Mordant

Chapter Thirteen: Wulfric the Werefowl

It was late in the afternoon of the day after the attack on Thersites Mason, and Remus was stretched out on the sofa with a cup of willow-bark tea and Kingsley’s copies of the Werewolf Registry records. Some of the names were dimly familiar to him, others entirely unknown. None of them, as far as he could tell, had any Death Eater connections apart from Fenrir Greyback and his pack of wild werewolves, but they were being tracked by the Ministry and had been miles away on the nights of both attacks.

He sat up and tried to look nonchalant when Tonks stopped by after work. It was awkward, facing somebody for the first time after they’d seen you as a wolf – you never knew how they were going to react ...

She dropped down casually on the opposite end of the couch, as if nothing unusual had happened last night. “How’re you feeling, mate?”

“No worse than usual.” Remus took another sip of the tea and grimaced at the bitterness. “Any news?”

 

Tonks nodded. “Kingsley and I went back to Mason’s on our lunch break,” she said. “The werewolf’s alive. We followed its tracks until they disappeared in the woods. Mason’s Killing Curse hit a tree. All those little springtime leaves were withered like ashes, and there were dead birds lying all around it.”

She shivered, and he thought, not for the first time, that she seemed too young for the work she was doing. “Did you have a chance to interview him?”

“We tried. He wasn’t exactly cooperative – said he didn’t need any Ministry rats poking their noses into his business, and he’d thank us to get out before he set the new dog on us. We told him he might be in danger and offered to have someone from Magical Law Enforcement keep an eye on him, but he wasn’t having any of it. Swore up and down he didn’t know anybody who might have it in for him.”

“I take it there’s not much you can do about it, then.”

“No. He told us in no uncertain terms to go away, and we don’t suspect him of anything, so we have no grounds for contacting him again. The dog’s a vicious-looking one, maybe it’ll be all the protection he needs.”

“Or maybe you should send someone from the Animal Cruelty Division to protect the dog from Thersites.”

She snorted. “Yeah, I wouldn’t sell that man a dog I liked, that’s for sure. Oh, by the way, I think you’ll get a kick out of this.” She took a rolled-up comic book out of her handbag. “It’s just come out today.”

Remus glanced at the subtitle of the latest number of Martin Miggs. “The Adventures of Wulfric the Werefowl?”

“Read. You’ll like.”

Wulfric, it appeared, was a Muggle friend of Martin’s who had the bad luck to be bitten by a werewolf one night. Grampus and Storge, with their usual talent for bungling everything, hit him with a Memory Charm so powerful that it left him dyslexic – with the result that instead of turning into a wolf every full moon, he became an unusually bloodthirsty chicken.

Linus had outdone himself with the animated illustrations of the fanged chicken, standing on tiptoe on a lonely peak and flapping its wings at the moon. Bok-bok-bok-AROOO-bok!

The Ministry claimed to be incapable of deciding whether Wulfric should be the responsibility of the Department of Dangerous Mammals or the Department of Dangerous Birds, so it kept shuffling him around from one to the other. The truth was that a minor official had come up with the brilliant idea of keeping him in permanent administrative limbo because the Ministry needed the eggs – having failed to notice that Wulfric was, in fact, a rooster. (Wulfric, in the background: Cock-a-doodle-DUH!)

It was all there – the petty, self-serving officials, the moronic laws, the prejudices – and it was hilarious. By the time he finished reading, he had forgotten about the cooling cup of tea that stood on the coffee table. Laughter was a far more effective pain reliever.

Tonks looked at him and grinned. “Told you you’d enjoy it.”

He pulled his dressing gown around him and got to his feet. “I’m taking this upstairs to Padfoot. He could do with a good laugh.”

 

                                                            *          *          *

“It’s selling brilliantly,” Linus enthused a week later. “Much better than I could have hoped. I thought there would be a drop-off after I went public about being a werewolf, but people don’t seem to care. I think they’ve finally worked out that ink and parchment can’t bite you.”

He glanced over at Celia, having just realized that she was only half-listening. She’d barely touched her dinner, and she kept twisting the napkin with her hands.

“What’s the matter?” Linus asked.

Consciously or unconsciously, she spoke with the rhythms of her childhood, not with the precise Hogwarts accent he was used to hearing from her. “I went to see my brother William today. We’ve been living on opposite sides of the same city nearly all our lives, and we’ve not spoken in fifty years... And I thought, we’re neither of us getting any younger, and he must be running out of time ... seventy-six this year, he is.”

Linus nodded. “Muggles do get a raw deal.”

“So I went to the Muggle library and looked up his address, and I went there. He lives in a dark little house, next door to a tattoo parlor ... First thing he said when he opened the door was ask me if I’d repented and cast off my sins, and I said that would depend on which sins he had in mind, and he said witchcraft and devil-worship. So I told him I’d never worshiped any devils as far as I knew, and I could no more cast off witchcraft than cut out part of my own body.”

“Oh, hell, Celia...”

“And then he said – he was almost shouting – ‘If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, than that thy whole body should be cast into hell.’ And more in the same vein ... He accused me of having led our mother into adultery, though how I’m meant to have done that when I was only twelve is beyond me ... And he told me to come back if I ever renounced wizardry, but until then I was no sister of his and not welcome in his house.” She sighed and shook her head. “It’s mad. I can’t say I believe in any sort of higher power myself, but plenty of wizards do ... It’s not like you can’t be magical and be a Christian.”

“Of course not. You can even be an irritating, smug, self-righteous Christian who preaches to a captive audience in hospital wards, if you like. The Muggles needn’t think they have a monopoly on that sort of thing.”

“And you can be the right sort of Christian as well, the kind who actually pay attention to the business about loving your neighbor and judging not, that ye be not judged. I’ve known plenty of those, too. But what kind of religion is it that tells you to cast off your own flesh and blood? ... I think it was some of the things he said about Mum and Prospero that hurt the most. Because they loved each other, and they’re dead, and they paid with their lives for their love ... Isn’t that enough for him? Do they have to be in hell too?” She shook her head again, as if struggling to clear it. “I don’t understand it. I never will.”

Privately, Linus thought that he did understand, at least a little. Celia had been very pretty as a girl, and she was, to his admittedly biased eyes, still a good-looking woman. She’d had a hard life, of course, but you wouldn’t know that to look at her. He wondered what it was like for a man nearing the end of his life to face a sister who was still proud and hopeful and vital, who made no apologies for what she was, and who must seem unnaturally, eerily youthful to Muggle eyes. And then, Celia might be poor by wizarding standards, but she was well-traveled and well-educated, and her brother surely hadn’t had those opportunities. Jealousy was a vile beast, sometimes...

“The thing is,” she said, “if the times were any different, I’d just let it go. But we’ll be at war in a matter of weeks or months – if we aren’t already – and they’ll come after the Muggle family members just like they did the last time, because they are cowards at heart and it pleases them to attack the defenseless.”

“Your mother, I take it, was one of the ones who died the last time?” Linus asked.

Celia nodded, and he covered her hand with his own.

“I’m sorry. But they might not come after your brother at all, you know, since he cut his ties with our world years ago. And even if they do – well, he threw you out of his house, and I think that puts an end to any obligation you had to look after him. It might be better to stay out of it and let things take their course – that’s what we’re generally supposed to do with Muggles, isn’t it?”

Celia withdrew her hand and flushed. “In my line of work, we call that the Doctrine of Non-Interference,” she said. “It’s the fundamental idea behind the Statute of Secrecy, and I happen to think it’s the most pernicious piece of excuse-making that ever disguised itself as an ethical principle. It’s the reason why we can’t relieve Muggles who are in pain or warn them when they’re in danger.”

“Surely it’s got its uses, though?” said Linus. “I mean, that’s why Muggle-baiting is so wrong, isn’t it? Because if people and things don’t belong to our world, we ought to let them alone.”

She shook her head. “That’s the orthodox line of thought, but I’d say Muggle-baiting is wrong because it’s about power, and about reinforcing differences. It’s rubbing in the fact that they’re The Other, and they’re helpless in our hands. Whereas letting them know magic exists can only make them less helpless. And in time, I believe it would go a long way toward erasing the differences...”

The conversation had, by this time, become a problem in ethical theory as far as she was concerned. Linus argued with some of her points, agreed with others, and generally steered the discussion far away from Celia’s brother, and Celia did not revisit the topic.

 

                                                            *          *          *

“Don’t try to tell me Snivellus didn’t do it on purpose.” Sirius turned on his heel, away from the fireplace where Harry’s head had been a minute before, and threw on his traveling cloak with such violence that the fabric ripped. “He did it out of spite and malice and as an insult to James’ memory, and I swear I’m going up to Hogwarts this very minute, and I am going to make him sorry he was ever born ...”

“No.”

“Moony –”

“I am not letting you commit suicide. And if you make one more move toward that door, I will hex you.”

Remus’ wand was already in his hand; and he was not, Sirius knew, the sort of man who made empty threats.

“One of us will have to talk to Snape, I agree with you about that. But it doesn’t need to happen this very minute, and considering that the Umbridge woman is no doubt waiting to sink her claws into the first thing that moves, it’s probably better if we wait.”

Moony tactfully refrained from mentioning that he was in no mental state to take on a task requiring finesse or diplomacy at the moment, but Sirius could read between the lines. He flung himself down on one of the Thestral-hair armchairs with ill grace.

“Right, then,” said Remus, “let’s reason this out. Point one, Severus Snape is a vain and insecure man. To the point that he can’t bear to be the subject of student jokes and rumors, even the most ordinary and harmless ones. Trust me on this; I was his colleague for a year. There is no way – none – that he would have let Harry see a scene like that on purpose, no matter how bad it made James look.”

Sirius had to admit this had the ring of truth. “All right. So he didn’t do it on purpose. But he’s threatening to stop the Occlumency lessons, and – dammit, he knows he’s putting all of our lives at risk. I’d like to give him a taste of –”

“Point two. Bullying him is not going to get you anywhere. He’s not short on physical courage, whatever his other attributes – and if you go in there like a living reminder of how things were between us at school, you are going to shoot everything we’ve worked for to hell. And point three, he hates me less than he hates you. And believe it or not, I find him slightly less insufferable than you do.”

Sirius laughed. “In other words, you’re a born diplomat and I’m not. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Well – yes. That also. Plus, you’ve got a price on your head. So all in all, I think I ought to be the one to talk to him.”

Sirius walked to the sideboard and poured himself a stiff firewhiskey. Everything Moony had said was undeniably true, but – damn it all, there were some things a man needed to do in person. “Harry’s my responsibility,” he said slowly, “and if I can’t do even this much for him – I’m not much of a godfather, am I?”

“Yes, you are. You made him feel a bit better about James, at the very least.”

James who should have been there to comfort his son himself. Sirius took a sip of his drink and gazed dully into the fire. After fourteen years the pain was still raw.

“I wish we’d had a chance to tell Harry about the good times.” he said, and was surprised at how plaintive his own voice sounded. He took another gulp of whiskey and muttered a few death threats in Dolores Umbridge’s general direction.

“There will be time for that.”

Patience, Sirius thought, was one of Moony’s most irritating features. The trouble was that it came naturally to him. He’d never understood about the sense of urgency that had driven Sirius and James since they were children, the need to seize life and devour it before it slipped away from you. It was as if he had been born knowing he had plenty of years ahead of him, and they had not...

He blinked, trying to shake off the morbid notions that seemed to stalk him lately, like black beasts crouched in the dim corners of the house.

“You’re right,” he said, though it hurt him to make the admission. “You’ve got a better chance of making Snape see reason than I do. And I can’t very well walk into Hogwarts castle, especially with the Ministry’s puppet Headmistress running the place like a prison camp.”

Remus watched his face for a moment. “I think both of us should go. You’re Harry’s legal guardian, and it’s your place to make decisions about his education. And I, of course –” he got up and poured himself a firewhiskey – “will be there in my capacity as emergency surgeon.”

“To extract my foot from my mouth, if necessary?”

“Got it in one.” Remus grinned. “I have a feeling we still know a bit more about the castle’s secret passages than Her High Headmistress-ship does. And you look like you’re in need of a good maraud.”

“To marauding.” Sirius lifted his glass, feeling suddenly more cheerful.

“Cheers.” Remus tossed back his first sip of Ogden’s and contemplated the play of the firelight on the small diamonds of cut glass. His mouth twitched slightly. “You know, it’s a pity Harry didn’t get to see the time you and Prongs turned Snape into the Easter Bunny. He would have liked that one better.”

They had settled into a companionable evening of drinking and reminiscing about James when they were interrupted by a resounding crash from the fireplace.

“Way to make an entrance, Fred,” said a very familiar voice.

“Just call me Father Christmas.”

“Charmed, Mr. Christmas. I’m Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Is that your broomstick or mine?”

“Can’t tell, Mr. Reindeer. I think they got tied in knots when we went down the chimney.”

Remus and Sirius glanced at each other and, as one man, set their glasses down. Using a combination of magic and brute force, they extracted a tangle of teenaged boys, broomsticks, and a heavy iron chain from the fireplace.

“Perhaps you’d care to explain how you got here?” Remus asked Fred and George.

One of the twins brushed some soot off himself. “Well, it was a long cold flight from Scotland, so Mr. Reindeer and I decided to experiment with Floo-Powder enhanced broomsticks, but I reckon we still need to get a few bugs out.”

“I meant,” said Remus, suppressing a smile, “why aren’t you at school?”

“Well, it’s like this –”

“We decided that full-time education wasn’t really the best way to develop our unique talents –”

“As much as the Inquisitorial Squad made good guinea pigs, we felt we had a humanitarian duty to bring our products to the wider world –”

Remus silenced them with a look. “I’m disappointed. I really am. The two of you may not believe it of yourselves, but even as fifth-years you had as much brains and raw talent as most of the N.E.W.T.-level students I’ve seen. You’re two months from finishing your education, and I think you have the potential to –”

Sirius contemplated the twins. There were welts rising on George’s arm where the chain had hit him, and something uncomfortably familiar about both boys’ manner: he recognized the cavalier flippancy that concealed real anger and hurt. “Moony. Let them tell their story before you lecture them.”

“Moony?” said Fred.

“As in Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?” George looked gleeful.

“Ah,” said Remus. “That would be where Harry got the Marauder’s Map, would it?”

“We bow down to your greatness,” said Fred, prostrating himself and smearing soot all over the hearthrug.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” said Remus, but he was smiling.

George turned to Sirius. “And you are...?”

“Padfoot.” Sirius grinned. “You can bow down to me if you like. I never refuse obeisance.”

The twins saluted him and slapped him on the back instead of bowing, showering him with more soot, but the meaning seemed to be the same.

“Where are Wormtail and Prongs?” asked Fred.

Sirius looked around at the wreckage of his childhood home: the black smudges on the rug, the piles of moth-eaten robes in the hall, the tattered curtains that hid malevolent portraits from view. Only moments after being hailed as a legendary prankster and treated by a peer by the boys, he felt very old and weary. “That,” he said, “is a very long story.”