Hand-me-Downs

That night was Remus's last one before he was due to transform. Where the previous night had brought a slight needling from the moon, the Wolfsbane Potion acting on it now left him feeling leaden, feverish and ill. When Molly rang the bell for dinner, he had to drag himself out of bed and down to the kitchen, with Sirius quietly shadowing him. Molly remarked on how pale and sickly he looked; he could only tell her that it was normal and try to eat as well as he could. He knew it would be better for his health, especially now, to have a hearty dinner, but his stomach was feeling surly, and he ate slowly and tediously to avoid offending it.

He and Sirius again sifted through boxes in the sitting room, but Sirius was still in his darkly silent mood, and Remus lacked the energy to keep him talking tonight. He didn't think that his friend was being totally remote, however. Sirius seemed to notice that he felt so unwell and to make a point of staying physically closer to him than usual; they took the boxes one by one and unpacked them together, where before they would have split up. It made the work go more slowly, but surely tonight any progress was an achievement.

At some point Remus thought to ask why Sirius had gone to sleep in his parents' bedroom, and Sirius said that the effect of all the blue paint somehow hadn't been agreeing with him. Besides, it had been safe once. Lupin recalled what Arabella had said, that it would be a good idea to reclaim one room as their own through use rather than stripping it, and supposed that the Master Bedroom would be a good candidate--especially since doing otherwise might finally kill poor Kreacher. A sarcastic sniff at that last observation was Sirius's only reply.

When the moonlight disappeared into the morning, some of the sick feeling faded with it, enough that after breakfast Remus could settle in comfortably to sleep for the day, his last chance to rest before the three night period of Full Moon began. He and Sirius again took the master bedroom, and with the Wolfsbane Potion still effecting him, he slept very soundly until he was awakened by the first sliver of the rising moon tickling in his bones: that dreaded, familiar feeling... He turned over toward the window; the sun was completely gone, but it didn't seem dark. Before it was even half-risen, the moon shone oppressively bright. And he was alone in the room. Sirius must have left earlier, and he must have slept through it...

Remus took off his clothes to prevent them being torn and lay down again in the bed to wait, covered by the fine sheets and bedspreads. Despite having been a werewolf practically all his life, he could never get used to this. It was always terrible, waiting for it to happen; he wanted it to be over, but his dread stretched every second. Still, such a blessing to meet it like this, after last month... So much worse to be in one of the Ministry's stone boxes, waiting to go insane and begin attacking the only victim he could reach--himself--and there, he'd been hopelessly far from anyone but cold beaurocrats and fellow unfortunates, cut off from any warm voice or face or touch... That was the one thing he wished for now: that someone could be with him...

He heard the bedroom door open and shut, and he knew that it must be Sirius he could feel sitting down on the edge of the bed and laying a hand on his shoulder. "Bearing up?"

"I always do," Remus answered, his voice quiet and strained despite his gratitude. "I suppose this is my last chance to say anything to you for three nights." He felt it coming closer... There were no more than minutes left, and then for three nights he wouldn't be able to speak. Suddenly realizing that, he wanted to say something, something that could keep Sirius afloat in whatever his trouble was for that long, but he couldn't think what that would be. "That means that when the new members come, you'll have to do the talking for both of us."

"Hm. Perhaps I'll find some common ground with Shacklebolt," he joked, but dully.

Remus began to panic as it left off at that. Every moment was a wasted chance, but the more desperate he became for something to say, the more his mind was frozen...

Stay with me!

It gripped him in the last moment with a violent need to say just that, not even knowing what it meant. He fought to shout it: "Stay--!" --but the wave of force with which it had struck his mind turned to a convulsion in his body, and after that one word he seized up too completely to speak or even cry out from the pain that wracked him. Bones contracting, bones pushing and stretching... His fingers drew up into padded toes; the nails pinched and curled into claws. Every millimetre of him was caught up in the throes of it, as if it were sheer effort of his muscles reshaping his frame, arduously forcing out every hair in the thick pelt, as if that straining agony would go on and on until his body tore itself to pieces...

And then it was finished and left him panting for only a few breaths, with barely even a residual ache. A moment ago it had felt as if his body were contorting into something totally alien, but now that he had achieved it, the wolf shape was perfectly natural, if impractical. As always he was ineffably thankful for the potion that let him keep his mind and be himself even in this other body.

Lupin nosed his way out from under the bedspreads and freed himself from them by turning in a circle and stepping around the pillows. Sirius reached over to stroke his fur and pat his shoulder. "It's pretty late; the others have left already," he said. "Do you want something to eat?"

Remus tossed his head up and down; it was the easiest thing to communicate, even though the nodding gesture wasn't so natural for a wolf. He hopped down off the bed as Sirius got up to lead him down to the kitchen. The stairs were tricky--usually, even medicated, he just shut himself in somewhere when he was transformed and so now had very little experience with the obstacle--but his friend waited patiently for him at each landing. When they arrived at the bottom and entered the kitchen, Sirius made a plate of leftovers from dinner and warmed it with his wand. He was still strangely quiet, but he sat down on the floor so that Lupin could sit on his haunches face to face with him, and he cut the meat and potatoes into pieces and fed Remus with a fork.

Sirius spent the night on the sitting room again, and Lupin stood watch with occasional sniffing and napping. His wolf nose did come in useful at least once when he scented out some objects that had gotten Obfuscamela oil on them, rendering them impossible for the eye to notice but leaving a distinctive floral scent. Even when Sirius felt around where Lupin was sniffing and managed to pick them up, they couldn't fix their eyes on the things enough to identify them, so he just put them aside in a marked box to clean the oil off later.

The most words that were uttered all night came when Kreacher intruded, at first looking in from the doorway, but he slipped into the room when Sirius and Remus weren't looking and snuck close to them using the boxes for cover. His muttering started out very quiet, but soon the epithets aimed at the "filthy dog" became too loud and vulgar to ignore, and Sirius ordered him out of the room. There was no hiding Lupin's lycanthropy now, and Kreacher's "Lady" would obviously not have approved.

Molly's breakfast bell roused Remus from a nap; he lifted his head from his paws and pricked his ears at the sound, and he and Sirius picked themselves up and started toward the kitchen. No sooner had they left the sitting room, however, than Kreacher appeared again to shadow them, muttering the foulest verbal abuse toward Lupin and hovering threateningly close over him. Sirius had descended the first flight of stairs and Lupin had only taken about a third of them--climbing up the stairs as a wolf was fairly easy, but getting down them was hard--when Kreacher closed in so near to him that he didn't have room to maneuver, lost his footing, and half-tumbled down a few steps with a yipe.

Sirius whipped around. "Leave him alone!" he barked at Kreacher.

The house-elf straightened as much as his shrivelled little body would, and he bowed. "Kreacher obeys his Master," he said, and disappeared back into the fourth-floor hallway. Sirius started downward again with a disgusted frown.

Remus continued struggling down the stairs. Planting his front paws lower than the back ones made him feel like he was going to tumble, unless he did it so carefully as to be quite slow. He tried it backward and sideways, but the result was the same, and he heard the footsteps echoing further and further down--Sirius wasn't waiting for him this time until the very bottom, and having started from the fourth floor, this was going to take awhile...

He had almost reached the second landing when he heard a sharp whisper. "Silencio. Mobililupus." Suddenly he felt himself becoming weightless, and he pawed frantically at the stairs as he was lifted off them. Under the Silencing Charm, no sound came out when he tried to bark in alarm, and he slid dizzyingly through the air--like when Sirius had picked him up and awakened him from his dream. As he rose back upward tail-first and the stairway wheeled and descended below him, he was turned to see Kreacher standing there, leathery old arms upraised. "Master tells Kreacher leave plague-ridden dog alone. Kreacher leaves filthy animal alone..."

Lupin struggled and twisted, trying to see what was going on around him, and as Kreacher magically carried him into the fourth-floor hallway, he caught a glimpse over his shoulder and saw the broom closet standing open. Realizing what was going to happen, how Kreacher had warped Sirius's order, he tried as hard as he could to bark out loud and pawed toward the walls, the doors, anything he might be able to touch, but it was no use. Kreacher kept him Silenced and out of reach of all of those things, and like this, he couldn't cast a spell, couldn't even grip anything that might come to his paw...

Kreacher turned him over onto his back and floated him into the closet, then shut him inside. As soon as he was free to move, he leapt to paw at the doors, but an aura of force held him back from touching them--a reversed Imperturbable charm. Lupin knew that would also keep any sound he made from escaping, but it was only one-directional; he clearly heard the padlock on the door being fastened. Kreacher was quite literally leaving him alone, abandoning him in the solitary confinement of the closet.

The hallway outside fell silent. Although the closet was wide across the doors, it was so shallow that Lupin could barely turn around inside it--close and dark like those cells at the Ministry... No use being distressed, he told himself. He settled down on the floor with the ends of the broomhandles against his side and their bristled heads looming above. Unable to touch the doors, unable to use any magic, there was nothing to do but wait to be found.

Maybe they would immediately begin turning the house upside-down when he didn't arrive at breakfast right behind Sirius--or maybe they would assume that he had simply gone off on his own and curled up somewhere. Sirius probably didn't suspect how Kreacher had reinterpreted his command, so even if they did start searching, why should they imagine that he would be locked in a closet that he couldn't have gotten into himself? If they began searching the house, it was still a large manor, like a labyrinth; how long would it take them to get this far? Would he have to wait until someone wanted to use a broom? Could it be days or weeks until he was found? Even when he became human again, he would be stuck in here behind those Imperturbed doors without a wand. He tried to tell himself that it was very unlikely, but it was at least concievable that he could starve to death in here...

Every month when the moon waxed to full, his mind was full of how dangerous he was to others. He had never realised that the transformation could make him so vulnerable.

After some time, he heard foosteps come up near him, and he tried to bark at them, just hoping that it might get through, but he was still under the Silencing charm. The person went up to the attic; judging by the sound, they were tending to Buckbeak. Presently they left back down the stairs, utterly unaware of Lupin.

He had no way of measuring the duration and only knew that a long, miserable time passed as he waited there, listening for movement outside and struggling to stay calm, but a caustic broth of emotions bubbled just under the surface: terrified, trapped, lonely... Kreacher had put him here at the end of his waking hours, and those tensions further exhausted him, but he was only able to sleep in snatches and had unquiet dreams. In one he was again chasing the shadow with no person attached, and he got close enough to grab hold of it. It had no blood to bite through to and infect it, so he dared to clamp his jaws on it, but suddenly it ballooned up around his grip, enveloping his muzzle so that he couldn't breathe, flourishing outward until he was falling headlong into it like water. He struggled to get to the surface and leap free of it, but this time he was a wolf, not a fish--couldn't breathe--

He woke with a sneeze at the dry musty air of the closet. At least he heard the sneeze and knew that the Silencing Charm had worn off, but as he woke he had to convince himself that the closet doors weren't tight enough for him to use up the air here and suffocate. Even if they were, he knew it wouldn't do any good to let himself think so and panic, but nonetheless he resituated himself to lay with his nose right next to the biggest crack, between the bottom corners of the doors.

Hours crawled by and very gradually the air became cooler; the tiny ambient noise outside drifted toward evening sounds. The dumbwaiter bell rang for dinner, and still more time passed with hunger gnawing at his stomach. The whole day had gone by and no one had come...

The bell rang again, not just once but several times, very insistently. He heard Molly's voice echo up the dumbwaiter shaft, calling for him, and he howled in response, but of course she couldn't hear. Not long afterward, he heard her footsteps on the stairs, and she walked up and down the hall outside, looking into all the rooms and calling. "Remus? Remus Lupin!?"

Think of the closet! Think of the closet!! He barked and wailed at her as loudly as he could and tried in vain to paw at the door, but soon he heard her departing down the stairs again, and he collapsed on the closet floor. He thought that if he'd been human at the time he might have wept, but as a wolf he just whimpered to himself.

Perhaps another hour or two passed. He had begun to fear that everyone had gone to bed, but then came more voices on the stairs, more footsteps in the hallway... It sounded like a lot of people, at least three or four, and it wasn't Sirius, Molly, and Bill.

"Professor Lupin? Professor Lupin...!?"

He hadn't heard them for awhile, but he recognized the voices of some of the younger Weasleys--he could pick out Ron in particular--and Hermione Granger, who had been staying at the Burrow for the holiday, was with them. His heart leapt; Molly must be very determined to find him if she'd brought the rest of the family here to search!

He heard a couple of them come right up to the door. "I bet this must be the broom closet," Ron said. "If Sirius can just throw away a couple of 1400's, I wonder what else he's got in here..."

"Allow me," came one of the twins' voices. His "Alohomora" rattled the doors but didn't open them. "Hm. Must be a password or something." He kept trying spells and the lock knocked dully at being handled.

Hermione protested. "I don't believe you! How can you be thinking of brooms when Professor Lupin's missing!? We have to-- Oh, hello. What's your name? ... I'm Hermione."

A little shuffle, then Kreacher's familiar coarse muttering. "...filthy little Mudblood hag..."

"Well, that's got kind of a ring to it," the other Weasley twin remarked. "What do you go by for short?"

"...blood-traitorous scum... ...filth... ...My Lady's House..."

"Cute, isn't he?" the second twin remarked.

"Oh, lay off. I don't imagine it's his fault," Hermione argued.

More feet on the stairs. "What are you kids doing up here?" came Molly's voice.

"Thought we'd check the broom closet, Mum," Ron answered.

"Now how in the world do you think he'd get in there? This is no time to be gawking at brooms! Not one of us is leaving this house until we find Remus!"

But Bill was right behind her. "Already checked most of the house, we had better open up the closet to be on the safe side." Lupin felt a surge of joy as Bill came toward him. "Budge over, George."

"I'm Fred."

"No, you're not; you might be able to pull that on Mum, but not on me."

"Blast."

"Toujours Pur." Only silence. The lock rattled again as Bill tugged at it. "Sirius!" Lupin heard him stride over to call down the dumbwaiter shaft. "Sirius, we need you up here!! Fourth floor!"

Within minutes he arrived; when he spoke it was so soft that Lupin couldn't well understand him. "We can't get the broom closet open," Bill told him. "I thought maybe the lock was a family-only thing or something."

"It shouldn't be..." Sirius said. "Toujours Pur." Still nothing.

"The password's changed!" Bill exclaimed.

"Kreacher!" Sirius called; not the shout Remus might have expected, but a call in a booming voice. "Kreacher, come here!"

"Master calls for Kreacher...?"

"Open this."

"Kreacher cannot open, Master. Kreacher was given orders not to open."

"It doesn't matter what my parents told you about it. I'm your Master now. Open it."

"It was Master gave orders so Kreacher cannot open," the house-elf said, with a hint of vicious smugness in his voice. "Master said leave dog alone, so Kreacher must leave mangey animal alone, must not open."

A few voices gasped.

"You mean you put Remus in the closet!?" Molly shouted. "He's been locked in there since this morning!?!"

Sirius spoke again in a firm, even tone more frightening than if he were shouting. "This supercedes my earlier instructions. Open these doors."

Just a slight pause, then Kreacher said the new password he'd given the lock--"Most Exalted Ladyship, Mistress Estelle Marion Chandler Black"--and the lock snapped open. A clattering of the latch, then the doors were flung wide and Lupin at last tumbled out in a rapture of gratitude, into the flood of light and fresh air.

Hermione dropped to her knees and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his thick fur. "Oh, Professor! Oh, thank goodness you're all right!" The boys hung back, but Molly and Ginny Weasley also rushed over and stroked his head and rubbed his ears, and he was so overjoyed to be free that he licked both of their hands and Hermione's face. Molly wiped her hands on her apron, but Ginny and Hermione giggled happily.

"Er, H- Hermione..." Ron started nervously.

"Blimey!!" one of the twins drowned him out. "A 1001 Nights---do you know how much those go for now!?"

As the boys broke into chattering, Lupin turned his head this way and that and saw Sirius's dark velvet robe flicker past a narrow gap of view between the welcoming Weasleys--Sirius left down the stairs with Kreacher following close behind. Lupin twisted out of Ginny and Hermione's grasp and ran after them, brushed past Molly, and this time bounded down the stairs not caring if he lost his balance. Indeed he took a tumble onto the third floor landing and got to his four feet again just in time to see Kreacher disappear into the Master bedroom and the blue-starred door clack shut behind him. Remus threw himself at the door and scratched and yowled, but it had latched, and his paws couldn't grip the knob to turn it...

"I've told you not to hurt him before," he heard Sirius through the door. He should have been screaming at a time like this, but his voice was chillingly calm.

"Kreacher left smelly dog, did not hurt it."

"What I meant by 'leave him alone' was perfectly clear. You deliberately twisted my words."

"Oh, Master. Kreacher has been a very bad servant, Master."

It reminded Lupin so much of his dream, when Orion was questioning Meecha... He remembered Sirius there in the kitchen, even as he was tending Lupin's burns that Kreacher had caused: "I have no intention of handling him the way my father would've..." But now he wasn't the same... Remus jumped up and pawed frantically against the door, seized the knob in his mouth and struggled to turn it. No! Sirius, don't!!

"Remus, you need in there?"

He whipped around and found Molly standing over him. To answer her, he tossed his head violently up and down. No time--! The extra second she took to put her hand under her apron and turn the wet doorknob with the cloth hurt him as if she were pulling the time out of his chest. That second could be the difference, could be too late... He heard the hiss of the sword being drawn.

The instant the door opened the slightest crack he rammed his nose into the gap, hurling himself through and sending it crashing open. Sirius stood with his back to the door, ready to strike the blow. Molly gasped at the sight of the upraised sword.

No time for anything else! Lupin sprang across the floor, brushing Sirius's leg in his flight then twisting sideways--the sword was coming down--as he slammed into Kreacher and knocked the house-elf clear. Remus went careening off-balance and splayed his paws to catch himself, but he had crossed the event horizon and could only cower on his belly, squeeze his eyes shut and hope that Sirius could stop in time...

The sword rang out against the floor, several feet away. Only then did Remus dare to open his eyes. Sirius was looking down on him, his face transfixed with shock and self-directed horror.

"Sirius Lucien Black, what in Merlin's name are you doing!?" Molly cried.

He turned slowly, eyes to the floor. "Don't... I don't want to talk about it," he said, and with that he edged past her and out of the room.

Kreacher could be heard muttering from under a corner of the bed. "...Filthy, disgusting dog... vile, gutter-bred beast... Better if Master had killed it. Kreacher would rather mop up this animal's dirty polluted blood..."

Lupin rose and followed after Sirius, back up the stairs. They passed Bill and the others on the landing; "What happened? Sirius?" Hermione asked, but Sirius just walked past them without a word, wandered urgently into the sitting room, and shut the door softly behind him before anyone could follow.

Remus whined softly and pawed at the door with one foot. Hermione had followed them back up and she tried the knob for him, but it wouldn't open. When she looked down at Lupin questioningly, he swayed his head back and forth a little and lay down on the floor across the doorway, settling his head on his front legs; his ears drooped, and his brows were gathered up with worry.

Hermione knelt beside him and petted him with gentle strokes from his head down his back, but after a minute she froze and lifted her hand away. "Is it okay?" she asked. "That is, I don't want to insult you... Is it all right if I pet you, when you're...?" Without lifting his head, he shook it slightly up and down. Hermione began stroking him again. In all truth, it was a pleasant and soothing sensation, and he appreciated the caring gesture especially.

Most of the Weasleys were talking on the floor below, but Ron and Ginny came up beside their friend. "Is Sirius okay, do you think?" Ron asked.

"I don't know," Hermione said. "I think Professor Lupin's worried about him... Are you?"

Remus again nodded his head on his paws.

"Hermione, Ginny, Ron?" Molly called. "I don't know what else we can do here, and it's past your bedtime. We should all be getting home."

"Can't we stay, Mrs. Weasley?" Hermione called back. "I hate to just leave Sirius and Professor Lupin like this."

Molly looked out from the stairway and regarded the three of them gathered around Remus for a long moment. "All right, but don't any of you go wandering off from Mr. Lupin. Parts of this house can be very dangerous; I don't want you running off 'exploring' and getting hurt, understand me?"

"Yes, Mum." "Yes, Mrs. Weasley."

"I may be down in the kitchen for awhile, but if I'm not, there's Floo powder above the fireplace."

"We'll be okay, Mum," Ron assured her.

"You kids take care. Have a good night!"

"Can we stay, too, Mummy?" "Hmm?" came the twins' voices, mocking childish pleading with her as she went back down the stairs.

"No, you may not."

"Come on! It's not fair!" "Ronnie and Ginny get to!"

"They asked first."

The others' voices faded into silence, and although Lupin had a wolfishly-keen ear to the door, he didn't hear Sirius make a sound in the sitting room. Please be all right...

Ron, Hermione, and Ginny sat on the floor around him, at first quiet in shared concern, but soon they began chatting in hushed tones, about the brooms, about the upcoming term at school, about the OWLs, and about who they would have for a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher--"I don't suppose you'll be back, Professor?" He shook his head. They talked about missing Harry, wishing he could be there for the experiences they were sharing, how frustrating it was that they weren't allowed to even write to him about what was happening; Lupin wondered if preventing that was really necessary. Ginny asked Remus if he would keep a secret, and after he nodded, they talked about Hermione having used a Protean Charm to write their own messages on Chocolate Frog Cards without opening the packets--Lupin was duly impressed--but apparently it hadn't worked on the ones they'd sent for Harry's birthday, or else he hadn't opened them, because when he'd written his most recent letter, he obviously hadn't read them...

It all made Lupin rather nostalgiac for his own student days and summer holidays, when the Potters would come to Hogsmeade for shopping trips, and James and Sirius would visit him, and how one day was always enough to get into a good bit of youthful mischief...

After awhile, the lateness of the hour started getting the better of the children. Hermione and Ginny yawned frequently as they talked, and Ron dropped out of the conversation entirely and nodded off, leaning against the wall. Finally, Lupin picked himself up. He "talked" a few soft, short barks at the door, hoping that Sirius would understand something like "I'll still be close by if you need me," then walked away a few yards and turned back, to give the girls the idea to follow him.

They shook Ron awake and Lupin led the three of them down to the Blue Room, where they quickly got the idea and climbed into the three beds. He was still deeply worried about Sirius and wanted to go back upstairs, but Molly had left the children under his watch, and he wasn't about to abandon them, so instead he lay down in front of the hearth, under Arabella's tile.

For tonight, he would just have to trust Sirius to keep bearing up. Please be all right, Padfoot. I don't blame you. I know it wasn't you. Please be all right...