceus on one of the monuments, looking across the valley at a large house situated at some elevation. In the dying light the house had the grim presence of an eerie specter, its dark windows in stark contrast to the cheerily lit village below. In the fading light the house looked rather dismal, built in an undistinguished style, and evidently in some disrepair. Yet decrepit as it was, it might have once have been called handsome for its sheer size.

"Is that their house then?"

"Aye. That's the old Riddle House. There's no one that's lived there for years, now, since just after the war. Murdered they were, the whole family, and not a mark on one of them to know how it was done. It's just Frank Bryce, the old caretaker, who lives out back in his cottage there now."

"Do the villagers use the grounds, then? It looks very well cared for."

"That's old Frank's work. The villagers never go up there if they can help it. There're all sorts of rumors about that old place. They say it's haunted, that there's these ghosts walking around in dark cloaks and white faces. Idle tales, but it keeps the kids away from trying to break into the place."

"And the house, is it still in the family?"

"Well, down in the village we don't rightly know that. They say there's no one left of the family, and that some nob up in London's who owns it now. But there's no one come up to the house in years, lestaways not by daylight, they haven't."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there are those that say that they've seen figures round the big house by night. They say they're ghosts even, with flowing dark robes and glowing white faces. But I don't put no truck in that. It's just villagers' talk. When you work in a graveyard by night like me you can't be listening to tales like that."

"No, you're quite right, of course. Well, I should be getting on. You wouldn't happen to know of a convenient place to stop for the night, would you?"

"Hiking through the country, are you? Well, there's the Hanged Man, down in the village that you can try. I'm not sure how well it suits city folk, though."

"I'm sure I'll find it very comfortable."

"You'd better watch out for the path there. It can be a bit tricky for strangers."

"It shouldn't be a problem. I've got Paddy here to look out for me."

The caretaker moved his torch to where Remus was gesturing to see the hulking silhouette of a large black dog, watching him warily with its hackles raised. He laughed nervously.

"Oh, I didn't notice your dog over there. Quite a creature you've got. They say if you see a dog like that in a graveyard by night you've seen your own death coming. I expect that's another old wives' tale."

Remus chuckled.

"Old Paddy here's hardly the grim. He's quite harmless, really. You've got nothing to worry about."

He turned to leave, the dog close at his heels, when he turned around suddenly, with another question.

"By the way, when we were coming up here through the woods, I noticed a house, more of a shack, really, quite a distance from the village. Does anyone live there, do you know?"

"Do you mean the old Gaunt place? No one's lived there for years. Surprised it's still standing, really. That family died out 'round about the same time as the Riddles did, and a sorry end of it they made too. Who would think to look at it that they once owned all the land around here for miles?"

"What became of them, then?"

The old man shrugged, absently.

"The money was gone decades before I was born, and they were holed up away from the village off in that little shack of theirs. Something not quite right in the head about them, either; the old man was bad enough, with his temper, and delusions of glory, but the son, they say he hunted snakes out of the forest to torture them. He used to hiss strangely at the snakes, for all the world like they understood him, and he tried to talk to people that way too."

"Were there any other children?"

"There was a daughter, now that you mention it, a homely, mousy little thing. We never thought she would come to much of anything, and then one day, lo and behold, the son of the squire up and ran away with her. He was back, though, within the year, and we never knew what became of her. He came to a sticky end himself, in the end, like I said, so perhaps that's the justice in the world."

"That's very interesting. You know a great deal about the history of these parts."

"I've lived here all me life, you know. One hears things, and never really forgets the old stories."

"Well, I'll be heading off. Are you coming down to the village as well?"

"Oh, not for at least half an hour yet. I've got quite a bit of locking up to do. You'd better head along."

Remus nodded, taking his leave, as the old caretaker turned back towards the church, his torch lighting up some of the details of the famous stained glass windows. Remus turned away, heading in the opposite direction, following the path down into a little copse. Had the old man still been able to see him when he emerged, he would have been surprised to find that Paddy the dog was no longer at his heels, but instead, that another young man was dragging his heels as Remus cut a rapid clip across the undulating path.

"What on Earth was that all about? Why were you talking to that old man? I thought we didn't want to be conspicuous. And why was I there as Padfoot, anyway?"

"For the same reason, Sirius, that you hold the record for the most detentions ever at Hogwarts, while I had barely a few more than perfect Lily Evans. You can't help being conspicuous. As for me, the old man will barely remember he talked to a hiker one evening."

"But why talk to him at all? Wouldn't it have been safer just to disappear?"

"Perhaps, but I was curious. I didn't come all the way here to leave without any answers."

"I'm not sure what we were looking for exactly, at the graveyard. I gather those were Voldemort's ancestor's graves, but what do we do about them now?"

"I was checking to see if there were any protections on them, or any signs that there've been Death Eaters around."

"Obviously, there've been Death Eaters. You heard what the old man said about visitors at the Big House."

The path in front of them was starting to get a bit rocky. Remus looked around before lighting his wand.

"What are you thinking, lighting your wand like that? There could be Muggles anywhere around who see us!"

"From a distance it'll look like a torch. Sirius, you're hardly the one to tell me about being cautious about things like this."

"This isn't the first time you've used your wand today, either. I saw you poking around the graves with it as well.

"Yes, given that our entire purpose in coming here was to examine the graves I rather thought I needed to take a look. There was something a bit strange about them."

"Have they exhumed the bodies already, then?"

"I'm fairly sure not, but I wasn't able to cast Excavo."

"You were casting Excavo by daylight in a Muggle graveyard, and you call me conspicuous?"

"I was hardly trying to excavate the entire grave; it was just a trial run on a patch of dirt. And I half expected there to be something stopping me. It's some kind of locking enchantment, I think, but I couldn't quite figure out what the key was."

"Well, that makes sense, actually. I thought it smelt a bit strange over there; a bit sterile, if you will. One expects a grave to be at least a little rank. But I suppose if there's a locking enchantment it just holds everything in place."

"See, it does do some good to have you sniffing around like that."

"I'm quite sure there was something in there that should offend me, but I don't know what, exactly."

"Good, I'm safe then."

As they approached the village lights Sirius slowed his tread, but Remus kept moving firmly along the increasingly narrow path as it wound back into the wilderness. Sirius cast a longing look back at the brightly lit sign flapping outside the The Hanged Man before catching back up with his friend.

"We aren't going in there, then? I was looking forward to a pint!"

"No, not quite yet, anyway. We're not done exploring here."

"Why not? I thought Dumbledore just wanted to us to poke around the graveyard for a bit."

"Yes, but I have my own curiosity to satisfy. And since this is all for Harry's safety I don't have any particular qualms about indulging it."

"Is this about that shack you were asking about? We certainly didn't pass anything on our way here. How is it important, anyhow?"

"What do you know about the Gaunts, Sirius?"

"The Gaunts? Well, there's a few of them on the family tree of course, from years and years ago, but no survivors in the direct line, I don't think, on our side, anyway, that I can remember. I would have heard about it, because they say they're direct descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself. As far as I know the family came to a sticky end some time ago. I heard rumors of Azkaban. And they lost their land to Muggles centuries ago; a very rough sort they were, at the end. I doubt my old mum would have had them round to tea. Pity really, because from everything I heard they sounded just as nasty."

"Well, it's their old shack up there that I want to have a bit of a look around in. I admit I'm rather curious."

"I take it this has something to do with our present errand, and not just morbid curiosity."

"You heard the old man, Sirius. You tell me."

"What, you don't mean..."

"Tom Riddle, the squire's son, was a single man when he died, apart from that one dalliance with the Gaunts' daughter which may or may not have culminated in marriage. Probably did, if she really did bewitch him, which she would have needed to do, by all accounts. He was a very proud man, and a handsome one, by all accounts."

"If he weren't a Muggle he sounds exactly like the sort my mother would approve of."

"Well, she did approve of his son, didn't she?"

"Who would have thought that Voldemort was really a half-blood all along? I wish I could go rub that in all their noses."

"Unfortunately, it cuts both ways. Half-blood or not he still was the last surviving Slytherin heir."

"I see what you mean. That would have that crowd bending over backwards, wouldn't it?"

"Combined with all his other dubious talents, I imagine it would rather impress them."

"I always wondered how he gathered any followers. Certainly the only time I ever saw him he never struck me as having a particularly appealing personality. Didn't even look particularly human, and that voice - worse than my mother's in some ways, and that's saying something."

"I believe that was rather different at one time. They say he was rather charismatic while he was at Hogwarts, and probably for some time after."

"Who says?"

"Professor McGonagall, for one. They went to Hogwarts only a few years apart. She told me Professor Slughorn quite doted on him."

"Well, that doesn't take much, now does it? It always annoyed me no end that he thought I should have been in Slytherin, like I was some trophy he wanted to collect."

"I wouldn't know." Remus's tone was rather dry, and Sirius stared at him for a moment.

"You didn't miss much, as you well know. I never did understand why he didn't have you in the Slug Club, though. You were rotten at Potions, granted, but you were a prefect, after all, and he had to have known that you were ace at all your other subjects."

"That's quite obvious, isn't it? Slughorn knew I wasn't particularly likely to ever be in a position to do him any favors."

"That's preposterous! That's discrimination, that is."

"Hardly, Sirius. He was never unkind to me, exactly. I think he rather pitied me, actually. And yes, he probably thought a Hogwarts education was wasted on me, with my limited opportunities. Who's to say he was wrong?"

"Dumbledore, for starters. And James and me, and Lily. Do we count for nothing?"

"Of course you do. And I'm beyond grateful to all of you. But I have been very lucky. All I'm pointing out is that Professor Slughorn was hardly wrong or even alone in expecting me to have a rather dismal future."

"You don't have to be grateful, you know."

Remus laughed, lightly.

"You say that, and of course I have to be all the more grateful that you feel that way."

They were well away from the village lights by now, and the path had started ascending again, up another gentle incline. There were quite a few turns ahead of them, and even with the wandlight Sirius could only see a few feet ahead of them. It was Remus who was leading the way.

"How do you know all of this stuff, anyway? Was this what Dumbledore had you doing, during the war?"

Remus shrugged.

"Among other things."

"What else were you up to?" Sirius asked, with genuine curiosity. It had always struck him as odd, when so much of his life and James's had revolved around tracking down and tackling Death-Eaters, that Remus was hardly ever to be found on the frontlines of the battle. Peter had never been present for those sorts of missions either, but no one had ever thought that Peter was really strong enough to be useful in a proper skirmish. Remus was different; he had made a life's study of Defense, and if he lacked anything in power he more than made up for it in knowledge and sheer creativity. Yet James and Lily had been the ones to defy Voldemort thrice, and even Sirius had faced him once and lived to tell the tale. Remus had always been conspicuously absent, and it was for this reason that Sirius's thoughts had first turned in those dark directions that had led to such disastrous consequences. But now that he knew that he had been wrong to suspect Remus, he was all the more mystified. Remus was a competent researcher, certainly, but he was no Ravenclaw, devoted to the pursuit of knowledge to the exclusion of all else. Knowledge, for Remus, was simply a potent tool in the service of action. He was hardly one to have backed away from the frontlines, and if he had been absent, it had to have been because he had been fighting a battle of his own.

"Haven't we had this discussion already, Sirius?" Remus's voice sounded tired, and as his guilt crept up on him Sirius was tempted to let the subject drop, but his dogged curiosity wouldn't allow it.

"No. We've talked about how I was a complete and utter arse, and how everything is all my fault, and you've forgiven me for being such an idiot, but we've never actually talked about why I got this stupid idea in the first place. I know you, Remus, you couldn't possibly have been sitting on the sidelines in the war. Dumbledore wouldn't have squandered your talents like that."

Remus stopped abruptly, turning around. A porcupine that had been poking its head out through the shrubbery was startled by the sudden wandlight, and scrambled back into the bushes.

"Isn't it rather obvious what I was doing, Sirius? Given my rather unique... talents, as you put it?"

"He couldn't possibly... not Greyback's people?"

"Who else was there? I was the perfect candidate, readymade, so to speak. They are my kind, Sirius, and he needed to send someone."

"Readymade by Greyback himself! How could you stand for it, Remus? They are not your kind! What was to be gained by it? We already know he's a vicious demon in Voldemort's service."

"They aren't all like that. They are made desperate by their circumstances."

"Yes, and I pity them as much as the next person. But you aren't their keeper, Remus. What was the point of sending you into that danger?"

"It was no more dangerous than anything I could have been doing. Dumbledore thought it was important to keep tabs on them, to turn any of them that I could."

"If you really thought it wasn't that dangerous, why didn't you tell us? Surely it wasn't a matter of security risk?"

"Why is this so important, Sirius?"

Sirius shook his head.

"People always think it's James and me first, brothers-in-arms, ringleaders. Perhaps even you think so; perhaps that's why you let us get away with so much. But it was never like that for us. You could always have stopped us; you did stop us, you made us feel bad, when you really meant it. You are our brother, Remus, if you would only let yourself be. You don't need to be grateful. You don't need to hold yourself back like this."

"And does that mean I have to tell you everything?" Remus asked, but there was no sting to the question.

"Perhaps not, but it does mean that you can tell us everything, and expect us not to judge you for it."

"Alright then. You were none of you going to react well, and there was no one else in the Order for it. It had to be me, and you would have told me not to do it."

"We would have pointed out all the reasons it was a bad idea. We could never have stopped you, Remus, but I'd like to think we could have helped. And we sure as Merlin would have talked to Dumbledore about his half-baked idea in sending you out there, which you would never do."

"Fomenting rebellion, are we?"

"I know you think you owe him everything, and I owe him nearly as much, but it doesn't mean he's always right, Remus. I think we're better off accepting that he can make the occasional mistake."

"I think it must be catching, Sirius. We are going well beyond our mandate here."

"Lead on, then. Let's go see what Dark Lords are made of."

"It shouldn't be much further now." Remus started down the path again, towards a clearing, the beginnings of which were just becoming visible behind a thicket of bushes.

"Remus?"

"Yes?"

"Be careful, won't you?"

Remus laughed.

"It's probably just an old abandoned shack, Sirius. I think I'm quite used to those, by now."

Sirius nodded, still feeling vaguely uneasy. He wondered why that was, here, in an abandoned old house in a village, when during the war he had walked into lairs of known Death Eaters to do battle with scarcely a qualm, but he squared his shoulders, compelled to follow where Remus seemed determined to lead.

"Alright then."

The shack they saw as they turned into the clearing looked hardly large enough to be particularly sinister. It was so decrepit that the very fact that it was standing upright seemed like a minor miracle. The plaster was flaking to the point where it was impossible to tell what the original paint color might have been, or indeed whether it had ever been painted. There was a patchwork of missing slats on the sloping roofs. The window pains were sagging from their hinges, but the door was bolted shut. If it hadn't seemed so very ordinary Sirius would have said that it was entirely magic holding it together.

"What's that on the door?"

"It looks like someone nailed on a dead snake."

"Nutters, weren't they?"

Remus leaned towards the door, as if to listen for any voices from within. Sirius's foreboding intensified, as he wondered what his friend was doing.

"I'm going in, Sirius."

Remus tapped his wand on the doorknob, casting an innocuous unlocking spell. A moment later, he drew back, wincing in pain, as the door fell open.

"What happened?"

"That thing bit me."

"I thought you said it was dead."

"It was. Apparently it's some kind of snake inferius."

"It looks dead now."

"I think it's extracted what it needed. Come on, let's go in."

"You can't be serious. We have to go back and get that looked at."

"Sirius, it feels fine. We've come this far. I'm not going back now without having a look."

He walked in, without waiting for Sirius, who followed more cautiously, still worried about the incident as well as his friend's unpredictable behavior. He wasn't quite sure what had gotten into Remus, or why they were even on this ludicrous adventure.

"Besides, I can hear it calling me, can't you?" Remus asked off-handedly.

Sirius's concern was rising. He couldn't hear anything other their footsteps muffled by the dust they were raising in the manky old room. The only furniture he could see was a ragged armchair, with stuffing falling out of one of the arms, and a couple of broken chairs, which cast eerie looking shadows in the faint wandlight. Sirius didn't see anything worth taking a closer look at, but Remus was striding through the shabby room towards the unlit hearth in the back.

"Incendio!"

The hearth sprang to life. Remus was gazing, rapt, at the fire, his face looking flushed in the warmth of the flickering firelight. Slowly, he knelt before the fire, and put his ear so close that the flames were practically grazing it. At that moment, Sirius could have sworn that Remus had not the slightest idea that he or the room, or anything else in the world around them, existed. He approached more cautiously, and stood behind Remus in uncharacteristic silence, as though deferring to the solemnity of some strange ritual being enacted before him of which only Remus was a part.

Remus pulled his head back, and put his hand into the flames, as though searching for something only he could see, oblivious to Sirius's muttered oath. But his hand came out unscathed, holding a large gold ring. It was very pure gold; that was apparent at a glance, but rather crudely cast. The large black stone set in it was carved with three sheaves of wheat.

"The Peverell crest," said Remus, in a soft voice that conveyed all of his awe at the find.

He lovingly fingered the ring, and brought it up, close to his ear. He made as though to put it on, but Sirius interrupted this moment of communion, half expecting his friend to disappear on the spot.

"Remus?" he said, softly.

Remus blinked, turning around abruptly.

"I didn't see you there, Sirius."

"Could I have a look at that ring?"

"What? Umm, yes, of course. I dare say it's quite an ancient relic."

He handed over the ring. Sirius watched him closely, for any sign that he might be reluctant, or under some compulsion from the unknown object, but Remus seemed perfectly himself, and Sirius's moment of foreboding passed as he found himself standing in possession of the object. It was surprisingly heavy, even for its size, and quite cool, for an object that had just been pulled out of the fire.

"How did you know to find it there, Remus."

"I don't know, really. I just sort of heard it calling to me."

"Can you hear it now?"

"Of course not, Sirius. It's a ring; it doesn't talk. I think it just wanted to be found, so there was some kind of enchantment on it."

This was more like the Remus he expected to hear, but Sirius was still didn't know what to make of him. Abruptly, he wished for James, who would know how to handle a situation like this, or even Lily, who along with Remus could usually be counted on to be perfectly reasonable about everything. But of course Lily wasn't here, and James couldn't be, because someone needed to watch Harry. It was only Sirius, and he would have to muddle through this somehow, and keep them both safe.

"I never heard anything."

"You weren't bitten, though, were you?"

"There's dark magic at play here, Remus. I'm not sure I like this."

"Well, of course it's dark magic, Sirius. It's the Gaunts and Voldemort we're talking about here. Can't you see this is important?"

"It's dangerous, Remus. You just yanked it out of a magical fire."

"I'm not planning to play around with it. But we do have to figure out what it is."

"We'll show James. He's better at objects than we are."

"Right, good idea. And I'll do some research on it. It's obviously quite old."

"And how's the ear?"

Remus scratched at it absently.

"I can hardly feel anything out of the ordinary. I think it really is just to extract a little blood to let you pass."

"There's nothing good that ever came out of that kind of blood magic, Remus. We'd best be careful if we're to do any more looking around."

"I doubt there's anything else left to find here."

"Home it is, then. I'm not sure I fancy us walking past that snake again, especially if we're trying to take the ring with us."

"We'll have to find some way out of the shack; we can't apparate out."

"I don't know if it's as easy as walking out through a backdoor or jumping out the windows. I think this place is pretty tightly magicked together, like the shrieking shack. Look at those windows; they've no reason to be staying in place, otherwise."

"It's a little different, I think. The enchantments are tied to the ring - if we can figure that out I think the house will fall apart."

"Well, you're not messing around with that ring in here, and bringing the wrath of the shack upon us."

"No, I doubt that'll be necessary. There's always a fulcrum to these sorts of spells - a place where the rest of it starts from, but it's the most vulnerable point. That's why James and Lily had to use the Fidelius - so that the house itself would be totally secure - the weak point was outside, in Wormtail."

Sirius was relieved. Remus was starting to sound more like himself again, erudite, and with some kind of plan at hand, not mystically rambling about voices only he could hear. He pocketed the ring, as though hiding the temptation, and focused on what Remus was saying about how to make their escape.

"So the ring's the fulcrum? We can leave it behind and come back better prepared, Moony. We've got to return to secure the graves anyway."

"No, the ring isn't the fulcrum; it's what's being protected. Which means the center of the spell is..."

"The hearth!"

"Exactly."

"So you think we can just floo out of here?"

"I don't think it's quite that simple. For one thing, we haven't any floo powder handy."

But Sirius had a rather alarming thought, the same foreboding he had first had when Remus had lit a fire in that hearth. He had been raised in a magical household and had been walking through fire for as long as he could remember, but he had a healthy respect for the element. Fire here had protected the ring - fire would be dangerous to them. It was not an escape, it was a trap, or at least a test.

"Remus, where did the ring come from?"

"The fire - you saw how I got it."

"No, what I mean is, where was the ring before you lit the fire? Obviously it wasn't just lying in the hearth."

"No, you're right. It was keyed to the fire, somehow, like floo."

"So if we did try to floo, or escape through the fire, it would probably try to take us where the ring came from, or to some trap."

"Or, at the very least, the fire would demand a sacrifice too."

"So no fire, then. Where does that leave us?"

Remus suddenly smiled, the smile which had launched a thousand untraceable pranks, and added so many of Filch's gray hairs. It was a smile that had often made Sirius's day during his marauding career.

"Is the chimney booby-trapped?"

"What!"

"I'm not joking. This is the oldest part of the house, the most stable. It's not held upright by magic like the doors and windows are, and there's a good chance it's not fastened by magic either. Climbing through chimneys is such a very Muggle thing to do that I very much doubt Voldemort would have planned his defenses around it. No wizard planning to leave through a fire would think twice about that route."

"Moony, that's brilliant!"

"We'll need to be careful, of course. It's possible there are still some barriers in place."

"I can handle the reconnaissance," said Sirius, casting a standard slate of diagnostic spells. "It's relatively clean, magically speaking. From a soot and ash perspective it's positively filthy. I think that's the real deterrent."

"And when you say relatively?"

"We can't magic anything on to the chimney walls without tapping into the defenses on the rest of the place."

"Good thing we learnt the old fakir's rope trick, then, isn't it?"

"That's not what you said back in sixth year!"

"I was trying to keep you out of the clutches of the Improper Use of Magic Office for panhandling on Piccadilly Circus!"

"I needed the money!"

"Right," said Remus, with the polite skepticism of one who had never had any expectations of inherited wealth and few realistic prospects of earning a fortune. Sirius looked a little chagrined.

"Shall we, then?"

Remus flicked his wand casually, conjuring a rope that shimmied up the chimney, waiting for them to climb. He allowed Sirius to climb first, and then hoisted himself up. Fortunately, the chimney was large and roomy, quite out of proportion with the rest of the house. They were able pass through without touching the walls, although their clothes gathered quite a lot of soot. Finally, they emerged over the shack, into the tree lined starry night. Sirius peered down at him.

"Apparate directly?"

"Right - but scourgify first, I think." Remus replied, waving his wand over both of them.

"Thanks. Rendevous at West Ham station, then, and debrief at home."

Remus nodded, and the two wizards disappeared from their precarious positions, the rope tumbling down into the fireplace below them.