The Werewolf's Bride

CHAPTER EIGHT

Wolf Moon Revealed

Saturday 25 - Sunday 26 January 1986

Old Basford, Nottingham.

Rated PG-13 for the explicitly bad and the implicitly worse.

It was late in January before Amelia Bones contacted them again. She chose a very inconvenient time, around three o' clock on a Saturday afternoon, only seconds after Ariadne had arrived home from Slug and Jigger's, and only half an hour before the rise of the full moon.

Ariadne raced back to the fireplace as soon as the Minister's head appeared, with a sinking suspicion that the conversation might last a very long time. She knew Madam Bones hadn't believed her assurance that she had married Remus voluntarily, so she was not surprised that the visitor's first words were: "I'm afraid this is all business, Ariadne. Do you wish to keep this just between the two of us?"

Ariadne shook her head vigorously. "I do not, Madam Bones, for Remus is needing to hear this too." She took his hand and drew him down to the hearth, so that they were sitting side by side directly in front of the Minister's line of vision. Ariadne kept hold of Remus's hand, caressing his fingers on her lap.

"Let me tell you the good news first," said Madam Bones. "The Macnair family has dismantled its burglar alarm. Walden Macnair was very concerned to hear about your accident, Ariadne; he said that if you had sent an owl about your visit, someone would have replied to explain that the family was out. But when they heard that an innocent visitor had been seriously hurt by the burglar alarm, they decided their protective spells were too strong, and they stripped them all down. We've had Aurors investigating, and there isn't a trace of them left."

So they claim. Ariadne sat still. The Macnairs had hurried home from Korea within an hour of discovering that their "burglar alarm" had been activated, but they had never sent any expression of regret or sympathy towards her accident - they had had no interest in keeping up appearances before Ariadne herself.

"Does that mean that Macnair Castle is now visible again?" Remus asked.

"No, the invisibility spells were separate. Mr Macnair was quite free with the details there. The castle, and the members of the Macnair family, are still invisible to everyone outside the barrier, and the barrier still repels Muggles. What the Macnairs have removed is a hurling hex that detects malicious intentions and attacks any intruder who is unfriendly to the inhabitants. They say they cannot imagine why it attacked Ariadne, but since it was obviously over-efficient, they took it away on the day after her accident."

Still feigning the motion of stroking Remus's fingers, Ariadne could feel his muscles stiffen under her touch. She pressed his hand gently, to remind him not to become angry, while she drew in her breath and asked very softly, "Madam Bones, had you the chance to speak to my friend Veleta?"

"She is now using the name ‘Mrs Smith'," corrected the Minister. "Yes, I saw her, and alone. The Macnairs were very co-operative about that. They acted for all the world like people with nothing to hide." There was a shadow of doubt in Madam Bones' tone, but she continued briskly. "Mrs Smith assured me that she was very happy in Foss, that the Macnair family treated her kindly, and that she had no desire to leave. She said it was the only home she had ever known, and she wouldn't know where else in the world to go."

"That is what we were expecting." This time straining the anger out of her voice left the merest whisper, and Madam Bones had to lean forward in the fireplace to hear her. "Did you find no evidence of Memory Charms - or Imperius - or blackmail - or - Madam Bones, when I spoke to Veleta, she seemed so unhappy, so definite that she was wanting to escape... did you find no evidence of any of that?"

"The law cannot recognise a vague impression that something might be wrong." Madam Bones spoke regretfully, as if she almost wished it could. "There was no objective evidence of foul play, Ariadne. Mrs Smith seemed very alert, and her story was quite clear and consistent, through nearly an hour of cross-examining some very simple facts. I was looking for symptoms of Imperius - blank or dreamy expression, repeating rote-learned formulae over and over, monotonal speech, vagueness, robotic movements... there was nothing. Mrs Smith may not have been telling the truth, but she was certainly speaking voluntarily."

"But there was in fact a Memory Charm," said Remus. "Healer Strout will confirm that."

"I spoke to Healer Strout before I spoke to Mrs Smith. She was extremely reluctant to tell the Aurors anything - a matter of the patient's privacy, you see. We went to some trouble to extract an Order of Confession to oblige her to breach confidence, and I had to visit her in person. But when she eventually brought out the record, I read it myself. The patient whom Healer Strout had known as Miss Vablatsky had been suffering from a clean and total loss of personal memory, was pregnant, had bruises on her left arm, and was in a state of intense distress."

Remus stifled a gasp as Ariadne nearly crushed his fingers. They both asked at the same moment, "Why was she distressed?"

"Healer Strout said that Miss Vablatsky seemed very agitated about being at St Mungo's, and insisted that she wished to return to Foss immediately. And that she would not let her friend out of her sight. That was the other point that Healer Strout raised... Miss Vablatsky had a friend with her at St Mungo's. You didn't mention that, Mr Lupin. Healer Strout said he was a tall dark young man with a Mancunian accent and that he was carrying the Portkey... can you identify this man?"

"I know his name."

"Then why didn't you mention him before? In court you made it sound as if it were you were alone with Miss Vablatsky, without witnesses, and you were convicted. Then you admitted to me over tea that Ariadne had been there. Now there is a fourth person as well. How many more of you were present?"

"Just the four of us, and Miss Vablatsky's two children."

The Minister sighed. "I'm afraid this concealing of important information will tell against you, Mr Lupin. It implies that you have something to hide. And that's in a story that is already telling against you, since this is the second time Ariadne has interfered in Miss Vablatsky's affairs, yet there is no evidence of any untoward dealings."

"There were bruises," said Ariadne quietly. She forced herself to relax, and had resumed stroking Remus's hands quite gently. "And what she said to me... is my witness nothing?"

"Mrs Smith told me at Foss that the bruises had occurred when she slipped on the stairs. And before the law, Ariadne, your witness counts only if it supports Mrs Smith's. You are not an eyewitness to her life, and she declares that her life does not require intervention."

"But we've established that she has a damaged memory. Will she not be taken to St Mungo's?"

"She has been invited to St Mungo's," said Madam Bones, "but she has declined the invitation. She says that she cannot go anywhere without her children, who are unable to leave Foss. Ariadne, I'm not happy with that answer, but your friend is an adult. She is no danger to anyone else, and her disorder is not life-threatening; she cannot be forced to accept medical treatment against her will."

"Can the Healers not go to Foss to treat her there?"

Madam Bones almost smiled. "And transport all that hospital equipment to a private home, for the sake of a private patient who is perfectly capable of bringing herself to St Mungo's? Ariadne, you know that the system doesn't work that way. Now, this brings me to the other thing... the Portkey, and its failure to transport the children. As I promised, the Aurors inquired quite thoroughly into the issue of whether the Dark Arts had been used." She paused. "We found no spell-work traces on the children at all. Whatever was done must have been done by potion-work. That is itself strange, since potions rarely have permanent effects - and the Aurors found no potion traces either. But the most interesting aspect was what Mrs Smith told us. She claimed that, although she had no idea what kind of spell had been used, she had consented to its use on the day each child was born."

"That cannot be true," breathed Ariadne. "Veleta certainly did not know eight weeks ago that her children could not be Transported." She could hear time ticking away; Remus would have to make his excuses if the conversation did not end within minutes.

"Her story at present is that the children need to be detained at Foss because they are in danger of being magically kidnapped by their father's relatives. And with no evidence of the Dark Arts to hand, and with Mrs Smith's own consent to the detention, the law has no reason to interfere."

Remus brought the conversation to the point. "Madam Bones, do you really believe, beyond reasonable doubt, that the truth has been told here?"

"To be honest, I have many doubts," she said, "but none that would stand up in court. Without Mrs Smith's own co-operation, there is not anything that the law can do to investigate her interests. Without definite external evidence, we cannot prove that she has been forced to lie. My dear, I have done all I can. I may be Head of Department, but I cannot place myself above the law - and, before the law, there isn't a case. It was hard enough to convince Scrimgeour that it was worth re-opening Mrs Smith's file at all. You have to remember that Walden Macnair is his brother-in-law. He protested that you had cherished some grudge against the Macnairs from your schooldays, that you had made wild accusations before, that the new story added next to nothing to the old... truth to tell, Ariadne, I had to pull rank and give him a direct order before he moved. And then I had to move most of the investigation myself because the Aurors kept pushing it back to their lowest priority. But that does give us one powerful advantage, my dear... I did investigate in person, and I do know all about this case."

"And you're disliking the smell of it, but there remains nothing you can do."

"And I dislike the smell of it, but there remains nothing I can do." Amelia Bones paused, as if listening to some distraction in her own house. "Ariadne, I have to go, but first I must warn you. If you find concrete evidence of something amiss - something actually illegal - in Mrs Smith's life, come and tell me, and I shall act. But otherwise... it isn't just that you can't help your friend. These inquiries are annoying an influential wizarding family, and they would know all kinds of ways of making life unpleasant for you." Her eyes flickered to Remus, and Ariadne wondered if she had checked his name on the Ministry registries. "Ariadne, if you and your husband tempt fate by launching a third enquiry, I probably won't be able to do anything to protect you. You'd only be digging yourselves into a difficult hole that might harm you and couldn't help anyone else."

"We're understanding that, Madam Bones. We're not asking for favours."

"And I'm not saying I'll never grant you any. But I have to fly. Pass my regards on to your parents... but I expect I'll see them soon anyway. Good afternoon!"

Remus sprang to his feet the second her head vanished. The conversation had taken twenty minutes, so he had perhaps five left. A million thoughts swirled around Ariadne's head as she followed him out to the garage, and it wasn't until he had the door open that he looked at her. When he reached out to touch her face, and she realised that his thumb was brushing away tears, she enclosed his hand and pushed it back to him. "We've no time," she reminded him on a choke. It was the worst moment to be left alone; she tried to remember how she had processed overwhelming horror before she had known Remus.

He backed into the garage. "Sweetheart, I - "

She shook her head. "We can talk tomorrow. Or the next day. Or - " But he was standing paralysed, unable to close the door between them. Finally she begged, "Remus, do not send me away!"

"Dearest, I'm the one who's going away - in about two minutes."

"I'm knowing what's going to happen," she acknowledged, "and I'm knowing the person behind the garage door will not exactly be you. But I... I'm wanting not to be alone tonight!"

"I don't want you to be alone either. But the wolf is no company... it isn't a dog, you know. Do you really think the wolf would be less frightening than whatever's preying on your imagination?"

"Of course it would!" She drew a steadying breath. "I'm sorry. That was childish. I know you're not wanting to be seen."

"But it isn't whether I - " he began. Suddenly he waved his wand at the garage door and ordered it, "Transparens!"

The door became as clear as glass.

"It isn't glass," he explained quickly. "It's still wood, and it won't break. Ariadne, if you see anything that frightens you... promise me you'll walk away and won't look again."

She nodded, but her words were cut off by a jerk in his shoulders and a stinging spasm across his face. With his last human movement, he thrust his wand at her and slammed the door. As she locked it, she saw a wrenching agony throw him down onto all fours.

She flinched when his limbs shot out in all directions. His face was so twisted that for a moment she could not tell whether he were reacting to pain or whether this were part of the shape-shifting. She knew his face had to stretch, his arms drop to the floor as forepaws; what shocked her was the way steel-grey hair was sprouting out of his ears, his neck, his cleaving fingers. She hadn't realised that excess hair looked so bestial... she understood now why he hadn't liked her to see him wearing a moustache. By the time she had completed that thought, it was no longer a case of looking bestial: Remus had become the wolf.

He arched his neck and extended his jaws. Ariadne knew from the throbbing larynx that he was howling, although of course she couldn't hear anything. Then he hurled himself against the wall, and she recoiled. The fangs were real, the jaws were slavering, even the claws could have ripped her open from throat to navel. Before she had time to consider that further, she saw that the wolf had collapsed to the hard floor, jaws snapping in the motions of yelps; he was very obviously in torment. She asked herself for a moment why he hadn't aimed for the invisible door, where he could see human prey was waiting, then realised that Remus wouldn't have been so foolish as to make the door transparent in both directions. Even on the verge of losing his senses to the wolf, he had had the presence of mind to use a one-way transparency spell.

The door was still between them. It was as thick as it had been last month. She was perfectly safe. And she was not distracting the wolf, who could not see her. But he was still distressed, and a danger to himself. She had no way of knowing whether he had slammed himself against the wall like that last month or the month before, or whether he was acting out a specific distress tonight. Did he retain some nebulous awareness of the horror-story that Madam Bones had just told them, or of his fears connected with her own presence? Or could he somehow smell or hear her, beyond the thickness of the sealed door?

She made herself watch. The wolf was biting himself, and she wondered how long he usually took to settle down. She could imagine that a larger animal - say, an outsized dog - could have butted the wolf's head away from such destructive behaviour, could have lured him out to harmless play. She shivered to realise that the presence of a criminal like Sirius Black might have seemed comforting right now.

But Sirius, along with James and Peter, had provided company for the poor wolf, genuine animal companionship. And this option, Ariadne suddenly knew, would never be open to her. Her Transfiguration skills were not, and never would be, of Animagus standard. The sight of her, a mere human, would never soothe the wolf; he could only perceive her as prey. Tonight, when he most needed her, he could not even see her. She no longer existed in his world.

She tried not to cry. It was only as much as he had been trying to tell her all along. But that was it - he had tried to tell her. Remus still existed for her; he was inextricably buried inside the desperate wolf, but in some sense he still existed. Even when he did not know her, she still knew him. If she turned away from the garage door and left him there unwatched, she would have walked away from him. As long as she sat here, she was near whatever was left of him - shape-shifted, mind-addled, a senseless mass of self-torture - but Remus was still in there somewhere. He might not be aware of her, but she was fixated on him. And tonight, of all nights, she did not want to process the day's events without him.

The wolf slumped to the floor in temporary defeat. He was twitching too much to be asleep, and there was blood - she would attend to that in the morning - but he had stopped biting and was lying more quietly. It was easier to believe that, somewhere inside the quieter beast, she might yet find Remus. But as soon as she could release the breath she hadn't known she was holding - as soon as Remus was safe from attacking himself - she was assaulted by thoughts of Veleta.

She and Remus hadn't had time to talk. And she needed to hear his wisdom on Madam Bones's words. She had no idea if she were blowing things out of proportion... but there was so much that Madam Bones simply hadn't seen. And Remus in his present form - now staggering to his feet and opening his throat for another howl - was unable to help. This howl felt half-hearted, as if the wolf knew that no fellow-canine would ever hear. Remus in his teacher mode would have Summoned a note-pad and summarised the new information and told her the logical conclusion. Her own mind, presumably in tired-out-and-aching-for-the-wolf-and-missing-Remus mode, was quite unable to conduct an analysis; it could only pounce on random details and shake them into a chaotic image that might be entirely wrong.

Veleta was pregnant. She didn't understand how Madam Bones could recite the fact and not recognise it as important. At the very least, it carved a major hole out of the Macnairs' story that Veleta was a widow. Were they suddenly going to propose that John Smith had been miraculously resuscitated, or that Veleta - who never left the castle - had met somebody else? It was not as if she had been wearing a wedding ring, let alone two of them, or had mentioned, "By the way, it's Mrs Brown now." I never did believe that ‘John Smith' really existed, she reminded herself. So how had Veleta become pregnant? Ariadne did not like the kinds of answers that were suggesting themselves.

But she loves those children. They are all the world to her.

This was true but not comforting. It did not prove that Veleta had wanted to become a mother; it only proved that her maternal instincts were stronger than... than what?

The wolf scratched at the wall, probably whining and begging to be let outside. But it soon slumped with a helpless air, and rubbed its head against its paws. It looked so pathetic that Ariadne found herself considering the idea of moving over to sit next to it and rubbing its neck, even while she knew the door lay between them. The problem was, it didn't look like a glass door. It looked like an empty space - like an invisible barrier. And, she reminded herself severely, I have learned something about invisible barriers.

How like the Macnairs to remove their killing-hex for the day of an Auror investigation! She did not doubt that they had re-erected it within an hour of the Aurors' departure. A hurling hex, indeed! Madam Bones had heard the Healer's report that the hex had included Animum Quiesco, which ought to have killed Ariadne, and which could hardly have settled itself into the barrier by accident. But Madam Bones had accepted the Macnairs' word: "Very sorry, it was an accident, we were not intending our defences to be so strong." And somehow the Aurors' evidence that there was no spell today was deemed more significant than a Healer's evidence that there had been a spell last December.

Yet Madam Bones was not corrupt, and she had spoken to Healer Strout personally. Did she not recognise the implications of Animum Quiesco?

And by what fluke had Ariadne been immune to the full force of the spell?

The wolf really was asleep now. He looked very dog-like, almost tame. As he lay quietly, Ariadne's thoughts settled and lay quietly as well, but like a blanket of hopelessness. Madam Bones believed there was nothing more to be done for Veleta. She had warned Remus that Dark Arts practitioners were good at covering their tracks (Ariadne would have expected nothing less of Uncle Macnair), and lack of evidence meant no more help from the law. Madam Bones would listen if they could produce more evidence, but she would not pursue the case. And she had never met Veleta - she had no stake in it.

Who was left in the world who did care about Veleta? Herself, Remus, Hestia, Ivor and Kingsley - all of whom had been Banned from Foss and warned to stay away. That left Sarah, Richard and - for what it was worth - Joe. And they could possibly enlist sympathy from Sturgis or Emmeline or the Chittocks. Each of them could become involved in one attempt to rescue Veleta's children, and then - if they survived a failed attempt - they would be permanently eliminated from further usefulness.

There was no point in even attempting it unless they could first work out the nature of the Dark Magic that detained the bairns at Foss. And they could not begin to do that unless they had some kind of contact with an ally inside Macnair Castle. As far as Ariadne could see, the only possible ally was Veleta herself, who had already told them everything that she was able to tell.

Ariadne must have slept, because there were confusing dreams about magical barriers and bleeding wolves and people with chocolate-brown eyes, but it was only with the dawning of the new day that anything like a new idea dawned into the bleak situation. Remus was awake behind the invisible door, so she unlocked it. She heard him asking her something, but she didn't hear his question. There was somebody else who might help.

She opened her eyes, looked at Remus properly, and stood up. "Dearest, it was fine. The wolf did no harm last night, except to itself. Here, lean on me... you badly need a yarrow lotion, and probably a Strengthening Potion too."

She knew he didn't like being nursed, but he meekly leaned on her shoulders, and they progressed slowly across to the living room, where he sagged down on the sofa. Although she tried to smile reassuringly while she Summoned the yarrow lotion, he was still frowning doubtfully as he suffered her ministrations.

"What Madam Bones told us," he began, "doesn't make sense..."

"Hush, we'll talk later." The first Summoning Charm had succeeded, so she tried Summoning a blanket. When Remus consented to close his eyes, she Summoned her writing pad and quills and sat down at the kitchen table.

She had to write a very long letter to Cassandra Vablatsky.