Mordant

Chapter Nineteen: Epilogue

“Well,” said William Roper. He was a stern, rugged old man, much taller than his sister, and as he stood in the shadowy front hall he had the look of an ancient lion defending its den. “Have you come to repent of your ways before it’s too late?”

Before it’s too late, Celia thought. And how will we know when that is? Perhaps it was too late twenty-five years ago. Perhaps fifty. “I’ve come on another errand,” she said. “I came to tell you that my world is at war again. As it was fifteen years ago.”

It had been fifteen years since their mother’s death. She thought she saw him startle a little, but his voice was even when he spoke. “And what concern is that of mine? Let the armies of Babylon destroy one another.”

“It’s your concern because they’ll want to destroy you too, if they can find you,” she said, biting back a wave of irritation. “The first people they always go after are the Muggle relatives of witches and wizards.”

Celia opened her handbag and took out a smooth round stone that might have been equally at home edging a garden path or resting on a desk as a paperweight. She set it down on the hall table. “Listen to me. This is a transportation device called a Portkey. It’s Charmed to activate if somebody grips it for thirty seconds together, so make sure you don’t do that until you need it. It will take you to a safe place. If you want to take someone with you –” it occurred to her that she didn’t even know if William had ever married, or if she had nephews and nieces – “make sure they grasp the Portkey at the same time you do.”

“I need none of your witchcraft. My trust is in a greater Power.”

“You don’t understand, William. You are powerless against these people. You’ll be killed in your own home like our mother was if you don’t use it.”

“I do not fear them. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” William stepped farther back into the shadows and asked, “Why do you keep coming here when you are not wanted?”

The question caught Celia by surprise, and as she tended to do, she fell back on her intellectual principles. “I am here because I believe in protecting the weak against the strong. I think it’s the proper use for our powers.”

“I am protected,” William insisted. “And there is no proper use for your powers. Go, if you have nothing more to say to me.”

How is it that I can’t get away from stubborn men? she thought. And then, almost before she knew it, she was hearing Linus’ voice in the back of her head. Celia, could you try not treating this as a problem in magical ethics for a change?

Her hand had been on the doorknob, but she drew it back. “I’m here because you are my brother. That’s why. And I’m not going away until I’m sure you understand what I came to say.”

He took a step toward her. “I’m surprised you remember that,” he said quietly. “You never seemed to care about it before. You and our mother both. You went away and left us without a second thought.”

So this wasn’t about religion or magic at all. It never had been. “I want you to know that Mum had second thoughts. Many of them. She never stopped talking about you until the day she was killed, you know – never stopped being hurt that you wouldn’t speak to her and Prospero, that you wouldn’t even acknowledge that she was still alive...” This wasn’t helping, she realized, and let her voice trail off.

“Aye, take her part,” said William. “You always did.”

“No.” She looked up at him and swallowed her pride. “What she did was wrong. And I was wrong, too. I never tried to patch things up, and you’re right, I never really looked back. But I’m trying now. I know it’s too late for ... for some things, but I’m doing my best to see that you’re safe.”

“I see,” was all he would commit himself to; but something in his face had softened.

“Will you promise me that you’ll keep that Portkey in the house?”

He looked at the stone with distrust. “Must I promise to use it?”

“No. That will be your choice, if and when the time comes. All I want to do is make sure you have that choice.”

“Very well,” he conceded. She wasn’t entirely sure whether he had relented, or whether he was simply hoping that she would go away if he agreed, but she supposed it didn’t really matter. He had the means to save his own life if he chose to.

“Thank you, William. And good luck to you.”

“God be with you,” he said unexpectedly, and they clasped hands for a fraction of a minute before she left the house.

 

                                                            *          *          *

Tonks had been released from St. Mungo’s three days after the battle. Her ribs ached, and she felt slightly dizzy when she stood up; but she knew very well that her injuries could have been worse. Much worse.

It was the non-physical damage that hurt the most – the loss of her cousin and the persistent feeling that she could have taken out Bellatrix. She replayed the battle again and again in her head; she’d been so close. And then, on the first day she’d been fit to return to work, Amelia Bones had been murdered in her home. Stern but fair, Amelia had been the cornerstone of the Division of Magical Law Enforcement. Without her, it felt as if the Ministry was about to collapse on their heads.

She had soldiered on – she had work to do, as they all did – but she had not been greatly surprised when she woke one morning and found that her Metamorphmagus powers had deserted her, leaving her with plain mousy hair and a pale, delicate face that was far too much like her Aunt Narcissa’s for comfort.

Remus had found her in the house in Grimmauld Place later that day, pretending to polish the silver, really rubbing a rag over an old goblet again and again and fighting back tears. He said she shouldn’t dwell on what might have been. It wasn’t fair to Sirius and it wasn’t fair to herself. She saw the sense in it – he was always sensible, really, and always kind. She set the goblet on a shelf and looked up to thank him, and she realized that his eyes were bright with unshed tears as well.

It was as if she was looking at him for the first time, seeing him not as an older friend who always seemed to know the right things to say and do, but as a man. All in a moment, her easy comradeship with Remus had turned into something quite different, something awkward and prickly and exhilarating, and she wasn’t sure what to do with it. She would have liked his advice on what she was about to do, but at the same time she felt as if it had suddenly become impossible.

She fingered the fragments of parchment that her colleagues had found in the pocket of one of the captured Death Eaters’ robes – Mulciber, the specialist in the Imperius Curse. They bore notes about Memory Potions in a feminine hand, and one of the Healers at St. Mungo’s had identified the handwriting as Hope McRae’s. The Alienist had been released from the hospital and was recuperating in the country, they said, but it would be some time before she was able to return to work. Her memory of everything related to the potion she had been working on had been erased, precisely and completely.

Kingsley, who was still in charge of the McRae case, had taken possession of the notes and brought them to Order headquarters; but neither he nor Tonks had sufficient theoretical knowledge to continue Healer McRae’s research, nor enough spare time to learn.

Sirius might have been able to do it. She winced as a fresh twinge of pain shot through her side.

But they had one remaining hope, if he consented to take on the work. She had asked Severus Snape to meet her here at headquarters, as she didn’t feel fit to travel as far as Scotland.

The door slid open noiselessly, a full ten minutes before she expected him. “Hello, Nymphadora,” he said, staring at her with unblinking black eyes as if he was seeing a ghost.

“Severus. Um, hi.” She got to her feet, and promptly knocked the chair backward onto the floor. “I need to ask you a favor.”

“So I gathered.” His face was inscrutable once more, but it had betrayed him for a moment. She tried to reconcile his work for the Order with the extraordinary discovery she had just made. Severus Snape had once been in love with Narcissa Black.

“It has to do with a problem in experimental potions.”

“Wolfsbane, I suppose.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Tell Lupin I haven’t the time, but if his health has been troubling him again, I can recommend an excellent veterinary surgeon.”

She gritted her teeth and refrained from pointing out that they were coming into the summer holidays. He would only argue (truthfully) that he had quite enough to do as Order member and spy; her only hope was piquing his interest in Hope McRae’s research for its own sake. “No. Memory Potions, actually.”

She outlined the situation, explaining what Hope had told her and showing him the notes they had found in Mulciber’s pocket. She did know enough about Potions research to couch it as an academic problem, and to recognize that it was an intriguing one. As she spoke, she watched his face and was pleased to see that he was tempted.

“A fascinating little theoretical puzzle,” he said at last, laying a slight stress on the word theoretical. “Unfortunately, I am certain it has not escaped your notice that the rest of the Order seems to regard me as a mixture of messenger boy and trick dog, and has no compunctions about ordering me away on dangerous errands at all hours of the day or night. I simply do not have the time to spare for a project with no immediate, practical applications for the war effort.”

“But it does have practical applications,” Tonks protested. “Especially now that a group of Death Eaters have been captured and are awaiting trial. If we could recover the memories of people who were injured in the first war and get them in a fit condition to testify –”

“People such as Frank and Alice Longbottom,” he said evenly.

“Well – yes, exactly. We’ve never been sure exactly how many Death Eaters were there that night, or whether we caught them all –” She stopped short, remembering how he’d looked at her when he entered the room and feeling that she had just made a horrible blunder. The Longbottoms’ torture had been a regular family reunion; Rodolphus had brought his younger brother along, and even the Crouches had been distant connections. Snape might suspect, or know, that Narcissa had been there as well. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The look in Snape’s eyes was keen and hungry and ugly. It made her think of the bitterest kind of hatred, the kind that had once been something else entirely. But his voice, when he spoke, was perfectly controlled.

“Indeed. I shall try to find the time,” he said, folding Hope’s notes neatly and tucking them into the pocket of his robes. “I thank you for bringing this to my attention, Nymphadora. It promises to be very interesting indeed.”

She watched him leave the room and tried to shake off the faint chill that had crept up the back of her neck. He was doing good work for the Order – and had done, for more than fifteen years. His motives didn’t matter.

 

                                                            *          *          *

It was, Linus thought, just as well that he and Celia hadn’t waited for her son to accompany them to Hogwarts, because almost two weeks passed before they saw Remus again. He spent nearly every day at her house: listening to the Wizengamot proceedings for the selection of a new Minister on the WWN; reading the reports about the Brockdale Bridge disaster and the hurricane in the West Country in the Muggle papers; watching Celia pace and fret and polish the family photographs that stood on the mantelpiece. He noticed that she had put a new one up, a black-and-white Muggle photograph of a young man dressed in the style of the 1930s.

“Is that your brother?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t go to see him again! After everything he said to you?”

“I had to make sure he knew how to look after himself. There isn’t much else we can do – not when we know so little – but at the very least we ought to share what we do know with the Muggles.” Celia picked up the purple Ministry leaflet, “Protecting Your Home and Family Against Dark Forces,” that had arrived with the Prophet that morning and frowned at it.

“It’s mostly useless advice,” said Linus. “‘Don’t enter buildings with the Dark Mark over them, and if you see an Inferius, tell the Ministry if you aren’t already dead. Never would have worked that out on my own.” He picked up a quill and began to sketch a perplexed-looking Martin Miggs reading a security leaflet. “Help me think of some more. ‘Should you witness anybody attempting to break into the fabled Hall of Prophecy, do nothing at all because the Hall of Prophecy ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT EXIST.’ ‘If a friend, colleague, neighbor, or family member insists on being addressed as ‘Lord Whatchamajigger’ or ‘You-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’, it is a sign that they may be the next Dark Lord. Alert the Ministry at once so they can begin denying this person’s existence immediately’.”

“And always call them ‘Yoo-Hoo’ for short,” said Celia, her lips twitching slightly, “because Dark Lords hate that.”

“Good one,” said Linus, jotting it down. He felt pleased that he’d managed to make her smile; she had been so worried lately, and he knew there was nothing he could do. Where, he wondered, was Remus?

They spent half an hour thinking up increasingly absurd security tips. It had almost begun to feel like a normal, pleasant afternoon when a dank mist blotted out the sun and what had been a bright summer day turned chill and dreary.

“Dementors?” Linus asked, and Celia nodded.

“I think I’d better see to the garden,” she said, getting to her feet. “There’ll be a frost tonight if they settle here. Could you be a dear and put on some hot chocolate while I’m out?”

“I’ll go with you,” Linus offered, but she shook her head and said that she would be all right.

He heard Remus’ footsteps on the doorstop while she was out. It took only one glance at his friend’s white, hollow-cheeked face for Linus to see that something was very wrong, perhaps never to be right again.

“Sit down,” said Linus. “You look like you’ve been out too long. Let me get you some hot chocolate.”

He reached for the saucepan on the stove, but Remus shook his head. “It won’t help.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s a long story. Very long ...” Remus raked his hands through his hair, looking tired. “Have you ever heard of the Order of the Phoenix?”

“Is it anything like the Order of the Penguins?” asked Linus.

“Penguins?” asked Remus vaguely, with a shadow of his old smile.

“Never mind. One of Martin Lovegood’s mad theories.”

“Then Martin Lovegood’s theories might be closer to the truth than you think. But never mind about that. I’d better begin at the beginning.” He leaned forward and placed a hand on Linus’ arm. “I want to tell you a story so that you may tell it to the world. I cannot find any laughter in it now, but I trust that you will, one way or another. It’s enough of a comedy of errors to be right up your alley, and the villains are Martin Miggs’ usual foes. Government bureaucrats who cared more about saving face than they did about justice, ordinary people – and I count myself among them – who failed to see the obvious when it was staring them in the face, and a few out-and-out scoundrels.

“This is the story of an innocent man who spent twelve years in Azkaban...”

“Whew,” Linus said when he had finished. “Don’t ask much, do you? I think that’s more of a tragedy than a comedy, any way you look at it.”

“Please,” said Remus. “I know it’s not exactly your usual line, but I need you to get the word out. The Ministry knows he’s innocent, but they’re keeping it quiet, and they’ve put pressure on the Prophet not to go public with the story. Can you do anything?”

“Yes, I can. I’m staff cartoonist for the Quibbler now, so I should be able to get Martin Lovegood interested as well. And ... I’m sorry, Remus. He sounds like he was a good man.”

“He was. Thank you.”

Remus looked steadier, if not precisely cheerful, now that he had told his story. When Linus offered him a cup of cocoa for the second time, he accepted it; after a sip or two, he was no longer so deathly pale.

Celia came in from the garden, her arms full of flowers, and began trimming the frostbitten leaves over the sink. She acknowledged her son’s presence with a casual nod and a word or two of greeting, although Linus knew for certain that she had been worried sick in his absence. He would never completely understand the Lupins, he decided. He only knew that he was enormously fond of them both.

“Have you been following the papers, Mum?” Remus asked after a moment.

“Yes. Both the Muggle and the wizard ones. You can hardly get away from the news these days. Be a dear and put these on the end table in the hall, will you?” She handed Remus the vase of flowers, which bloomed incongruously bright against his shabby robes.

“Things are going rather badly.” Remus didn’t say, precisely, that he had knowledge that went beyond what had been written in the papers; but both Linus and Celia understood that was what he meant. “That’s why I haven’t been around much. I have a feeling it will get worse.”

“Yes,” said Celia quietly. “But we’ll get through, one way or another. We’ve always done before.” She reached for Linus’ hand, and their fingers twined together.

“You think so?” said Remus. He looked as if he were on the verge of saying something else, but seemed to think better of it.

“I know so,” said Linus, before Celia could answer. “Now, let’s go round to the Quill and Quirk for a drink.”

The End