The Ravishing Thrall

Chapter Two: Faith

Lupin/Cambio's dressing room was as unimpressive as his person. The brightest thing in the room was his cape, and Hermione was glad when he took it off and deposited it disdainfully in a corner. He'd lost the air of quiet magnificence that he had cultivated on the stage, and he was more the old Lupin that she knew, slightly slouched, with unsettled, roving eyes and a very weary sort of curve to his smile. He wasn't an old man, and yet by looking, you couldn't

tell how young he really was.

Pulling out a tattered, indescribably brown stool from under a similarly-colored coffee table, Lupin gestured for Hermione to take it. She seated herself, and he folded his frame into a nearby armchair, gazing at her curiously, with a combination of resignation and wariness that made her uncomfortable. "Well?" he asked, although there was no malice to the challenge. "Have you come to arrest me?"

"No, of course not," Hermione started, but, even as she spoke, she remembered the way his lips had moved as he'd raised the unconscious form of the volunteer from the ground. She frowned, and shook her head. "I...I didn't come to arrest you," she tried a second time, "but I...that is, I just don't know what to say." She shook her head, holding out her hands in an expression of confusion. "I couldn't

possibly have known that I'd see you here..."

"If you weren't looking for me," Lupin murmured skeptically, "then what were you doing in the theater?"

"I was only seeing the show," she told him. Lupin looked unconvinced. "I was," Hermione reassured him, "because I had to, go get information for my book." Belatedly, she remembered the parchment in her handbag, and pulled it out, offering it to him. "It's on Muggle/magic relations," she insisted, pointing at the notes where she'd begun to discuss him and his act. "That's why I came."

Lupin nodded encouragingly. "Should have thought it was something like that," he said, and he flashed her closest thing to a full-fledged grin that she'd seen from him so far. "You're quite an expert now on all sorts of Muggle issues. I read your last book when Flourish and Blotts did the special on you. A well-researched piece of literature. I would say that I was impressed, but, to tell you the truth, I couldn't have expected any less of you."

Hermione started, surprised that he'd read the book. She certainly hadn't heard anyone else mention her previous, almost unheard-of attempt to describe the relationships between Muggles and mythological creatures. An unwelcome blush rose to her cheeks at the sound of the praise for her work, and Hermione coughed, glancing down at the stool.

"So?" Lupin asked with a sigh. "What are we going to do now?"

"Do?" Hermione hated how stupid she sounded to herself.

"Yes." clarified Lupin, "What are we going to do, now that you've surprised my secret, and cornered me so effectively? I don't suppose I'm going to get off with a good stern talking to." He sounded amused, although Hermione hardly thought of this as a laughing matter. Tearing her mind away from his compliments, she shook her head at him, remembering the transgressions she'd just witnessed. "Well," Lupin pressed her, "let's have the worst of it."

"What'd you to him?" Hermione asked, standing up, both to give weight to her words, and so she wouldn't have to sit there looking into Lupin's patiently smiling face. "To that man, when you...when you 'hypnotized' him, I mean. What did you really do to him? I know it wasn't a trick, I know you cast something on him, but I couldn't tell what it was."

"What do you think I did to him?" Lupin responded, infuriatingly.

"If I knew that," Hermione shot back, "I wouldn't have asked you. And trust me, Professor, if I did know, then I'd know exactly how to deal with it. I do have my suspicions."

There was something odd, Hermione realized even as she spoke, about her both chastising Lupin, and referring to him as "Professor" in the same sentence. She'd never quite managed to shake the fact that he had not only been her teacher, but one of the best teachers that she'd ever had at Hogwarts. That had been years ago, but there was something so unobtrusively professional about the man that she kept using the title despite herself.

"I imagine that, no matter what you think I did, the actual fact wasn't quite so bad," Lupin replied.

Hermione wouldn't be put off. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to ask the question that had been lurking at the back of her mind since she'd seen the stunt. "You didn't...you didn't Imperius him, did you?"

Remus gave her a very long, very surprised look. Then he dissolved into silent laughter. Watching him, Hermione felt the color rising in her face for the second time. This wasn't a laughing matter, she thought, this was really serious. Why, if wizards went around using unforgivable curses on Muggle subjects just for fun...wizards who were supposed to be champions of the good and just. "It's not funny," she told him, "it's not funny at all! You, of all people, should know that it's absolutely not permissible to-!"

Lupin held up a hand to her, cutting her off as he tried to stifle his laughter. "I assure you, Hermione," he said, "that I did not, and never would use the Imperius curse." He took a deep breath, and finally regained some of his composure. "I can't decide if you're giving me a lot of credit for being able to use it so discreetly, or giving me too little credit for making the totally unfounded assumption that I'd ever use it. No," he continued, "no, I only put a sleepwalking spell on him. He was out cold, and I just suggested things to him. We had a good night tonight. Half of the time, the subject won't do what I ask them to, because they're too confused and unconscious to figure out what's going on. It doesn't really matter, though, as the audience loves when I get things wrong, because it means they're more powerful than," and the quality of his voice changed slightly, "the Great Cambio." His smile was half grimace, now.

Hermione couldn't help being relieved. She hadn't wanted to believe that Lupin was capable of an unforgivable curse, and she was incredibly pleased to hear that he hadn't done it after all. The sensation, however, was short lived. "That doesn't change the fact," she continued, "that you've deliberately broken one of the most binding of the laws! We are never, under any circumstances, permitted to-!"

"I am aware, Hermione, of the terms of the law," murmured Lupin. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but, apparently thought better of it. Instead, he got to his feet, and gave the open window a furtive glance, before crossing to a small chest of drawers on the opposite side of the room. "Forgive me," he said, and reached into the bottom drawer to pull out a small teacup and a packet. He opened the packet, dumping the contents into the teacup. A good deal of greenish powder tumbled into the cup, and Lupin waved his wand at it, so that the glittering stuff became a slimy green liquid. "I've started to make this instant stuff," he added. "It's not quite as lasting as the potion I used to take, but that takes much longer to make, and if I take this before the fact, I don't eat anyone when the moon rises."

Hermione watched Lupin swallow the unpleasant looking concoction. "What do you do," she asked, "when you have a show on the night of a full moon?"

Lupin shook his head. " I don't," he said simply, replacing the cup. "Tea? I have some regular tea, for those of us who aren't werewolves."

"No, thank you," Hermione said, shaking her head. "None for me."

"We've all got to eat, Hermione," Lupin told her, responding to a comment that she hadn't yet made. "Illegal or not, the Muggles don't understand what a werewolf is, so they can't be afraid of me. To them, it's all a trick, and they couldn't possibly suspect me of anything. I'll take my chances with the law, if it gives me the opportunity to stay living on my own terms. If I could find another way to live, I would. I'm not sure if you're entirely familiar with what's been going on at the Ministry lately, but I'm sure you've heard about the bans on werewolf labor, at least in passing."

He selected a different teacup, and poured himself a much more appealing drink from a teapot that had apparently also been hiding in the chest. As he sipped at it complacently, watching the sky through the nearby window, Hermione understood what what was going on. She regarded Lupin steadily, unsure how much she wanted to rely on the green powder to protect her from the ravaging of an angry werewolf. Other people would feel the same way, she knew. Other people who didn't know Lupin personally wouldn't feel nearly as safe as even she did sitting in the same room with him, watching him drink tea as if the moon wasn't about to rise through the clouds and shatter their peace.

"You probably ought to go," Lupin was saying, his drowsy eyes mournful as he waved a hand at the window. "It's a little bit disturbing when it happens; for all that I promise I won't snack on you."

Perversely, Hermione didn't want to leave him in this state. "It's fine," she said. "I used to see Professor McGonagall transform all the time, and I've watched Sirius..." She bit her lip, regretting that reference. Still, there was nothing for it now. "I've watched Sirius," she continued determinedly, "change as well. It can't be anything too surprising."

Lupin said nothing, but he straightened up a bit in his chair, and Hermione got the sense that he appreciated the faith.

For all of her brave words, she was still apprehensive when the moon broke through the cloud cover. Lupin's back arched, and thick, brown hair started to break out on his thin arms. A spasm of pain crossed his face, and he shot a look at Hermione. Aware that she was under scrutiny, Hermione stayed put, and pretended to be too busy reading over her parchment of notes to have noticed the change. She read the same line over and over again, unable to stop herself from tensing in her chair as Lupin let out a strangled yelp of distress.

When she finally allowed herself to look at him again, he was all wolf, curled up awkwardly on his hind legs in the chair. His eyes still contained that deeply gloomy expression that the human Lupin had worn. Hermione carefully schooled her expression into one of disinterested patience, and took out her pen to scribble in the margins of her parchment.

***

Time passed slowly. At first, Hermione felt incredibly awkward, just sitting there across from the melancholy, transformed Lupin. She was unwilling to speak, and he was unable. The uncomfortable atmosphere around them kept building, until Hermione, unable to bear it, stood up, and began to pace the room. "Do you have any spare parchment, Professor?" she asked, gesturing helplessly at the sheet in her hands, covered completely with writing. "I need to start another sheet."

She wasn't sure at first if wolf-Lupin had understood her. After a moment, however, he flicked his tail at the chest of drawers from which he'd originally pulled the tea set. Hermione walked over to it, and reached in to find several sheets of fine parchment in the top drawer. "Thank you."

She settled herself back on to the stool, and perched the sheets on her knee, placing the already finished notes on the floor just to the left of her feet. "I think you must be the only person who has ever read my last book, Professor," she said, as she started to translate her hastily scribbled notes into turgidly flowing sentences on the clean sheet. "Maybe you're the only person who ever will. I'm not even sure if I still have a copy of it myself, to tell you the truth. I guess every writer starts out with a failure. At least, I hope so." She paused, frowning, trying to think of how to translate "the excited reactions of the Muggles" into a better, fuller sentence. "What's a synonym for 'excited?'"
Lupin, not unexpectedly, regarded her with what she almost thought must be an expression of wolfish exasperation.

"Oh yes," Hermione realized, smiling as the revelation hit her. "Exuberant! Does that work? 'The exuberance of the Muggle onlookers filled the whole theater with a sense of rapt anticipation.' How's that for a starting sentence?"

Lupin tilted his head to one side.

"You approve?" She waited. "Yes, you do approve. I think." Hermione jotted the newly-formulated phrase down, and then moved on to the next note.

She got so caught up, in fact, in her writings, that after a while she stopped minding that the only reaction she could evoke from Lupin was a vague facial expression, or an inscrutable tilt of the head. He, in turn, seemed perfectly comfortable listening to her vibrant monologue, despite his inability to conclusively express his opinion. Time stopped crawling and started to overtake itself, so that Hermione completely lost track of it.

"Hermione?" Lupin's voice interrupted her, pulling her out of her reverie as she frowned down at the page before her. She looked up, and saw that he was a man again, looking even more tired than he had before, but with a surprised half-smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Oh goodness," she murmured, glancing down to see that what had been one sheet of notes seemed to have multiplied, and that now ten or eleven pieces of parchment were stretched out before her on the floor.

"Just for the record," Lupin said, frowning a bit in concentration, "I don't think that 'onlookers' is quite the most effective word."

Hermione blinked. "Spectators?"

Lupin shook his head.