Remorse

Chapter Seventeen: After Dumbledore

Afterwards, Remus remembered the battle as a handful of frozen images caught by the flare of spells, with great stretches of darkness in between. The green flash of a Killing Curse missing him by inches – Greyback dodging one of his Stunning Spells and fleeing – Snape running toward the barrier over the stairs – a chunk of ceiling collapsing in a great cloud of dust. And then a vast and eerie silence.

Tonks appeared at the other end of the corridor, shaking bits of stone and mortar out of her hair. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yeah. You?”

He nodded.

“Better keep your wand out, I think. Let’s see where the others have got to.”

Around the next corner they found two bodies lying in a pool of blood. One of them was face up, and Remus recognized it as the Death Eater who had taken the Killing Curse meant for him. Minerva McGonagall was kneeling over the other. Her robes were trailing in the blood, but she seemed not to have noticed.

She looked up, white-faced. “Get Poppy. Now. Tell her it’s Bill.”

 

                                                            *          *          *

“No charm will work on these,” said Poppy. “I’ve tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites.”

Remus felt a dull throb in his heel, where he’d been bitten over thirty years before. As he’d done so many times before, he forced himself to put some weight on that foot so he wouldn’t get into the habit of favoring it.

“But he wasn’t bitten at the full moon,” Ron was saying. “Greyback hadn’t transformed, so surely Bill won’t be a – a real –”

He couldn’t quite say it, and Remus suddenly remembered a much younger Ron saying “Get away from me, werewolf!” But Ron was looking to him for answers now, and there was absolute trust in his face.

Remus wasn’t sure what the incident would mean for Bill’s future, but it had shaken him as much as anything he’d witnessed over the last year. Werewolves weren’t dangerous – except at the full moon. That had always been one of the articles of his faith. But now, it appeared that they were. It was clear that Bill’s injuries were no ordinary ones.

“No, I don’t think that Bill will be a true werewolf,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “but that does not mean that there won’t be some contamination. Those are cursed wounds. They are unlikely ever to heal fully, and – and Bill might have some wolfish characteristics from now on.”

He might not, of course, but it was safer to prepare the Weasleys for the worst.

“Dumbledore might know something that’d work, though.” Ron was flushed and his hands were shaking. “Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore’s orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can’t leave him in this state –”

It was the same sort of anger Remus had seen from Tonks over the past year, and he understood where it was coming from. He took a step toward Ron, but before he could speak, Ginny said, “Ron – Dumbledore’s dead.”

“No!” said Remus, forgetting about Bill, and Ron, and everything. It couldn’t be true, he thought for a wild dizzy moment, but when he saw Harry’s face he knew that it could be, and was.

He fell into the nearest chair and buried his face in his hands to hide his tears, knowing all the while that he wasn’t grieving just for Dumbledore, but for Sirius, and for Emmeline, and for the Montgomery child whom he’d never met, and for Lily and James and all the others who had fallen in the last war, and for all of the rest of them who had been left behind, and for the emptiness of it all. They had all been fighting so long and so hard, on Dumbledore’s orders, and what good had they done?

He didn’t know how long he had been sitting like that when a strain of music filtered through the castle window, and swelled, and filled the room. It was no mortal creature’s song. It made him think of balm and spices, and it seemed to say that there was no death in the world and no pain.

He raised his head, blinking his eyes like one who had slept long and deeply. The others were standing still and spell-struck, some bright-eyed with tears, some flushed with the beginnings of hope. And as he looked at them he felt as if he had work to do once more, and this time it was a mission of comfort.

 

                                                            *          *          *

Much, much later, after the phoenix had ceased its sorrowful song and the stars had begun to fade, he and Tonks stumbled away from the Hospital Wing.

“All right?” he asked her for the second time that night.

The sound that escaped her might have been a laugh or a sob. “No.”

“Nor am I.” He’d managed to pull himself together after the first few minutes and maintain a reasonably calm facade, but now that everybody else had gone, he felt as if it might fall apart at the slightest touch.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to – to embarrass you – it’s just – D’you realize you almost died?”

“Yes,” he said, but he wasn’t sure he did realize it, altogether. The Killing Curse that had missed its mark seemed to have affected her more than it had him; she’d gone very white when he had told his story, and then there had been that extraordinary outburst a few minutes later – Perhaps he had become too accustomed to thinking of death as very near, because he hadn’t been prepared for her to look so shaken.

“Anyway. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You don’t need to be.” She staggered a little as she walked, and he realized how drained she looked. “You ought to get some rest.”

“So do you.”

He wasn’t about to argue with that. He led her upstairs, toward the guest rooms where Hogwarts put up its occasional visitors. They didn’t really belong there, but the handful of students they passed in the corridors gave them hardly a glance. They’d heard the news, and they were stupefied too.

“Penshurst,” he said, hoping they hadn’t changed the passwords since he was a staff member, and the door to the guest wing swung open. He wrenched open the door to the first room they came to, and startled a very tiny house-elf who was changing the bed linens.

“Oh, sir, Ninny is so very sorry! Professor McGonagall is telling Ninny that the O.W.L. examiners is not arriving until next week.”

“It’s all right, Ninny,” said Remus. “We’ve, er, had a bit of an emergency. Would you please go down to the kitchens and fetch some hot chocolate?”

“Ninny is happy to bring anything Professor Tofty and Professor Marchbanks is needing, sir.”

Remus decided that it would be simpler not to correct the misapprehension. The house-elf Disapparated and reappeared with a silver tea tray and two mugs of hot chocolate.

“Drink up,” he said firmly.

“You don’t want any?”

“Not now. Too tired.” There was only one bed, so he stretched out on the narrow couch at the far end of the guest chamber.

A brief argument followed, which Tonks won because she was younger and more energetic and altogether more stubborn than he was. He slid between the bedsheets instead – wonderful sheets, all cool and clean-smelling, with soft pillows... He was too exhausted to think very clearly, but it seemed selfish to keep so much comfort to himself.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered vaguely, “there’s room enough for two.”

Before sleep overtook him, he was dimly aware of the warmth of another body settling down next to him. For the first time in many months, he felt at peace.

 

                                                            *          *          *

When he woke, he was clutching a fistful of crumpled Auror’s robes. He must have been clinging to her in his sleep.

He blinked at the velvet bed hangings and remembered where he was and what he was doing there. Good God. Dumbledore dead, Bill savaged by Greyback, Snape a traitor. And, although this wasn’t even remotely on the same scale, it seemed that he was sending mixed signals in a big way. He wasn’t sure what to do about that.

And then the rest of yesterday’s events came back to him as well, and he grasped for the first time that his mission was over. One child rescued from Greyback’s clutches; perhaps two or three others saved who might have been bitten; and the members of the Lyceum mildly inconvenienced by having their passwords published in Martin Miggs. It seemed a poor showing for a year of struggle and danger, but Dumbledore would say that if they saved even one child –

No. No, he wouldn’t. He would never say anything again.

He sat up and looked around him. The guest chamber was comfortably appointed, with high arched windows that looked out over the village and ancient leather-bound books lining three walls. It felt like a haven of peace, even with its greatest prop and defender gone. The school would still endure, he realized. The knowledge that Dumbledore was gone hurt, but the utter despair of the evening before eluded him. He remembered that he had come so close to dying himself, and found that he cared very much that he was alive.

He threw the window open and let the June day spill into the room in a rush of sunshine.

He went out to wash and shave, and by the time he came back, Tonks was awake and looking at him with unnaturally bright eyes.

Remus sat down at the foot of the bed. “I think it’s time we had a serious talk,” he said.

She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and sat with her back to him. “No, it isn’t. You can disregard everything I said last night, if you like. I just have a bad habit of blurting out every thought that comes into my head without regard for the consequences, and I don’t know how much you remember after we went to bed, but I swear nothing actually happened between us, and I’d rather you just forgot about it.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he said, remembering the feel of her robes in his hands and the comfort of her presence.

“Wouldn’t it?” She half-turned toward him; he looked at the curve of her cheek and the dark smudges under her eyes, and wanted to touch her and hold her and console her.

“No. You have a way of telling people things they badly need to hear.”

“Yeah. I’m sure you and the entire Order needed to hear me make a fool of myself in public.” She had turned away again.

“Look at me, Dora. And stop running yourself down when I’m trying to tell you something important.”

She snorted. “You might try taking your own advice sometime.”

“I know. I haven’t got any excuse for the way I’ve been acting. All I can say is that this has been the worst and hardest year of my life, and I thought – I still think it’s unfair to ask you to make the kind of sacrifices that being with me would entail – but it means a great deal to me that you were willing to stand up before the world and say you would. And I don’t know what else to say. I’m afraid of hurting you, but it seems like I’ve been doing that for the last year anyway. The truth is – I don’t think we do very well without each other.”

She stared at him. “No, we certainly don’t! It took you this long to figure it out?”

“Slow learning curve.” He reached out to take her hand. “You’ll have to be patient with me.”

She rewarded him with a genuine smile. “I’m sorry. You’re going to have to be extremely patient with me as well. Particularly first thing in the morning. I take it we are going to see more of each other in the mornings, then?” she added with a nervous little laugh.

“I think so. On happier mornings than this one, I hope.”

“Oh, hell. McGonagall’s going to need us. We should go downstairs.”

“Stay for just a minute,” he said. Very cautiously, they inched toward each other. He found that she fit comfortably in his arms, and that her cheek was warm against his. When they kissed, it was not hectic or urgent, like that first time in September; they were both grieving and a bit damaged, but they knew there would be time enough for healing.

 

                                                            *          *          *

Remus and the other Order members who were on the scene spent most of the day patrolling the halls. All was quiet; the students who had not been taken away by their parents were going about in tight, tense little groups, and because the castle was filled with strangers Remus got barely more than a passing glance from the younger children. The ones who’d had him as a teacher occasionally broke away from their friends to greet him.

“Hello, Colin.”

“Hi, Professor Lupin. This is my brother Dennis. I’ve told him all about you.”

“Pleased to meet you, Dennis.”

Dennis shook hands with Remus, looking mightily impressed. “Is he the one who spent a year with the yeti and then went mad?” he asked Colin in an all-too-audible whisper.

“No, he’s the other one,” Colin whispered back. “The nice one who turned out to be a werewolf.”

“Cool!” said Dennis, fixing Remus with a refreshingly fearless gaze.

Remus remembered the request Tonks had made of him – could it really only have been yesterday? “Er, Colin, do you still have your camera? I was wondering if I might borrow it for an hour or two.”

“Sure.” Colin removed the camera from his book bag.

“How do I get it to take Muggle photos? Is there a special setting?”

“No, it all depends on which potion you use for developing. I could show you after you’re finished, if you like.”

“That would be ideal. Thank you, Colin.”

 

                                                            *          *          *

He found June reasonably untroubled by the previous night’s events. She had been packed off to stay with the first-year Hufflepuffs, and she seemed to be chiefly impressed by the food at Hogwarts and proud of her ability to hold her own in Astronomy class, the only lesson she’d had time to attend before yesterday’s battle. Young werewolves learned early to track the changes of the moon and stars.

“What’s happened?” she asked Remus after giving him a breathless account of her evening. “I heard a girl say the Headmaster was dead, and the school might be closing.”

“That’s true, although I don’t know for sure whether it will close. You won’t have to go back to the Forest, in any event – we’ll find a place for you.”

“That nice old man we met yesterday, was he the Headmaster?”

“Yes, he was.”

“Oh.” June looked solemn.

“Would you like to have your picture taken?” Remus asked.

June brightened up at once. “Can I really?”

“By all means.” He took half a dozen shots, so that Tonks could choose the ones she wanted and June could keep the rest for herself, and went to find Colin again.

 

                                                            *          *          *

Almost as soon as he’d developed the photos, he ran into Minerva in the hall. “May we speak privately in my office?” she asked.

“Yes, of course.” He followed her, not to the office that had belonged to the Transfiguration professor for as long as he had known her, but to the Headmaster’s quarters. There was a new portrait on the wall, Dumbledore asleep behind his frame. Remus tried to hide the emptiness he was feeling.

“I wanted to inform you that Albus left you a sum of money in his will,” Minerva said crisply. “For service and personal sacrifice above and beyond the call of duty, he said.”

“I ...” His voice trailed off, and it took him a moment to find it again. “That hardly seems necessary. I haven’t done anything extraordinary.”

“Many of the people who know you would beg to differ, Remus.”

“It wasn’t so much. I’m not sure that I’ve really accomplished anything.” He began to run through his mental list of the year’s achievements, and remembered that there was a very important question that he had forgotten to ask. “What became of Greyback?”

“Nobody knows. The last person to see him was Harry Potter, who says he Petrified him. I wish one of us had noticed at the time and taken him into custody, but the spell only lasts for one hour. He should be long gone now that he’s un-Petrified.”

“Well, except for his lower intestines,” murmured Remus. He stifled a snicker that he knew perfectly well was inappropriate to the occasion.

“Alastor Moody believes he must have taken cover in the Forbidden Forest, but even with your information, we’ll be lucky to find him in there. You’ll not be able to go back, of course, but I believe that’s as well for everyone concerned ... Er, what did you say about his lower intestines?”

“June tells me she slipped him a megadose of U-No-Poo at the meeting yesterday, courtesy of the Deluxe Skiving Snackbox the Weasley twins gave me for Christmas. It seems those things come in handy all the time.”

Just for a moment, Minerva gave him the sort of stony stare she normally reserved for misbehaving first-years. Then she burst out laughing.

“I knew there had to be a reason James Potter and Sirius Black befriended you. Oh dear. They would have been so proud.”

“Er, Minerva?” he asked as her laughter took on a hysterical note. “Would you like a glass of water? Or a handkerchief?”

She shook her head, and he took her in his arms and held her as the tears coursed down her cheeks.

 

                                                            *          *          *

The Weasleys were all gathered in the hospital wing. When Remus offered to watch Bill for a while, Arthur and Fleur stood up and said they were going to relieve Tonks and Hagrid from guard duty, but Molly would not stir an inch from Bill’s side. “I want to be here when he wakes,” she whispered.

“I’ll stay with you, if you don’t mind. He may need someone to – to talk to him about the potential side effects.”

“Please do.” She picked up her knitting, and they sat together in silence.

The last few times he had returned to wizarding society – the Christmas holidays, and the month he had spent with his mother – he had felt as if he were a visitor from a distant country who had been forbidden to speak of the place from which he had come. Well, not forbidden, precisely; it was more as if he knew he would not be believed if he spoke. The life of normal wizards, which had been so ordinary and comfortable to him a few short months earlier, had become entirely alien; he was separated from them by what he was and what he had done.

Now they were drawn together by a common sorrow, and though he had as much reason to grieve as any of them, he felt obscurely that the burden was lighter for being shared. They were his people, and he did not think he could bear to leave them again.

After a while the knitting needles fell from Molly’s hands, and she began snoring gently. Remus borrowed a blanket from one of the other beds and tucked it over her lap.

Some time later – he wasn’t sure how much later – he heard footsteps in the doorway. “I thought I’d find you here,” Tonks whispered. “You always seem to be there whenever people are in trouble or hurting.”

“Everyone’s in trouble and hurting today,” he said.

“Everyone except Snape.” Her jaw was set, and he saw a flash of the Black temper in her dark eyes.

“I rather think Snape might be in more trouble than any of us can imagine.”

She looked up at him, startled. “Are you thinking he might still be on our side? But – but...”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I should like to hear Harry’s story from the beginning. One of the things I’ve learned this last year is that it’s terribly difficult to run with monsters without becoming one.”

“I’d like to hear your story from the beginning. If you’re ready to tell it.”

“Which beginning? The day I left for the Forbidden Forest, or the day I said I’d take on the mission? Or before that, even?”

“Wherever you want to start.” She Summoned an extra chair over to Bill’s bedside and took one of his hands in hers.

“I suppose,” he said slowly, “that it really began one day when I was six years old, and a strange witch and wizard knocked at my parents’ door. They had their son with them – he must have been a couple of years older than I was, but the father was carrying him because he was feverish and too weak to stand. His right arm was wrapped up in bandages and wouldn’t stop bleeding...”

“Calling Auror Tonks. Auror Tonks,” said a voice from his companion’s handbag.

“Bloody Calling Cards – they always go off when you least want them to. Excuse me a moment.” Tonks took the Calling Card out of her bag and glanced at the image on the front of it. “Wotcher, Gawain?”

Much of the conversation that followed was carried on in whispers. At last Tonks looked up. “That was Gawain Robards, and he sounded happier than he’s been in months. They made an arrest last night based on the tip you gave us about some of the other werewolves coming along as lookouts. Savage caught one of them on the Hogsmeade road, and from Gawain’s description, it sounds like it might be Craddock.” She looked at Remus. “They want me to make a positive identification, but I’ve never seen him. Would you mind coming along?”

Remus glanced at Molly and Bill. They were still fast asleep, and he supposed Madam Pomfrey was somewhere about in case Bill needed anything when he woke. “All right.”