Crown of the North

CHAPTER NINE

The Enemy who Lied

Saturday 7 April - Monday 28 May 1984

Kincarden, Inverness-shire; from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts, The Grampians.

Rated PG for adult themes (romantic attachment and corruption in the workplace).

In April Ariadne was home in person for the Easter holidays. Remus remembered this idyllic fortnight for the rest of his life. The lambing season was over, the weather was warm and dry, and they managed his Transformation without any trouble. Ariadne had finished her shampoo project, and she walked around the farm, book in hand, learning to cast the Dissemino charm on the fertiliser and the Accio charm on the straying sheep.

"Potions cannot mean shampoo forever," she said thankfully. "I've written to every apothecary on the Registry, enquiring about apprenticeships. There has to be one out there who is willing to teach me something useful."

But over the next few days Ariadne received three letters from apothecaries who regretted that they had no vacancy at the present time. The first was brief and polite, and she thought nothing of it. The second was quite pointed.

Dear Miss MacDougal,

Although we would be willing to accept an apprentice at this time, we cannot offer the position to you.

For future reference, you may be interested to know that we hear you are a young lady of questionable character. According to a person who should know, you are of a meddlesome and frivolous disposition, more interested in other people's business than in completing the task at hand.

We admit this freely because we believe that young people are both easily led astray and readily reformed. If you show evidence of improved character in a year or two, you may then aspire to the noble career of apothecarism.

With our best wishes for your future reformation,

Figwort and Dittany Teazle.

"Did Severus really - ?" began Remus.

"He did not; I cannot believe that Severus would give me a dishonest reference. Or Professor McGonagall. Or Madam Bones, who was my out-of-school referee. Somebody who works there must have heard something unofficially. Incendio!" There was only a second's hesitation before an amber flame leapt out of the air and licked up the letter.

The third refusal would have been cryptic without the illumination of the second.

Miss MacDougal,

There are no apprenticeships for the likes of you. Apothecarism is a profession of DISCRETION and INTEGRITY and JOLLY HARD WORK.

Hemlock Thornapple.

Ariadne was upset about this one and ventured, "It's almost as if somebody has deliberately assassinated my character. But who would care enough to bother?"

"You can go mad, trying to think of everyone whom you've ever offended at any time in your life," he said. "Let's see if there really is a pattern of one person broadcasting a bad report everywhere before we worry." Despite what someone was doing to Ariadne, Remus never forgot the way she brought her problem straight to him. Even the suspicion that she had a mysterious enemy could not spoil the few days when most of her attention was so focused on him.

But of the twenty-two apothecaries listed on the M.E.S.P. Registry, only one more ever replied to Ariadne's application.

Dear Miss MacDougal,

I shall be entirely willing to teach you the subtle science and exact art of potion making, contingent on an O grade N.E.W.T. in Potions and EE grades in Herbology and at least three additional subjects.

The term of the apprenticeship will run from 1 August 1984 until 31 July 1987. Hours will be from nine until five, Monday to Friday, and nine until one on Saturday. You will be entitled to one week of holiday a year, and your stipend for that period will be twenty Galleons a week. Conditional on the satisfactory completion of this apprenticeship, you will acquire the status of Journeyman.

You are reminded that the utmost concentration and diligence will be at all times required of you. I await your owl.

Yours sincerely,

Arsenius Jigger.

She was almost as upset by this acceptance as she had been by the third refusal. "Professor Jigger?" she said. "Remus, I'm not knowing if I can! But I've no choice, have I? Not if I'm wanting to be an apothecary."

"Yes, you have. For a start, Jigger's driving a very hard bargain. People have found apprenticeships - and even become competent apothecaries - with grades of only EE in Potions and Herbology and A in two other subjects. More importantly, you can ask Severus what on earth is going on here, have him investigate the bad references, and find out who started the poison. Jigger evidently doesn't believe the rumours, so why should all these other apothecaries take this unknown enemy's word against Severus's?"

"Professor Jigger's never caring what anybody else thinks. You've bought supplies from his shop - do you not remember him?"

"I do recall that Jigger was a very cantankerous shopkeeper, and I do think you can do better than to work for him."

"You can do better than to milk cows and fertilise grass," she remarked, "but you've never seriously tried to look for a teaching post. So what's the truth? Can we do better, or should we settle for whatever we can find?"

"The truth is that you are a very competent Potions student who could reasonably expect to receive seven or eight good offers. Whereas Hogwarts only holds about fourteen teaching posts in total, and most of them are filled for about thirty-five years at a time, so it is genuinely difficult to become a teacher."

"Despite the fact that so many of our teachers are incompetent. It makes me think that not many people really want to teach. The Defence Against the Dark Arts post is regularly available; we've had three new teachers since Voldemort fell. Or... would you teach Muggles?"

"I would, but I don't know whether I could. Muggle qualifications are very different; and even if I somehow qualified, I'd have to fake a completely Muggle lifestyle. I think there are already enough lies in my life as it is."

"Do you ever think about moving into the kind of life where we're not needing to lie?"

"I think about moving you into a life where you aren't the butt of other people's lies, as you clearly have been in this case. Will you write to Severus today, or will you leave it to me?"

"Of course I cannot ask anybody else to do this for me," she said. "Accio - oh, you do it."

"No, no, you don't escape that easily. Not before your Charms N.E.W.T. Make three good attempts to Summon your writing pad before you ask me to bail you out."

The pad arrived on her first attempt, and she sat down on the grass and began to write to Snape. Remus tore off a page himself, Conjured a smooth wooden board, borrowed her spare quill, and dropped a line to Ivor Jones. Snape's reply arrived only a couple of hours later.

Dear Miss MacDougal,

You may rest assured that every apothecary on the M.E.S.P. Registry has indeed received from my quill a reference that was in every way a fair assessment of your abilities and character. You should know better than to suspect me of an open perjury that would ultimately harm my prospects more than yours. While you are neither as wise nor as diligent as you think yourself, I would not employ such open libels as "lazy", "dishonest" or "interfering" before I had clear and definite evidence of such qualities.

I have no idea how Figwort Teazle or Hemlock Thornapple heard a contrary report, but they are only two among many. Since you have received a respectable alternative offer of employment from a competent apothecary, I do not understand why you are wasting my time with this enquiry.

Do not neglect your studies over the holidays,

Severus Snape.

An unexpected note arrived the next day.

My dear Miss MacDougal,

I trust you are well. I am very pleased to learn from dear Dittany Teazle that you are continuing with Potions, just as I always encouraged you to do. Why did you not cite me as a formal referee? As Hesper Starkey always used to say to me, never be afraid to approach an old friend for help.

Libatius Borage and Phoebe Scarpin are among several M.E.S.P. members who have recently approached me in that capacity, knowing that I must have taught you. I was glad to give them my highest praise of your abilities, for, as Roderick Plumpton likes to say every time I see him, "Never stint in telling the good truths you know about others." These apothecaries have been hearing the oddest rumours about you. I do wonder how such stories begin. However, Severus Snape denies them, and he should know.

I am glad to hear that you have secured a post with Arsenius Jigger, who was one of my earliest pupils. Last week I indulged in a lengthy Floo conversation with him concerning your character. It seems that I succeeded in convincing him of the best. Let's hope that good times are to follow!

Your sincere friend,

Horace Slughorn.

Ivor did not write back until the end of the holidays, by which time Ariadne had bitten her lip and squared her shoulders and accepted the apprenticeship with Jigger. The owl flew into the cow byre just after milking.

"Ut's muckle worrds," said William. "I tsunk yourself an' Miss MacDuggal booth likes worrds, Rrremus." He rolled the milk urns out to the gate, leaving Remus alone with Ariadne and the letter.

Remus read the first two lines, then folded it abruptly and said, "Maybe Ivor didn't mean you to see this."

"What did they do to him?"

"Ivor is fine." He scanned the letter, then handed it over. "Ivor is very fine, by the sound of it, but please remember that he wrote this letter and I didn't."

Dear Remus,

Nice to hear from you again, are you and Ariadne still a couple? She's totally cagey with her FRIENDS about what's going on, one day one of us will guess it wrong and make a major social forks pass.

Yes, I do think something went rotten in my job applications. I had an interview at Gringotts last week, and I was told that they had a bad report of my character. According to some person unnamed, I am meddling, misfocused, misguided, lazy, dishonest and a garrulous talker. (Had to look up "garrulous" in the dictionary afterwards.) The goblins also claimed they didn't care a ruddy toss as long as I was willing to meddle in high finance and bring back piles of gold for Gringotts.

So I've gained an entry-level position as a treasure-hoarder for Gringotts, starting on forty Galleons a week, and I've refused all other interviews. It's lucky goblins don't listen to gossips.

I'm sorry to hear that it didn't go so well for Ariadne. It's going fine for Hestia and Richard, so I wonder if it has to do with that letter we wrote to the Office of Births and Deaths last year? I signed it, but Ariadne's name was mentioned. They gave us the right royal brush-off then; someone who works there must have noted our names and decided on a petty revenge. Makes you wonder what they have to hide.

In my opinion, they're hiding VELETA. I'm thinking I want to spend next summer trailing the last journey of another departed companion, are you game for that?

All the best,

Ivor Jones.

Ariadne did not seem disconcerted by the first paragraph, for she only said, "I believe our question is answered. But who in the O.B.D. knew about our career plans? I cannot think of anybody among my acquaintance who might work there." She unbuttoned her skirt pocket and pulled out a wallet. "If you - ouch!" The barn owl, perhaps intent on immediate gastronomic reward, had pecked her cheek sharply.

"Pestering bird," complained Remus, brushing the offending owl away more roughly than was strictly necessary. The owl squawked and flapped angrily at their arms, and Ariadne lost balance. She steadied herself on a stall-post and dropped her wallet. It thudded to the floor open and papers strewed out. Remus automatically stooped to pick them up.

Snape's letter was at the top of the pile, together with brief Easter greetings from Sarah and Kingsley, and beneath them was a photograph of himself. "What's this?" He was too amazed to stop the question. He did not remember that anyone had ever taken his picture since he arrived in Kincarden, yet there he was, slightly blurred, apparently Charming a repair to the sheep-pen.

"I know it's not a very good photograph," she said, "but it's the only one I have of you. My cousin Dreadnought took it at Christmas. He was snapping things all over the farm, and he left a pile behind for our family album. I thought my parents would not be wanting this one as much as I was."

There were no other photographs, only a pad of blank notepaper and a self-inking quill. She didn't keep her parents' picture in her wallet, or an image of the long-mourned Veleta Vablatsky, or even the group snapshot, of which she must own a copy somewhere, showing her closest friends at school. He found his voice and asked, "You carry my portrait around with you?"

"Of course I do."

I mustn't look away. A terrifying truth was about to crash down upon him, but it would be cowardly to evade it. She was looking steadily at him, and he had to look steadily back.

"Why are you so surprised?" she asked.

"I didn't think... " he choked up stupidly, "that you would think of me that way... the only one in your wallet... "

"But I'm always thinking about you. Remus... amid all that we have to worry us... are you not at least secure of me?"

Crash. The truth was written all over her face. He might lack her talent for intuition, but this time there was no mistake. What he had pushed away and avoided, she had accepted and taken for granted and never attempted to hide. He fought to control his astonishment at the same time as he suppressed his horror at the situation he had created around them both, only to discover that the emotion he was suppressing was not horror at all, but a wild, surging (and unsuppressable) joy.

She is in love with me.

Merlin, what had he done?

He pushed it all away. "It would help if you had a copy of Ivor's letter," he said, accepting a sheet of blank paper from her wallet. "Zerocso!"

She offered him Snape's letter, then, after a pause, took it back. "I take the hint. You're expecting me to copy this one. Zeer - that's Greek, not Latin! Zerocso! There, I did it. I will pass Charms."

"That was never in doubt."

* * * * * * *

The next day he escorted her back to school, and then he was left alone with his very sore conscience. All the feeble excuses of the last nine months had died their well-deserved death. As cold and rocky as the Cairngorms in winter, the facts stared him in the face.

He had courted his employers' daughter. He had known that her parents, on whose generosity they both depended, would not approve. She was considerably younger than himself and of correspondingly more limited life-experience. He was a werewolf, who could offer no kind of life to any girl, only poverty, instability and social ostracism, in addition to the endless lunar cycle of monthly danger and illness. And he had persisted in his hopelessly arrogant pursuit.

She was the ideal woman, honourable, courageous, sympathetic, so restrained and refined in her manners, yet so fiery and hardy at the core. She was the brightest Potions student in seven years, and she read the human heart with genius. She was seventeen years old and had the world at her feet. (She was also the most beautiful woman on earth, but he would ignore that detail.)

And he had let her throw her heart away to a werewolf.

Somehow, she had granted his deepest and darkest desire, the shocking request that no person has the right to demand of another, the absurd and barbarous petition, "Place me first in your love, to the exclusion of the entire human race." Time and again, he crushed his rejoicing at this thought. What could be more intolerable, more terrifyingly incongruous, than a werewolf who demanded that outrageous gift from the ideal woman?

She loves me.

She had never hidden her love for him; it was he who had refused to read the signs. From the moment she had first offered him her Astronomy textbook, he ought to have known. The only reason he had not known was that he had not wanted to know, for in ignorance he had been able to avoid the moral requirements of the situation. And now they had exploded in front of him.

He had encouraged her infatuation, as well as his own, by building trust and intimacy for month after treacherous month. In a few weeks she would finish her exams, leave school, remove from her parents' house, and start her new job. She would expect him to declare his intentions. And he had no intentions. However he might have deceived himself at the time, the reality was that Ariadne had no future with him, so he had most horribly toyed with her affections. He must not encourage her any longer. He needed to tear himself out of her life.

Yet that immediately raised another problem. He did not seriously expect that he could walk away and leave Ariadne unscarred. He did not know how much it would hurt her to lose him, but she might be quite distressed. She might even lose concentration and perform badly on her N.E.W.T.s. He would have to continue this hopeless charade up until the day her exams ended. Yet another lie in his life, this time a lie against Ariadne herself.

His conscience did not let go of him until - at around four o' clock in the morning - he had reached this conclusion. He must slide himself out of Ariadne's life as soon as practicable. But "practicable" meant "after her N.E.W.T.s". They had just two months of borrowed time left.

Sorry for disjointed writing, I'm out of focus today. I will write and ask Sturgis if he knows exactly who works in the Office of Births and Deaths. If no significant names emerge, be ready to suspect that your libeller is Macnair.

It seemed hypocritical to call Macnair a liar after his own record of deceit.

* * * * * * *

Ariadne agreed to drop all enquiries about Veleta while she put in the final effort before her N.E.W.T.s. She managed Remus's May Transformation easily (by now the sun was rising at five o' clock, so Kingsley could meet him at the Shrieking Shack and return him to Kincarden before the MacDougals were awake) but otherwise she did not write about much except her studies. He had even less to say: how much could one write about planting potatoes and weeding out barley fields? He managed, however, to fill two or three pages every day writing it.

Ariadne came home for the last weekend in May so that Remus could help her cover the final section of the Transfiguration course. The weather had turned cool, but they sat in the herb garden with her textbooks. She focused easily, apparently unworried by either the exams or anything else.

"But you're distracted," she said. "What's wrong?"

"Exam nerves. I'm suffering all the stress that you're not feeling."

"I'm not believing you."

"What?"

"Remus, I can tell that you are not worried about my exams. Not that worried. What else is bothering you?"

"What makes you think I'm upset?" he stalled.

"Half your mind is somewhere else. And it's nothing to do with nerves. It's sadness. Are you not going to tell me?"

"It's a story that I'm honour-bound not to tell."

She accepted this, but not gladly. He knew now that when she inched backwards along the bench and lifted the book to her face, she was restraining herself... from hugging him, from crying for him, from asking more questions... from doing anything that might have immediately relieved his distress yet ultimately complicated the situation further.

She was behaving so well, and he was treating her so badly. She loved him, and he was going to strike her a mortal blow.

As they emerged from the Three Broomsticks on Monday morning, she asked him about it again. "Can you not tell me about it? I've never seen you so distressed."

"Ariadne, you know I would tell you if I were the only person concerned. But I don't see how I can say anything without breaking faith with someone else." With you, the only person who matters.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I wish I could tell you." Because I am never going to see you again.

They walked silently for a while. Her sympathy was palpable. He wondered briefly how much she did love him, and how long it would take her to forget him. At the Hogwarts front door, he tried to lighten the atmosphere.

"Owl me at once if a problem emerges in your revision."

"What are you going to do at full moon?"

"The shepherd's hut and William's Alohomora charm. Absolutely no Hogsmeade." After all, it won't matter if I lose my job now. "You aren't to think about anything except your N.E.W.T.s. In four weeks it will all be over, and then you can think about anything you like. Promise me?"

"Promise."

He dropped her bag on the doorstep before he knew what he was doing. He stiffened his arms in time; he had been about to embrace her. No. His arms ached. She swayed uncertainly for a moment, as if confused by his contradictory signals, and then she picked up her bag.

"Thanks, Remus. Thank you for everything. I'll see you next month."

"Goodbye, Ariadne."

He stared at the door for a minute after it had closed behind her and then shook himself to attention. There was hay to mow on the farm, and he must try to behave normally to Ariadne. That meant having a normal enough day to be able to write her a normal letter at the end of it.