Moonlight

Chapter Nineteen

Good News, Bad News



Ted's dreams were filled with a lot of darkness and horror, when he finally resigned to put away his father's journal and go to sleep....

There was a sense of pandemonium, followed by the cries of children. The same werewolf that had tried to kill him last full moon ran around trying to bite them all. Some of them it did bite, and when they were bitten, they fell into fits of agony that squeezed the inner cavity of Ted's chest. Feeling a rush of anger and animosity for this merciless beast, he whipped out his wand and ran at the werewolf.

"Leave them alone, you monster!" he yelled fiercely. He hurled hex after hex at it, and to his surprise, they seemed to be taking it down, causing it pain. Usually hexes hardly worked in the least on a werewolf. A rush of triumph seized Ted, and he raised his wand above the whimpering, snarling beast to deal it the final blow...he brought down his wand as if he were bringing down a sword--

And stopped, as the werewolf's body began to change convulsingly: where the werewolf had once been was his father, Remus Lupin, crumpled and bleeding. He raised his brown eyes to Ted--eyes that Ted had inherited as his own natural eye color--and they were filled with such intense pleading that Ted's wand arm fell to his side.

"Son...Teddy...I'm so sorry...I don't mean it...I can't help it...you know I don't mean it...don't you...?"

Ted swallowed as he gazed down at the scarred face bent with anguish. He tried to say, "Of course I know that, Dad," but the words wouldn't come out....

Something growled savagely behind him.

Ted whirled around and saw the werewolf that had tried to kill him a couple of nights ago. Again. But this time, the wolf wasn't his father. His father was behind him in his human form.

The werewolf was salivating, baring gleaming white dagger-teeth at him. Approaching him slowly. Preparing to attack. To bite. To slaughter. To eviscerate.

Its yellow eyes gleamed red, promising death.

Ted staggered backward, dropping his wand.

The werewolf lunged at him.

His father's strong arm grabbed him around the chest, shoved him behind him, shielding him with nothing more than his own vulnerable body. No sooner had he done so than did the werewolf sink its teeth into Remus' shoulder, knocking him flat to the ground.

"No! Dad!"

"Teddy...! Run...!" Remus gasped in pain. And then with a ferocious growl he became a werewolf and threw the attacking werewolf off of him, and began battling him in a frenzied haze of fur, claws, teeth, and blood.

And then everything around Ted turned scarlet, and an asphyxiating, drowning sensation took hold of him. He tried to cry out for Remus, but he couldn't. He felt someone shaking him....

"Ted! Ted! C'mon! Wake up!"

Ted's eyes flew open, and he sat bolt upright. Air rushed into his lungs, and he drank it in with a deep, rushing gasp. And then he gasped again, and again, until he managed to catch his breath and steady it. He swallowed and looked around to find his friend Rodger peering at him concernedly in the dim light of the dark dormitory.

"You okay, mate?" he whispered.

Vague images of the dream flashed before Ted's vision, like imprints on his short-term memory. He looked nervously into his best mate's eyes and said, "Yeah. I'm alright. It was just a dream. Just a dream...." He checked the time, and saw that there were a couple of more hours before he and Rodger had to get up for class. Taking the gold Gobstone he transfigured it into the ANSWERS box and dug out his father's journals.

"You're not reading more?" Rodger asked incredulously. "You only just got to sleep an hour and a half ago. I heard you while I was sort of half-asleep."

"I can't help it, Rodge." And then he realized how much he sounded like his father in the dream, and it sent an odd shiver through him. "Er...I just...can't help it. I'll be fine. I've just got to read a little bit more. That's all."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remus stared at his face in the mirror in his bathroom later that night. Actually, it was past midnight, well past midnight: it was already two in the morning by the time he'd gotten back from mourning with the other Order members at headquarters and filing his very first report with Dumbledore. But he stared all the same, despite the fact that with each passing moment he was wasting precious time that he could be spending asleep in his warm bed before leaving for work later in the morning. Yet he could not help it. Over and over with his forefingers, he kept tracing the great big scar that the half of Dolohov's deadly signature spell had left diagonally across his face....

~

Three days went by before the full moon. Remus did the same thing each day: he went to work, training with Lily to be an Unspeakable, and then visited Ramirus at the orphanage. When he got home, there was always an owl from at least one of his friends, and he was always prompt in sending replies, and sometimes he wrote to them without having them having to write to him first.

On the night of the full moon, he ran free as a monstrous, supernatural wolf in the woods near his home, as he had always done in his childhood. And then when morning came, he managed to stagger--naked--through the woods and find his way back to his home before he caught a chill from the cold of the early forest dawn. Once home, he curled up underneath the throw on the sofa and sleep the day away. His boss had already been informed of the full moon that had come the previous night, and the boss of course, knowing he was a werewolf, remembered that the day after every full moon was what he used as his one free monthly sick-day as an employee in the Department of Mysteries.

Then his friends arrived at nightfall unexpectedly, and when they came knocking on his door, he jerked awake, and then, finding out it was them when he asked (after a thorough process of identification verification), told them to hold on a moment. What he refrained from saying aloud was that he was naked and therefore needed to make himself decent before he greeted them, but he figured that was implied anyway, and if it wasn't, well, Remus wasn't all that bothered.

When he let them in, he served them tea, despite their protests (they were more worried about how ill and exhausted he was), and despite his protests at receiving help form them at the very least, he allowed them to do it anyhow, wordlessly, especially when it was Lily who managed to catch his arm before he tripped over his own two feet because of his own trembling legs.

But his trembling was to grow worse when he learned that there had been more deaths of Order members in his absence: Ewan Hunter, Arcadia Bones, and Séarlait Corcoran. Ewan had died trying to protect his wife and children when they were set upon unexpectedly by a band of Death Eaters. Arcadia had died after rather foolishly trying to chase down the Death Eater that had murdered her brother, Liberius. Séarlait on the other hand had died of a strange after-effect from the injury she'd received to her ear a few days ago. It had been at the meeting they'd had just last night: she'd just been laughing along with everyone else at some joke James and Sirius had made, and then she collapsed, dead.

"My God..." Remus breathed when they'd finished. He set down his tea with shaking hands.

"Yeah," said Sirius soberly before taking a huge swig of his own tea.

"Horrible," added Peter with a shudder.

"Dumbledore thinks it might not have been the injury," said James, idly tracing the rim of his own teacup with his index finger. "That injury had to have been Severus' lovely Sectumsempra, knowing from experience. But...maybe it was...maybe it hit her somewhere in the brain, and...I dunno...a fractured piece of skull or some other bone got lodged in there without anyone knowing and then...maybe it moved when she laughed...." He glanced at Sirius, for it had been the two of them who had been joking around, causing Séarlait to laugh in the first place.

"Don't you go blaming yourselves," Lily admonished, taking a cookie from the plate on Remus' tea tray (the china tea set itself had belonged previously to his mother).

As she did so, Remus saw something glint off of her finger, and realized that it was a white gold ring with a small, circle-cut diamond set into it. He was fairly certain that that ring hadn't been there before. He glanced up at Lily inquiringly as she bit into the cookie she'd selected.

She raised her eyebrows at him.

"I was just noticing your ring there," he said quietly.

Lily peered down at the ring on her slender third finger, and then blushed, closing her eyes, and making a noise that sounded like a cross between a snort and a giggle and a sneeze, covering her mouth with her free hand to prevent herself from spewing out her bite of cookie in addition.

"Oh..." said James, observing the exchange. He smiled. "In addition to all of this grim, macabre news, we do have some happy news too."

Sirius choked on his tea, having tried to laugh and swallow at the same time. Coughing and sputtering, he wiped off his mouth with his napkin and gulped what tea had managed not to dribble out of his mouth, and then gave an apologetic grin.

Peter sniggered into his own cup of tea.

James took Lily's hand and looked at Remus. "Lily and I are getting married, Moony," he beamed.

An odd pain stabbed at Remus' heart. But Remus pushed it aside and managed a smile, glad to see how happy Lily was. "Congratulations!"

"Thank you, Remus," said Lily.

"And I've been selected to be best man, of course," said Sirius. He clapped Remus on the shoulder and added: "But, I would like a little company up there, if it's not too much trouble...."

Remus smiled and said somewhat meekly, "Of course I'll stand up there with you. I'll be the best man's best man, I suppose."

Sirius relaxed visibly, said, "Thanks, mate," and gave him another clap on the shoulder.

James too seemed a bit relieved. Remus wondered if maybe he'd felt a little guilty about choosing Sirius over Remus and Peter, but Remus wasn't surprised, and he didn't mind either. Sirius had always been slightly closer to James because they were so much like twins practically, like the twin brothers in the ancient Roman Muggle play, The Menaechmus Brothers, two twin brothers who were separated as youths and then were reunited again through the course of the action in the play. Remus glanced over at Peter, and said, "What about you, Peter?"

But Peter shook his head. "Oh, I don't know...I suppose I'll stand up there too...."

"Atta boy, Pete," said James bracingly, clapping Peter on the shoulder.

"So, when's the big day set for?" Remus asked, turning back to James and Lily.

"Not for a while," James admitted.

"We were thinking about a year from now," said Lily.

"A year?" Sirius nearly choked on his tea again. "Why a year? Why not--tomorrow? I mean we're in the middle of a war here! Some people are just up and eloping the first chance they get! What if something...er...you know...happens?" His face drained of color slightly, speaking the words he did not want to speak aloud, which were these: "What if you die?"

"But James and I aren't in a position to just go 'up and eloping'," Lily explained. "We're both far too busy with job-training at the Ministry. And anyway, that'll give us time to make plans for it."

Sirius sighed but did not argue further.

Remus congratulated James and Lily again as he saw all four of his friends to the door. And then he observed from his front porch as James, Lily, and Peter rode away on their broomsticks, and Sirius roared away behind them on his flying motorcycle.

Once they were out of sight, Remus turned back into the house. He went about cleaning up the tea things, and right after he'd finished, he went upstairs and brushed his teeth. He didn't feel much like eating dinner. So he thought he may as well hit the sack. After he brushed his teeth, he went into his dark bedroom and pulled back the blankets. He didn't bother getting into pajamas. He'd spend most of the day naked and shivering underneath a throw on the sofa anyway, and only an hour or so dressed in the clothes he wore now--a simple pullover and a pair of jeans and white socks.

Remus' generation had been the first to start dressing in Muggle clothes as a form of casual dress--as of late, the robes of wizarding fashion were starting to become something referred to as "traditional", something wizards would wear just for really special wizarding occasions.

Well, anyhow, back to our story.

So Remus just decided not to bother with pajamas, and just sleep in his clothes and wear them to work the next morning, provided that he could fix them a tad to make them look as though he hadn't slept in them, before he left.

He set his alarm on his bedside table, and then slid underneath the covers, and fell asleep while lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling, and he found himself out in a beautiful field with lots of nicely-dressed people on a sunny summer's day--James and Lily's wedding day....

Remus stood beside Sirius, who stood beside James at the altar. Peter stood on Remus' other side. They were all watching as the chaplain led the proceedings.

"James Aldous Potter, do you take Lily Violet Evans to be your lawfully wedded wife?" the chaplain asked James.

"I do," said James softly, though from where Remus stood, he could only see the back of James' head.

"And do you, Lily Violet Evans, take James Aldous Potter to be your lawfully wedded husband?" asked the chaplain of Lily next.

"I...." Lily's eyes seemed to search James' face almost fearfully, and she averted them from meeting his altogether. "I do not."

The entire congregation of vague faces gasped.

Peter burst into tears and ran off sobbing.

Sirius collapsed into an uncharacteristic faint, landing in a crumpled heap on the ground.

Remus regarded both Peter and Sirius with surprise.

"Remus!"

Remus looked up to see Lily still beside James at the altar, her fiery red hair blazing, her ivory white dress pristine and perfect, and strapless, exposing her creamy white shoulders to the summer sun. She was gazing hard at Remus with her burning green eyes. She tossed her bouquet of white lilies aside and ran to him. He caught her automatically in his arms, his pulse racing with his shock mingled with the ecstasy he felt as she threw her arms around him and pressed herself against his chest. He held her close, glorying in the feel of her. And then she looked up into his face and said, with tears in her eyes, "I love you Remus...I always have.... Why can't you accept that?"

Remus replied, his own voice breaking, "Because that's not how it's supposed to be." He had no idea where that reply had come from, but it had come from somewhere, and he knew it, somehow, to be the truth. He kissed her then, full, on the mouth...it felt so real that this couldn't be a dream...it was just like he remembered...warm...and wet...full of something that illuminated his heart.

She gave that same, "Mmph!" as she had when he'd kissed her years ago on the train ride to Hogwarts at the beginning of their sixth year. But just like then, she responded welcomingly to the kiss, raking her fingers through his hair....

It was wonderful.

"I love you, Lily," Remus whispered to her in a voice that carried all of the love he had just for her....

A loud, incessant beeping attacked Remus' ears. He opened his eyes and slammed his palm down on the alarm clock. He was lying on his side now, curled up into a ball.

It had all been just a dream. It hadn't been real.

Lily was going to marry James. She was going to say, "I do" to him when the time came, and she was going to marry him.

Not Remus.

The odd pain stabbed Remus' heart again. This time he didn't push it away. He allowed it to consume him like a fire, eat and tear at his insides. He buried his face in his pillow, and cried softly. He remembered that the last time he'd cried had been that evening that Lily had talked with him, discovered his pictures of her that he'd sketched, and held him as he cried for his dead parents. Remembering this...made him cry even harder.

~

At the very next Order meeting, Albus Dumbledore announced that he'd like to have a picture of everyone taken "for posterity". He admitted he'd wished he'd done it sooner, when more of the members were alive, but now it was too late to do anything about it now, so why spend it in regret?

Nowadays there was no time like the present.

They all gathered in the drawing room of Elphias Doge's mansion, and the camera had a spell on it to automatically take pictures without anyone operating on it from behind. Dumbledore merely had to issue a wandless, verbal command to it to take the picture. Then he himself developed the picture, along with the rest of the ones on the same roll of film, in the potion that made the people in the picture move. Then he made copies for every single member to keep. When Remus received his copy by owl the following day, he traced Lily's lovely face yearningly with his finger, watched himself as he stood beside her, with Peter on his other side, and James and Sirius on the other side of her, thankful that his image wasn't giving away his feelings for her, and then folded it up and stuck it in his keepsake box, where he also kept his folded up copy of the picture that Lily had taken of him, James, Sirius, and Peter on their Hogwarts graduation day. Every day, he never left the house without that picture, and now this new picture of everyone in the Order, tucked safely inside the inside breast pocket of his jacket.

Two weeks later they received news that Marlene McKinnon had been tracked down to her home by Death Eaters, whereupon they had launched an attack on her house, in which she and her entire family lived, but not without a fight. Unfortunately, they seized control of the place, tortured her for information while they forced her family to watch, and every so often they'd kill one of her family members in an effort to get her to talk, but when everyone in her family was dead and she'd been Cruciatus Cursed-out, she'd simply become mad with agony and shock and grief, and so they killed her too. The only victory there for the Order was that Marlene had not given them even the tiniest bit of the information they had wanted. But it had cost her the lives of her whole family, as well as her own. Before the next Order meeting following her funeral, Remus and his friends caught a whiff of a heated discussion going on between Dumbledore and his brother, which was quickly brought to a halt because Elphias Doge then entered the room unexpectedly, and Remus and his friends took that as their cue to withdraw from being within hearing-range of the room. After the meeting, when practically everyone else had left, Sirius (with Doge's permission) raided Doge's liquor cabinet in the drawing room, in the private company of Remus, James, Lily, and Peter, and despite their advising, sampled a little bit from every single bottle of alcohol, from firewhiskey, to vodka, to brandy, to tequila. And while Remus, James, Lily, and Peter, sat in silence, they listened while he talked on and on about one thing: Marlene.

"...sheesa great bird, y'know," Sirius said slurrily, moving about the room in a drunken swagger, nearly always tripping up on something, waving his arms about in flamboyant, uncoordinated gestures. "Sexy...rully, rull--hic!--seggsy...." A little while later he passed out while talking about how great Marlene's legs must have looked, and how much he would've liked to have found out, even when they were her seventh-year defense against the dark arts students at Hogwarts. James thought it best that he just kip on the drawing room chaise long for the night, and said that he'd be back in the morning to see if he'd be fit for work.

Later that evening, at home, Remus lay curled up on his sofa, hugging one of the pillows against his stomach while his head rested on the other. He fell asleep there for a little while, and while he slept, he dreamt of his first Order mission...of when he'd been paired up with Marlene to follow the Death Eaters along the path right before ambushing them....

She turned to him and, laying a finger aside of her nose, said, "Shhhh...."

Remus gulped.

Marlene smiled encouragingly and leaned towards his ear. She whispered, and Remus could actually feel her breath blow against his skin like butterfly's wings: "Take good care of that heart of yours, Remus...the heart broken by its owner bears the worst wounds...."

~

Three months later, Remus and his friends had fought another tiring battle with a group of Death Eaters near yet another forest by night, some of them Remus recognized, and some of them he did not. One thing he knew for sure: Antonin Dolohov was not there.

Now everyone was out searching. Remus and James were paired together as patrol along the public path, making sure no Death Eaters who'd decided to hang about and surprise them later got away with it. Thankfully no one had been killed during this fight, but Benjy Fenwick was missing.

Then they heard Sirius gave an anguished cry, and Remus and James looked to where Sirius was.

Sirius staggered out of the trees and dropped something on the path as though it might bite him. Then he fell back, and caught himself against a tree behind him. He looked pale and sick, and he wiped something from his mouth with his sleeve. "I found Benjy..." he croaked.

Caradoc Dearborn and Dorcas Meadowes, who were also patrolling, came over to join Remus, James, and Sirius, and other Order members on the search suddenly gave anguished cries too.

Remus looked to what Sirius had dropped onto the ground, and felt his insides heave, and his whole body turned numb, while his skin became covered in cold sweat.

It was a hand.

A smoking, severed hand.

Benjy's hand.

He knew it because it was wearing the old ring of his dead fiancée, Rhona Kinnaird, on its third finger.

He tugged at James' sleeve and pointed.

James let out a sound as though he was about to hurl, clamped his hand to his mouth and turned away. A moment later he felt James drop to his hands and knees as he vomited. Vaguely he heard Sirius say, "Yeah, just let it out, mate, that's what I did when I saw it too, don't worry..." but all the while Remus kept his eyes fixed on Benjy's severed hand lying in the dirt.

Mad-Eye came thundering out then, and asked grimly, "Where's the pile we're collecting him in? Has one been started?"

Remus didn't hear anyone answer, and figured someone must have simply nodded, for as he continued to stare at Benjy's severed hand, a pair of smoking forearms, were dropped beside the hand, severed at the wrists and elbows that had once been Benjy's, the bones and muscles that stuck out on either end twitching oddly and irregularly, jerkily. Then the sound of a hysterically weeping Lily preceded a smoking ear and a few fingers and toes and an eyeball being added to the collection.

Remus' insides tried to leap out of his body of their own accord. When they gave a second heave at the roiling in his stomach, he turned away, his legs buckling beneath him. He fell to his knees as James had done, and retched. As he did so, he heard James and Sirius' voices close to him, telling him not to worry, better out than in.

Then he heard Mad-Eye return, dragging an entire body with him, along with what he claimed to be Benjy's other eye. The body he'd been dragging he heard Sirius identify as Peter, who had apparently found the eyeball, and thusly fainted on the spot.

By then everyone else was returning, and Remus didn't dare look at the pile of Benjy's body parts. After finding his other eyeball, the only other thing that they'd managed to find, according to what he heard Edgar Bones say, was some of Benjy's teeth, a couple of which had allegedly been blackened.

"That's it?" Mad-Eye barked. "That's all we could find of him?" He sighed. "Very well then...let's take what we've got and give him a coffin...."

About another three months passed, and Caradoc Dearborn was reported missing. Everyone agreed to search for him in shifts, but on none of these shifts was anyone successful. The search began to cut into Remus' time which he usually spent visiting Ramirus at the orphanage.

One day Ramirus burst into tears because Remus had rushed out, and he'd been in such a hurry to get to that night's Order meeting on time that he'd forgotten to tell Ramirus good-bye like he always did. He went on brooding about it even as he sat with his friends at the long table in Doge's dining room at the meeting.

After Lily had been given the assignment to perform special spy work on the Department of Mysteries, and James, Sirius, and Peter had been assignment undercover patrols to Muggle villages that were currently under threat of being seized by Voldemort's forces, Remus' name was called. When Remus did not answer, it was called again.

"Remus!"

Remus jumped. "Oh! Er...wh-what? Yes, Mister Doge, sir?" he said, addressing Doge at the head of the table. Dumbledore hadn't been to the meetings physically since the new Hogwarts school year had started in September. The same went for Minerva McGonagall.

Sirius snickered beside him.

Remus gave him a swift kick in the leg underneath the table, and that sobered him up.

"I have some instructions here from Albus concerning your first personal assignment," Doge wheezed, giving Remus a forgiving smile. "You are to dig up the whereabouts of every single werewolf residing in Britain. Albus suspects that You-Know-Who might try to win the support of the werewolves, since he has the advantage of the oppression that the Ministry bears upon them. It is Albus' plan to eventually send you as an envoy to them and try to get them on the Order's side."

"I see," said Remus, nodding. "Well, as far as I know, the werewolves are disunited, as of now. You'd think that being part wolf, they'd run in 'packs' or something, but actually, they don't. They run solo. In groups together they can be quite vicious to each other, so ordinarily they keep to themselves. My point is that if they're not accustomed to being united amongst themselves, it will be difficult to unite them under any single banner, whether it be ours, or Voldemort's."

There was a collective wince around the table, but nobody made any bones about Voldemort's name being mentioned. The Order understood that some members had the courage to say it aloud, and some simply did not.

"You accept the assignment, nonetheless, though, correct?" said Doge.

"Of course," said Remus.

"Solo, eh?" said James under his breath.

"Most werewolves aren't lucky enough to have non-werewolf friends either," Remus muttered back. "So if they don't associate with each other, or with non-werewolves, that doesn't leave anybody left for them, does it?"

James smiled. "You need to find yourself a bird, mate."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Remus at once, turning his attention back to the meeting. At the moment, Doge was relaying a message from Dumbledore to Emmeline Vance. Then his eyes wandered over to where Lily sat between Emmeline and James, and he said, without realizing he was saying it: "What woman would want me, anyway?"

~

It had been tricky getting the record of all the werewolves in Britain from the Ministry's files, but Remus managed it. Once he'd gotten it, he quickly made himself a copy of it with his wand, and slipped the original one back in with the other filed records. He had borrowed James' Invisibility Cloak, and had done it during his lunch break. Lily was watching his back. She sighed with relief when he managed to return without any Ministry officials or employees being the wiser. Later, when Remus returned James' cloak, he thanked him gratefully for allowing him the use of it.

That was his first step in his secret, private mission.

His next step was to go through the list and track down each and every witch and wizard that owned the name on that record. When he happened across his own name, he stared at it for a brief moment, and then moved on going through the rest of the list. He did this work at home that evening, in his father's old study. He felt quite disappointed with himself however at their next meeting, when he gave his report, and his report consisted of, "No luck finding any of the werewolves on record so far, sir."

~

Remus began falling into a grim depression that was further exacerbated by the cold and snow and wintry weather, the haze of grey clouds that often hung in the sky. Christmas hadn't brightened his spirits, and neither had New Year's, and especially not Valentine's Day. The only lift in his mood had been a few days before Valentine's Day, when he visited his baby brother Ramirus at the orphanage to celebrate his birthday.

"Remus!" Ramirus squealed joyfully, running at a toddler's pace to meet Remus when he saw Remus coming towards him in the nursery. "Remus!"

They were provided with their own little private room, so they could celebrate, just the two of them. After a little birthday tea, Remus smiled as his now two-year old brother unwrapped the old teddy bear of Remus' that Remus was giving him.

Ramirus clapped his hands together and hugged the bear. "Bear!" he exclaimed with delight. A moment later he was chewing on one of its round ears, even though he'd gone beyond the teething stage.

Then Remus and his little brother played a little game of chase-around-the-room. When Ramirus was chasing Remus, Remus stopped and turned around, and held his arms out towards him.

Ramirus squealed with laughter. He ran right into Remus' outstretched arms, happily crying, "Remus! Yay!"

"I've got you!" Remus scooped Ramirus up into his arms. He looked into his brother's cherubic face and struggled with whether or not he should laugh or cry. In the end he did both, and hugged his baby brother tight, as though blissfully unaware and innocent Ramirus were his only lifeline connected to any sort of hope.

Then he carried a laughing Ramirus on his shoulders, and Remus was surprised to find how widely he himself was smiling, laughing even.

When it was time for Remus to leave, Ramirus was sad to see him go. "No go! Remus no go!" he cried, wrapping his arms around Remus' neck and holding onto him tight.

Remus sat down with Ramirus on his lap and picked up the teddy bear he'd given him. "Well, while I'm gone, you just give Mister Bear here a hug, and he'll send the hug off to me, and then when Mister Bear hugs you back, it'll really be me hugging you back."

Ramirus blinked at him with his curious, tear-filled, wondering brown eyes. He sniffed, wiped his nose, buried his face in Remus' shirt, hugging both him and the teddy bear. "'Kay," he mumbled.

Remus returned the squeeze with a soft smile. Then he scooped up Ramirus and the bear and set him down in his crib. He covered him up with his blanket, and watched him while he closed his eyes and fell asleep before leaving the orphanage.

~

Remus continued helping with the Caradoc Dearborn search, as well as his own assigned search for the werewolves in Britain. Finally, two weeks after Ramirus' birthday, he came up with his first promising werewolf lead. In his current depression, Remus had initially started drinking a little. Then one day, two weeks following Ramirus' second birthday, while allowing himself to drown somewhat in his sorrows in the Leaky Cauldron, he overheard a man talking to another man about moonstone. Curious for some inexplicable reason, Remus' ears tuned into this conversation. He sneaked a peek over his shoulder at the pair sitting at the table behind him, and saw a swarthy, fat, balding wizard sitting with another whose face was hidden by the hood of his cloak, which he wore up at the moment, giving him the chilling resemblance of a dementor. Remus turned back to staring down into his half-empty glass of firewhiskey, but continued to listen to them with his keen sense of hearing that came with being a werewolf.

"It's not just an ingredient required for your Hogwarts potions classes, you know," the swarthy man had been saying, his voice as oily as the thinning black hair on his head, which was styled in a horrible comb-over in an attempt to hide the bald spot. However, this action had only made it all the more pronounced and unattractive.

"Well, I wouldn't know," his drinking companion grumbled, his voice like slowly sliding gravel. "I never got to go...."

"Well...er...no," the balding man admitted.

"So, what's so great about this moonstone beside using it to make potions?" the hooded man inquired rudely.

"Well, it just so happens that for werewo--"

"Shut up!"

"Er...sorry. I mean it just so happens that...er...people with your...er...."

"Condition?" The hooded man's growling voice was like an acid on Remus' ears. Remus imagined the balding man wincing before continuing.

"Er yes, that...well, it just so happens that you can take the stuff as a drug!"

"Keep talking."

"Well, it's a bit like pixie dust, but it only has that sort of effect on people like, er, you."

"That's great. Only that doesn't put me in a much better position."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, as a recreational drug, pixie dust is illegal. But for moonstone, I'd just need to buy that at the apothecary right here in Diagon Alley."

"And?"

Remus heard the rustle of cloth, a dull thud on the table, and the sound of the balding man giving a whimper.

"You think I've got the Galleons for moonstone?" the hooded man snarled, but kept his voice low so that only the balding man, and Remus, of course, could hear. "I barely get enough Knuts on that stupid Werewolf Welfare from that stupid Werewolf Welfare Charity Fund to get me by! I don't even have a single Sickle to call my own, much less a Galleon!"

The balding man's voice became oily, crafty, and confident again. "Well, mate, that's where I come in. I can give you some--"

"Dirt cheap?"

"Even dirtier."

The hooded man seemed to relax. "I'm listening."

"One Knut for ten kilos. That'll be enough to last you a month, I'll wager. You've got to snort moonstone in really small doses, just like pixie dust. Otherwise it'll kill you, just like the dust would."

"Same measurements then, right?"

"Precisely."

"One Knut...ten kilos...that's a Knut per month.... I can swing that. You got some with you now?"

"Always do. You've got a Knut on you now?"

Remus heard the tick of a small piece of metal, and then the soft scrape of metal on wood. Then he heard the sound of cloth scraping over wood.

"Cheers," grumbled the hooded man, followed by the discreet sound of rustling cloth.

"Cheers to you as well," said the balding man. There was the clink of a coin being deposited with other coins. "You've got all of the tools, right?"

"Naturally. I've gotten my hands on some dust once or twice in my life. Loved the feeling. Cheers again, Mickey." Remus heard the scrape of a chair, and turned to see the hooded man leaving the bar through the door that led to the Muggle street.

The balding man called Mickey drained the last of his drink, paid the tip, and then left the bar through the same door. Remus did the same thing and followed him promptly. He tailed him into a dark alleyway, seeming about to Apparate.

Remus issued a non-verbal Freezing Charm and stopped him in his tracks, right before he turned on the spot. Then he safe-guarded the dingy back alley from the prying eyes of Muggles, before he unfroze Mickey, and then, before Mickey had a chance, bound him with an Anti-Apparition Jinx, and then ropes that burst from the end of his wand.

Mickey topped to the ground, wriggled and flopped a bit like fish out of water. "Look, whatever it is, I didn't do it, I swear!" he pleaded. "Who are you? What do you want with me?"

Remus bent over him, and narrowed his eyes. "Who was that man you were talking to?"

"What do you care?"

"Was he a werewolf?"

"So what if he was? Who's asking?"

Remus grinned. "I'm a werewolf too, so I happen to have an excellent sense of hearing."

Mickey's eyes widened. "Look, don't turn me in! I'm just a businessman, trying to make a living!"

Remus sighed. Time to break the honest streak a bit. He'd have to bribe the man. "I won't turn you in for selling black market moonstone," he told Mickey. "But only if you give me the name of that man you were just doing business with."

"His name's Ulric Ellison. I found him out through 'the system'. I've got connections, see."

"Have you?"

Mickey winced. "I shouldn't have said that."

"No. You were good to. You'll be hearing from me, Mickey."

"You can't keep track of me."

"Oh, I think you'll find that I can," Remus said, his voice oddly quiet and dangerous. He rather liked how it sounded when he got it like that. He plucked a hair from Mickey's balding head (Mickey flinched with minor pain as he did so), and sniffed it. Oil. Mixed with the scent of the moonstone he touched: his merchandise. He stuck the hair in his pocket. "Now I've got your scent, Mickey," he said in that same quiet and dangerous tone. "And a wolf never forgets a scent." He snapped his fingers. The ropes fell away from Mickey and disappeared. The Anti-Apparition Jinx on him and the safeguards on the alley lifted. Then Remus turned on the spot with a wink at Mickey, and Disapparated home.

~

The full moon came a few days later. The following morning, a little while after he'd crawled completely naked through the snow to the warmth of his home, and had warmed up a little before his sitting room fire, beating the chance of catching pneumonia, Blodeuwedd, his father's old owl that was now his, arrived with a letter. Remus grumbled when the letter fell on his face. But Blodeuwedd nipped encouragingly at his ear, and Remus couldn't help but smile. He dragged his aching body up, and, wrapped up in the throw, he trudged up the stairs and got out his father's old bathrobe. He wrapped himself up in that and then returned downstairs to where the letter lay quietly on the sofa. Then he hobbled into the kitchen to dig out the owl treats. After he'd rewarded Blodeuwedd with a treat and an affectionate stroke of her feathers, he stood there beside the kitchen table, broke the seal on the parchment, and read:

23 February 1979

Dear Mr Lupin,

Last night, as you obviously realise, was the full moon. Alas, a terrible thing happened at St Mungo's Orphanage during that time: a werewolf that had just turned, somehow, broke into the ward. Children screamed, and medi-witches and -wizards--myself among them--hurled spells at it, tried everything we could to protect the children, and meanwhile it went about sniffing as if it were completely in control of itself, until it came to the crib of your brother, Ramirus Lupin. It is with the greatest regret that despite our efforts, the thing just swiped at us, knocking us all flat to the floor, and when I looked up, I saw Ramirus screaming and wriggling in the werewolf's claws, and just as I was about to raise my wand, the werewolf nipped Ramirus on the arm, and then flew from the orphanage as suddenly and quickly as he'd broken in.

No other children were hurt, but we are so terribly sorry to report that in addition to biting Ramirus, the werewolf that attacked has abducted him, and the whereabouts of both are quite unknown, as is the identity of the werewolf in question. Even now, however, Ministry officials are working determinedly to find him. But, I am afraid that your brother did receive the werewolf's bite, and unfortunately, there is still no cure. Ramirus has become an unfortunate victim of lycanthropy, and even if we do find him, that fact cannot be undone.

With the deepest regret and sorrow,

Ceres Olivarium, Matron of St Mungo's Orphanage

Remus blinked and reread the letter, his heart pounding. A terrible dread weighted down in the pit of his stomach. A pain ripped through him as though he were transforming into the wolf again. He staggered forward, caught himself on the edge of the kitchen table, while his hands convulsively made fists, crumpling the letter as they did so. He gave a gasp, and he trembled all over. As the words of the letter echoed in his mind, sank in more, another bout of that same pain ripped through him, and this time he responded with an involuntary jerk, and a voluntary howl of anguish that tore from his throat, long and drawn out and mournful like that of a wounded wolf.

He sank down to his knees, begging some invisible, divine being to make it all untrue.

This is all my fault...I couldn't protect him...I couldn't keep him safe....

He pleaded for his dead parents to forgive him....

His anguish quickly turned to rage, and his buried thirst for revenge was breaking from its chains of self-control inside of him, roaring and black and angry. Greyback. It had to be him. He'd pay. He would. With his life.

Mum, Dad: I'll bring him back. I swear that to you now.

Without thought, forgetting his extreme weakness and the vulnerability of his currently fragile state of health, Remus Apparated to his bedroom, tore through his drawers, threw on clothes, wrapped himself up in warm robes, and then grabbed Mickey's hair sample from his bedside table and sniffed it. He Apparated out of the house and then sniffed the air as he stood on his front lawn. Once he'd caught a whiff of the oil mixed with moonstone that was Mickey, he snarled, and followed it with his mind. to its source: some woods not far from his own home. He Apparated to the spot at once. When he came out of the squeezing darkness, there stood Mickey. Smiling.

Remus exploded.

"WHERE IS HE, YOU BLOODY BIT OF GREASY SCUM?!" he roared, advancing on smirking Mickey. He grabbed the fat, balding man by the collar of his robes and shook him viciously. "I KNOW YOU KNOW WHERE GREYBACK IS, SO TELL ME! WHERE'D HE TAKE HIM?!"

"Take who?" Mickey asked quite calmly.

"MY BROTHER!"

"Right, you can take him!" Mickey called to the trees around them.

Before Remus could react, he felt several Stunners hit him at once. He felt Mickey's collar slip from his grasp, and fell into pain and darkness.

He awoke sometime later to several Death Eaters' masks. He heard them snicker behind them as they gazed down at him, where he lay on a cold hard surface in a room tucked far away from the world of warmth and sunlight. Around his right ankle he felt a cold, dead weight, and raised his head to see that it was manacled, and its chain tied him to the stone floor.

"Your friends are coming to save you..." one of the Death Eaters sneered. That voice...it was familiar...could it be...?

Wait...his friends were coming...?

"And we'll just enjoy killing them!" squealed another Death Eater. It was a woman's voice that spoke that time, so it had to be none other than Sirius' cousin Bellatrix, the only female Death Eater. "After we'd played with you in front of them a bit!" she shrieked, with a series of cackles that echoed in the dark room.

"NO!" The cry was hoarse and echoed like ghosts in the stony, heartless room.

The Death Eater that Remus was fairly certain was Antonin Dolohov laughed maniacally and from the end of his wand he conjured a whip of--

Remus gave a strangled yell at the sight of it, but he transformed his fear into his thirst for vengeance and glared daggers up at the monster that had murdered his parents.

Antonin laughed at him, gazing down at him through the eye-slits of his mask. "Yes..." he hissed. "A whip of pure silver, just for you, Lupin."

The hateful beast of retribution roared inside Remus' chest. "You sick, evil, twisted sadist bastard!" He spat at Antonin, and managed somehow to get him right through the eye slit.

Antonin gave a groan of disgust. "You repulsive creature...how dare you...?" He raised the silver whip, as if to strike Remus with it then.

Remus reached for his wand, but did not find it where it ought to have been in his belt.

Antonin chuckled cruelly, lowering the whip. Then he held up Remus' wand for Remus to see. "Looking for this, are we, hmmm?" he taunted.

The other Death Eaters sniggered wickedly.

Remus' mouth went dry. He wasn't sure he had the strength to perform wandless magic...he still felt so weak from his transformation the night before....

Antonin howled with laughter and raised his whip of silver once more.

Remus bit his lip so hard to keep himself from crying out that it bled, but he would not give them the satisfaction of giving away his terror--

Searing pain sliced his face as the whip of silver lashed across his face, like acid slicing his skin, audibly sizzling it.

Remus screamed in utter agony and grabbed his profusely, freshly bleeding face.

BANG!

"Remus!" shouted James.

Remus heard his voice, along with the voices of Sirius, Lily, and Peter, shout a series of hexes and jinxes and curses which began to rain down on the Death Eaters, who responded with just as much militant enthusiasm. "NO! DON'T! THEY'LL KILL YOU!" he screamed to his friends.

The whip lashed his face again.

Remus howled, his vision turning scarlet with his blood at it flowed down his face.

The whip lashed him again, this time right through his clothes. He yelled as his flesh burned with each lash of the silver. His body became entangled in the fiery vines of torment and suffering, until at last they cradled him into the soothing, pain-free darkness of unconsciousness....

What brought him back out of the darkness was a cooling sensation on his burning forehead. Followed by the sensation of warmth and softness surrounding him, holding him snugly and safely. Then the feeling of a film of sweat all over his body, which felt heavy. His head throbbed. The pain was relieved again however by that wonderful, soft, cooling sensation.

He gave a moan deep in the back of his throat, and lifted his eyelids open. His brown eyes met a pair of green ones, and his heart leapt at the sight of them.

He blinked, and Lily's snow-white face bent with concern came into focus...and it was the brush of the back of her beautiful fingers that was causing that soothing cooling sensation on his brow.

She smiled and looked over her shoulder, but did not take her fingers away. "Hey...he's coming around..." she announced softly.

Remus saw the faces of Sirius, James, and Peter appear and gather around him and the bed in which he lay. It was just like in school, when he'd wake up to their faces in the Hogwarts hospital wing after the full moon. The memory made him smile, though weakly.

"Hey there, mate," said Sirius softly. His face was white as a sheet.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," said James with a chuckle. His complexion, however, was just as white as Sirius'.

"Are you alright, Remus?" squeaked Peter, also white.

"Never better," Remus croaked. His throat felt like sandpaper. He tried at first to ask more politely, but in the end, all he could manage was, "Water...please...."

He allowed himself to wordlessly indulge in the bliss of feeling Lily help him to sit up and sip water from a goblet, one cool arm wrapped around his burning body. When she helped him to lie back down, she brushed her fingers against his forehead again.

"Where am I?" he asked hoarsely. For the first time since waking up, he examined the room he was in, and thought it looked like a Victorian style bedroom, with rococo style furniture, and ornate curtains decorating the large window; the gloom of the room was cut through by the great, wide and thick blades of sunlight that streamed through the mullioned glass panes.

"In one of the guest rooms in Doge's mansion," said James.

"Remus, what happened?" Peter inquired, wringing his hands together in a rather rat-like manner. "How did those Death Eaters get you?"

"Pete, let's not bother him about it yet," said Sirius. "Let's let him have a rest first. He's still really messed up. He's barely recovered from his transformation, and now look what they've done to him...."

But Remus tried to answer Peter's query anyway. It was important.

Pain jolted through his head like lightning. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as he flung an arm over them, as if trying to shield his mind from receiving further pain. "No...can't wait.... My brother...."

"Your brother?" said Lily gently. "Ramirus, your brother? Remus, did something happen to him?"

Remus' chest grew tight. He felt like he'd just been running and running for miles and now tried to catch his breath. Then, out of nowhere, a burst of strength seized him and he sat bolt upright in bed.

His friends all recoiled automatically. Remus was sure they hadn't expected him to sit up at all, much less sit up so suddenly, and certainly not only after just a minute of having coming around.

"Hey, take it easy there, mate," said James.

"Greyback..." Remus managed to say.

"What?" Lily gave a gasp. "Oh no...he didn't...?"

"He didn't kill him did he?" Sirius asked shakily.

Remus grabbed his head in his hands, grasped his hair in tight fistfuls, pulled his knees up to his chest. "Bitten...kidnapped...." His insides heaved, and bile rose up in the back of his throat. He clamped his hands to his mouth. Then, before he could stop it, he flung his hands out in front of him, leaned over the edge of the foot of the bed, and threw up.

When he'd coughed up the last of it, he was trembling all over, and was certain he'd collapse any minute. He felt James and Lily helping him to lie back down, while Sirius must have been attending to the puddle of sick on the floor.

"Remus, mate, you've really got to have a rest before you try and talk about anything," said James. "Just wait for it to pass first."

Remus looked up at James' face, so bent with sincere concern. Then he closed his eyes and sighed. "I can't wait," he said very quietly, so quietly he was surprised they could hear him.

As best as he was able to, he explained to them about Mickey, and about how Dolohov and Greyback must have planned it all out. Greyback had done the same thing to Remus as he had done to Remus' father: he'd given Remus' baby brother lycanthropy in order to get to Remus--but this time he'd taken it a step further and took Ramirus away with him to Merlin knew where after he'd bitten him. Mickey might have gone to them right after his run in with Remus, and knowing that Remus had Mickey's hair, they must have figured that he'd use Mickey's scent as a place to start, since, after all, he did business selling black market moonstone to werewolves who wanted to get high. So, with Mickey's information, Greyback and Dolohov might have formulated this plan together soon thereafter. With Ramirus as Greyback's prisoner, and turned werewolf to boot, they would have been counting on Remus to act uncharacteristically rash, and start out immediately by tracking Mickey's scent--Mickey, of course, being his only place to start, logically. Therefore, they'd planted Mickey in the spot where they wanted to lure Remus in, and there they'd been able to take him by surprise.

Then Remus asked his friends how they had found him, and how long had he been the Death Eaters' prisoner.

They told him that he'd actually been in the hands of the Death Eaters for just a couple of hours, but Mickey had indeed been in on a double-plan formed undoubtedly by Dolohov and Greyback after Mickey had gone crying to Greyback and his other lycanthropic customers. He'd been paid a lovely sum of gold for his assistance in bringing to light information that allowed them to come up with this plan, and he'd gone to his favorite watering hole--the Leaky Cauldron--to celebrate. But James, Sirius, and Peter had been there, and had recognized him from the wanted posters at the Auror office. At first they had just been looking for a good way to impress the Auror officers, and their fellow Aurors-in-training, and decided to lure Mickey into an interrogation. They had a private room upstairs prepared, and then invited Mickey up to have a drink with them, proclaiming to him (in very hushed voices) that they were three werewolves who had figured out the trick of how to prosper in wizarding society, despite their conditions, and were therefore exceedingly wealthy and looking to purchase some moonstone "just for a bit of fun". Luckily, Mickey had had a thick enough skull to eventually buy into that rather pathetic story. Once they'd had him locked in the room with them, they'd revealed their true identities and then proceeded to interrogate him about all his dealings with black market moonstone. As good fortune would have it, the course of the interrogation led them to the unexpected discovery that Remus was in trouble. At that point, they were no longer questioning Mickey with the prospect of getting brownie points from the Auror officers, but rather, their purpose was purely and solely for saving their friend's life.

When they finished telling their story, James told Remus, "Now, you really ought to get some rest, mate. You look like you're going to be sick again."

But Remus was caught in the grips of a compulsion to set right back to work on rescuing his brother. Without a word he started trying to get himself up out of bed.

"What are you doing?!" Peter squealed.

"Ramirus...he needs me...I've got to find him...."

"Are you crazy?" said Sirius.

"You're not going anywhere," said Lily point-blank. She and James both gently pushed Remus back into his pillows.

"But I'm all he's got!" Remus cried hoarsely.

"Remus, you won't be able to help him if you're not in any condition to do it," said Sirius sagely. "How do you expect to help him when sitting up just made you yack up everywhere?"

"I didn't yack up everywhere."

"Alright, just this huge spot on the carpet at the foot of the bed here. Come on, Remus, you're the last person on earth to argue semantics! You know bloody well what I'm talking about!"

"Remus, please," Lily said, gently smoothing Remus' bangs the same way Remus' mother would sometimes do while she sat beside his bed after a full moon.

It was this more than anything else that caused his stubborn resolve to wane. "But what about my brother?" he croaked, fixing his pleading eyes with hers. "He's a werewolf now...because of me...it's my fault...I couldn't keep him safe...."

"Shhhh," said Lily in a soothing, motherly voice. It occurred to Remus that Lily had excellent maternal instincts.

"We'll figure something out, mate," said James reassuringly.

"We promise," said Sirius. "Now, please, for heaven's sake, get some rest. You're as pale as death."

"Do you want some potion for dreamless sleep?" James asked. "I think Doge has got a stock of it stored somewhere for emergencies...."

Remus nodded and closed his eyes. He quite suddenly felt very drained. A moment later, he felt Lily return with a goblet full of the soothing potion, and she helped him to drink it. In a moment, the room blurred and went out of focus, and Remus felt thoughtless weightless sleep embrace him gently, folding him in its dark, soft wings.

~

When Remus woke up the following day, Lily brought him some broth, and sat with him while he sat up in bed and ate it. As she did so, James, Sirius, and Peter arrived to say that a report had just come in: Dorcas Meadowes had just been killed.

"By Voldemort himself," Sirius finished emphatically.

Peter winced at the sound of the name, as usual.

"I'll bet he thought she should feel honored to be personally murdered by him," Lily scoffed, furiously trying to hide the tears welling up in her eyes.

Remus felt a painful desire to wipe them away for her.

"And we've got more bad news for Remus," said James.

"Our mistake was going to Dumbledore about it, of course," Sirius chuckled somewhat uneasily.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked, her eyes getting a little bit drier. "Going to Dumbledore for anything couldn't possibly be a mistake."

"What's the news?" Remus asked, feeling as though he might throw up again if he didn't get an answer soon. And once he did, he might throw up again anyway. "My brother's not...?"

"It's not that, exactly," said James. "You see, we went to Dumbledore about Ramirus getting kidnapped, and while he...er...expressed his sympathies--"

But then Remus had an idea of where this was going, remembering Dumbledore, and the way he'd kept an annoyingly close watch on him in the wake of his parents' deaths....

"He's told me not to do anything about it, hasn't he?" he interjected darkly. "He's told me to just do my job, keep focusing on my mission and leave it at that, right?"

James and Sirius exchanged telltale glances.

"I thought so," said Remus. He handed Lily his spoon and empty bowl and turned to look out the window. "Well, lucky for me, my assignment is just what I need to find Greyback and slaughter him, but not before he's told me where he's taken Ramirus. After all...my job is to track down the werewolves."

"Yeah, but not...slaughter them," said Lily somewhat timidly.

"No more than Greyback deserves though." Remus turned to look at his friends, and saw that they were staring at him like he might bite them at any second. "Don't look at me like that!" he snapped.

"Remus, this isn't like you," said Lily anxiously.

Remus softened at her worried green eyes. "I'm sorry," he said softly to all of them.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, mate," said James.

"We'll get this sorted out," said Sirius. "We promised you we would, and we will."

Remus smiled tiredly at the four of them, wondering how he could have been so fortunate to have them for friends. To have friends at all. "I think I'll rest for a little while," he said wearily.

After nodding and giving him a few more words of hope and encouragement, they left him in peace, and Remus fell asleep, with nightmares full of his little brother's painful transformation screams.