Mordant

Chapter Twelve: The Wolf at Thersites Mason’s Door

Tonks tapped her wand on the front door of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place and waited for the locks to slide away. Sirius had long since told her not to bother ringing the doorbell. “You’re family,” he’d said, and added in a darker tone, “and this place may be yours sooner than you expect.”

Remus was reading a book in one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace, and a large black dog was stretched out on the hearth with his head resting on his front paws.

“Wotcher, coz,” said Tonks. She bent down to scratch the dog’s ears, and he greeted her with a feeble thump of the tail.

He looked droopy. Not just his ears, his whole body.

She gazed into the fire and tried not to think of the summer holidays when she was a little girl: picnics in the park and games of hide-and-seek, and a laughing teenaged boy tossing her toward the sky. Even later, when the war had begun and most of the grown-ups talked in grave hushed voices, her Sirius was always joking and teasing...

“I wanted to marry you when I was little,” she said absently. “I don’t think I ever told you before.”

“What?” Remus dropped the book on the floor and looked altogether startled.

“Not you. Him.” She patted the dog on the flank and he managed a canine smile, his lips curling back over his yellowing teeth.

“Oh.” There was a slight flush on Remus’ thin cheeks as he picked up the book. “Well, I daresay you weren’t the only girl with that particular ambition.”

She lay on her stomach and watched a thin, bright line creep along the embers, and the grey ashes flake away in its wake.

Some minutes later, Remus’ voice interrupted her reverie. “I was just going to make some hot cocoa. Would you like some?”

Tonks sat up. “I’ll help,” she offered.

He gave her a slightly bemused look – her help in the kitchen was not usually much in demand – but she glanced toward the black dog, and he nodded. “Thank you.”

She followed him down the low-ceilinged stone steps to the kitchen. “Do you know why he’s being a dog tonight?” she asked when they were out of Sirius’ earshot.

“Self-medication, I think. I understand that was how he fought off the dementors for so many years. I know it sounds a bit nutty, but it’s better than ...” He nodded towards the bottle of firewhiskey that stood on the kitchen counter.

“He seems like he’s in a bad way, lately.”

Remus turned away and began rummaging in one of the cupboards. “He is,” he said after a moment, and his voice had an odd, hollow sound. “And it seems to be getting worse, not better. I keep telling myself it’s just the weather. I know it ought to be spring by now, but it doesn’t feel like it.”

“And how are you?”

He stood there with a bottle of milk in one hand and a saucepan in the other, looking surprised and faintly embarrassed. “I’m all right. Honestly. You needn’t worry about me.”

“It’s just that my mum – used to come here to look after Great-Aunt Hydra when she was dying, and there was nobody else to do it – and I think it’s harder on the families and friends than anything...” She clapped her hand to her mouth when she saw the look on his face. “Oh Merlin, I don’t mean that Sirius is anywhere near that bad. Or will be.”

“I know you don’t.” He made the cocoa quickly and dexterously, as if he’d had a great deal of practice, and dodged the subject. “I didn’t realize your mother looked after old Mrs. Black. I had the impression that she wasn’t exactly welcome here after her marriage.”

“She wasn’t,” said Tonks, “but Mum can be very determined.” She thought of telling him all about how Andromeda had clung to the role of peacemaker, making her home a neutral zone in a war that pitted brother against brother; how she’d got very little thanks for it, and watched the last fragments of her family crumble – but, after all, Remus didn’t need to hear about her mother’s problems. He had plenty of his own.

He took the pan of cocoa off the fire and filled a couple of mugs. “Would you mind taking those upstairs, please?”

She nodded, and concentrated very hard on not spilling or dropping anything. He followed with a large bowl of cocoa which he placed on the hearthrug in front of Padfoot.

“Can dogs have hot chocolate?” Tonks asked.

“Animagi can. The biology’s different, you know.” Remus stroked the dog’s side. “Drink up,” he said firmly. “It’ll help, old friend. I promise.”

Padfoot sniffed at the dark, steaming fluid and began to lap it up, slowly at first, then with growing enthusiasm.

 

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Dear Linus,

I read your intervew in The Quibbler and I just wanted to say that I think you are very brave for speaking out like that, and I did not know that werewolfs have it so hard or that it was’nt contaje catching except at the full moon. I am writing to say that I am sorry about the way I treated you and I will clean your house for free if you like (once). My husband Davey says that he is sorry too, and he says hello and he hopes that you are well.

Did Rita Skeeter tell you about meeting the Boy Who Lived? Is it really true that he went mad from a broken heart because his girlfriend dumped him for Viktor Krum? Well, I think she is a nasty little piece of goods and Davey thinks so too.

Sinserely,

Gladdy Gudgeon

Linus read the letter and smiled. It wasn’t so much that he was eager for Gladys Gudgeon’s friendship – clearly, she hadn’t changed much – or even for a free housecleaning. It was that this letter, and several dozen others that had arrived since the publication of his interview in April’s Quibbler, proved that Thersites had been wrong. People were listening.

They weren’t all paying attention – several readers had accused him of being a fake because true werewolves were incapable of empathy or reason, and one woman in Nottingham had written to ask if it was true he had to mate for life, and sent him an extraordinarily unattractive photograph of herself – but there were more sympathetic letters than unsympathetic ones.

Chess jumped up on the desk and knocked over a jar of quills, but Linus was in far too good a mood to mind. He scratched the cat under the chin and set him on the floor.

Then he picked up the quills and reached for his sketch pad, feeling that it was time for the second step in his campaign. Idly, he began to draw one of Martin Miggs’ neighbors being treed by a werewolf that had torn out the seat of his pants. He was toying with several different ideas about the direction the story line could follow when something began to nag at the back of his mind.

Thersites had discouraged him from publishing his story. Had he been wrong about the public’s response? Or was he afraid that Linus’ narrative would expose some guilty secret of his own?

Thersites had left the pub early that night. Linus, who was no great expert at astronomy, wondered whether the moon had been up yet. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember whether he had ever seen the Quibbler cartoonist on a full-moon night. And there was the way Martin kept offering him Thersites’ job...

He could hear Mason in the back of his head right now. Nobody loves anybody for long...

Thersites might be a half-blood, but Linus knew that he’d been through a great many jobs already. He’d lost them to drink and contentiousness, and seen Muggle-borns hired in his place. He was, Linus thought, the type of person who would gravitate toward a bigot whose philosophy made him feel superior to a quarter of the wizarding world. What did he have to lose?

He thought back to the werewolf that had bitten him. Mangy-looking cur. Looked like it had been through the wars.

His first instinct was to head straight down to the Quill and Quirk and introduce Thersites to his fist, but he thought better of it. He tore off a fresh sheet of paper and wrote to Tonks and Kingsley:

... I have reason to think Thersites Mason is the werewolf who bit me. And I believe he’s in league with Voldemort.

 

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“What makes you think you can trust Berowne?” Mad-Eye Moody demanded when Tonks asked him to help her stake out Thersites Mason’s house at the next full moon.

The question startled her. “Why wouldn’t we be able to trust him?”

“I don’t know, lass, but when you’ve been in the business as long as I have, you learn every man’s got his dark side. And when a known werewolf tells you to be outdoors in a particular place on a full-moon night, that ought to put you on your guard. Now, tell me, did you and Shacklebolt turn up any connections between this Mason and the Death Eaters?”

“No,” Tonks admitted.

“Half-blood, didn’t you say he was?” said Moody shrewdly. “Father a Muggle and attended Muggle primary school?”

“The Death Eaters do take half-bloods sometimes,” Tonks pointed out.

“When they’re wizard-raised with no ties with the Muggle world, and in a position to offer You-Know-Who something he needs. Ne’er-do-well cartoonists don’t qualify, especially if they’re werewolves to boot.”

Tonks tried to shake off an uncomfortable feeling that Moody was right. “So maybe Linus is wrong. That’s what we’re going there to find out. But that doesn’t mean he’s luring us to Mason’s to attack us.”

“Doesn’t mean he isn’t, either.” Moody started to rummage through his closet. “Tell you what, I’ve got something here that should come in handy for this night’s work ... no substitute for constant vigilance, mind, but useful protective gear ... now where did I put them?”

He extracted a couple of the most extraordinary-looking garments Tonks had ever seen from the depths of the closet. They were voluminous, greyish-purple, and stiff enough to stand up by themselves, and every square inch seemed to be covered in buckles, clasps, and straps. They reeked of a mixture of goat and mountain troll.

“Sweet Merlin, Mad-Eye,” said Tonks, trying not to gag on the smell, “what are those?”

“Graphorn-hide body suits. Werewolf-proof, and they camouflage your scent so the wolf can’t tell you’re human. Now don’t argue with me, lass, just put yours on.”

Tonks stepped into the smaller of the two suits and fumbled with the fastenings, groaning inwardly all the while. She was fond of Mad-Eye, and respected his knowledge as an old-timer, but that didn’t change the fact that he was completely batty. She would have liked to take Kingsley instead, but work and Order business kept him too busy. Besides, Moody was the one who could see through the walls of Mason’s house.

She tried to take a step forward and immediately fell flat on her face. The suit was almost as rigid as a board, and hot. She was already starting to sweat.

“You don’t want to move too fast when you’re wearing one of those,” Moody explained unnecessarily. He advanced, walking just like Frankenstein in the old horror movies her father liked to watch, and extended a hand to help her up. “We’d best Apparate to Mason’s place. We won’t be able to bend over far enough to fit in the fireplace, and brooms are flat out.”

 

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“Can you see inside?” Tonks asked, lying flat on her stomach and peering up at the square of light that was all she could observe of Thersites Mason’s front room. The spring night was warm – uncomfortably so, if you happened to be nearly immobilized by a Graphorn-skin body suit – and the window was open, but she hadn’t seen so much as a flicker of motion or the shadow of Mason himself.

“Aye, if you’d stop interrupting. Takes a fair bit of concentration to see through walls, you know.”

“Sorry, Mad-Eye.” She squirmed around on the ground, trying to find a position that was at least bearable, and forced herself to remain silent. The moon had risen, and the sooner he ascertained whether Mason had transformed, the sooner they could leave.

“I see him,” said Moody after what seemed an age. “Little man, walks with a limp, right? Well, he’s no werewolf.”

Before Tonks could reply, they heard a howl from the woods behind them and a crash of branches.

Tonks struggled to extract her wand from the belt of her body suit, an operation that required numerous contortions. She could tell from the muffled swearing next to her that Moody was faring no better.

The werewolf raced straight past them and plunged toward the house. Tonks caught her breath as she caught a glimpse of it in silhouette against the window. It was missing one ear.

She heard a ripping noise as the beast’s teeth tore into the window screen. Knowing that she had to protect Mason, yet reluctant to bring the creature any closer to them, she sent it flying through the air with a Banishing spell and prayed the landing would disable it. It hit the ground on the other side of the house with a sickening thud, yet a moment later she saw it dragging itself around the corner for another attack. This time it streaked toward the open door where Mason stood, roused by the noises outside.

Before Tonks could hit it with a Stunning spell, Mason raised his wand and sent a curse flying at the shape in the darkness. The werewolf yelped, caught for a moment in a flash of white light, and limped toward the two Aurors.

Now aware that the creature that had destroyed his window screen wasn’t human, Mason lifted his wand hand again. “AVADA –”

The werewolf dived for the woods as Moody and Tonks Disapparated.

 

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Tonks aimed for the Order headquarters, as she and Moody had previously agreed; the anti-Apparation charms around 12 Grimmauld Place had been relaxed to allow in Order members in cases of emergency. She was startled when they landed, almost on top of each other, in a dark place filled with barking, snapping, growling noises. A pair of large beasts seemed to be scuffling with each other. For a wild, disoriented moment she wondered if she had somehow ended up in the creature’s den, and then remembered that the house in Grimmauld Place had its own resident werewolf. Who knew how often these smelly body suits would come in handy? she thought wryly.

They heard a pop, and then a husky voice whispering “Lumos.” Her cousin Sirius stood in the middle of the room with one hand resting firmly on the neck of a large silvery wolf, which was now sitting calmly at his side. He had shaved, and looked altogether better than he had the last time she’d seen him.

“Phew,” he said. “What have you two been doing, rolling around in a goat pen?”

“It’s Graphorn skin,” Tonks explained. “It’s meant to protect against werewolves.”

“Moony won’t do you any harm. He’s perfectly docile as long as he’s taken the potion, it’s just that you startled him – landing here like that.”

The wolf thumped his tail on the floor as if to confirm these words, and gave Tonks a slightly hurt look.

“Wotcher, Remus. I didn’t mean you. Other werewolves.”

“We were near eaten by one tonight,” Moody put in, “and an inch away from being Avada Kedavra’d when we Disapparated here. Let no one tell you there’s no reason for constant vigilance.”

Sirius and the wolf exchanged a look. “Go on and tell us about it. But for God’s sake take those things off first. You can leave them in Kreacher’s den – it’s foul enough in there ...”

The wolf whined in agreement, and Tonks and Moody were only too glad to obey.

When they returned, she looked at Remus with some curiosity. It was one thing to know, on an intellectual level, that your cousin’s quiet, bookish friend had a habit of turning into a wolf on full-moon nights. It was quite another to see it for yourself. The enormous silver-furred beast lay with his head on his massive paws and his tail tucked underneath him, looking rather ill at ease with the visitors.

“He’s a bit fussy about his privacy,” Sirius explained, “but you’re friends, he’ll get over it.” He sat down on the floor next to the wolf and placed one hand between the animal’s ears in a companionable and slightly protective gesture.

“Are you sure? We don’t have to stay –”

Remus shook his head vigorously and bent one ear forward with his paw.

“No, he’d like to hear about your evening,” said Sirius. “So would I. It sounds interesting.”

Tonks recounted the story of Linus Berowne’s tip-off and their stakeout at Mason’s, with several interruptions from Moody about the virtues of graphorn skin and CONSTANT VIGILANCE. When they finished, Remus rolled over, went completely limp for a moment, and then looked up at them with a quizzical expression.

“Did Mason kill the werewolf?” Sirius translated.

“We weren’t sticking around long enough to see,” said Moody. “He’d have killed us if we had. We were right in his line of fire.”

“All the same, I take it he’s no longer Suspect Number One?”

Tonks nodded. “Somebody wants him dead or disabled, and presumably it’s the same person who arranged for the attack on Linus. And somehow I don’t think it’s a jealous rival cartoonist.”