Fathers and Sons

Fathers and Sons

Chapter 14: Little Holes

What do I have to say to that? What do I have to say to that? Everyone is bollocksing this up like this is a dress rehearsal for the real war, that's what I have to say to that. Newt Scamander in a statement to the press, 1 April 1980. (First draft.)

March 1980

Damocles almost couldn't believe it. A year and some months into the project, they had developed what they hoped was a working model of their potion. It was incredible. These things usually took a number of years, perhaps even decades, but here they were, and they were so close they could taste it. "Just a couple more stirs, Sarah, we don't want the solution to dilute too much," he said, glancing over her shoulder and returning to his least favourite task of the project: painstakingly recording every last thing that was done. It was necessary, because they had to know what they were doing correctly or incorrectly.

Sarah licked her lips and blew her fringe out of her hair, nodding. "Just one more -- there," she said, withdrawing the silver spoon. "All that's left to do is serve it up, again."

Natalie Summers, a Healer, youngest on the team, merely stood to the side and hoped to get a good look. It was her first project of this sort of importance, but they were friendly enough, and had told her to ask any questions that came to mind. "Is it really done, Mr Chambers?" she asked the Herbologist who stood by, inventorying their group's personal stock of ingredients.

"We hope so, Natalie." Chambers looked up to watch Sarah at the cauldron, scanned the list again, but decided not to comment. His warnings had only slowed them down, so far.

"Full moon's tonight, I suppose we'll see," Damocles said, dropping the parchment and quill. "Let's go, delivery time for Mr Winters."

Sarah handed the beaker of the carefully measured amount to him. "All yours, Belby," she answered, exhaling. She liked to think of herself as a normally, fairly unexcitable person, but today was an exception.

"Thank you," he said, motioning for them to come with, there was an entire myriad of questions that went with this, no stone was left unturned or unchecked. He suspected that their entirely voluntary test subject, Joseph Winters, was getting rather sick of the questions and the poking and prodding and necessary monitoring that went with an experimental potion development. To be fair, he was being compensated rather handsomely. He led them out of their small lab area to the end of a small hallway where he was being observed and housed for the duration of experimentation.

Natalie hurried past both of the much more highly ranked members of the team, eager to see both the concluding process and the results, and slowed when Chambers gave her a weary look.

"If this isn't it, the Ministry might have our heads," Chambers said to Sarah in a voice low enough that the assistant might not hear, folding the inventory and slipping it into his pocket. "You know, Dolores Umbridge has her signature all over everything."

"I saw," Sarah answered wearily, "and if she starts with the sugary passive-aggressive shite again I shall take all the phials I can find and shove them down their throat. These things take time."

"Okay, enough politics," Damocles said, nudging the door open with his foot. "Afternoon, Mr Winters," he said cheerily as the rest filed in behind him. The curtain was drawn around the bed, the room silent. Maybe he was sleeping. Damocles withdrew the curtain and very nearly dropped the beaker at what he saw. Joseph Winters was not sleeping, but simply unconscious. His skin had an ashen colour to it except for around his lips, where it tinged purple, and his breathing shallow and irregular.

He shoved the beaker aside on the bedside table. "Natalie, I need you to help me with this; Chambers, notify the emergency team upstairs," he said, immediately taking out his wand and running proper charms while trying to manually find a pulse. Don't you dare die on us, not now.

Natalie stared at the man until Chambers shouted at her, "Natalie, go." Only then did she jump into action, her lips moving as she assessed the situation and began rummaging in the stock potions stored on the cart outside for the proper cures.

"So much for getting the Ministry off our backs," Chambers crossly muttered to Sarah on his way out.

Sarah didn't seem to be listening, taking a deep breath and trying to tell herself that Damocles was a professional who was going to do everything possible, as was Natalie. "What can I do?" she asked as calmly.

He had a pulse, but it was stringy and erratic. "The red one, look at the monitoring charms," he told Natalie, snatching it out of her hand when she offered it to him. He looked up at Sarah. "Make sure nobody but the emergency team and Chambers gets back through those doors," he said, immediately going back to what he was doing.

Natalie stepped back once the potion was delivered and fumbled with her pen in a panic as she tried to keep track of the readings. "Sorry," she managed.

There was no time for apologies right now. He'd lost all semblance of a pulse and monitoring charms confirmed it. "No, don't you dare," he muttered, placing his wand over Joseph's heart and announced, "Clear!" before he gave it a jolt of magic. And twice, three, four times, each jolt stronger than the last. After the sixth try, his professional pride told him to give up. Probably common decency as well.

Natalie did her best to regain her composure and stood up straight, only to be immediately brushed aside when Chambers entered the room with the emergency team following. "...Never mind," Chambers said heavily. "Go back. There was an incident with a pair of hippogriffs," he said to Damocles, almost apologetic.

Damocles wasn't answering, instead, breathing as evenly as possible. The excitement that had built came crashing to the ground in a mere matter of minutes. "We need to find out what caused this," he said, "because this is not happening again."

"Again?" Sarah demanded. "You think that any decent human being is going to let this continue? We just killed a man, Damocles. An otherwise very healthy man."

"Umbridge won't see it that way," Chambers interrupted, closing the door tightly and placing an Imperturbable Charm on it. This conversation wasn't one to be overheard. "She'll demand we keep on. And I think we should. The ends justify the means."

"She's psychotic! Of course she'll demand that we keep on!" Sarah said, gesticulating. "I said that this was going to be tricky beyond our imaginations, it might even be impossible. We're being asked to get water from a rock."

Chambers rolled his eyes and sat against the door. "Stop overreacting. I think I might know what happened. We just need another subject and we'll get this right. He said it was under control, whatever that meant."

"And then he died," she replied bluntly.

The wolf had been under his control. Damocles knew what it meant for them, it may have been something different for him. It meant that they were on the right track. "We checked on him at noon, and he was fine. Which means whatever happened happened in the last three and a half hours. That's either a very rapid deterioration, or he was lying to us then. Natalie, you knew the charts best, was there any indication of this?" he asked the still shaken Healer gently.

"Erm," Natalie began, just a little jumpy at the attention moving to her. She did snap to her job, though, seizing the chart and flipping it back. "Just let me check -- oh, yes, his heart rate was descending but I figured that was good, it was always rather unnaturally high as it was, I just thought the potion was helping..."

"Helping neutralise," Damocles finished dully.

"Oh bugger it," Sarah said, disgusted. "We're meddling where we oughtn't to meddle, ends justifying the means my Aunt Circe."

"What could it have been?" Damocles asked her, and she gaped at him. "As a potions mistress, I am asking for your professional opinion. Please give it."

Sarah set her jaw, very nearly telling Damocles Belby exactly what he could do with her professional opinion once she gave it. Instead, she listed carefully, "Any more aconite would kill an average human being, any less proved ineffective for our purposes. Dosages of this concentration had no notable effect until this morning according to him, and that was after only today, after three doses. My guess would be -- "

"A more dilute concentration over the course of more days?" he finished for her. She nodded, lips pursed.

"So all we need is another volunteer." Chambers spoke evenly, ignoring the fact that they were in the room with a dead werewolf, that they had failed once. "I've everything prepared for more servings -- and I think there was a touch too much fluxweed, that may have aggravated his condition."

"All you need is another volunteer," Sarah corrected, already beginning to remove her credentials. "I quit."

"Sarah -- " Damocles started, but she interrupted him sharply.

"We all have lines that we don't cross, Damocles. We just sailed right over mine," she interjected. "You took an oath that says 'never do harm to anyone.' You think on that when you can't sleep tonight." Without any more, she strode past Chambers and threw open the door, not bothering to slam it behind her.

Natalie quivered when Sarah's footsteps faded away. "Now what?" she asked, mostly under her breath.

"We talk to the morgue and then find another volunteer," Damocles sighed. That had been a bastardly process, he wasn't looking forward to doing it again. He drew the curtain around the dead man and moved to leave the room. "Back to the drawing board."

~*~

There was to be no mistake about the capacity of Owen's visit to Damocles today. He'd made an appointment and dressed up in the robes he wore when he needed to be taken seriously. It was a ritual more befitting a meeting of strangers rather than two men who'd known each other for thirty-two years. He was apprehensive because he knew that unlike most other people he spoke to in a professional capacity, Damocles was going to listen. Moreover, he was going to listen to him, understand his viewpoint, but he was still going to go ahead with his work.

At least if he were going to see another Healer, someone at the Ministry, there would have been some kind of tension or suspense. Here there was only futility and an impending sense of failure. Even Owen's own particular brand of optimism was suffering. Normally he welcomed the challenge and seeming impossibility of success in his line of work, but he was dreading today.

Damocles wasn't exactly looking forward to it, either. When Owen had something he wanted to talk about, he just waited in the office until Damocles had a moment. Business or personal, that was the way it had always been - before he had an office, he'd sat in the waiting room downstairs. There'd never been an appointment, or even any sort of formality. It was disorienting.

His mouth went dry when he heard the knock on the door and he cleared his throat. "Come in," he said hoarsely, and shuffled some parchments, trying to look as though he'd at least been doing something other than staring at the door anxiously.

Giving no indication of his trepidation, Owen turned the doorknob and stepped inside as boldly as he ever did anything. The door shut behind them and the men regarded one another for several moments. There was no easy way to start this conversation, no script to follow, and both men, highly regarded professionals in their field, seemed at a loss of where to begin or even who should begin. Fine, I'll do it, Owen finally said to himself. "A man died, Damocles."

"I know it," replied Damocles and he swallowed, trying to make the dryness in his throat go away. "He did die. But we're fixing it."

"There's no fixing death," Owen snapped. By god, that was something he knew. "Isn't it enough to tell you what sort of things you're messing with?"

"He's dead, there's no denying. And what we were doing - what he volunteered for - caused his death, there's no denying that either. But we're pressing on," he answered, determined to hold his ground against someone as indefatigable as Owen Curenton.

This was going more or less as he'd imagined. Not two minutes in and they'd already made a loop back to square one. "Well," Owen started, and pulled a week old copy of The Daily Prophet out of the pocket of his robes. "At least when all this works out, you're going to get something out of it too," he scanned the article. "They say here the tireless efforts of you and your team members are to be commended, not condemned. They even mention an Order of Merlin - "

"Okay, stop it," Damocles interrupted him angrily. "You don't get to do that, Owen. You don't get to make this about what I can get out of a success, because it has never been about me, you should know that. You know me, have I ever been like that? Is anything you do for what you can get out of it?"

"So killing them in the name of something that you believe can help them is okay?" he demanded, ignoring the question that turned it back around on him.

"Intention seems to be everything," was his tart reply.

Owen faltered for a second. "What's that supposed to mean?"

It was one of those things where even Damocles wasn't sure what he'd meant, but it had come flying out too fast to stop or even think about. "Nothing. Owen... You should know that none of that even crossed my mind, and if you think I'm keeping on with this because of what my team and I could be rewarded with, then you're mad. May God strike me dead if it ever becomes about that."

"If God cares enough," he replied caustically, but what they both knew was becoming obvious, that nothing was going to make this argument change. Neither would be swayed. "If it succeeds - "

"It will succeed," Damocles said forcefully. It had to. It simply had to. All the Ministry backing in the world wouldn't matter to him if it didn't work and another life was lost. It was one thing for a man who had been warned of all the risks and still gone along with them willingly, but two or more dead would weigh too heavily on his conscience. Sarah was right, he had taken that oath, and breaking that oath would kill him as surely as their concoction had killed Joseph Winters. "It's - it's too close not to, Owen." He leaned forward in his seat and, with an intensity that was rare from him, said, "He said it was under his control. It was under his control, we had it."

"Because you're using wolfsbane, you great prat, what do you expect?" Owen asked, trying to remain unaffected, but it was unnerving that they were that close to achieving something. "Wolfsbane to a man is lethal if you get enough of it, and for a werewolf even moreso. Essentially, you have the two halves, the man and the wolf, yes? You're poisoning the wolf, making it too weak to take over during the full moon and leaving the man in charge of the wolf's body."

"Essentially," he echoed.

"And then what, the wolf just gets over it?" he asked. "It's not going to like being poisoned - as it shouldn't - and if it - it doesn't just leave when the full moon's over," he added, his train of thought moving very rapidly and his mouth trying to keep up with it. "It's part of the man. You can't just ignore that symbiosis. If you think the man isn't going to suffer one way or another for this, then I really don't think that you're thinking this through at all. And a level of tolerance will be built up over a long period of time if you keep trying to poison them month after month, eventually it won't work anymore, and then what will you do? Up the dosage?"

"Since we don't even have a way to test the new potion, I'm not so worried about it just yet," Damocles said. "Volunteers just disappear into the wood work once one of them dies."

"They have a self-preservation instinct, how about that," he said dryly.

Damocles was running out of things to say to Owen. They could both talk until they were blue in the face, but if that was all it would achieve, then there really was no point in it. "You know," he started slowly. "I know that I said this almost exact statement once before, over a year ago, but what are you trying to achieve? If this works, certain... things may be avoidable, and I'm sure that you of all people could appreciate it." He finished the statement as delicately as possible, but there was no mistaking what (or rather, who) he was talking about.

Owen went white in the face. "If I don't get to make this about that Order of Merlin they're already putting your name on," he said with a deadly calm, "then you don't get to make this about Erin. I told you that. You didn't get to do that a year ago, and you don't get to do it today, is that understood?"

"You can't tell me the thought hasn't crossed your mind," he said, pushing down the guilt that the statement had incurred.

"You can't tell me that if Fenrir Greyback had been under the influence of this successful potion that you're hoping to construct that Erin still wouldn't be dead and Jeremy still wouldn't be where he is," Owen said, his frayed nerves showing. "Wherever he is. Goddamnit."

Owen may have been on the completely opposite side of this very important and emotionally charged political and ethical issue, but they had been friends long before they'd had any grand ideas about themselves or what they would do with their lives. Damocles liked to think that their friendship, while currently considerably strained, trumped it all. "Sit down, Owen, please," he said, keenly aware of his friend's distress.

He shook his head. He was still standing, with both of his children gone and only Brighid, a tenuous relationship with Julia, and whatever this had morphed into left. It was friendship, but friendship tempered by the terrible feeling of failure to make the other person see and agree with their point of view. "Erin would still be dead and I imagine if Fenrir had had his way, Jeremy would be too. We all would be, because an arrogant and dangerous man decided I had offended him."

"It's not only that," he said hurriedly. "Accidents happen, they do, all the time. Practically anyone who comes into St. Mungo's with a werewolf bite is a matter of unhappy chance and bad luck. Take Frobisher's case, wasn't any more than an accident, and he paid for it with his life. Why is that fair?"

"It's not fair, you'll never hear me say that. But the change doesn't need to be by them, physiologically done with a potion. The change needs to be us with our laws and regulations. If we are going to try them in a wizard's court, they have to be treated as wizards all the time, and not just when they do something wrong. It's not fair to subject them to the worst punishments of the wizarding world and marginalise them the rest of the time," he answered.

Damocles sighed. He was right to a certain point, about the laws. "Maybe the majority can't change for the sake of the minority."

"Maybe the majority needs to get over itself."

"Maybe so. I'm not going to stop, Owen. Even though you don't think it's the best way to help, it's a way in which I can help, and so I'm going to continue to do it."

"Right," Owen said. This wasn't over, not by a long shot. He would fight this all the way, with anyone else he could bring along with him. "Say whatever you want against me to brush me off to the paper. I'm used to it. But if you try and bring Erin into this a third time then so help me we're done, Damocles. I've been your friend for a long time but she was my flesh and blood. My daughter was innocent of anything but being mine, and I won't stand to have her be held up as a false martyr. The only thing her death shows is how absolutely bent Fenrir Greyback is on destroying me, and it has nothing to do with the argument we're making now."

Shame made Damocles's cheeks go red, and he nodded. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have said that, and won't again." We both miss her, Owen.

'Miss her' didn't even begin to cover what Owen still felt about Erin, even three years after her death. Some days he swore he was going mad because in that house he could still hear her laugh echoing benignly off the walls; whenever Jeremy ran from one end of the house to the next, when he'd been there, there was the empty silence that came with no little sister to be in hot pursuit to wherever he was going. Moving would force Owen and Brighid by necessity through their rooms, reliving each painful piece as they decided what should and must be kept and what they couldn't bear to part with. A difficult task that neither were able to bring themselves to just yet, and it was just as well. "You won't," he echoed. "I'll waste no more time here."

Damocles nodded, unable to think of more to say, and a simple goodbye seemed out of place. He sat in silence as Owen left himself out, debate finished in a stalemate.

~*~

May 1980

Aaron's pack refused to submit to the unified pack under Fenrir Greyback, so the solution was easy; Fenrir had to declare war on them. The main problem was solved by the pack's ambassador of sorts, Conor, who discovered at last where Aaron's pack had fled to England from Ireland. All that was left was to plan the attack with the pack members he trusted most, but even that had its problems.

"Enough," Fenrir shouted over the increasingly nasty debate between Laurel and Alecto about the constant debate of wands versus werewolves. "That's enough. I'll decide our plan, tell the rest of you when I have. All of you, out! Wesley, Remus, stay -- Laurel, attend to the children until Wesley takes over -- Alecto, go into the city."

A dark look from Fenrir stopped the near-fight between the two women immediately, and Laurel ran out of the room. Alecto just snorted and followed Conor out with a wicked sort of smile, her intentions clearly nothing good, but inevitably the room emptied, leaving Fenrir and his first and second named sons alone.

Fenrir drummed his fingers on his thigh, exchanged a glance with Wesley, and looked to his first. "Remus," he said, breaking the silence. "What do you suggest we do?"

Leave them alone, you have enough wolves underneath you, he thought dryly. Not that he could have ever said such a thing, of course, not if he valued his life. "The element of surprise served you well in taking Conor's pack, as well as most of Skoll's at the Den," he said passively. If he didn't even give the situation true consideration, then he could not be held culpable. God, he hated himself sometimes.

It was a good response, more of one than Remus usually offered; obvious, too, but Fenrir was nonetheless pleased. "And what about Alecto saying we should let her and the wizards capture and bring the packs to us?" he prompted.

"Eliminating the werewolves from the werewolves' war," Wesley said, his voice soft and his eyes on his worn shoes. "Fenrir, we must fight, I must fight -- "

"Who asked you?" Fenrir spoke acidly, only tilting his head to send a withering look at his second.

"Remus has yet to see a single battle. I thought you might like someone with experience to talk."

Fenrir lashed out at Wesley over the tie, pleased at the usual deference from his warrior. "Go on, Remus."

Remus cast a wary sideways glance at Wesley. Strictly speaking, he supposed that there was a point to his words, but it wasn't as though he actually cared to see a single battle, as he said. The one he was living was uphill enough for him. "Wizards make a terrifying impression. It depends how you would judge the strength of their pack to be, whether their full force is merited." His own wand, hidden at his side, pressed against his skin like a lead weight.

Fenrir stared past Remus, taking his words into full consideration again. This was too much for Wesley. "Father, your first is a wizard, a fully-trained wizard." He winced as the tie tightened on him but he went on, speaking rapidly: "Why not send him along with the wizards because he should know both the will of the only pack, your pack, as well as take part with the wizards?"

Fenrir shook his head to stop them both, really thinking. If Aaron's pack fell, at least two others would surrender right away. Murdering the werewolves he was meant to save, that was ridiculous. "Remus, you're my heir. You need to show the power you've inherited. Would you lead the wizards at Alecto's side?"

Remus would have liked very much to retch. Unfortunately, it was not an option. God, he needed to get out of there. He wracked his brain for an answer that he could give. Lead a pack of Death Eaters (no pun intended, he reflected dryly)? He could no sooner produce a rabbit out of his front pocket by simply waving his hand. The wolf pushed against him, wanting to do its Father's will, but Remus would not give in. Between those opposing forces, he remained silent.

Wesley stared at Remus as the silence stretched between them, and cut off Fenrir's impatient huff with a statement sent directly at the younger (but more influential) werewolf. "Go and fight. Fenrir leads. If you're meant to lead us when Fenrir is gone, you have to lead."

"Watch your words, Wesley," Fenrir said, only mildly warning. "Are you going to challenge my first?"

"I... mean to help, Father, nothing else. War eases transformation, it comforts the wolf, it's our natural state, as you've shown us."

That pleased Fenrir as well, but Wesley's potential was obvious, well-known, but useless. Remus was his heir, and had to be groomed. "Maybe you'll say what you mean when your Father's not looming over your shoulder," he said, the bite in his tone accompanied with a lash of the blood tie to both his sons. He stood. "Wesley, say what you will, Remus, punish him if you see fit." With that, he left.

The wolf sulked, a sensation that Remus was getting used to. It was like he had stood too quickly, but the head rush lasted much longer, leaving him dizzy. It hated being a disappointment, subject to the ideals of the man, but there were some things Remus could simply not do. He didn't feel as though he had anything to say, nothing that Wesley would wrap his mind around, not even the simplest "I can't." So he remained quiet.

Wesley watched Remus in hopes that he would say something first, that Wesley wouldn't be held responsible for beginning this potentially dangerous conversation, but it didn't look likely. He began slowly. "I obey pack law. I defer to my Father and his vision of pack. He sees you in that vision, and I will defer to you if I must for the sake of the pack." Tension, irritation began to brim at the surface, his wolf fully tensed as he spoke. "But you're no werewolf. You're a wizard. You must embrace your wolf before you can expect or deserve to lead others, or you're just another wizarding master."

He knew that it was supposed to be an insult, but it didn't bother Remus that Wesley still thought of him as a wizard -- and he was. He also knew that there would be a day when he could no longer sidestep what they thought he was here for, but what had he been looking for, anyway? An escape? There was no escape here, only more war. "I know you're not going to understand this, but I didn't come here looking for this," he said.

As expected, Wesley was rightfully confused. "You didn't come here to do what?" he asked, with a growing irritation. "To lead? To be a werewolf? You returned home. You came to your pack. This is what we do. If you're too weak to deal with it, then go back to the wizards!"

Wesley was right, of course. No matter how precarious his position among wizards would always be, it was what he knew. But to where? That was the prospect that always tied his stomach in knots. He clumsily clasped onto the tenuous tie that existed between them and... well, it didn't seem like a pull. He'd never quite gotten the hang of it, but all Wesley needed to understand was that he didn't really care to discuss it any further.

The simple touch was enough to make Wesley snarl. He couldn't touch him, couldn't kill him without facing Fenrir's full wrath, but the temptation was too strong. "If you don't want power, don't use it," he hissed, face contorted in anger and wolf staring directly at its brother. "Don't you DARE use pack when you refuse to be part of it!"

There was a part of Remus that made him glad that he'd ticked off Wesley enough to elicit such a response, the most violent one he could give. It was a very small part, but the wolf grabbed onto and held it fast. He forced it to let it go, because if he didn't, it wouldn't end well. "Maybe not," he said idly.

Fear flashed cold through him for an instant, the wolf cowed by fear of punishment by a higher rank, but Wesley just stared silently at Remus until he could bring himself to speak. "Our Father is the saviour of the werewolves," he said. "If you care about your kind at all, you'll help us."

Remus didn't chortle at Wesley's choice of words, although he felt like he could have. Pack was already comparable to a religious order, and it was the wizard - the rational - that recognised that, making his word choice scarily apropos. It wasn't a fair statement at all, suggesting that he did not care at all, but there were certain things... again, something that wouldn't be understood. "I won't speak of it anymore," he said pointedly.

"I ask as a member of a pack that will one day be yours, Remus," Wesley started with a wary look of deference, head even lowered. "I ... hope that you'll be pack leader one day. I hope you don't die in our fights. I would be glad to have you as a pack leader and to help you in leading. Just trust in pack; unlike wizards, it'll never fail you." His wolf reached out in the gesture of fraternity as Wesley withdrew towards the door.

Remus did his best to hide the sharp breath that he involuntarily took when the wolf demanded that it be allowed to touch back and didn't wait for permission. He got a firm hold on it before it could be taken as any affirmation of anything Wesley had just said. It felt wrong, all wrong. He let Wesley go and waited for a very long moment before leaving the room himself. He needed some air.

~*~

Conor was gone again, and Briony was never sure about whether that meant she needed to be more or less vigilant than she usually was, although it usually ended up being more, complete with her back to the wall as often as she could manage it. It was just easier that way.

Relaxing seemed impossible, but she needed to do so. Transformations within the unified pack had proven to be troublesome and most unforgiving rather than easier due to her seemingly constant state of agitation. She sat herself beside Melinda in the main room, who was sitting with Skylar and Gemma, the girl who seemed to rarely leave her side, although unsurprisingly half-asleep given the late hour. Briony caught sight of the hex scars on Melinda's arms. "Those are healing well," she remarked.

Melinda had found Skylar and the rest of those from Skoll's pack to be good company, and so was startled out of a hushed conversation with Skylar when -- of all people -- the first of her pack stepped in. She glanced down out of respect, and ended up looking at her hex scars as well. "They are," she said, and at realising that this wasn't enough, went on, "I had some help."

"Perfectly respectable. Makes people think twice about bothering you," Skylar told her reassuringly. Skylar hadn't made it away from the Den without some brand new scars of her own, hidden beneath her shirt and stretching from shoulder to shoulder.

"Well. Some people," Briony added a little darkly.

"His pack seems to collect them. As though you're supposed to be proud of war." Melinda spoke rapidly and softly so she might not be heard, but it was difficult not to get entirely frustrated and just scream, as she could clearly remember Geoff calling the Greyback pack 'a lot of backward masochistic savages' only a day before he'd died. How right he was.

"Believe me, they had more than a good base to build from," Briony remarked in return.

"Speaking of our esteemed second of the pack, I'm sure," Skylar said dryly.

"Wesley won't play 'Sploding Snap," Gemma murmured tiredly, shifting in Skylar's lap. "It's all run 'round outside and play fight and boring."

"Amongst his worse qualities," she agreed in return, brushing the girl's hair back.

"I don't imagine there's enough bloodshed involved for him," Briony put in.

Melinda tensed and her wolf reacted, agitated; she closed her eyes. "It won't impress Fenrir. Stupid boy. He's always going to be the second."

"It must impress him enough, Fenrir doesn't seem to be one who suffers anything for long," Skylar remarked.

"Nothing except Death Eaters, anyway," Briony answered, immediately picking up on the shift in Melinda's wolf and tried to temper it with a brief touch.

"She's a horrible woman," Melinda said darkly, her wolf obediently calming despite that she was still agitated.

"They're all awful," Briony agreed. She had yet to find a single good thing to say about any of the witches and wizards who'd involved themselves in the matters of the packs -- especially Alecto Carrow. There was no love lost between the two of them, and that had only intensified since her pack's fall and collapse into the Unified Pack. "But she is the worst."

"Jeremy said we had to watch her," Gemma said, tiredly playing with her hair, before looking at Briony and Melinda, now at least awake. "I don't like her either. She was mean about Cort," she clarified.

Briony didn't answer the girl, only staring at her in slightly stunned silence for a moment. "Jeremy said?" she simply directed at Skylar. She might've known, no, should have expected that she wasn't going to be the only one that he'd been talking to or using for information, but who besides her?

Melinda touched Briony's arm, too pleased at the mention of Jeremy to adhere to her strict respect to rank. "Do you know him?" she asked, lowering her voice. "You really have to talk to him, Briony. He's -- something else."

And Melinda too. Oh, this was too good. "We've talked," she said. "Sounds like he's been making rounds."

"You sound surprised," Skylar said, reconsidering letting Gemma listen whenever she and Jeremy talked.

"I... am not, actually." Briony shook her head.

"I heard he was planning on getting rid of Wesley," Melinda whispered.

Briony chortled at the thought. "I suppose there would be harder things to do." She twisted one of her curls around her finger absently. "I'm a little hard pressed to think of one right now, but..."

"Unseating Wesley would be hard," Skylar agreed. "But not totally impossible."

It'd be easier if Fenrir's first weren't practically a wizard himself, Briony thought. Nothing against Remus, really, their interaction had been limited at most, but she had no doubt that he was hardly suited to the tasks that Fenrir would have him do. Fenrir needed Wesley for sheer force. "I don't think it's his plan. Not at this point, anyway."

"I wonder what he does have planned," Melinda said, leaning forward, chin in her hands. "I hope it's soon. Do any of you know anything?"

Briony gave her a sharp look. "Stay out of it, Melinda," she said. "It doesn't do any good to try and save the pack if there isn't going to be any pack left."

Melinda reacted as though slapped, blood rushing to her face, and her head immediately lowered. "You know Geoff would have done this," she dared to say. "You know this is what he would have wanted."

She gave an immediate reaction, a low snarl that made Gemma's hold on Skylar tighten as Skylar herself paid more careful attention to Briony and Melinda. "Bri," she said slowly.

"More lives than necessary being risked? Yeah, I can see that being his desire for being in our personal hell," she snapped, ignoring Skylar.

"I think I know more about what Geoff thought than you did," Melinda shot back, her wolf agitating and panicking at the lack of obedience, but she forced it down, standing. "He was the real heir but he couldn't do or say anything around you or Jane or even his Father because he would never do or say the right thing because he wasn't you! Geoff wouldn't have let us fall like this. Geoff wouldn't have let us down!"

Now it was Briony's turn to react as though she'd been smacked. Pieces of her reacted one at a time, many of them saying, She's right, it would be different if Geoff was alive. Different, maybe, but not necessarily better. "We had understanding, the four of us, and Conor has never been less than fair with all of us. But now Geoff's dead, isn't he," she said flatly without moving from her spot on the floor. Her eyes remained fixed on Melinda's, her wolf matching the other girl's.

"As though you care," Melinda spat down at her, her wolf panicking and forcing her back a few steps, though she didn't stop yelling. "It's always just been you and Conor and that's all it ever will be, isn't it!"

Briony knew she shouldn't have, but she jumped to her feet and advanced on Melinda. She didn't intend on touching her, but she was far too angry to just sit anymore. "How dare you, Geoff was my brother, I knew him long before he even laid eyes on you let alone was sharing his bed with you -- "

"That is enough," Skylar quickly stepped between the two of them, conjuring enough menace that Briony stopped. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Drawing any more attention to yourselves than necessary would be unwise, don't you think?"

Melinda stared at Briony, her wolf struggling to the point that she felt pain and tears stung her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said, lowered her head once more, and awaited some sort of order.

There was no immediate answer from Briony. Her chest was tight with grief and she wished she could trust herself to say the right thing but she wasn't sure that she did. Not that whatever she said to Melinda right now would be the right thing. "Watch yourself," she said slowly. "Stay out of it."

It was exactly what Melinda didn't want to hear, but she wasn't in the place to question it. "Is that an order?"

She could see Skylar giving her a sharp look, and feel her wolf pushing against hers. Her skin crawled. "Yes."

That was that and Melinda could feel everyone looking at her, and hear Geoff in the back of her head telling her, There's no point, Mel, she has all the power in the world, Conor will do anything for her. "All right," she said, and left the room before she humiliated herself further.

The room settled back again as the show was over and everyone else went back to what they had been doing. Briony stayed frozen, and was compelled to move only when she felt Skylar seeking her out again. She turned her head and collapsed back onto the floor where she had been sitting. She clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking, but it didn't seem to help. Skylar wasn't about to let it go. "If he's spoken to her," she started in a low tone to not be overheard, "then he's seen a way for her to help."

"If this fails I want someone to be left to take my place when Fenrir lets Wesley take me apart piece by piece," she responded numbly. She was trying to protect Melinda, as far as she could tell it was the least Geoffrey would have done for her.

"We aren't accounting for failure, Briony," she said seriously.

"I know." She did know. She'd known it since the first time Jeremy had spoken to her, and every time since. If this didn't work now, it was not going to work. "I'm sorry."

"I don't think it's me that you have to apologise to."

Melinda wasn't going to listen to her. First or not, anything she said now was going to go in one ear and out the other. But if Briony was completely honest with herself, she knew that what Skylar said was true. She nodded and left the room again, but not to find Melinda. So much for the possibility of relaxation.

~*~

June 1980

Frank and Alice had been looking and even trying to create opportunities to speak to Remus about whatever he knew about Greyback's pack. Admittedly, recent attempts had degenerated into what could loosely be termed 'cornering.' At this point, though, all Frank cared about was that the plan would work, and everyone could walk away feeling good about themselves. The one cinch in the plan was that Remus was not cooperating.

As a pair of Aurors they could have been subtler, but among friends - nay, comrades - there shouldn't have been any need for such a thing. He had even rather liked Remus when they'd met, even once he'd found out about his condition, but this was quickly proceeding to the point of all bets being off.

Dumbledore prepared to officially end the Order meeting, Marlene McKinnon dutifully scribbling every last word spoken in some kind of long dead language - the Department of Mysteries turned out to be good for something after all, Frank thought wryly. He glanced at Alice with one look that conveyed his silent question. Ready to try again?

Alice answered with a simple nod and touched her husband's arm as she waited for Dumbledore to speak the closing words of the meeting. As he spoke loudly above the murmurs ("That should be all for tonight, excellent work, all of you") she boldly stepped forward before Frank even moved, approaching Remus where he had placed himself far from the Longbottoms. Subtlety was no longer an option, after all. "Remus," she greeted him kindly, clasping her hands and trying her best to look friendly.

Remus desperately wished that he could Disapparate from the spot, but there was no way that was happening with the kind of wards that were up on this house. And there was no physical way out of this either - Alice was right in front of him and Frank was blocking the other angle. He forced himself to smile pleasantly at them. "Hello Alice, Frank," he said to them.

Alice paused for only an instant to find something to say. All small talk would be lies or questions she knew he couldn't answer. She chose a lie to start off. "You look well," she said (he did, at least compared to his appearance at the last Order meeting). "You're not busy, are you, on your way out? We'd just like to talk to you for a minute, that's all."

"You must be using a different dictionary than I am," he joked weakly and knew it wasn't going to work. "I was just..." he motioned vaguely.

"Good, then we're going to speak with you," Frank said, very much straight to the point and in his Auror mode while Alice went into hers - apparently very good cop/bad cop of them, as one of the Muggleborn Aurors joked. "We just want some answers, Remus, that's all. You don't have anything to be afraid of."

Remus had a lot of be afraid of, but what frightened him more was the fear that could conquer him and lead him places he really couldn't go. "I've already told you what I can." The wolf was pushing against him in warning, and he ignored it.

"Surely you know more than that," Alice said, consoling with her tone and her hand on his arm. "I don't need to tell you just how important this is."

"Just one answer, Remus, that's all," Frank added, watching the younger man fight against what he recognised as something like inner trouble of some sort as a panicked look crept across his face.

"Listen," Remus said shakily, quite literally backing into the wall away from Alice's touch. That small effort to calm the wolf seemed to go unappreciated, and he felt truly trapped. His heart was speeding up in a futile preparation to flee, and he forced himself to breathe slower than he would have liked to. "I am there, so I will do... whatever -- " He was doing whatever, forget that, " -- but I can't give you a location. I know it sounds awful but I really can't. You have to trust me."

It was the first moment where Frank honestly didn't trust Remus. "Can't or won't," he said flatly.

Remus gave him a sharper look than he would have meant to otherwise, but the wolf was up front and ready to be seen. "Can't," he answered in a similar tone.

Alice Longbottom was nothing if not one of the most patient witches in Britain, but her patience had been tried one time too many for her taste. Remus was an Order member that kept vital things from the Order for no good reason. "Why not?" Her voice rose in pitch, and after a self-conscious look around the room, she saw Caradoc and Benjy watching her. She turned her steely gaze on Remus again and put her hands on her hips. "I'm waiting."

'Because it won't let me' was a madman's answer, and he knew it. It wasn't an answer he could give. He wracked his brain again for anything he could say - why not the truth? There would be a price to pay for the wolf's displeasure, but it would be over eventually. Fenrir Greyback would be gone for good. The cost was low, comparatively speaking.

He opened his mouth to assent, the words were even ready to leave his mouth, but instead of any words, he cried out in the sudden, searing pain in his head -- a blinding pain, like the worst migraine. He leaned heavily against the wall as his legs gave way. He put his hands to his head with no real hope that any of the pain was going to be relieved.

Alice didn't hesitate to hurry over to Remus and begin doing the best once-over with the little knowledge of Healing she had. "What's wrong? Frank, go get Edgar! Is Edgar still here?"

Frank backed away quickly and went to obey Alice's order. Remus tried to tell her that it wouldn't help, but instead he gritted his teeth and sank to the floor as a fresh jolt of pain hit. The pain hit again and again, in unbearable waves.

Frank returned with Edgar Bones in tow, who immediately assessed the situation with the practised eyes of a Healer. "Remus, what's wrong?" he asked calmly, and when he received no answer from him, he looked to Alice.

Alice didn't know what was going on. Certainly she was the only werewolf expert in the room besides Remus himself, but was this even werewolf-related? Was he ill? She panicked. "We were just talking to him and he -- " she gestured, flustered. "He started to panic like this!"

"We were interrogating him, more like," Frank admitted.

Right, so no help there. Edgar turned back to Remus. "Can I examine you, Remus?" he asked the younger man, who was now at least not holding his head in his hands. He took his silence for assent, and at least made sure he wasn't going to die right there on the floor. "Your heart rate is through the roof."

"Pain's in my head," he answered dully. It hadn't completely subsided, but it still felt like his head might explode -- in addition to the momentary satisfaction of the wolf, which added its own kind of misery.

Alice withdrew towards Frank, miserably pressing her face into his shoulder. Despite the possibility that Remus was a traitor, she never would use such measures to draw out information, unlike many of the Aurors with their newfound powers of the Unforgivables.

Edgar sighed and continued to give Remus a basic check up. Creature-induced injuries were not his area of specialty, but he was willing to bet Remus's condition was either the cause or an impacting factor of whatever was going on. "Well, I don't know if there's anything I can do," he said. "Can you stand, then?"

Even if he couldn't he was going to, because he needed to leave. He took Edgar's extended hands and pulled himself to stand solidly on his own two feet. His head throbbed. "Yes, I think I'm better now, thank you," he said with a calm that he didn't think he was going to be capable of.

"All right," Edgar nodded. "If this turns out to not be... environmental," he started tactfully, looking over his shoulder at Frank and Alice, "and happens again, please promise me that you'll send me a Patronus."

Remus was fairly sure that it was very nearly entirely environmental, so no harm in saying, "I will, thank you." He felt guilty about it even though he also felt that he really shouldn't, but he took that opportunity to go out the door and Disapparate as soon as he got far enough away. The wolf had gotten its way, and it had only cost any sort of dignity or standing he had left in the Order.