Crown of the North

CHAPTER TEN

The Black Thorns of Rejection

Monday 28 May - Saturday 30 June 1984

Hogwarts, the Grampians; Kincarden, Inverness-shire.

Rated PG for romantic attachment and soul-searching.

The hay is baled and today we sheared the sheep. I am very impressed with the neatness of the Tonso charm. Your brother and I sheared off 500 fleeces in half a day. Morag has been playing with the clippings. I think she has been using wandless magic to spin the wool, because we found her plaiting it...

I know that almost everything seems more interesting than homework at this stage, but don't be distracted into replying to this letter before you have finished all your revision. Then be sure to outline every point of the Human Transfigurations theory, so that I can be sure you understand it...

"There's no humour." That was what Ariadne felt was wrong with Remus's recent letters. Usually he made her laugh. Now he wrote with a deadly earnestness about her affairs (mainly revision), and a dull indifference about his own (mainly farming). There was very little about himself, and nothing about whatever was bothering him. After dutifully outlining the Theory of Human Transfiguration, she pleaded:

I can tell you are yet sad, and I'm wondering if this is really about your friend's problem or about yourself. When I become this upset about other people's problems, it's usually because there is a parallel distress in my own life. So what is distressing you?

She wondered about the identity of the friend whose confidence he was protecting because she knew he never saw anybody. Possibly it was Sturgis Podmore; she was fairly sure that nobody else was in contact with him.

You have evaded the all-important question, Remus. I have answered your questions and told you everything there is to know about my N.E.W.T. preparation. Are you really thinking that you spare me any distress by not telling me the nature of yours?

He evaded her interrogation very slyly, by reasonably pointing out:

The N.E.W.T.s are upon us, and your exam timetable looks very awkwardly spaced. We shall defer all personal matters until they have finished.

On Monday morning the breakfast owls brought a good luck note from her mother as well as a page of last-minute mnemonics from Remus. But she entered the examination hall without much trepidation. She really did feel that she knew every charm thoroughly. As she wrote to Remus that evening,

They were all on the paper - Protean, Chameleon, Memory, you name it - and there was an essay on specialised charms in a field of the candidate's choice. I was able to write about farming charms without much trouble. Professor Marchbanks was pleased with my Zerocso Charm, and it made me think of you.

On Tuesday morning he wrote:

I don't like to think how long you spent writing to me last night. Don't feel obliged to answer every note. You need the revision time for your Transfiguration.

But she replied:

I owe you a huge debt over this one. The first question on the paper was the elephant-to-mouse problem over which I was struggling on the day I first met you. Have you any idea how many hundreds of times my friends and I have used your Transfiguration aid since then? The theoretical questions would have stumped me just six months ago; I managed them by reproducing the essays that you made me write at the parlour desk last Christmas. And you were right: during the practical I had to Conjure a mirror, as well as a functional quill and a flock of birds.

Wednesday brought the Herbology exam, and apologies from Remus.

I cannot give you anything for this one since your knowledge of the subject always was far more advanced than mine. I can only wish you all the best, and wish I were there with you.

Immediately after the exam she indulged in a long and leisurely reply, which needed to be dispatched before moonrise.

It went very well. It was a very fair exam, covering every major plant on the syllabus, but only a couple of the minor ones (and I did know those too).

I'm wishing I could be home with you tonight. I have no exam tomorrow, and, although I will spend the day revising vocabulary in the library, in truth I already know my runes very thoroughly. The time would be better spent letting you out of the shepherd's hut (or wherever you will be) at dawn and providing an alibi for your "illness".

Tomorrow's exam is your favourite, Defence against the Dark Arts. Kingsley is confident, the others are trembling, and I am very pleased not to be studying this subject any more. The teaching has been very piecemeal, and Sarah is threatening death to every examiner in the system if the students are punished for the weak teaching.

She began to be uneasy when the letter that Remus wrote on Thursday was still very serious and completely devoted to the topic of Ancient Runes. He was supposed to be too sick to write at all, yet he seemed more involved with her exams than she was: had he forgotten that Ancient Runes always had been the easiest subject to her? On Friday he wrote briefly to wish her luck, but the exam was just as easy as she had been hoping it might be. She spent the afternoon writing to her parents before tackling Remus.

Dearest, you really have to tell me what is bothering you. I have the whole weekend ahead of me, and I can afford to spend a couple of hours on you.

He wrote back in the evening, and again on Saturday morning, and again on Sunday, but only to describe William's antics with haymaking and Morag introducing her little brother to the pigs. He was trying hard to make his letters interesting. She knew by then that he was not going to divulge his secret, but he did not seem to be laughing at her while he kept his silence.

Monday brought the Potions exam; Remus was nerve-racked on her behalf, Hestia was terrified, and even Kingsley was drooping a little. The worst Ariadne could say was that she was glad she had studied hard; she knew the principles of sedation and stimulation, the ethics of seduction, poison and transformation, the influences of like and unlike principles; and she was sure she finished the practical by corking a perfect Veritaserum.

"What a horror!" said Hestia. "My truth potion was slightly pink."

But I'm sure Hestia will not fail, she wrote to Remus, because a pink colour cannot change the properties of the potion, it only makes it more detectable if it's poured into some other drink. A blue colour would have been more of a worry, and I did not see any blue ones when I left the dungeons. Severus was looking impassive and grim, but no more so than usual.

Only one more to go...

By Tuesday she did not want to study any more. Remus wrote two pages, and she perversely answered by sending him four.

I'm knowing this is the last day, but the hours are seeming a year. Joe and Ivor had Arithmancy this morning, and Sarah is doing Care of Magical Creatures right now. Kingsley and Hestia are among the lucky few who have already finished, but most of us are supposed to be yet studying. However, the print on my Astronomy text is dancing in front of my eyes; my brain appears to have given up two days before it should have... No, do not worry, I am yet studying!

The next day he sent her a brief note that made her smile again; it was more like his old style of writing.

Tonight I will watch the stars and think of you naming them. I always look for the Corona Borealis first - your constellation - and hope that no Forgetfulness Potion mars your concentration tonight...

On Wednesday afternoon she was able to report:

The Astronomy theory was tricky. We had to answer questions about the Southern Hemisphere and calculate the path of a comet of which most of us had never heard. But I did know all the information about lunar phases. Our agony is unnaturally prolonged, since this is one of the shortest nights of the year, so we cannot begin the practical until ten o' clock. It's raining now - this is a bad time to remember the night in second year when the telescope charms broke down and the telescopes did not penetrate the cloud cover. By the way, it was Theseus who drank the Forgetfulness Potion; Ariadne was the one forgotten. We are obviously needing to invest in a good Greek Mythology text to read over summer...

At one o' clock the next morning, the seventh-year students stumbled down from the Astronomy Tower. Ariadne was too tired in mind and body to consider that her N.E.W.T.s were finally over. They were not over for everybody, because History of Magic had been scheduled for the next afternoon, so the released students crept around the grounds as quietly as if they were still studying. Ariadne kept thinking that she ought to be reading something, and she could not shake off that feeling until a Kincarden owl brought her a note of congratulations from her parents.

Darling, we are pleased for you that the exams are over. Now that you have time to think it over, give us a full account of each subject...

She obliged them with a lengthy letter. It did not really occur to her that Remus had not written today until his letter arrived, at around dinner time.

I am glad it went so well for you. I hope you will enjoy your final week at Hogwarts without the trouble of homework to slow you down.

The words seemed odd, rather conventional and lacking in heart. She read the letter three times before she realised what was wrong: there were no questions about her friends or her holiday plans, no suggestion that they could now think about her homecoming next week. It was as if she were yet doing exams. His moods were obviously fluctuating from day to day; whatever was bothering him, she was determined to drag it out of him once she was home.

* * * * * * *

On Friday the seventh years sat by the lake in the sunshine and conducted the post-mortems on their exams. On Saturday they went to Hogsmeade and refused to discuss exams at all. On Sunday Ariadne did not know what to do with herself. She re-read the Memoirs of Cliodna and wondered why Remus had not written since Thursday. His letter finally arrived on Sunday evening.

Dear Ariadne,

You must be very happy that exams are over, but somewhat sad, I imagine, to reach the end of your schooldays. I remember Lily Evans (Potter) and Emmeline Vance sobbing in one another's arms at the thought of leaving Hogwarts forever; it seems to be a very natural reaction.

I am writing to tell you that I handed in my notice to your father this morning.

She froze to her seat, her fingers riveted to the page, before she could process the meaning of the words.

I shall be moving further south, picking up casual labour on Muggle farms during the summer season; no fixed plans for what I shall do after that. By the time you return home from school, I shall be gone.

I would like to thank you once again for all your support and assistance with my health problems. You went far beyond the call of duty, and I shall never forget it. Your parents still haven't worked out the truth, so for once I am leaving a job on good terms with my employers.

I am very pleased that you have found a good apprenticeship, and that you will have the chance to live in London while you work there. I wish you success in your career and many new friends, and hope you will have time to move at a gentler pace in the coming weeks. I don't doubt that you will in every way do very well in the future.

All the best,

Remus.

Remus has gone. That much seemed easy. She would return to Kincarden next week, and Remus would not be there. He was not going anywhere in particular, but he would be gone.

Slowly the unthinkable invaded her mind. Thank you once again... I shall never forget... I wish you many new friends... you will in every way do very well... all the best... People did not write these things when they intended to write again tomorrow. This letter is a farewell.

The future for which he was wishing her "all the best" was a future that would not include him. She would go to London, and he would not write to her. She would work out her apprenticeship, and he would never come to see her. The full moon would rise, and she would never know whether he was safe.

He will not write to me again.

Remus has gone.

Lily and Emmeline sobbing at the thought of leaving Hogwarts forever... This was no random memory. He knew she would be distressed at his leaving; to protect her privacy, he was giving her distress an alibi, as she had given so many alibis to him. Presently, when Sarah and Hestia came to ask her why she was crying, she could plead Hogwarts, and they would cry with her, and they would never know that in fact she had left Hogwarts behind a year ago. But she was not sobbing. She was numb.

In a daze, she pulled herself out of her chair and upstairs to the dormitory. She drew her bed curtains around herself and lay down with her letter in her hand, willing it to say something different. But the message became clearer with each re-reading. Remus had only left Kincarden because he was leaving her.

There was no clue about why.

Throughout that long and sleepless night her mind made the same endless circles. She quickly dismissed the wildest notions. It was theoretically possible that he had written the letter under Imperius, or that a Gringotts goblin had forged his handwriting, but no wizard or goblin had any realistic motive for doing it. The painful truth was that he had written the letter all by himself. An outsider might claim that his attentions to her had never meant anything, that he had deliberately deceived her for his own vanity or amusement, but that was ridiculous too; she knew that Remus had told her the truth. Therefore he must have changed his mind.

But how could anybody change so fast? Tonight I will watch the stars and think of you naming them. It had taken him only four more days to dismiss her from his life. What had happened in those four days?

She wanted to ask him. It had been her instinct for the year past to bring all her questions to him. She actually lit the everlasting candle and began to write.

Remus, what is happening here? Are we yet friends? Why are you not expecting to contact me again? What has changed between us?

Then she pictured Remus, reading her note when he thought he had rid himself of her, irritated that she was yet demanding his attention. (Irritated? Well, why not? He was clearly capable of behaving in ways she never would have predicted.) He would despise her for being unable to take the hint. If she wanted to keep his respect, she would have to let him have the last word.

She tore up her letter and held it to the candle flame. She lay down again. She did not sleep, but she lay quietly until morning.

* * * * * * *

Over the final week at school, Ariadne was grateful for her parents' training. She had chafed against the constant self-control and pretending, but, for the first time, it now felt useful to her. She could swallow her misery, move her mind over to her friends and her teachers, pretend to be interested; and nobody guessed how unhappy she was. Sarah did ask, "What's the secret this time? Some dramatic sorrow?" and Hestia did encourage, "Aren't you going to tell me about it?" But they were both too busy with their own end-of-term dramas to press the enquiry. Ariadne held onto the wishful hope that she had misunderstood Remus's letter, or that he would change his mind again, and that she would hear from him again by the end of the week. She suffered a vague, uncomfortable feeling that she was deceiving herself, but school was the wrong place to examine her state of mind.

Finally every exam paper had been exposed in a teacher's post-mortem, every teacher had given advice on the applications of his subject in the workforce, everybody had everybody else's autograph, every casual acquaintance had been tearfully hugged, every word of Dumbledore's final speech had been spoken, every trunk was packed, and Ariadne boarded the Hogwarts Express for the last time.

"Now are you going to tell us your problem?" asked Sarah.

"My problem is that... that I'm not going to have my own way."

"Oh, you spoilt brat! What outlandish thing did you want that you can't have?"

"All the gold in Gringotts? The Ministry of Magic under my thumb? To bide at Hogwarts forever and never do homework again?"

"The Quidditch World Cup in my grasp," chimed in Richard.

The subject was turned for the rest of the journey. She knew that Sarah and Hestia would ask her again, but probably not in front of the boys.

Her father met her at King's Cross, and they took the Floo home. But as soon as she stepped out of the kitchen fireplace, Ariadne knew that she was not really home. Her mother greeted her kindly, her sister-in-law casually, and her niece very enthusiastically; but she felt like a visitor. There were two strangers at the dinner table, a middle-aged couple who were introduced as "Sherman and Rachel Duncan, who have replaced Remus."

She barely had time to reflect how quickly the replacement had occurred before her mother explained, "We are so fortunate to have found a couple. Rachel will be doing some of your tasks, for we're not expecting that you will be here much in the future."

For all that her parents considered her a bairn, unable to take a Floo without adult supervision or to complete her homework without being reminded, it seemed that she now had their permission to leave their household. They really were trying to let her grow up. She was grateful, but it reinforced that Kincarden was no longer her home.

* * * * * * *

That night she placed a Silencing charm on her bedroom, which reminded her of the way Remus had placed Silencing charms on the shepherd's hut; she took the stack of his letters from her trunk and his photograph from her wallet, placed them next to the Memoirs of Cliodna, and lit her everlasting candle. The photograph-Remus was absorbed in whatever he was doing to the fence; he did not look at her and kept moving so that she could not see his face properly. She sat down on her bed and made herself grasp the situation. She would never see Remus again. He would never make contact again. And he was not willing to explain his reasons.

Once she had forced herself to accept this, a second reality was instantly obvious. If he loved me the way I love him, he would not have changed his mind. However things had seemed, he had not really been in love with her.

She relived the steel grip of his hand on her arm as he pulled her over the boundary of Macnair Castle. Not a lover's touch; a simple act of human decency. Yet she had remembered it every day, because it was the only time he had ever touched her voluntarily. The only other time they had touched was the time she had held his hands, that day they had thought her family was about to discover his lycanthropy. His hands had been dry, cold, long-fingered, stiff, unsteady... He had seemed terrified of never seeing her again. But she must have been wrong about that. Perhaps he had only been terrified of losing his job. About how much else had she been wrong?

He had never spoken of love. At the time there had seemed to be a good reason. They could never have admitted to her parents that they had an understanding, and there was no point in thinking too far ahead while she was yet at school. She had such a long habit of ignoring any words that did not fit her perception of a situation that she had barely noticed that the words were missing; his love for her had seemed obvious. But perhaps there was a simpler reason why love had never been named. Perhaps her perceptions had been wrong.

It had seemed to her that he had focused his entire attention upon her; not only had he written every day, but his letters had been strewn with hints that he thought of her every hour. He had seemed insecure about their situation, even at times insecure of her love for him, yet his devotion to her had appeared never to waver. He had seemed intensely interested in every detail of her life; he had remembered all her friends before he had met any of them, every book she had read or wanted to read; he had memorised her school timetable; he had even feigned interest in Potions when she had teased him by pretending to teach him that subject. His face had lit up at the sight of her, his eye had always followed her, and if she had not sought him out within an hour of being home, he had come looking for her.

Perhaps these things were not enough to add up to love. Perhaps they were not even friendship. She had simply been available, at a time when he had no other friends, and so he had leapt at the opportunity to play teacher. Now that he had flitted from Kincarden, he had also flitted from her because she was not important enough to play any further part in his life. Not even as a friend.

But why had he not taken the trouble to write just a few words more? Had he been mercifully oblivious to her obsession with him? Had he noticed, but been too polite or too embarrassed to refer to it? Why had he not given her the smallest hint of explanation about what had happened between them?

More than the touch of his hand, more than the sight of his face or the sound of his voice, she wanted his words.

That night she was able to cry. She cried herself to sleep while the everlasting candle continued to burn.