The Old Canvas Bag

The garage was a haven in more ways than one. Aside from the pieces of metal, bolts, and tools scattered around the Cadillac engine and the diagrams tacked to the wall, a heavy canvas bag hung from the rafters, swinging on chains and creaking with each motion.

Damien pulled the wrapping tight, pressing down on it and murmuring a sticking charm to keep it place. He left the gloves off. And then it began.

Jab after jab, until his right arm screamed with agony. Not enough.

Left arm.

Not enough.

Crosses. Upper cuts. Hooks.

The sweat began to sluice down his back, and he swept his shirt off impatiently. But it was still not enough, not as the light of the full moon filtered in through the windows.

Again and again, combinations of punches, a few kicks, ducks and feigned blocks. There was no real opponent- nothing to fight except a sand-filled bag that he kept from swinging too erratically with a Steadying Charm. His feet scuffed over the concrete and his fists sunk into the canvas and his breathing was harsh, but even that couldn't cover the unnatural silence of the yard.

Marilyn came out hours later to find him sitting on an overturned bucket, face buried in bleeding hands, hair slicked back with sweat and no way of hiding the sobs that silently shook his shoulders.

***

"All right. Make a fist."

Remus made a face instead. "Why do I have to?"

"Remus, please. You need to learn this."

"It hurts," Remus complained. "When I punch the bag. It makes my hand hurt."

"It gets better. You have to get used to it. Eventually your hands build up to it, and it doesn't hurt anymore."

"Yours bleed sometimes."

Damien didn't think Remus had noticed. But six-year-olds had sharper eyes than most parents anticipated, didn't they?

"You could wear my gloves?" he suggested.

"They won't fit," Remus pointed out matter-of-factly. "Your hands are much bigger than mine." He grabbed Damien's wrist and held their palms together. "See?"

Damien saw his callused hand, stained with motor oil and defined by veins, mirrored against his son's small, soft palm. He closed his hand, sliding his fingers between Remus's and holding his hand.

"I want you to learn this," he said softly, patiently. "Just a little, Remus. Please."

"Why?" Remus asked, his eyes solemn and curious.

"Because...." How to say it? How to bring back that nightmare of a day when the children had chased him into the forest, those three days of terror when they couldn't find Remus anywhere, that tight, overwhelming sensation when the world had spun and gone dark and he'd woken in St. Mungo's, completely helpless as Moody had searched the forest to find a dirty, scared, hungry little boy who should have been safe at home? "I want you to be safe," he said finally, his voice rasping.

Remus watched him, and Damien tried not to let him see the fear in his eyes. Please, Remus, he begged silently. Please do this for me, so I can sleep at night. It's all I can give you.

Finally, Remus nodded. "Just a little," he conceded. "And only if I can wear your gloves."

***

The August son was hot, but Damien ignored the discomfort. This month was an end of an era, in a way. In three weeks Remus would be leaving them for ten whole months. He'd be home for the holidays, but that was all. Damien tried not to think of it, turning Marilyn's eight-track player up as loud as it would go. The sounds of Queen reverberated off the garage walls, making birds flee the area and Marilyn inside shout that it was a good thing they had no neighbors. It was just the sort of music to make you drive your muscles until they burned.

The sound of the Muggle rock music attracted an audience, however. Damien looked up from his workout to see Remus perched on the workbench, swinging his legs and watching intently.

"Yes?" he asked, panting for breath.

Remus shook his head. "I just wanted to watch for a while."

Damien nodded and went back to his punching, carefully keeping his eyes focused on the bag before him. He was beginning to learn that Remus didn't always answer direct questions or obey direct requests, but give him long enough and let him think it was his own idea, and you might get what you wanted.

He did. Eventually Remus picked up the long handwraps draped over the work bench. "How do you put these on, anyway?" he asked, wrinkling his nose.

Damien carefully counted out six more punches, and then turned casually. "Let me get you a clean pair," he said, fishing through a mesh bag. He'd never tell Remus that the red pair had been bought specifically for him, and had waited unused in this bag for years. "Hook the loop over your thumb," he explained, undoing his and demonstrating. "Now wrap around your wrist twice... up around the palm twice... over the thumb- yes, exactly like that... now just alternate, wrist and palm." He did it deftly, watching Remus's more awkward attempts and then using his wand to bind the end to the rest of the wrap. "Do you want gloves?"

"You're punching without them," Remus said, lifting his chin in a defiant tilt.

"All right then," Damien said, ruffling Remus's hair. "You remember how to make a fist?" Remus closed his hand, the thumb outside the knuckles and pressed against his forefinger. "Good. Now let's see your cross again."

Four years ago, Damien had only been able to teach Remus the most basic of self-defense moves. Now, Remus seemed to have more of an interest, and a quick right hook to match. He wondered, but he didn't press.

"Dad?" Remus asked eventually, as he pounded a series of uppercuts into the bag. "Were you nervous when you started Hogwarts?"

And everything was crystal clear.

"Of course," Damien reassured him. "I mean, I'd never been."

"Did you know anyone there? Before you went, I mean?"

"No," Damien lied. "But I made friends early on. Let's try a combination. Let me see a front hook, duck, and then a cross. Do it slow, first."

Remus obeyed, working steadily. He didn't speak again until they were sitting, Damien on his favorite bucket and Remus on the work bench again. "What's it like?" Remus asked, studying his knuckles. They were bleeding slightly. Instead of getting out his wand, Damien took Remus's hand in his and applied pressure to scrapes.

"It's great," he reassured him. "You'll get Sorted into your House the first night, and you'll be with other boys your age, and you'll have roommates and friends. And then you'll have your classes- they're very important- but the teachers are very nice. You'll have Professor McGonagall- you remember her, we met her when we met with Headmaster Dumbledore- for Transfiguration, and she'll show you around."

Remus bit his lip. "What if... what if they find out?" he asked in a small voice.

Damien wanted nothing more than to crush his son into his arms and reassure him that that would never happen, that he would protect him forever. "It will be very hard for them to," he said, letting up the pressure on Remus's hand and checking the bleeding. "But if it happens, Headmaster Dumbledore said he'd take care of it."

"And you, Dad?"

He pressed down on Remus's hand. "I already know, Remus. And you know I'm always here."

"I know." The look in Remus's eyes as he looked up at him made him feel stronger than throwing a million punches ever could.

***

The house was quiet without Remus around, but Damien and Marilyn soon grew used to it. "It's funny," he mused to her one night. "We always said no children, and now that he's gone...."

"It's like there's a big empty hole," she finished, smiling sadly.

There was a hole, and yet it filled. There was work to do and the house to keep up. They went for walks together, spent evenings by the fire, and remembered a time when the dinner table only sat two. There was now plenty of time to work on the cars and cross-stitch, and it was easier for them to see people without having to worry that they'd see through Remus and know what he was. Damien was able to go to the gym at Marilyn's university, and found partners to box with instead of the old canvas bag.

But the canvas bag was still his outlet on full moon nights.

The summers and holidays took on a different pattern. The house seemed to spring back to life when Remus was home, and life went back to what it had been for the past eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen years. Remus had changed at Hogwarts, but Hogwarts had done what Marilyn and Damien could not fully do- it had put a smile on his face and life in his eyes, and it had made him a part of the world again.

But there was one difference in Remus that wasn't due to the old castle in Scotland or the names that he kept spouting off, and that was his appearances in the garage.

In the beginning, Damien was simply glad. It was a father's duty and privilege to teach his son how to fight, and he gloried in teaching Remus everything he knew. The first four years of Hogwarts, Remus was full of chat about his classes and his friends, and boxing had simply been a way to listen and spend time together. But during his fifth year, when Remus turned moody and silent and shut both Damien and Marilyn out, boxing seemed to be the only way they communicated anymore.

"Is something wrong?" he'd asked Remus once, rather directly, after sixth year.

Remus had just shaken his head, sweat flying off his hear and landing in delicate droplets on his bare chest. He was still skinny, but Damien realized that Remus would never be a broad, big man. Already you could see he would grow lean and wiry, but never heavily muscled. "No, nothing," he'd said shortly, but the ferocity of his punches increased.

"Sirius?" Damien asked.

Remus looked up at him, eyes wary. "Yeah."

Damien nodded, and then said, "You're broadcasting your cross again."

"Shit." Remus tried again and shook his head, and then looked at his father. "Show me how to fix it?"

It took three swallows to be able to speak, and when he could, Damien could only explain how to keep the elbow in and bring the power of the punch from the hip, and not how to mend the wounds of a broken heart.

***

Changes came again, in the summer that Remus was seventeen. Remus left school and found an apartment, living on his own. Damien was promoted back to Auror. And he was assigned an apprentice, a shadow... a Black.

It took three days of hard pounding to fully accept that one.

And yet, he found himself bewitched, ensnared in Sirius's easy laugh and interest in motorcycles and Dark Arts and the workings of the Ministry. So very different from talk of laboratories and funding and other things that Remus never spoke of but lurked under the surface. But he didn't let himself think about those differences, because he knew the words and the feelings and they weren't what he wanted to feel.

He mentioned boxing to Sirius, several times, watching for a spark of interest in the lively grey eyes. Sirius had been amused, but never quite risen to the bait- at least, not until after a mission where he'd been caught in a struggle with a Death Eater and his physical attempts to escape had been ineffective.

"Where did you learn to throw a punch like that?" he asked Damien later, panting and trying to staunch the flow of blood from his nose.

"I told you that I box," Damien said, letting up the pressure on a wound of his own and checking on the bleeding.

"Yeah, but that was an amazing right hook. Where did you learn it?"

"My Muggles Studies professor when I was at Hogwarts. He was a bit of an enthusiast, and he taught me and my roommate Sam."

Sirius shook his head. "This explains a lot."

"What do you mean?"

"Remus. He throws the sharpest uppercut I've ever felt, and in our fourth year he clocked a Ravenclaw seventh year when he made fun of Peter. Gave him a black eye and a split lip." A slow, startled smile broke out over Damien's face. "No one ever really messed with Remus again." He looked wistful, and Damien offered.

"Do you want me to teach you?"

Sirius glanced up, surprised. "Yeah. At least the basics."

He did, three days later, or at least they began. Sirius was exactly what Damien could have wanted in a student: quick, focused, and energetic, and extremely talented. Stronger than Remus, faster than himself, and more than willing to forgo the bag and fight face to face once he'd mastered the basics. And yet, after Sirius left that night and Damien was alone in the gloaming light of evening, he felt as if he hadn't moved a muscle.

He sent the owl the next day. Come punch with me tonight. He didn't sign it- didn't need to. And the owl came back in under an hour, bearing five words only: I'll be there after work.

And Remus did arrive, a little quiet and awkward as he'd been since Christmas seventh year. He was sitting in the garage when Damien entered, swinging his feet as he sat on the edge of the workbench. "It's been a while," Remus said.

"Too long," Damien agreed, with a sharp pang of guilt as his eyes noted a small scar under Remus's eye. That scar had not been the work of any nocturnal beast, but of a Death Eater that he'd only heard about through Moody.

"What happened to your eye?" he asked when they were shining with sweat and three songs had blared over the pounding of fists into dull canvas.

"You didn't hear?"

"Not from you. Moody said you and Lily Evans were attacked."

Remus grunted. "You were in Turkey at the time," he said, not meeting his father's eyes. "I didn't want to talk about it anyway."

"I wish you'd told me."

Under the sheen of perspiration, Remus flushed. "Dad, I don't want to talk about it."

"Why not?"

"I just don't!" Remus hit the bag harder, and Damien suspected too much was on the line. "You wouldn't understand."

"Why wouldn't I understand?"

Remus spun to face him, his face contorted. "Because I couldn't keep her safe, all right? That's why I don't want to- what are you laughing at?"

Because he was laughing; not in amusement but in bitter coldness at the memories of full moon nights and of his wife's tears, at the eighteen year old werewolf who was his son, and everything that was implied. Remus stared at him, and then slumped his shoulders. "I suppose that was bloody stupid of me, wasn't it?"

"It was." Damien leaned against the work bench, and eventually Remus sat. "Believe me, Remus, I understand. Just start with the fact that I've never felt the effects of a Crucio, and you have."

"I still don't want to talk about it," Remus muttered.

"No. There's not much to say, is there?" Damien agreed. "All the talk in the world doesn't change what happened."

"Exactly."

They sat in silence, watching the bag sway slightly. "Are you all right?" Damien finally asked. Remus shrugged half-heartedly. Damien clapped him on the shoulder. "Shall we get back to it, then?"

"Let's," Remus agreed, slipping off the bench.

They talked more easily of other things; things that were inconsequential but still news Damien hadn't necessarily heard. Remus mentioned he was going out again after he went home, and with a start Damien realized he had no idea where Remus was going. Back to work? A pub? Out with his friends? To a lover's place? He didn't want to pry (especially if it was the last, if Remus even had a partner, which was something Damien didn't know, either), but it drove home again just how long it had been since Remus had been here.

"Come back anytime," he told Remus as he left.

Remus nodded and smiled, his eyes warm and his fringe drying in the summer sunset. "I will," he promised vaguely, and then Apparated away.

Damien stood in the doorway, staring at the empty space until a slender pair of arms slipped around his waist.

"You need a shower," Marilyn informed him, laughing. He nodded absently, and she sighed. "You can't hold on to him forever, Damien."

"I could try a little harder than I do."

She didn't argue with that, because there was truth there and they both knew it. Instead she leaned her cheek cautiously against his sweaty back. "Just bring him home when you want a sparring partner," she whispered, and he heard the loneliness and loss in her voice, too. "Not Sirius. It feels like you're replacing him."

"I am not," he insisted, stung because she'd put words to the feeling he couldn't articulate.

"It's just always been something you and Remus have done together," Marilyn said. "At least here."

"All right," he conceded, not a compromise because he'd thought it already. "I'll keep it that way." And the house seemed less quiet as he draped his arm around her shoulders and guided her back inside.

***

The house had been destroyed, but the garage and the shed had somehow escaped the worst of the destruction. There hadn't been much to save, but somehow the canvas bag had survived.

"Where do you want it hung?"

Sirius and Remus were helping Damien move into his new flat. It was modern and in a wizarding building and quite nice... and echoingly empty. He shrugged. "Wherever you want."

"Dad," Remus began, and Damien noticed Sirius edging away, as if intruding on a private moment. "We can put it wherever you want it. Please." Remus knelt down before him, catching his hands up in his own. "Come on. Let's find a good spot for it. I'll come over tomorrow, and we'll..." his voice trailed off and his fingers tightened around Damien's hand.

Damien opened his hand and put their palms together slowly, remembering a time when Remus's fingers didn't even come up to his own. His hands looked the same as they had for years, but Remus's were different, with long fingers and pronounced knuckles and the hints of manhood about them. When had they changed?

He didn't want to fill his flat with reminders of his shattered life. But the punching bag was not something that was Marilyn, but rather Remus, and in some ways he'd lost Remus years ago. He flicked his eyes to the black-haired Auror standing uncertainly on the lintel of the doorway, but he couldn't muster any resentment.

"Dad?"

He thought of nights alone in this new place, without Marilyn at his side. He thought of the ways he could fill them, drowning himself in work, pouring his grief and anger into long workouts until he was too exhausted not to sleep. He could hide here- hide from war and death and losing those he loved.

"Dad? Are you all right?"

He closed his eyes and thought of Marilyn, and what she would say. She would kill him, he knew that. Life had to go on, and he knew that. And his life wasn't over... or empty.

"Dad? Where do you want to hang it?"

The answer came to him easily. "Hang it in your flat, and from now on, I'll come to you."