Nox Redux

Chapter 6

Back at the cottage, Remus filled the kettle in the scullery and got the tea things out.

Snape angrily flung himself down onto one of the kitchen chairs and sat, drumming his fingers on the table.

"I'm making the tea as fast as I can, Severus," Remus said, amused.

"What?" Snape looked at him in puzzlement, then down at his hand. "Oh, that. I was just thinking." He didn't elaborate.

Remus took the biscuit tin down from its shelf. "I would have thought the next thing we should do is report back to Dumbledore."

"We? Well I certainly will. You can if you want." he glared up at Remus, but took a biscuit from the tin the other was holding out.

"I'm sure he will appreciate the different viewpoints we have on what has happened."

"Different viewpoints? I only see two possible explanations for Black's disappearance. He's either dead or has defected to Voldemort."

"For God's sake, Severus!" Remus shouted, feeling an almost overwhelming urge to shake some sense into the other wizard. "After all that has happened how can you still think that Sirius of all people would willingly have anything to do with Voldemort?"

Snape blinked in the face of the other man's outrage.

"Nobody's asking you to like him, just accept that he hates Voldemort as much as you do." Remus shook his head in exasperation and turned back to making the tea. He tapped the kettle with his wand, and immediately it started to boil, it's whistling breaking into the tension that jangled around the room. Remus filled the teapot and left the tea to infuse.

Snape only stayed long enough to drink half his tea. Once he had left, Remus sat down and wrote a message to Dumbledore telling him they would see him the next day. After he had closed the window on the owl, he sat down again at the kitchen table. He felt tired. He really shouldn't let Snape get to him like that, he knew. God knows, the man had reason enough to hate Sirius. And no doubt felt he was justified in thinking the worst of him, because after all, his friends had believed it for long enough. And Remus remembered that awful November fourteen years ago, and how quickly he had accepted that Sirius had committed those appalling atrocities. Pot calling the kettle black, Moony, he told himself.

---

Sirius had just finished the second helping of scrambled eggs that Rose had given him without even asking if he wanted it, and was watching Finn distastefully moving his spoon around his muesli filled cereal bowl. "Don't eat it if you don't like it," he said to the boy in an amused voice.

Finn made a face. "She'll go mental if I don't. Bleeding hamster food." He sighed. "She's great most of the time, but really nutty when it comes to food, you know?"

Sirius grinned. "I think I had a great-aunt a bit like that," he said.

They were sitting at the table having breakfast. Rose was outside, tidying up, making sure they didn't leave any mess. Sirius sipped his tea, looking at Finn as the boy finally gave up on his cereal. Year or two older than Harry, he thought. "Do you live with your Gran all of the time?" he asked.

"Nah, Just until me exam results come out. I'm going to college in the autumn if the grades are good enough."

"To do what?"

Finn rolled his eyes as if it should have been obvious but when it clearly wasn't said, "Computer Science." And he started to tell Sirius all about the course he hoped to do with an enthusiasm and passion that reminded him of Harry talking about Quidditch. It was odd, he thought, letting the incomprehensible details of Finn's course wash over him, but the boy must have some talent, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to see past the glamour on the herbalist's shop.

"So, pretty cool, huh?"

Sirius blinked, "Er, yes, pretty cool," he agreed.

Finn took a gulp of his tea. "So, where does your mate Moony live then?"

"Somerset, near Glastonbury."

"Glastonbury? Gran'll be in her element, real hippy country that." Finn suddenly looked suspicious. "Your mate's not a hippy is he?"

Sirius made a pretence of thinking hard for a moment then shook his head. "No. I don't think so."

Rose clambered up into the bus. "If you two have finished your breakfast you, Finn can do the washing up, she said.

"Aw, Gran!"

"And take the bowl outside."

Finn muttered something under his breath, but cleared the dishes off the table into a red plastic bowl and carried it outside."

Rose sat down opposite Sirius. "So, how do you feel about letting us take you to your friend today then?"

He frowned. "Why do you want to? Why's it so important to you? Shouldn't you just hand me over to the police?"

Rose looked disappointed. "But I've always wanted to meet a werewolf," she complained. Then she grinned, "Look, knowing what you are, I doubt very much that what Finn found on his computer about you bears much relationship to reality. If you want to tell me what's really going on with you, well, sometimes it helps to talk, and I'm a good listener."

He looked down at his hands for a moment, at the scabbed-over grazes on his knuckles and the fading red lines criss-crossing his palms, realising that he didn't want to think about the recent past too closely himself never mind discuss it with anyone else. He looked back up. "Thanks, but…"

"No worries. Just a thought." She leaned back in her chair and looked at him through narrowed eyes. "But I get to meet the werewolf, right?"

He rolled his eyes, but eventually nodded in defeat. "Just don't say anything to him, OK? He's not a fairground attraction." He was beginning to regret ever saying a word about Moony.

"Do people really treat him like one?"

"When they're not running away screaming. And I wasn't being flippant."

Rose frowned. "I'm sorry, I didn't think. It can't be much fun for him."

"It's not."

It didn't take long to get everything organised. Rose sent Finn up the track to make sure it was clear - if they met a tractor coming down it would be hard to reverse back. Once up onto the lane, Finn climbed back on board, and she told him to work out a route with the road atlas. "Back roads mind!" And so, they twisted and turned along narrow lanes with high hedges passing the occasional small village, out of Berkshire, through Wiltshire keeping to the north of Salisbury Plain, then south of Bath and towards the Mendips.

"Right, Sirius, mate, you're gonna have to be a bit more specific than 'near Glastonbury'," Finn told him.

"It's about a mile outside a village called Mulcheney Norton. Not sure how far that is from Glastonbury - it's to the north." Sirius tried to visualise how he would approach on Buckbeak to compare that with the map. Suddenly he shivered as he realised he couldn't remember what had happened to the hippogriff. He remembered falling. But then nothing until he had woken up in Voldemort's dungeon. The feeling of foreboding he'd had yesterday returned. He tried to shove it away, told himself that the reason he couldn't remember what had happened to Buckbeak was probably because he had never known, and eventually the feeling receded. But he still felt uneasy.

There had been a lot of rain in recent days, and as they headed out onto the lower ground south of the Mendips, they were brought up short by a river, burst out of its banks. It took time to retrace their route and find an alternative way to the village, so it was late by the time they drove up the narrow lane towards the cottage Moony lived in.

Rose looked doubtfully up the track Sirius assured her led to his friend's cottage. "Be a tight squeeze getting the bus up there," she told him.

"Let me out, I'll go ahead and make sure. And, let him know he's got company," he replied, jumping down.

In bottom gear, Rose carefully drove the bus down the track behind him. Now that they were here, he felt relieved more than anything. The track eventually opened out into Moony's overgrown garden. "Just park it here," he told Rose over his shoulder. "There won't be anyone coming up behind you."

Finn jumped down out of the bus as well and came and stood beside him. Turning to him, Sirius said, "Wait here. I'll go and see if he's in. He doesn't get many visitors."

He walked up to the door and banged on it shouting, "Moony! It's me!" but no one came to the door. He walked round the outside of the cottage, which was quite difficult in places due to the brambles, and peered in the windows. Eventually he walked back to where Rose and Finn were waiting. "I don't think he's in," he told them.

"So what do we do?" asked Finn.

"You don't have to wait, you know, if you don't want to, " Sirius told them, but Finn's expression told him what he thought of that suggestion.

"Well if you're sure your friend won't mind, Sirius, we'll stay here overnight," replied Rose, yawning, "And I don't know about you pair, but I'm shattered."

Finn clambered back onto the bus, but Rose put out a hand to stop Sirius following him. "Just a minute, you'd better take a couple of these," she said holding out a foil strip of pills.

"What are they for?" he demanded cautiously.

Rose shrugged. "Keep the demons away at night," she responded with a slight smile.

What? He drew back, shaking his head and said, "I don't think so."

Rose's expression changed, became more serious. "It wasn't a suggestion," she told him. "You need sleep, we all need sleep."

Oh. Like that was it? He sighed and held out his hand. She popped out two small white pills from the strip and they fell onto his palm. He looked at them for a minute then put them in his mouth and swallowed them, making a face at the bitter taste.

" G' Night," said Rose, "No dreams."