Hand-me-Downs

As the sun rose the next morning and the darkness faded, Lupin felt that same something in his bones, pulling out this time, as though it were tethered to the blue night and being dragged away over the horizon. It was a painful, nervous ache, but much more welcome; even the excruciating seizure of the transformation itself was not preceded by the same measure of dread. When it came, he weathered the trauma and arrived panting in bed, as relieved to be human again as a shipwreck-survivor might be to have washed up on a beach. He lifted his arms and ran his fingers through his hair, basking in the sensation for a moment before rolling out of bed to dress.

"Welcome back," Sirius said blurrily. He was thoughtful enough not to open his eyes as Lupin pulled on his trousers and buttoned up his shirt, then climbed into bed again.

They lay facing each other. Sirius's eyebrows would still twitch downward as in worry, but his face was more open than it had been the day before, and Remus thought he was looking improved. Was it the effect of the borrowed night-robe? He knew that the clothes he had worn for so long had something of him in them, even to a magical degree...

Sirius is ours, not yours, his mind declared broadly toward the previous owners of the master bedroom. That night Sirius had run away with a black eye and appeared on the Potters' doorstep, he had decided he wasn't theirs. No matter what you do, I won't let go of him...

But at that, Remus realised that he'd begun believing his dream was true. It almost had to be. There was no way he could have known the password to the broom closet, and yet his dream had contained it accurately. The sword with which Sirius had nearly killed Kreacher... Even the black-green velvet robe Sirius had been wearing looked eerily like the one Orion had worn in his dream. He didn't know how he could have seen into the past, and yet...

Only one way to know, as awkward as it was... "Sirius?"

"Mm?"

"There's something I must tell you. The second night we stayed here, after you carried me in to bed, I had a strange dream..."

"Mm."

"I dreamt that I was here in this house, but years ago, when you were young and lived here..." He went on to describe the dream as best he could: Regulus's temper tantrum, Estelle's suicide threat, Orion killing Meecha the house-elf, Sirius's laughter at his father turning on him with the bloody sword. Willfully keeping his voice clear, he even told how Sirius's dream-self had poured himself a strong drink and come to blows with his father. Then the basket of food, Kreacher's refusal to open the broom closet, Mrs. Black's all-too-obvious password, and finally dream-Sirius going back to his room to dress and packing precious items from the drawer of his wardrobe where they had found the boggart.

Sirius frowned and knitted his brows as Remus related the dream, but even when the story was finished, he said nothing. Remus waited a long time, but finally heard a slight snore in Sirius's breath that meant he had fallen asleep again.

Nonetheless, talking about the dream only made Lupin think about it more, and the more he considered, the more he realised it had to be true--or if not strictly true, at least it had to be a reliable map of some kind. It had resonated too clearly with too many events of the last few weeks.

His scholarly mind set to working on the connections, and he found he couldn't sleep, so he sat up against the headboard to think. Sirius had described his father as withdrawn and silent, words which precisely described the mood that had come over Sirius. In the dream, Orion Black had borne out that description, cold and calm short of killing his house-elf or striking his son, and after Lupin had been rescued from the closet--the closet with the same password in the dream and in reality--Sirius had been frighteningly calm short of trying to kill Kreacher. Orion had turned his back and avoided everyone's eyes in any gathering, just as Sirius had the night before...

But why? Sirius had never acted like this, no matter how bad things were. Not even after Azkaban. Not even when James' family had been killed by Voldemort--Sirius had stayed with them enough years that he thought of them as his family too, and had in all truth been as deeply hurt by the loss as James, but he hadn't been withdrawn like this. Indeed, once past his first flash of rage at their killers, he had put his best effort into the usual campaign of quips and pranks to keep everyone's spirits up, despite the occasional cry on Moony's shoulder in private.

What could make him like this? What could drive him to solitary despair where Dementors had failed to do so? What could--as Sirius had feared after the news of Orion's suicide--finally turn him into his father?

Sitting up in bed, Lupin's head was high enough that he could see over the edge of the mattress where the velvet-and-gold-braid robe lay on the floor. Impossible, he thought, that such a powerful curse could have escaped Alastor's incisive eye...

Research. Quite probably, he now thought, Sirius's dark mood wasn't simply natural. There was more to know here, and finding it out was the first step toward getting the better of it. He would be taking watch at the Department of Mysteries tonight; he could go early and visit the Ministry's Archives, where they had Daily Prophets dating back to 1402...

But if he was going to do that, he needed to use the meantime to get some sleep.

After the dinner last night, Molly was thoughtful enough to let Sirius and Lupin sleep that morning, and even came upstairs and peeked in to see if they were awake at lunchtime rather than ringing the bell. Lupin woke up at the sound of the door and told her he would be down presently.

He put on his shoes and sweater, then followed her down to the kitchen where he was glad to note that Alastor had already brought the Invisibility Cloak by. Molly was the only other person there; she had made loose chicken sandwiches and tried to engage him in conversation once she had him by himself. Someone ought to have a few words with Sirius, she said, about his behavior at dinner the previous night. She knew he was in a mood, but that was no excuse for such behavior around company.

Lupin, however, was in a hurry to get back upstairs, so he only tried his best to politely assure her that he was doing what he could about it before he excused himself and took a tray of sandwiches and tea for two back upstairs, with the Invisibility Cloak over his arm.

Sirius was awake when he got back and was for the most part talkative enough, although he sat propped with his pillows piled against the headboard as if he had taken to bed in illness, and he remained distraught as he had been the previous night, pausing now and then and touching his face as if trying to hold back attacks of emotion.

When he made to give the nightrobe back, Remus stopped him and insisted that it was no trouble. "Besides," he made certain to say, "I'd really prefer that you didn't wear your father's clothes. Cursed or not, I don't think they're good for you."

"I wish I had something else to wear," he said ruefully.

Lupin deeply wished that Kreacher hadn't thrown away Sirius's old prison robes. Was that why he did it? "I'll talk to the others; I'm certain we can find some things. Not much perhaps, but better than anything from here. For today, you can borrow mine."

"Moony, I can't take your robe," Sirius protested.

"I know it isn't much to look at, but--"

"It's not that--it's yours. I can't go begging from you when... Well, we both know you haven't got one to spare."

"I'll be leaving it anyway," Lupin said. "I'd like to stop in at the Archives, so I ought to take the Visitor Entrance to the Ministry. I'll blend in a lot better on the street like this, and it does look beautiful outside."

"Going early?" Sirius asked dejectedly.

"Yes... My regular job doesn't pay much, but I hate to neglect it completely," he replied, referring to the scholarly books he wrote and then had to sell under the table to be printed in others' names--publishing houses for such work preferred not to deal with werewolves. "...But I don't have anyone to meet after watch this time, so I'll be back bright and early in the morning, and I'll be looking to find you here waiting for me." He looked Sirius directly in the eyes and said it very kindly.

"You might find me still right here," he lamented, leaning back into his piled pillows. "Or goodness knows, I might find the energy to do something slightly useful..."

"Don't worry about a thing," Lupin insisted, finishing his tea. "You haven't been well lately; whether it's in your body or your mind, the most important thing now is to look after yourself. Your health is worth more than this entire house, much less any little job you might get done before you're feeling better."

Sirius nodded and even showed him a little tight smile.

"Just relax and take care," Lupin said, squeezing his shoulder. "I'll be back in the morning."

When he went downstairs, he paused on the last landing. Sirius hadn't been keen on borrowing his robe, so it was only a stopgap for today, if that, and otherwise there really was nothing else for him to wear... Since he needed another arrangement as quickly as possible, Remus took out his wand and concentrated on sending a messenger to Dumbledore, saying that, although he knew how petty it would sound, it was imperative to find Sirius other clothes with all possible haste, and to get the word to the rest of the Order to check if they had any to spare.

Unfortunately, when he swung his wand and sent the silver messenger flying off toward Dumbledore, it happened to pass right through Estelle Black's portrait.

"SIRIUS LUCIEN BLACK!!! TRAITOROUS INGRATEFUL SWINE! HOW DO YOU DARE TO LIVE AND BREATHE WHILE YOUR FATHER ROTS IN HIS GRAVE BECAUSE OF YOU!?! . . ."

Her shrieks would have sent Remus fleeing into the kitchen, but he had to hide the Invisibility Cloak in his Castle and there wasn't room to set it up downstairs, so he ran a little down the foyer and fumbled with the pocket-tin. Assailed by Mrs. Black's screaming, he dropped one of the matches on the floor and had to stamp it out with his foot before getting it right on the second try. Once inside, he tucked the cloak between two of his old quilts, so that even if Ministry Security found his house and searched inside, they would have to go through the bedclothes layer by layer before they found it. The rough walls muffled Mrs. Black's din surprisingly well, so he sat on the edge of his small bed and waited until she had quieted down before taking leave of Molly and departing through the kitchen fireplace to the Leaky Cauldron.

From there it was perhaps a half-hour's walk to the Ministry of Magic, but that wasn't really so much, and he didn't have money for a fare. When he at last reached the dilapidated telephone box, he checked quickly to see that no one was looking before dialing, then told the Welcome Voice that he was there for research in the Archives.

The coin slot of the phone spat out what at first seemed to be a malfunction of two badges, but when he took it, he found that it was no mistake. There was the usual silver square with his name and business--"Remus Lupin: Archives Research"--and then dangling from it by a scrap of wide ribbon was a circular piece even larger than the badge itself, a fluorescent white round suggestive of a full moon, with a red "W" emblazoned on it.

Of course, he remembered, one of that Umbridge person's many projects: Ministry visitors' names were now checked against the Werewolf Registry, and those on it were clearly identified. Nothing to do... He sighed and pinned the badge--with associated stigma--to his vest as the phone box descended. After all, it was he who had inspired all these measures, when it had come out that a werewolf was secretly teaching at Hogwarts. Yet more reason he couldn't accept Albus's offer now, no matter how much he would love to teach again...

He arrived in the atrium and started across it to the security desk. Many of the people he passed visibly noticed the "Werewolf" badge and nervously fled from his path. It seemed the figures standing tall at the center of the Fountain of Magical Brethren were the only wizard and witch who didn't react to it, and that only because they didn't deign to look down at him. The previously bored-looking security wizard gave a start as he approached and passed the usual golden detector-rod over him with nervous attention. It picked up his wand, of course, but also his Castle, and the guard weighed both items on a magical scale.

The wand registered "unicorn hair core, nine-and-a-half inches, in use twenty-four years."

"My, has it been that long?"

The guard looked at him sharply. "Has it? That is right, isn't it?"

"Yes..."

And the Castle thankfully registered only the expected enchantments for such a device. The scale then spat out the usual registration slip for the guard to keep, and also a claim check that he handed to Lupin, telling him he would have to present it to get his wand and home back. That was an inconvenient surprise; it wasn't normal procedure for visitors' property to be kept at the security desk that way, but Remus supposed there was nothing to do but accept it and move on--and hope the Ministry wouldn't take the opportunity to search his house in his absence.

Even with all of that done, the guard stopped him when he tried to go on and asked for more details about his business there, what he wanted to research. He wanted to keep his options open while maintaining privacy about what he was looking for, and answered that he only wanted to browse, but unfortunately this launched him into a frustrating debate with the guard as to whether "browsing" could be considered "research"...

"I'm in an early phase of reasearch, trying to choose my next project."

"Couldn't you figure that out first and then come?"

"Not properly, no..."

And so forth. Mentioning that he was a Professor brought a predictable warning that it was now illegal for a werewolf to work with minors, and Lupin had to assure the guard that he knew the law and wasn't a teacher. As a line of other visitors collected behind him--hesitantly and at some distance--his patience began to wear thin, but he knew that even letting an edge creep into his voice would only make things worse...

The guard finally decided that he couldn't hold up the line anymore, sat Lupin in a chair, and called up someone from the Archives. It took most of an hour for that witch to arrive. Assuring Lupin that this was the result of no small debate, she conducted him not to the main collection area--where he just glimpsed other patrons leafing freely through the beautiful expanses of newspapers hanging in single file--but to an empty meeting room, where he was told that an attendant would come and fetch any records for him that he wanted, but that he was not to leave the room.

As Remus settled in to wait for the promised attendant, he had to wonder why he had even bothered coming, but then, he had to know: anything he could find about Sirius's house, his family, anything that might tell him what was happening and what to do about it. As a prominent pureblood name, the Blacks had been mentioned frequently in the news until the war had practically wiped them out, but Lupin knew it would be unwise to tip his hand by directly requesting anything related to them, and Orion and Regulus's deaths were the only applicable events that he could fix a date to, since Sirius's family had managed to keep his flight to the Potters' out of the papers.

No, the question wasn't why had he had bothered to come, but why he couldn't just leaf through the collections like an ordinary person and look for what he wanted without having to explain himself to anyone. The full moon had just passed; he would be human for weeks to come. Did they think he would fly off his head at any moment and bite someone? If you do, Padfoot-and-Prongs-in-his-head remarked acidly, it'll be because they wouldn't just let you look up what you wanted. Nobody gets between Moony and his books without ending up sorry...

When the attendant finally arrived, only peeking his head in the door to ask what his sequestered patron wanted to see, Lupin said that he needed to look through the Daily Prophets for December of 1976; that was the month Orion Black had died. The attendant left and, after another agonizingly-long wait, came back with one paper, December 1st. He lay it down on the table, then whisked out before Lupin could object that he needed to look through the entire month and doing it one day at a time would take much too long. Sirius's father had died during Christmas Holiday, which wouldn't have even started yet on the first of the month, but he leafed through the paper anyway, just in case it might contain something useful, or in case the attendant might be back with another one presently.

No such luck. He waited again, even rapped on the door from the inside, but it was some time before the attendant returned, and it took some arguing on Lupin's part for him to agree to bring more than one paper at a time. Lupin asked for ones closer to Christmas; the papers that returned this time, however--December 25th through 27th--didn't contain what he needed, and when the attendant came back again, he had run out of time. The Ministry's offices would be closing soon enough that he had to leave now to retrieve his belongings from the security desk--and to be ready in time for guard duty.

Once Remus had his wand and Castle back--to his relief without a word about the Invisibility Cloak--he crossed the atrium back to the lift and was carried up to the street. He had come in the early afternoon, and now the sky had grown dusky while he tried in vain to look up a single article that should by all rights have taken him minutes to find. The Welcome Voice instructed him to have a good day and to dispose of his visitors' badge in the bin outside and to the right. Once out of the telephone box, he took off the badge with the attached "W" Moon, and he succumbed to the temptation to tear it in two and throw it violently into the bin before setting off down the street for somewhere he could expand the house and retrieve the cloak.

You tried to be their good boy. They had more chance than they deserved. Padfoot and Prongs were back to talk as he went. After half a day wasted by quibbling quills standing between him and helping his best friend in need, Moony was now more than willing to listen.

After all, if Mundungus Fletcher can bring it off, surely you can, said that encouraging voice as Remus slipped through the plain black door into the Department of Mysteries. Alastor's briefing had included what to expect inside--in case it should become necessary to pursue an intruder--so before closing the door, he cast "Flagrate" and drew an upward-pointing angle of orange flame on it, which glowed brightly against the blue candles lighting the round room. As soon as the door thudded softly shut, the circular outer wall with its many doors began to spin around, but when it came to rest, the fiery arrow was still very visible, and Lupin crossed to it and started around, trying doors one by one.

Through the first door on the right, he glimpsed a huge tank of green liquid with pearly objects floating about in it; he'd been told that these were human brains and didn't look long enough to identify them as such personally, only cast "Stigmatis" to place a red spot on the door, then closed it again. Again the room spun around, and this time ended with the red-spot door nearly opposite the glowing arrow. The door now just to the right of the exit was locked and would not open, and the one next to that offered a view of a conical tiered pit leading down to an archway and The Veil--Remus hastily marked that door and slammed it shut. The mere sight of that room made his heart pound dizzyingly as the outer wall spun around again, but Padfoot and Prongs found the sensation delicious.

The fourth door he tried was at last the one filled with glittering light and clocks--covering every inch of the wall and every surface of the many desks standing around the room. He picked his way down the narrow clear path amid such a chorus of ticks and tocks and sighing hourglass-sand that the sound was broad and soothing as gentle ocean waves. At the end of the room and to the side he found what he needed: the glass-doored case of Time-Turners. He carefully opened it, took a single golden one-hour glass, and fastened its attached chain around his neck before closing up the cabinet and leaving. Once the Department of Mysteries had stopped spinning again, he walked around and cast "Absolutia" to wipe clean the doors he had marked with red spots, then opened the one with the burning arrow--yes, it led back out into the rest of the Ministry--and erased the fiery mark with a "Nox" before passing through and shutting the door behind him.

He checked Alastor's precisely-calibrated watch and memorised the time--eight forty-three--before crossing to the lift and taking it up to the level where the Archives were located. When he got there, their glass panel doors were locked and didn't open with a simple Alohomora; apparently there was a key or a password. Looking around for what to do next--vanish the glass?--he saw that these doors opened outward toward their hinges, which were right there within reach. Concentrating carefully on the hinge-pins, he raised his wand to them one by one. "Cardowasi." They pulled out and set themselves lightly on the floor, and then he was able to pull the hinge-edge forward. The doors still wouldn't come apart where they were latched, but he could pivot them both together, opening them as if they were one double-wide door, enough to slip through.

"Lumos." As Lupin entered the main Hall of Archives, the light from his wand revealed again the endless matrix of hanging newspapers; so much collected history and knowledge was, to him, as breathtaking a sight as anything to be found in the Department of Mysteries. Now that there were no werewolf-fearing beaurocrats in the way, he quickly flitted along the rows until he came to 1976 and followed it down to December.

He took his illuminating wand in his mouth to free both his hands--a bad habit learned from Padfoot and Prongs back in school; he didn't remember which of them had picked it up from the other one--started from Christmas, and worked backward. After shuffling through only four papers, he found it: December 21st, 1976. While not the headline, Orion Black's death had made the front page.

He carried the paper to a nearby table to read by the wand-light. Not much detail in the front page fragment, but it ended "more on pg. Þ7," so he leafed through the numbered corners until he found that and spread it open. The article took half the page, with text flanking a photograph of Orion Black; its caption noted that it had been taken some years before. Still, it had been years since Lupin had seen an image of Sirius's father, except in his dream--but this photo looked exactly like the dream, and indeed Orion even preferred to face away from the reader.

The text--the by-line read "Daily Prophet Society Reporter Rita Skeeter"--was every bit as crassly romanticised as he remembered, describing in overwrought flourishes of prose every unsettling detail: the moment of horror as the name burned black on the family tapestry, which guests fled the house or left awkwardly, which stood stunned in the drawing room, and which joined Regulus in looking for his father, as Estelle collapsed into hysterics. And of course, what the searchers found: Orion Black lay dead on the floor in the upstairs sitting room, just in front of the great bay window overlooking the street, apparently killed by a burst of force from his own wand through his head. The heavy velvet draperies on the window, which those who knew the Blacks said always remained closed, had been drawn aside in a crack perhaps a foot wide, enough to admit a shaft of starlight, which stood reflected in the black-ruby pool of blood. A more merciful capsule biography followed: Orion Edward Black, Graduated Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 1953, alumnus of Slytherin House; married Estelle Marion Chandler, October 13th, 1958...

It continued onto the next page, where Lupin found another photograph, this one of a crowd of richly-robed witches and wizards gathered in the drawing room of the Black House, which was richly dressed with near-black draperies of green and purple and accents of white pearl-frosted holly. Even at a first glance, Lupin recognised several faces in the crowd, including the chilling images of persons now deceased: Regulus Black, then aged fourteen, who would be dead in a year-and-a-half; Bartimius Crouch together with his wife and son; Justinian Wormwood, the round and blustery Head of Slytherin House and Divination Professor of Lupin's Hogwarts days, who had been killed the following summer for refusing to prophecy for Voldemort...

"Orion Black can be seen in this photograph," the caption read, "taken earlier on the evening of his tragic death." Looking back to the image, Sirius's father was still difficult to find; Lupin had to search carefully and coax a few affronted socialites aside before he located him in an armchair with Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy standing on either side. Lucius cast only a disdainful glance toward the camera and spoke to Orion, who at most nodded slowly, and Narcissa, standing upstage of the chair, had to put in now and again to maintain the illusion of a conversation. He saw her call toward the buffet, and a towel-tunicked house-elf--was it Kreacher?--brought a tray of champagne-flutes. As Narcissa stepped toward the tray to take a glass, the bustled skirts of her robe passed from in front of the armchair, giving for the first time an unobstructed view of Mr. Black sitting there--

Remus cried out aloud in shock; he had still been holding his wand in his mouth to read by its light, and first his voice and then the clatter of the wand on the table rang out in the still silence. Snatching it up, he held it over the photograph again, although that one glance had been enough--black-green velvet with swirls of couched gold braid... Actually seeing the image of Orion in that robe plunged the certainty through him like a blade: it was the same one from his dream, the same one Sirius had been wearing... In a photograph taken that day--that would make it the same one as in that awful scene, the black-ruby pool reflecting starlight from the window... After such a horror, why would the family keep that blood-soaked robe? Unless...

His mind echoed Estelle's shrieks from her portrait. "SIRIUS LUCIEN BLACK!!! . . . HOW DO YOU DARE TO LIVE AND BREATHE WHILE YOUR FATHER----!?!"

Remus thrust his hand into the right pocket of the Invisibility Cloak and seized the Portkey-coin. In a dizzy rush, the Ministry tore away and the kitchen of the Black House snapped into place around him. Molly and Bill Weasley were there, and after a moment of surprise as they looked for the source of the sound, he remembered to pull off the cloak.

Molly started. "Remus, what's--??"

"Where is Sirius!?"

"He went upstairs," Bill said. "Mum was laying into him about dinner yesterday and he just--"

--Left without a word. Remus didn't even dare wait for him to finish the sentence. "What was he wearing!?!?"

"Well, I don't know," Molly admitted. "I wasn't really--"

I can see for myself, he realized, and bolted out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He held onto the Invisibility Cloak in his fist until its flying folds struck and caught the portrait's curtains, and it fell on the steps as he sprinted up them with Sirius's mother screaming after him.

"SIRIUS LUCIEN BLACK!!! I ALWAYS KNEW YOU'D COME TO A BAD END!!! . . ."

Third floor, Remus threw himself at the door of the master bedroom and slammed it open. His old patched robe lay on the bed and he snatched it up, scanning the room in an instant. His nightclothes were there across the pillows; Mr. Black's velvet robe was gone from the floor.

He turned again and flew up the stairway. Sirius, no!! Wait for me--let me be in time!! Fourth floor, the sitting room door--it was closing before his eyes under its own power, and he raced toward it, one hand stretching forward to stop it. In a flash he had that hand through the gap, but the door slammed on his arm and wouldn't open though he pushed against it as hard as he could. Sirius was there in the room--he could feel it, although he couldn't see. He was standing in front of the window...

I won't let you stop me!! With a burst of strength and will, Remus thrust his arm downward along the portal's jaws, across the tooth of its latch, which tore his flesh and stained the jamb with his flowing blood. He slammed his shoulder against the door and this time broke through into the room.

Sirius stood in front of the window, seemingly unable to see or hear Remus running toward him shouting his name. He was taking a deep breath, raising a wand to his head...

"SIRIUS, NO!!" Remus reached him, now beyond thinking, acting on instinct. His shabby old robe was still flying behind him from his fist, and he swept it forward and threw it over Sirius's head, seizing him around the chest and at the same moment by the wrist, shoving it forward, pushing the wand tip clear--

Molly followed Bill up to the second floor landing, her hands clapped over her ears against Mrs. Black's screams. When they had begun, Bill had started after Remus, ascending the stairs cautiously with a watchful eye toward what might be waiting above. "WHAT'S HAPPENING!?" she yelled; she could barely hear it herself.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Bill shouted back. "BUT IF LUPIN'S THAT SCARED, IT HAS TO BE--"

-BANG!-