Remorse

Chapter Thirteen: The Return of Wulfric the Werefowl

It took Linus a moment to identify the young witch at Celia’s door as Auror Tonks, whom he had met on several occasions during the previous year. She had struck him as very young for her work then; now, she had the exhausted, over-serious look of a kid who had seen too much and been forced to grow up too quickly. She seemed to have lost her fondness for outrageous hair colors and styles; her hair was her natural mousy-brown, and it had grown out to an awkward length, neither short enough nor long enough to be flattering to the small, rather pale face beneath the fringe of overgrown bangs.

“Mrs. Lupin? I’m awfully sorry to bother you, but I’m ... I’m a friend of your son’s, and I wondered if you’d been in touch with him.”

“Not since he left, no,” said Celia. “I’m sorry.”

“So he’s been here, then?”

“Yes. He left just after this last full moon.”

“After the full moon?” She sounded surprised. “You’re sure about that?”

“It would be rather hard to mistake it,” Linus put in.

“Right. Of course it would.” He thought he saw a touch of relief in her face. “How long was he here?”

“Almost a month.”

 “And he didn’t ... Well. I see. I was just wondering. Er, I’d better be going, then.” She looked tired and defeated, though not quite as anxious as she had seemed when she arrived.

On an impulse, Linus said, “Wait just a minute, Auror. What is your Christian name?”

“It’s Nymphadora,” she said with a flash of the old spark in her eyes, “but if you call me that I might have to hex you.”

Linus and Celia exchanged a look. “Well...” said Celia, clearly uncertain how she ought to proceed.

Linus was more decisive. “I think he left a letter for you.”

“For me? I don’t think so – he never writes to anybody.”

“Well, he wrote this to somebody called ‘Dora.’ It’s upstairs. I’ll get it.”

Linus watched her face as she read the letter, and saw at once that he had guessed right.

“So he does care,” she said, a little color rising in her cheeks. “I was beginning to wonder.”

“I don’t know if he meant to send it,” said Celia dubiously.

“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t,” said the girl. “I’m not going to tell him I read it – but it helps, all the same. May I keep it?”

“Of course, love. It’s yours.”

The girl thanked Celia and hurried away, still blushing a little.

“Well,” said Linus. “The mysterious Dora. Unless she’s somebody else, and we’ve just made the stupidest cock-up in history.”

“No,” said Celia positively. “She’s a bit young for him, but that’s Remus’ girl, all right. Her coloring is rather unusual, don’t you think?”

“It was a lot more unusual the last time we saw her,” said Linus.

“I don’t mean her hair. It’s the combination of that pale skin and those dark grey eyes – almost black, but not quite. And with that bone structure – I’m sure she’s got some Black blood in her, but ‘Tonks’ isn’t a wizarding name...” Celia thought for a moment. “Druella Rosier married a Black. Didn’t one of her daughters elope with a Muggle-born?”

“This can’t be Druella’s granddaughter. She must be twenty-four or twenty-five, and Druella’s younger than we are. Was, I mean.” Druella had been murdered some years earlier, victim of a radical band of Muggle-born vigilantes who had made it their business to track down Death Eater sympathizers who had gone free. Linus, like most people who had known her at school, was privately of the opinion that she had been asking for it.

“I think she could, because the daughter was hardly more than a child herself when she ran off. Just out of school, I believe, and if she was already expecting a baby – yes, this girl would be about the right age. Funny to think of it, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Linus, wondering if he and Celia would ever have any grandchildren between them. His own daughter was off tracking Re’ems in the American West, a career that entailed sleeping outdoors six nights out of seven and was not conducive to a settled life. And Remus, well... “I hope this young woman is determined.”

Celia sighed. “She’ll have to be. I do feel sorry for her.” Irrelevantly, she added, “She’d be quite pretty if she had a bit more color. The Blacks were always a good-looking family.”

“Yes, I thought she was a cute little piece the first time I met her – but in some ways, that’s got to make things harder for her. I don’t think she could have inherited any of the Black fortune, but Aurors don’t do badly for themselves ... She’ll have a job persuading Remus that she doesn’t think of him as a charity case. And he doesn’t strike me as one to take charity.”

Celia shook her head. “He won’t even let me buy him new robes, he’s that stubborn. It’s too frustrating for words.”

 

                                                            *          *          *

In an earlier issue of Martin Miggs, Linus had already given his hapless Muggle hero a neighbor, Wulfric the Werefowl, who turned into a ferocious man-eating chicken at the full moon. He decided to revive this story line for the April 1997 number. In the new issue, “A Bird in the Bush,” Wulfric got sick and tired of being shuffled around between the Department of Dangerous Mammals and the Department of Dangerous Birds at the Ministry, and decided to go feral (“I AM CHICKEN, HEAR ME HOWL! BOK-BOK-BOK-AROOO-BOK!”)

Other werefowl flocked to his side: Linus filled an entire page with weresparrows, werepheasants, and even a wereflamingo. Wulfric, as their leader, swiftly established a pecking order and began feathering his nest with the monthly dues. They even infiltrated the Ministry (Herbert Chorley again, making a cameo appearance as a wereduck). The last few panels, loosely inspired by Hitchcock, portrayed a scene as chilling as it was absurd, as ordinary people and houses disappeared under a great cloud of winged and fanged assailants. Feathers filled the air like breeding dementors.

Into this story line, Linus wove as much information about the real Lyceum as Remus had been able to feed him: passwords, names of officers, rituals. Remus’ memory for detail was excellent and Greyback’s rhetoric, fortunately, parodied itself, so he was able to stick very close to what actually transpired at the Lyceum’s meetings.

He scrawled a defiant TO BE CONTINUED... at the bottom of the last panel, and sent it off to the printer’s.

 

                                                            *          *          *

The emergency Lyconference that Fenrir Greyback called a week later was the first time Remus had ever seen the entire Lyceum in one place. He looked from group to group, counting heads and trying to memorize features. The group was disturbingly large, although he knew that some of them – Sam Barker, for example – were not really active members of the Lyceum. There were more women than he had thought, and a number of them – in their late teens and early twenties, standing silently beside Greyback’s senior officers – seemed to be the owngirls June had told him about.

June was standing in front of Ferdinand Calabria. He was resting both of his hands on her shoulders in a possessive attitude; her face was an impassive mask of acceptance. Remus turned away to hide his revulsion.

Fenrir cleared his throat. “Brother Lyceans, I need to speak to you about the greatest trastovy our sacred institution has ever seen. The ... single ... greatest ... trastovy,” he added with emphasis.

“Travesty!” said Ferdinand in a hoarse whisper.

Fenrir gave him an irritated look. “Yes, as I just said, the greatest travethty.” It was not entirely clear whether he was mocking Ferdinand’s lisp or had taken it for the correct pronunciation. By way of regaining his position as supreme authority of the Lyceum, he launched into a long litany of the other travesties that werewolves had suffered at the hands of wizardkind, all the way back to the days of King Arthur. (Arthur’s crimes, as far as Remus could make out, consisted of slighting somebody called Sir Marrok and defeating the Saxons, who were so enlightened in their attitudes toward lycanthropy that they had actually written a how-to poem called Be A Wolf.) After half an hour of this, Fenrir finally came to the point. “Yesterday morning, I went to scout out the village where we’re going hunting next full moon, and what do you think I saw?”

The other werewolves looked at one another in puzzlement. Remus had an inkling of what it might be, but he kept his face carefully blank.

“Kids! Kids playing at being werewolves – only they called it werefowl, and they were flapping their arms like chickens! Making a laughingstock of our Lyceum!”

Fenrir scanned the ranks of his Lyceans. Some looked shocked, mostly because Fenrir seemed to be expecting it; Phil Craddock looked like he might be hiding a smirk; Ripper, June, and some of the other young ones snickered. “How unusual,” Remus murmured blandly.

“Knew all our secret passwords and countersigns, they did! And our myths and legends! And they were using real names and titles from our organization, as if they weren’t afraid of us at all!”

Now Fenrir got the groundswell of angry muttering that he clearly wanted, although most of the members seemed more disturbed about the leaking of the names and passwords than the lack of fear. Those who were less concerned with the Lyceum’s dignity than Greyback were nevertheless beginning to calculate what this might mean, and they didn’t like any of the possible answers.

Fenrir pounded on the wall of the Great Den with a rock until silence fell, and suddenly he did not seem to be a fool at all, but the commander of an army of desperate and dangerous werewolves. He looked over his ragged and dirty followers and bared his fangs. “There is no life for us outside the Lyceum,” he said simply, “and so those who betray us must die.”

 

                                                            *          *          *

Linus had been sitting in front of the cabin for three hours before Remus came home. He was half frozen, but he couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer. “How’s Greyback taking it?” he asked.

“Good God,” said Remus. “What are you doing here?”

“Perfect model of hospitality, aren’t you? Is that how you usually greet your friends?”

“No, it isn’t, but – oh hell, come inside. Anybody could have spotted you out here – Greyback’s officers like to drop in at all hours. Luckily for you, they were all at a meeting this afternoon.”

“Were you there? Did the subject of Martin Miggs come up at all?”

Remus smiled at his eagerness. “Yes, the subject did come up. As a matter of fact, it was the chief topic of discussion. It’s rattled them a bit, I’d say.”

“Details, please,” said Linus. “We have to keep putting their secrets out there.”

Remus frowned a little as he described the scene at the Lyconference, but as far as Linus was concerned, it was all good. Greyback was rattled, the organization was on edge, and the whole story had enough comic potential to fuel another issue of Martin Miggs.

Remus stopped talking abruptly. Another man was walking up the path that led to the cabin. Linus thought of Disapparating, but the stranger was so close that he couldn’t help but hear the noise. Remus motioned for Linus to keep quiet and opened the door.

“Oh, hello, Ferdinand,” said Remus in a casual voice.

“Who’s that?” the man called Ferdinand asked suspiciously.

“New recruit,” said Remus glibly. “Or he’s thinking about joining, anyway. He’s having a hard time raising the Lycurrency.”

Ferdinand’s eyes narrowed. “Dear me, this is a coincidence. I don’t like new people making noises about joining just when we’re having trouble with spies. Let’s see his scar.”

Linus lifted his robes to just above the knee. “That look real enough for you?”

“Carry on, Roper,” said Ferdinand smoothly. “My most profound apologies.” But he glanced back toward the cabin more than once as he was walking away.

Remus looked distinctly shaken. “Yes, well. I think you’d better not stay much longer.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Linus.

“He’s been coming around a lot lately. Trying to catch me off guard, I think. I’m glad he came when you were here, actually, and not ...”

“Not what?”

“Nothing. Somebody else’s secret, not mine. Oh, by the way,” Remus added with a wintry smile, “the new password to the Great Den is ‘Kill the Traitor.’ See if you can work that one in.”

“Er, Remus?” Linus was beginning to have reservations for the first time; it was his friend’s life, not his own, that was on the line. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“Yes. This is the first time I’ve seen Fenrir Greyback look unsettled. And the first time I’ve seen some of the kids here laugh.”

“All right. Take care, will you?”

“I am. Goodbye.”

“Good luck.”

 

                                                            *          *          *

Tonks was waiting on Linus’s doorstep when he came home.

“You know where he is,” she said. She shifted her handbag so that he could see she had a copy of “A Bird in the Bush” inside it.

Linus looked at her for a long moment, and then unlocked the door. “Come in,” he said.

She had been inside the house once before, to feed the cat while Linus was in St. Mungo’s, but she was struck by how different it looked. Tidier, and brighter. A bowl of daffodils stood on the table, and she knew without asking that Remus’ mother had brought them.

Linus hadn’t let lycanthropy keep him from living his life. Why couldn’t Remus see –

Maybe he just doesn’t care for you and he’s too polite to say so, said a tiny traitorous voice at the back of her head. Maybe he doesn’t even like you. It was the same voice she’d been hearing during dementor attacks for months. And then she remembered the letter and knew that it was a lie.

“I’m not the most tactful man in the world,” said Linus, motioning for her to sit down, “so forgive me if this comes out wrong, but you seem very young, and I was wondering if you had the slightest bloody clue what you’re getting yourself into.”

“I’m an Auror.” (She sounded like a kid, she thought. Not good.)

“So are the geniuses who were looking for Sirius Black for three years and didn’t even bother to check whether he’d done it in the first place. That doesn’t prove anything.”

Tonks tried to stifle an entirely inappropriate giggle.

“Oh,” said Linus. “I see. They knew he was innocent, so they weren’t actually trying to find him?”

“You might say that. Some of us knew, anyway,” she said, instantly sober. Irrelevantly, she added, “He was my cousin.”

“Oh. Were you – close?”

She nodded and bit her lip.

“Sorry, I’m always putting my foot in it. I don’t mean anything by it.”

“It’s all right,” said Tonks. “I’ve been known to do that, too.”

The Cheshire cat unexpectedly materialized at her side and jumped up onto her knee. She stroked him absently, and he rewarded her with a hearty purr.

“Are you fond of cats?” Linus asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you know they have to come and go as they please, and sometimes they need to hide away for a while, and they don’t like to be followed. They’ll turn up all right in the end. They’ve got good sense.”

She met his eyes. “What if they’re ill or hurt, and they just keep hiding? Do you just walk away?”

“Touché.” Linus pushed back his chair and Summoned a quill and parchment. “Look, I think you’ve got good sense too, so I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t have you going out there unprepared, so I’m going to tell you what he’s told me about Greyback’s gang and the way he’s been living – but you must understand that I think he’s kept back the worst, a great deal of it. Then, if you still want to know, I’ll write down the Apparition coordinates for you. He made me promise not to tell anyone where he was, but he didn’t say a word about writing, so I reckon that’s my own business. But you’re not to go out there until you’ve had at least a week to think it over.”

She nodded.

An hour later, she left the house with the piece of parchment tucked into her palm. So he was in the Forbidden Forest, and no more than a dozen miles from Hogsmeade, judging by the coordinates Linus had given her. How very odd, she thought, surprised by her own detachment. All these months she’d been thinking of him as if he were in another country.

But if he’d made Linus promise not to talk about his location, didn’t that mean he didn’t want to be found?

She dismissed the thought. She was going to see him. And she was going to make sure she was welcome.

Wolfsbane, she thought. She was a skilled potion brewer – one of the reasons why Scrimgeour had been willing to overlook her poor scores in Stealth and Tracking – and this, at least, was one thing she could offer him that he couldn’t very well refuse.

 

                                                            *          *          *

Remus woke on a grey, rainy morning to the sound of footsteps downstairs. Somebody else was in his cabin. His breath caught in his throat for a moment; he thought it might be one of Greyback’s men. But the step was too quick and light to be any of the Lyceans he knew, except perhaps Ripper or June, and as he made his way down the stairs he heard whoever-it-was stumble and swear heartily. The voice was distinctly feminine, even if the language wasn’t.

“Tonks?”

They both reached for their wands and cast Lumos simultaneously. He looked at her, stunned, across a room that seemed painfully bright. It also seemed all too full of the signs of his shame and degradation, but she gave no sign of noticing the filthy walls and the claw marks on the door frame. She was thinner than he remembered, and her eyes had the telltale dullness that one saw in people who had been exposed to dementors day in and day out.

“Please,” he said when he found his voice again. “Sit down.”

“I won’t stay long,” she said. “I apologize for Apparating in directly, but I didn’t want to be spotted. I just thought you might be able to do with some Wolfsbane this week, so ... I brought you some.” He noticed for the first time that she was carrying a hip flask on each side.

“I – Thank you. But I’ve already got some, actually.” He motioned toward a cauldron that stood on top of the wood stove. He’d bought it in Knockturn Alley yesterday; it was a peculiar shade of greenish-black and it had already curdled, but he was hoping the heat would liquefy it again.

“Dear God, Remus, you can’t be thinking of taking that. It looks poisonous.” She rummaged through the cupboards until she found a clean glass, and poured a generous dose from one of the flasks into it. “Drink up, mate. This stuff, I guarantee. My special recipe.”

He took a sip. It tasted ... odd. Not entirely unpleasant, but that, by itself, made it different from any version of Wolfsbane he’d ever tried before. “Er, Tonks? Did you flavor this?”

“I’ve been experimenting with the recipe since you’ve been gone. I put in a bit of ginger and peppermint this time. It’s good for you. Easier on the stomach.”

He stopped drinking the potion. “You can’t just go adding new ingredients, you know. They have – they have different effects. Unexpected ones, sometimes. Like sugar, for example. Sugar makes the whole thing useless.” He realized the futility of attempting to give a lecture on potion-brewing when he’d barely managed to scrape an Acceptable on his O.W.L., some twenty years ago, and decided to shut up.

“Mate. I know potions. Outstanding N.E.W.T.s. Those are inert ingredients.”

“Oh.” He took another sip. “I wonder why Severus never mentioned –”

He’d never noticed before that Tonks sounded a lot like Hermione when she snorted. “Honestly! I know you’re determined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but do you really have to ask?”

“Right. Good point.”

“There should be enough in the flasks to last you a few days. I’ll bring you more on Wednesday.”

“Tonks – I appreciate your doing this – more than I can say – but you mustn’t come back here. It’s dangerous. I’m dangerous.”

“I can handle dangerous. It’s what I’m trained for.”

Well, it’s dangerous for me, then! he thought. Because what if I start to care for you too much, and then you decide – as you would have every right to do – that you want to be with someone who’s young and healthy and can give you so much more than I can? What then?

But his pride forbade him from admitting this aloud. “I know. But Greyback and the others are ugly, ugly characters, and there’s no need for you to go borrowing trouble when you’ve got enough to deal with on your own.”

She gave him a look that reminded him uncomfortably of old Mrs. Black; but there was no frenzy in her eyes, only a steely determination. “I know damn well they’re ugly characters. And I’m going to keep bringing you the potion so that you’re strong enough to fight them. And that’s final. It doesn’t have to mean anything else if you don’t want it to.”

“All right,” he conceded with a certain measure of relief.

“Good. Now, we ought to agree on some security questions. Tell me something about you that nobody else knows.”

“Er...” He tried to think of something that Peter wouldn’t know.

“It needn’t be personal. I don’t know, tell me your favorite vegetable or something.”

“Parsnips,” he said, and unexpectedly found himself trying to suppress a laugh. “Mashed parsnips.”

“Were you the one who did that to Percy?”

“Yes. There you are – nobody else knows that. How did you work it out?”

“Bill told me what happened at Christmas dinner, and – I don’t know. I guessed. I reckoned even you must get out of patience and out of temper sometimes.”

“I do. More than you know.” He looked around the hut. The longer she sat there, the more sordid it seemed; but she either hadn’t noticed her surroundings, or was steadfastly ignoring them. “Tell me something about you that nobody else knows.”

“Sometimes,” she said slowly, “I’m really angry at Professor Dumbledore. Like, furious. Even though I know he’s an old man and he’s a good person who doesn’t deserve it.”

So she had noticed. “You mustn’t be,” he said. “He’s doing what he has to do to win this war. Just like we are.”

“And if it’s no good, and we all end up dead...?”

“You won’t,” he said. “You’re young and strong and you’re going to make it through. Remember that, no matter what the dementors tell you.”

“It isn’t me that I’m worried about, so much.” There was a slight catch in her voice as she looked at him, and he wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right, except that he had no earthly reason to believe it.

“Look after yourself and forget about me,” he said instead. “I mean it. You deserve so much better.”

“Stop telling me what I deserve, Remus. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to stay safe,” he said. “I want that more than anything.” Some sudden instinct made him look up at the window, and he saw two of his fellow Lyceans coming up the path. “And you can’t be safe here. Get out – now! GO!”

The windows rattled in their frames as she Disapparated.