The Way We Were

THREE

o

What Were, Was and Is

1990

"He was quite special," said Greyback. He stared with a malicious grin at the pictures lining the wall near the roof. Dolores Umbridge recoiled from his stare in disgust, but couldn't move out of her frame.

"I like them younger. He, however, had the seed in him of an aspiring leader. I would have liked to use him. But you interfered, of course, which luckily made me spot his weakness in time. So I let him go back to ruining himself, as he did so well without my help."

"Did you bite him?" asked Remus, ashen faced and with his wand loosely in his hand. Greyback shook his head.

"No," he growled, irritated and with his shoulders twitching stiffly. "I met him transformed on the full moon. I think it must have been one of his first. He was easily manipulated. He didn't want to attack the girl. He didn't attack her at all, the first time. That was me. But he respected the voice of authority as a wolf, even if he didn't when he tried and failed to be human. It's a pack thing; you know what I'm talking about. I made him lick the blood off her. Exquisite." He inhaled and exhaled slowly and with great passion. "Isn't it remarkable, Mr. Lupin, that you possess so much power; that you can stay so completely focused, but that the focus and the power is of a much wider scope than if you were human? Isn't it odd how you and your shape melt together at last, becoming a true self of genuine passion and superhuman reason? That is living. That's what pitiful humans never know... But you know it." He said the last sentence casually, as if this was as commonly known as the name of the national Quidditch captain. Remus silently shook his head, but Greyback didn't look at him. He was still staring around the room in a restless manner, as though expecting the roof of it to fall on his head, which, judging by the sounds of creaking and groaning wood above them didn't seem like an unfounded assumption.

"Your father, may he rest in peace..." Greyback let out a roaring, rasping howl of a laugh. "He didn't have much peace when he was alive, though, did he?" He turned and regarded Remus, who clenched his fists but looked otherwise unperturbed. "Always searching, never finding;" continued Greyback, "searching, searching for a cure for his poor little boy. But anyway, your father was a fool, and a useless piece of flesh. Walking around with his chin held high, as though he had any right to have his voice heard. Scorning me. Trying to teach me something."

"That's not how I knew him," Remus said, with a firm mildness in his voice which clearly wasn't directed towards Greyback, adding, not without a hint of anger in his voice, "You are the one who's a fool."

"Still bitter about that little incident, how sad," Greyback replied, a chilly wheeze in his deep voice. "It's so long ago. And yet, your father showed better than anyone, except perhaps your darling protégé, how weak a big enough chunk of pretence humanity can make you. Where has getting into that pathetic excuse for a school got you, eh? This," he stretched out both his arms and lifted his chin, "is where the world is headed. This is evolution!"

"Quite," said Remus and crossed his arms, looking down as though bored by an argument one has been forced to listen to many times and which one wants to show one's opponent by subtle, though crystal clear hints that one has grown tired of. Continuing in a reasoned tone indicating a desire to finish formalities quickly and point by point, Remus continued:

"How come you are still alive at such a ripe age, Fenrir? Surely, being a werewolf can't help your health any?"

"I will let you in on a little secret, Mr. Lupin," Greyback replied at once, the cold wheeze in his voice more pronounced than earlier. "You see, those dry numbers you fool around with when you should be out tasting blood; they are worthless. You examine those who wish to be examined. The numbers aren't very reliable, are they? You admit that, don't you?"

"No," said Remus, head cocked defiantly on one side and arms still crossed, "they are official records of age at point of death, and..."

"There aren't enough werewolves around to fill even the bathroom of the Shrieking Shack here," roared Greyback, furious at being interrupted, "who even for a moment accept the meaningless gibberish made into general conclusions that you throw around you! It doesn't fool any of the werewolves that I know!" He paused dramatically, and continued in a dangerous, level voice. "And that, I dare say, is a larger crowd than you can claim to have on your side. Nobody buys it, don't you see? And do you know why? Because you don't convince us. You don't know anything about yourself and we see that, and therefore rightfully ignore you." He paused again, this time to watch the impact his speech had made on the listener, which didn't seem to be satisfactory. He then continued, sounding angry, but controlled: "All you do is to make up lies that suit you. You don't know anything about the werewolf. And do you know why? Do you know why, Mr. John Lupin, Human and Self-Deceiver Professional? Because you don't embrace yourself! You don't appreciate what you've got, do you? You write in third person. You want a life you can never have. You fight the inevitable, don't you? But if you didn't; if you'd let yourself be what you are, your fate would become strength; not a weakness. It's as simple as that. When there is no resistance within you, you become whole, and if the halves don't wear themselves out fighting each other, you live long. That's the answer to your question. It's as simple as that."

Remus looked his opponent in the eyes, which were yellow and wide open with excitement.

"If it is as simple as that," he said, "one should think that all the rhetorical questions you use to explain it would be superfluous to the point of vanity."

A heavy silence followed, and Greyback approached him. Remus uncrossed his arms, but remained otherwise motionless.

"You are something of a wit," said Greyback slowly, "and I don't like wits."

"Fenrir," said Remus unexpectedly when that man was but feet away. Greyback started in surprise at the address, stepped back a pace and narrowed his eyes into thin slits of yellow light. "Why," Remus continued, "did you contaminate me, when it was my father who was your enemy?"

Greyback seemed to regain his grasp on the situation.

"'Bite me'!" he barked gleefully. "Call it by its name, mudblood. And I mean that literally too." Greyback gave another howl of laughter, and Remus made another impatient noise. "Yeah, I bit you!" Greyback shouted upon registering this. He then paused, and took another step backwards to regard Remus more closely. "Nearly tore your arm off, as I recall. Bitter, your blood tasted." Clearly intent on not answering the question, he crossed his arms, which made his robes stretch tightly around his upper body. "Do you know who I admire?" he said, inconsequentially, it seemed, and continued without waiting for an answer: "Damocles Belby. Talented young man. Unlike your father. I'm afraid I was a bit hungrier than I planned, though, so there wasn't much left of his little girl when I managed to get my mind back into focus." Remus bowed his head resignedly and pulled a hand through his hair. "It was a good tease to mangle his daughter, of course," continued Greyback, "but I do wish that she had survived so I could have raised her myself. And see if the filthy human could have saved her precious little soul with some of his magical medicine. To a lover of truth there is nothing so beautiful as a man losing his illusions."

An older Remus Lupin looked over at a man standing next to him.

"I don't think there is much more to see, sir," he said. "In a moment, he will throw me out."

"Very well, let us return," said Dumbledore, and with a last glance at his younger self about to reply something rash, Remus found himself soaring upwards and away from the scene.

o

July, 1995

o

They landed brutally on the floor of Dumbledore's office. As he was tossed from the Pensieve, the Headmaster of Hogwarts grasped the edge of the stone basin and as a result managed to narrowly avoid falling over. He staggered, but still landed in a movement so fast and agile that it looked almost intentional, and if not intentional, then extraordinarily supple. A little embarrassed, Remus got back on his feet and went over to sit down, tired, in the chair on the other side of the Headmasters' desk. Dumbledore sat down opposite him and patiently adjusted his robes around him before he leaned back in his chair with a contented sigh. Remus tried to look as though he too was comfortable, and crossed his legs jerkily.

"This is very valuable documentation," Dumbledore said at last and looked with kind eyes at Remus. "A first-hand witness of Fenrir Greyback's appearance and behaviour is in itself a great advantage to us, and not only that, but in spite of his scorn he seems to consider you a threat, which is most delightful. However, I hope you understand that I disagree with him; not only with his ideological beliefs, but most importantly right now, with his somewhat hostile view of you."

Remus looked past the headmaster at the window behind his chair. He wanted to look at the day outside, but only a thin stream of dark yellow afternoon sunlight was allowed to pass through the narrow gap between the curtains, and it was impossible to discern any shapes beyond it.

"Thank you, Albus," he said, not sure how else to respond. He could not honestly say that he had hoped for less.

"Might I ask why he threw you out?" said Dumbledore. "I respect your choice as a participant in the memory, to return to the present at this point in the conversation, but would you care to tell me?"

"I asked him if he was quoting Shakespeare," said Remus with a wry smile, "and as he didn't recognise the name, he took offence."

"Ah," said Dumbledore and chuckled. "A sensitive man, Fenrir Greyback.

"So how do you deem the situation now?" he continued, taking his glasses out of his pocket again and putting them back on his nose. "Do you think that their minds may be changed?"

"I'm afraid it may be pointless to try," said Remus. "But... I have been thinking about this, and if I understand you rightly, you believe, too, that the werewolf community has to be watched closely from now on?"

Dumbledore nodded.

"Yes. After the impression I got here, though the memory is five years old, I would, now more than ever, like you to find out as much as you can about where the werewolves stand at present. But I also think that you can change minds in the near future, when Voldemort is forced out into the open. I do not expect you to convert them all, but I do think you can appeal to their reason like nobody else. I trust that you do not believe that Greyback was as confident as he claimed?"

"I don't quite know, sir. He is..."

"Mad," said Dumbledore and watched Remus over the edge of his spectacles, head bowed in an authoritative manner which made no room for doubts. "And, might I add, more easily offended than I would consider safe for his blood pressure."

"Well, yes," said Remus, "but I have seen and encountered enough Death Eaters to recognise a pattern which is not just madness; a real conviction that there is... something, which will ensure victory, and which is based on, well, science, really; that there is a foundation in reason."

"But the ideology on which these assumptions are made isn't sound, even if it presents itself as reason," Dumbledore argued.

"No," said Remus. "But the form those ideas take is why I don't think I will be able to change opinions down there. It is, as you always say, strength of mind which is needed to choose opposition to Voldemort, and I don't know if I can inspire that kind of strength in them, especially if I have to try and adjust to their ways simultaneously as I present my case. I... I think I have become too disillusioned to be able to convince them that being on our side will reward or save them. Don't get me wrong; I promise you that I am as resolved as ever myself..."

"I know it isn't out of disrespect for your fellow werewolves that you say this, Remus, but I ask you to at least show them that they have a choice," said Dumbledore. His voice was almost imploring. "I think your own resolve can make a big difference to them. And you know the principles of persuasion as well as Greyback, who I must say is a rather crude rhetorician, so use his clichés against him. Don't give false promises, but tell them that they have a worth as individuals, not only as the features Greyback uses to make them get a sense of belonging."

"I don't think they will accept it," said Remus. "Fenrir is the one who addresses them as werewolves, and that is part of the reason for his success. He gathers them and includes them because they are werewolves, not in spite of it, as anyone from the outside will inevitably have to do."

"Yes, and I believe you will probably have to enhance your wolfish side if you are to win them over. But is that impossible for you?"

"No..." he looked down at his hands.

"Yet, you are hesitant," Dumbledore said gently.

"It's just; when..." he hesitated, "when Harry is not here, I think Sirius needs me."

"I agree," said Dumbledore. "But it will not be permanent and you will not have to live down there; at least not all the time."

Remus thought for a moment, his chin in his hand. He then let his hand fall and exhaled heavily.

"What I mean is just that it is bad enough that he should be locked up in Grimmauld Place, without there being nobody around who doesn't... I know this sounds wrong, but who doesn't see him with old eyes and who isn't completely on his side. We disagree sometimes, certainly, but..." he paused and looked thoughtful. "I know he likes to spend time with Nymphadora too, though," he said with a wry smile. "Makes him see that there is hope for the Black blood, and she can even make him laugh. And I suppose I worry about him too much sometimes. I just don't want him to disappear from view, I suppose, and the transition from what I will have to act as down there, to a stable person Sirius can rely on seems so difficult at the moment... I'm sorry; I'm wasting your time with this..."

"Not at all," said Dumbledore, "but perhaps it is not my business. Sirius has told me how he feels about Grimmauld Place, but I did not get the impression that he wanted you to sacrifice anything for him; quite the contrary."

Remus nodded and smiled slightly.

"I find the reference to Damocles Belby interesting," Dumbledore continued, and proved again, thought Remus, that he had an uncanny ability to steer a conversation where it was supposed to go exactly when it needed to go there. "This is years before he reached his final conclusions on the wolfsbane potion, isn't that right?"

"To be honest, I am not so sure about that," said Remus. "The general record of the discovery is 1992, the year before my employment, as you know. But I suspect that it had been invented quite a while before that point, and that the information was withheld. The SIREN facilities* misses some records from that period, and cannot account for what Damocles Belby did to earn his salary there from 87 to 89. That led to the tax revelations which finally brought the project down and forced Damocles into the University, where they didn't like his project much. Naturally, such a thing becomes remarked upon when the academic community is as small as it is in the wizarding world. But he had to publish scientifically, or his results wouldn't have been accepted."

"How did you learn this?" Dumbledore inquired, looking impressed.

"I don't have any evidence," Remus said apologetically. "But I asked them for the information, and I got to see the archives. I wanted to know, after I talked with Fenrir back there, if there weren't any traces of interference."

"And your father's death?" Dumbledore asked.

Remus frowned and looked down at his hands.

"He died of natural causes," he said. "Fenrir never saw him as a threat, only as a - well, I suppose 'wit' about covers it. But I did find out that it was in 89 that Belby's daughter was killed. Which may indicate that Fenrir knew Belby had been making progress; perhaps even reached a conclusion."

"I see," said Dumbledore and Remus let the Headmaster catch his eye at last. "Will you do it, Remus? We need somebody on the inside."

He uncrossed his legs, broke the eye contact again and leaned forward with his head in his hands.

"May I think about it for a little while?"

o

1989

o

One morning, Remus got a disconcerting owl. He and Mark were having breakfast. Or rather, they performed their by now daily ritual of Mark just having some tea and Remus encouraging him to eat with varying success, Mark enjoying this pursuit immensely. ("I'm not hungry." "You look hungry." "Don't be so old." "I just worry about your health." "My health is fine." "Considering last night, that much is obvious, but you must be starving after that racket you managed to make with that... Paul?" "Last week. It's Patrick." "Right, Patrick. I had to leave the charmed sound isolation of my room to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I heard you plainly, which I did not wish to but which I nevertheless did before I got back." "Now you're being really old. Can't I have sex in your house without you interfering?" "It will not divert me from my subject to tease me about my mental age." "But I'm not hungry." "You will starve to death, and we were getting along so well, I thought, and won't it be a shame if you did starve to death and left me all alone to fight the injustice of our shared diagnosis?" "Ra-ther." "Pretending to be a Drone won't help either." "Speaking of the Drones: I'll eat a roll if you throw it at me." "I wonder how we get along so well when you act like a child and I like I'm in my late sixties." "Go on, throw a roll at me." "Oh, all right.") Remus let the majestic, dark brown owl in when he saw it tapping eagerly on the window pane. It rushed inside as soon as the window was opened enough to allow it, and did a u-turn to get back to Remus, who relieved it of its letter. The owl took a precocious bite out of the basil plant before it flew off again into the sunlit morning.

"What is it?" asked Mark. Remus was frowning as he read.

"It's from Siren. She asks me to come and see a friend." He thought for a moment. "Would you like to come with me?" He had not really wanted to keep Mark outside of this. And not only that, Remus thought pedagogically, but the situation also provided him with an opportunity to try and expand Mark's rather biased view of his kind.

"Sure," said Mark, taking a bite out of his roll, "just have to go upstairs to shave first. Can't go out looking like a monster now, can we?" He looked Remus up and down with a meaningful look.

Remus smiled.

"As Siren says: You can turn into a werewolf, but you're born a comedian."

A short spell of blissful, tea-sipping silence followed, and Remus had just started to become immersed in an article about the entire Iraqi wizarding community (consisting of about three hundred) seeking a collective asylum in Britain but being held up by bureaucracy, when, from the stairs, a loud sound erupted:

"Remus?"

"Yes?" said the gentleman so named, equally loud. The stairs continued:

"Was the genius who built this house a fanatic about health and that sort of stuff?"

"Clarify, please," requested the gentleman.

"Well," said the stairs, "if you won't bother Apparating first thing after you wake up, which no sane person does anyway, you have to go down to breakfast every single morning, and then you have to go back up to the bathroom to make yourself presentable, only to get down the cursed stairs again to get outside. I mean, what the hell is that? Or is it just that it's cheaper to build tall than wide?"

"Probably that," said Remus. "But you don't normally have problems climbing the pitiful eighteen steps every morning."

"Gussie?" cawed the stairs.

No reply. Then, louder:

"I'm talking to you, Fink-Nottle!"

"It's Lord Emsworth" was the calm and unfazed, though still loud reply, followed by the demonstrative sound of Newspaper Being Straightened Out in front of Person at Breakfast Table. From the stairs:

"All right. Lord Emsworth?"

"Yes?" said the breakfast table.

"It's painful to walk," said the stairs.

"Well, you know what Shakespeare said," said the breakfast table.

"Beer and Wine is fine, but Wine and Beer makes queer?" said the stairs.

"No, 'Don't bite off more than you can chew,'" said the breakfast table.

"Oh, hilarious! You can turn into a werewolf, but you're born a comedian!" shouted the stairs, but with the muffled tones of a person who has just turned away to climb the sixteen remaining steep steps.

o

After Apparating from a Safe Spot and then walking for about ten minutes, they reached an enormous garden surrounded by a tall redbrick wall, which Remus indicated was their goal. The property was situated in a Muggle neighbourhood, and how whoever lived there had got a residential permit by the Ministry was beyond Mark. The sun shone brightly, the air was spring crisp in the street and he was out of cigarettes. How on earth did one get a residential permit in the middle of Muggle high-class suburbia!?

They walked along the high, ivy-topped wall for a while, and at last reached the main gate. When Mark read the plaque on the first pillar they passed, he started and slowed down.

"Remus, do you know Augustus Chafer?" he asked, baffled.

"Yes," said Remus, and let his eyes sweep over the plaque's inscription:

oOo

Sir Lord Augustus Chafer, Esq.

Ad unguem factus homo**

Appointments made by tellyfone

oOo

(The last bit had apparently seemed like an appropriate postscript, cunningly inserted to avoid conspicuousness with respect to the neighbours. That is what Muggles do to make appointments, isn't it? As there was no fone-number engraved underneath, however, the message did not result in a great number of appointment-makers.)

"Then why are you living in that bloody, stair-infested cardboard box of yours?" Mark asked with an indignant face. "He must be one of the richest wizards in Britain."

"The third richest. But he can't go around giving away gold directly to people like me," Remus replied placidly.

"Why?" asked Mark.

Just as Remus was about to encourage Mark to walk on with him, they saw Siren waving tiredly at them from inside the lavish, but neat and trimmed garden. She approached, and they could see that her half-smoked cigarette was hanging limply from between two of her fingers. She looked tired, as though she hadn't slept, but somehow, she was quite beautiful in her exhaustion. Perhaps, Mark thought fondly, it was because seeing her physically affected by something outside herself was such an unexpected change.

"Shouldn't we come in through the back door?" Remus asked her through the wrought-iron bars, looking around for signs of people. The street was quite deserted.

"There's not much point," she said gloomily and Mark frowned.

Remus put his hands uneasily in his pockets. He looked briefly at Mark to indicate that he should follow him inside as Siren opened the gate for them, but remained silent and thoughtful until they entered through the thick mahogany doors.

The entrance hall, which was enormous, and circular in shape, had walls made of expensive- and heavy-looking wood. Moving marble busts of wizards and witches on short marble pillars lined the walls all the way round, except where the main entrance door was situated and across the room, where a broad mahogany staircase led upstairs. All the busts turned and looked at them as they entered, and some of them tried to tell them something incomprehensible in Latin. As Siren and Remus ignored them, apparently having been there before, Mark did as well and turned his thoughts to other matters. How one got around on the ground floor was a mystery, he thought, when there were no other doors than the one leading outside, but he reasoned that there was probably a secret door or two hidden somewhere along the wall.

"Why are we here?" he asked the others quietly. His voice resounded aristocratically from the walls, making him uneasy, and the busts continued to speak in hushed voices, though none of them shouted their Latin any longer.

"I didn't know he'd bring you," said Siren, eyeing Remus rather scornfully. "But I suppose it doesn't matter much.

"Cleaves wants us to wait here," she told him as an aside note.

"But how come you two know him?" Mark asked.

"He's a werewolf," said Siren, looking distractedly around her for the valet.

"No," Mark said, incredulous.

"Yes," Remus corrected him.

"And no-one knows?" asked Mark.

"No. Just me, Siren, his valet and now you," said Remus.

"So he's been keeping it away from the public, then?" Mark inquired, worked up now. "He's asked you to help him keep it a secret?"

"Yes," said Siren.

"Then, he's worse than I thought he was," Mark exclaimed and looked around him, suddenly furtive. His voice bounded back at him from the walls, and this time he winced at the echo.

"Homo homini lupus!" a bust of an old, bearded man shouted angrily in response, but Mark ignored it and continued in a more hushed voice. He sounded almost comically serious and eager. "I mean, I knew he was a ruthless capitalist," he said, "but come on: he's obviously keeping a carrot in front of your noses just so you won't rat on him. Correct me if I'm wrong, there have been carrots?" At this, Siren interrupted.

"He's a good man," she said passionately. This was an unexpected statement for her, who generally regarded men as something to take advantage of and then pretend things had never happened with, Remus thought unhappily.

"Well, we could have an existential discussion on the definition you use for him," Mark began, but Remus stopped him with a glance, thinking how lucky it was for Siren that Augustus Chafer was so difficult to dislike.

"There have been carrots, Mark," he said gravely, "but there has never been the threat of punishment. And he has helped us."

An exasperated sigh from Mark.

"How the hell? Cardboard boxes and bartending?"

"Well, there you have it, actually," said Remus, becoming as eager as Mark, but very differently so. "The Shrieking Shack. Or as it says in his accounting: broom maintenance. And more importantly, he has made political moves. He is very clever, and an extremely potent collaborator. If we can figure out how to make him a spokesperson, it may not be too late to give werewolves a respectable name."

"Remus," Siren grabbed his arm and he was reminded of how distressed she looked.

He checked himself and uttered a soft "oh".

"But how the hell come no-one's found out?" asked Mark.

"Well, as I said, he is very clever," Remus continued with a small smile. "Do you remember when he gave that massive, controversial support for the vampires?"

"Yes," Mark admitted huffily. "PR stunt to get people who aren't so stupid that they're conservative over on his side when he stood for election to the national Quidditch board."

Remus smiled at the immediacy of his conclusion.

"Well, he also stood up for the werewolves then," he explained, "but he made sure that it was the vampire aspect of the matter which gained the most attention..."

"And he could hardly be suspected of being a vampire with his tan," Siren interjected.

"Back then," said Remus, "he managed to create a fund for research for a cure against lycanthropy without anyone even suspecting his background. There has even been a slight change in the media coverage of werewolves after his appeal. You might say that he manages to reach out to the part of all witches and wizards which feels differentiated from the world they live in. The insecurity which separates us from the Muggles and keeps our numbers down. Our underlying fear of them. But he's... he's old... for a werewolf. And I think that's why we're here."

He looked uncertainly at Siren, who in response turned without a word and went to look for the valet again.

While they waited, the air in the entrance hall developed a habit for nasty oppressiveness.

"I saw my mum die," Mark said at last, unable to stand listening to the constant murmurs and whispers from the busts. "I mean, she died quietly. I have never seen anybody get killed. But I saw her floating away; out to sea, kind of."

"Oh," said Remus.

"My worst nightmare," said Mark, "is to kill somebody. When I thought for a moment that Mary was dead, I was ready to die myself. If you kill when you're a werewolf, nothing is accidental, you know? You can't say that it's accidental, because it's you and you can't even begin to try to defend anything. Not to your own conscience, anyway, even if you can cough up something to the Aurors who catch you or whatever. I mean, you've tried pushing it away, you know it doesn't work; you're just too present in the monster. And that's why I can't stand being a werewolf. I can't stand it at all. I mean, there is no release. Nobody who understands you. And here's this guy, with a bloody castle, and the only reason why he has it is because he lies and says he isn't something that he is. Do you want to hear my poem?"

Remus regarded him.

"Loss is complex," he said. "You move through stages. It never goes away, but it is still surmountable. If you want to die one moment, it passes on to something else the next. It's part of learning to grieve."

"I don't know," said Mark. "I don't think it's like that for everybody."

"What's this poem of yours?" said Remus. Mark pulled a piece of parchment from his jeans pocket and Muggle camouflage, and cleared his throat.

"I do not mind the bacon bit..." he began. As a result of most of the busts being of former poets, silence slowly filled the room as it was observed that the speech coming from the boy consisted of a regular sequence of iambs.

o

They entered the bedroom.

It reminded Remus of a deathbed scene from Dickens.

The man's knowledge about how and when he was going to die would soon remind Mark about how elephants' graveyards were created.

Siren lighted another cigarette.

The valet stood motionless by the door.

Augustus Chafer lay on his back in his bed with the sheets spread neatly and tightly out along both sides of the mattress. His arms lay limply along his sides. The presence of the rest of his body was barely visible as a shape under the sheets, upsetting their straightness. He seemed to be sleeping.

"Has a healer been consulted?" Remus asked as he regarded the white-faced man in the enormous bed. He kept his voice down to a murmur, almost a whisper, and the valet's reply sounded like a gust of summer breeze when he replied.

"No, sir," he said. "Mr. Chafer does not wish to be treated." The tone in his whisper was bitterer than it probably should be, according to the decorum expected of a manservant. He knitted his brow and checked himself, and then drew a quick breath. He turned his eyes firmly over to Siren, and determinedly eyed her cigarette with much the same condescending, unshatterable calm as a tigress watching a grasshopper being cheeky with her young. His concern about his employer was still present, though, but to maintain a proper form and remain true to his duty, the valet had forced this concern into submission under a point of slight annoyance without significance. Mark was deeply impressed.

"I see," said Remus.

He thought that he wanted to draw the curtains completely back and let the sun in properly. They were half-drawn, as though resigned to a position in the middle of a movement. Remus thought the room was too dark.

"I am not going to make it through the next full moon," Augustus Chafer said unexpectedly from the bed. All the faces in the room turned his way, making an audible swishing sound.

"Remus," he then said. "Get the letter on the bedside table."

Remus went over to the bed, fetched the envelope in question and retreated a little in a mixture of respect and awkwardness. He looked again at Augustus Chafer, who nodded stiffly, and opened the envelope. Remus absorbed the contents of the sheet of parchment with his eyebrows raised in surprise.

"I am not going to tell you not to do this," he said slowly when he had finished reading.

Augustus Chafer looked at him with his dry lips pressed hard together, and nodded.

"Good," he said. "I don't have the strength to persuade you. Send it off to The Daily Prophet."

"Now?" said Remus.

"No. Wait. But don't hesitate once I'm gone."

"What is it?" Siren asked throatily. Mark shuffled his feet a little.

"A confession," said Remus. "And some uncanny praise of us. No names mentioned, luckily, but uncanny."

Augustus Chafer laughed hoarsely.

"I thought it might do more bad than good, but you can cut it out and pin it to the kitchen notice board if you like. No names, as you say, so you should be safe if it turns out bad."

"Remus doesn't have a kitchen notice-board," Mark said accusingly. It was the first thing he had said inside the room. Augustus Chafer looked at him curiously, and Remus looked at him briefly. Mark scowled back at the man in the bed for a moment before he averted his eyes and looked down at the carpet.

"You're such a childish brat," Siren said all of a sudden and left their side to sit on the chair by Augustus Chafer's bed.

o

Siren was smoking, using a small, ancient urn on the bedside table as ashtray, and the valet showed a constant, though minimal display of displeasure at her presence by a twitch in his right nostril. Remus and Mark had been offered chairs along the north wall of the room, and they sat in silence, looking down or out what was visible of the large window facing them.

Some twenty minutes of silence passed, during which Augustus Chafer's breathing was becoming more regular and the pair by the north wall was switching point of focus less frequently. They began to relax. As Remus was beginning to nurture a hope that he may recover for the time being, Augustus Chafer suddenly gave a sudden, gasping intake of breath, and then a lung-wrenching cough which woke him up from his resumed sleep.

Siren rose abruptly from her chair by the bed, not able to restrain herself any longer. She crawled onto the mattress with childlike movements and put her arms around his neck.

"I'll stay with you," she said, and Mark felt a surge of revulsion. His respect for Siren only reached as far as her own dignity, which he had never seen so blatantly out of place before. He decided he would not ask Siren for a cigarette after all.

Augustus Chafer touched the back of Siren's head with a weak hand as the pace of his breathing became fast and irregular again.

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, the words hardly discernable. "Siren. Forgive me, please, I've been..."

"No!" She clung to him more tightly, but her voice was even and unemotional. "Don't apologize," she almost shouted, and she held onto him even tighter. Remus turned his head. He thought he had seen out of the corner of his eye that the valet by the bedroom door made a movement. When he looked, however, Cleaves was standing quite still with his hands on his green-clad back, though a worried, pained frown had permitted itself to enter his forehead and replace his mild annoyance. Proper form was letting its grip break.

The clock struck the half hour, and the sound was eerie next to the wheezing breathing of Augustus Chafer. Remus looked at Siren once more. Her nose and lips were pressed lightly against the werewolf's cheek. He looked over at Mark, who was still staring at the floor. He thought to himself that the fact that he was rich was something for which Mark would never be able to forgive Augustus Chafer.

"Can you explain why this is happening, sir?" Remus almost jumped as the valet addressed him. In an inaudible glide, he had moved over to where they were sitting. He looked over at his employer and then down at Remus again. "He is only fifty-four years old." The valet no longer lowered his voice.

"He is older than the average age at point of death for werewolves," Remus replied, and he too kept his voice as normal as possible, though it was hard to say what was normal when the silence was so loud.

"Indeed, sir?"

Mark let out an inappropriate snort of laughter at the valet's Wodehousian choice of words, but as Remus did not spare him a look either amused or reproachful, he stopped on his own accord.

"Well," said Remus, "the inner organs go through a dramatic change every month, which strains them very hard, and that weakens them over time. And in almost all cases, it causes the werewolf to die prematurely."

"But does this always happen?" inquired the valet. "He is a healthy man, otherwise."

Remus hesitated. He didn't quite know how to answer, because he didn't have an answer he believed in enough to sound convincing.

"Many werewolves' lifespan are limited by alcoholism," he began slowly, "but as the condition also makes them more resilient to the actual effects of alcohol, this additional shortening is limited. And, as you know, it clearly isn't alcohol which is worsening Mr. Chafer's health. His heart is simply tired as an old man's by being jostled around so much. It's more like a disease than most people realize."

At this, Siren sat up on the bed, crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes as she looked away from all of them and out through the window at the bright day. Augustus Chafer stroked her arm, calmly, from her elbow, down to her hand, and she let him with an affectionate frown.

"Extraordinary," said the valet absent-mindedly as he looked past Remus at the couple on the bed. "How do you know all this?"

"I have researched the subject," Remus said calmly and made Augustus Chafer laugh and cough again.

o

The three of them left an hour later, with Augustus Chafer's well-wishes and requests that they should not come back hanging over their heads. Siren said goodbye to the two others once they reached the outside of the gates, and then carelessly Apparated on the spot. "Oh dear. That will be one hell of a fine," said the valet Cleaves as he closed the wrought-iron gates behind Remus and Mark. He tutted in a passing, momentary surge of happiness, took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to Remus, who declined, and to a grateful Mark. He then turned on his heel and walked back up to the house, shoulders uncharacteristically hunched and a gloomy saunter weighing down his steps. Mark was disappointed. He felt himself turn disillusioned with the glorious breed which was valets.

o

"I don't think I like the way Siren took it," said Mark as they walked back home. "No tears. Nothing. She's not human, I tell you. My mascara is running, and I don't even have sympathy for the guy." He dropped the cigarette butt, stepped on it and plucked coyly at an eyelash before he walked on.

"Well, she had hoped to marry him," said Remus, mouth twitching. "But that would have been another thing which could have threatened his career. The same reason he didn't want to be treated by Healers."

"A bit pathetic, though, don't you think?" Mark was fishing.

"Come on, don't put it like that," said Remus. "The man is dying. It hasn't been easy for him. And it's been even harder for her."

"Right. Does she even try to love him back?" Mark asked.

"What do you mean?" said Remus. "Of course she loves him."

"Oh, yeah? Nothing to do with his gold?"

Remus hesitated.

"Yes," he said at last, firmly. "Probably. But she does love him, I think."

"Bad form, though," said Mark.

"Those books are really getting to you, aren't they?" said Remus with the shadow of a grin on his face.

"Yup," Mark admitted with a shrug. "But it is 'bad form'. She doesn't date werewolves. You said so."

"Marriage isn't the same as dating," Remus said pointedly, wishing Mark would lay off the subject.

"Oh, bollocks," Mark responded casually. "She could have married you, then?"

"No, she couldn't," said Remus. "I wouldn't be able to change the Werewolf-Marriage Prohibition Law."

"You could hex me with an empty stick," said Mark and stopped. "There's no such thing, is there?"

"Afraid so. It is a law from medieval times, but the Ministry are afraid we will bite their arm off if they offer us that finger by altering it," said Remus, continuing to walk.

"Offer them a finger, then," Mark said with a snort as he ran to catch up with Remus, who couldn't help letting out an involuntary laugh at his indignant spite.

"'Hex me with an empty stick,'" Remus mused after a few seconds' silence; "is that your version of 'you could knock me down with a feather'?"

Mark bowed dramatically as he walked.

"Exactly. Quite pleased with that one."

They went home and sat around waiting for the full moon, which was due in two days. On the afternoon before the night they were going to transform, Remus got distracted as he was putting up the charm to block the way out, by Mark grabbing him gently by the elbow and leaning in close to his upper arm in a resigned, affectionate way. This was an odd combination, thought Remus, but he knew his perception did not deceive him. He knew that this time of month he couldn't fail to know intuitively exactly what was meant. At this time of month he always knew it when Siren wanted him, when she wanted him to do something about it, when she was angry with him because he didn't do anything about it, and right now, he knew that Mark was being extremely nervous, resigned and affectionate. They sat down and talked. That is, Mark talked and Remus looked tentatively at Mark while he did so. "I don't quite know what to do about that," Remus said quietly when Mark had finished, and Mark looked up at once from the carpet. "You don't have to do anything," he replied quickly. "All you need to do is know it. And ignore it." There was a pause. Remus considered. "Well," he said. The sound of his voice hardly reached outside the space between them. "Yes?" said Mark; "shall I put on some Valid Tumor Alarm?" He thought for a moment, raising his eyes to the ceiling, feeling stupid tears threaten intrusion. "Or not," he said shakily. "No, better not. It's just this dying happening, which makes you spill that kind of thing because it can be too late to tell the truth so fast. But heavy rock is probably useless." "Maybe we could, I don't know, try it?" Remus said uncertainly, wondering what the hell he was doing, and how easily it could hurt Mark to go there. Mark looked at him blankly. "I don't know if it will work," said Remus, "but if you..." He was interrupted as he spoke when Mark kissed him.

That night, Mark killed Mary Hunter, who was on her way to a party with some friends. He tracked her down within less than fifteen minutes of his escape. Remus tried to follow Mark as he escaped through the door that Remus had forgotten to finish blocking, but Mark was gone before Remus could force his consciousness to the surface enough to be at all safe out of doors. And out of sight Mark went; fast as an arrow and howling with happiness.

o

EPILOGUE

o

Two days of silent attempts at staying in this world later, Mark committed suicide with something as mundane and Muggle as the blade of a razor, in Remus's bathtub. It was like him, his friends would have said. He was always just as ready to use Muggle means to do something if the same results could be expected.

Siren never found out. She just assumed he had gone off to live somewhere else with a boyfriend or other. And it was only the killing of the girl which was reported in the news, not the suicide. Augustus Chafer died in mid-transformation on the same night that Mark killed Mary Hunter. Siren was with Augustus Chafer at his mansion when he died. Through a daze of confused change of shapes, she felt the heart in the beast lying right next to her on the lavish carpet slow down as his talons grew and his face became distorted, until the heart stopped completely and the transformation ceased to progress. The picture of the partially transformed body which covered the front page in The Prophet the next day repulsed the wizarding public and made the dead man's confession printed next to it sound nothing but pathetic. After that night, Siren stopped noticing much of what happened to the werewolves surrounding her. She began to try and fit in among wizards of high social standing, using hired help for The Shrieking Shack in the beginning, but letting the pub fall slowly apart for want of repair as she was using the means Augustus Chafer had secured for the pub's benefit for more personal spendings. So the place shut down after a little while. But Siren's compromises to become content continued. They were some so dark and devastating that even the werewolf community which Fenrir Greyback rallied around him in the former pub sometimes feared her. Greyback, it was remarked, spoke of her to the werewolves as a pioneer for his Mission, and in the respectable corridors of the Ministry, Cornelius Fudge was simultaneously quoted saying that she was an excellent example of the right kind of being co-operation. What she had done to deserve such merits, however, was unknown, and fear prevented too daring speculations.

And as Mark's body was carried downstairs by Healers past him, Remus sat in the stairs up to the first floor in his little house, his head tiredly in his hands, hands entangled in his greying hair, hair like a stormy sea on his head, shirt ruffled on his chest and his heart reluctantly pounding on underneath.

o

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* The intentionally vaguely named Serious and Interesting Research Enterprise, which was a private establishment founded and funded by Augustus Chafer. By the three researchers employed in it, it was known as the Society for an Inquiry into certain Ramifications of Extra-human Night-creatures. This, admittedly, wasn't an awful lot less vague, but nevertheless approached the subject more accurately. Wizard scientists as a rule resent precision in the definition of their work, and this is after all understandable, magic being as confusing as it often is.

o

** "A man of perfect finish" or "Human to the Finger-Tips". The quote is from Horace.

o