A Year in the Life

XXV. Sunrise

There had been theoretical discussions in some of the more scholarly Wizarding forums in recent years, about the werewolf phenomenon; every so often when things were quiet someone would bring it up, and the debate would bounce around for a while before dying out again.

It started with a theory that nobody could place the origin of: since werewolves were only hostile towards humans, if confronted with other animals, or animagi in animal form, they might not be entirely aggressive. More learned exponents of the theory would point to Muggle studies in which animals were used as therapy for people with various medical conditions, including emotional instability.

Minerva, wandering in the dark, eyes wide and reflecting what little light was to be had, fur on end and tail high in the air, hoped the theory was correct, as it was about to be tested.

It is a little-known fact that cats are as good as, if not better than, dogs, when it comes to scent-tracking. Humans have not discovered this yet, because cats are far too intelligent to show the sort of useful traits that have gotten dogs in so much trouble. Nobody asks you to fetch them a rope when you're a cat, or lead them to where Timmy fell down the well.

Dumbledore had found her after MacNair's angry roars roused most of the professors from their beds. It was the first she knew of any of it; MacNair and Snape shouting about Harry and something about Black escaping.

Before she could ask, however, Dumbledore had pulled her aside and, in a few quick sentences, sketched out what had happened -- Harry, Hermione, and Ron in the hospital wing, Peter Pettigrew back from the dead and a betrayer to boot, Sirius Black innocent (though she rather thought that Dumbledore barely kept himself from adding 'if slightly unbalanced') and escaped from a brief imprisonment through unlikely means he would explain later...

And Remus loose in the Forbidden Forest, Changed and dangerous.

"There's not time for more discussion," he said. "Buckbeak and Sirius are well on their way to safety by now, but nobody is safe on the grounds with a werewolf loose. He won't attack an animagus, not without provocation -- Sirius has told me as much."

"How would Black -- "

"He is also an animagus," Dumbledore said impatiently. "You must find Lupin, Minerva, and do what you can to keep him from harming anyone before sunrise. Take this," he added, thrusting a blanket into her arms. She nodded, slowly, and stepped backwards. The advantage of Animagus transformations was that one's clothes, and anything in one's hands, went along; in feline form, the blanket in her hands was merely transmuted into the feeling that her fur-coat was slightly thicker.

She flattened her ears against her head, crouching down and gathering her bearings; when she had acclimated herself to the feeling of four feet and whiskers, to the monochrome vision but heightened senses of smell and hearing, she turned and skittered away, towards the stairways down to the entrance of the school.

He wasn't hard to follow; werewolf scent stood out like a neon sign in the midnight air. She tried not to think about what a werewolf could do to a cat. She tried not to think about what the rest of the denizens of the Forbidden Forest could do to a cat.

The world was different through animal eyes; emotions were simpler, and while logic was still accessible, it never seemed as important.

When she found him, he was attacking a tree.

Possibly, werewolves, not the brightest things on four legs.

That was a cat thing to think, and she squashed it quickly. This was Remus, her fellow professor, her...the cat said mate but Minerva was not so melodramatic. He was her...something.

Ah, and now she saw he was trying to get at a squirrel, chattering animatedly down at them from a high branch. She smirked mentally.

She stepped forward, into his line of sight, and his eyes fixed on her immediately, head whipping around. She arched her back a little, flattening her ears. So much of conversation in the animal kingdom was body language...

He snapped at her, moving forward slowly. When he was three feet away, she hissed, and her claws shot out. He stopped, and a short growl emerged from his throat, questioning. She hissed again, and he slid his front paws forward. Vicious claws gleamed on the end, longer than true wolves' claws by at least an inch. He slid down into a sitting position and glared at her.

She let her own claws slide in again, and crept forward, ready to jump and run at a moment's notice. She could probably get up a tree pretty quickly, but getting down was always the difficult bit.

He didn't move.

She put out a paw, tentatively, and batted his nose. He snapped, half-heartedly. She hissed again. He whined. The next time, he didn't move.

She could see something in his eyes, even as a cat; it looked as though he was just sane enough to realise what was going on, now.

Interesting.

She moved forward again, hesitating every few inches, and finally rubbed the side of her head along his, just below his ear, very carefully not thinking about the fact that his head was the size of her entire body. He whined again, but he didn't move.

Satisfied, she jumped away, and watched him scramble to his feet, tongue lolling out briefly. His teeth looked awfully sharp.

All she had to do now was make sure he didn't eat anyone (including her) before sunrise.

Oh, was that all.

***

Remus woke -- well, 'woke' out of the Change -- to find himself in the woods; he could tell by the smell, the feel of dirt under his naked body, the slight chill in the air. Shaking, half-blind as he always was, he scrabbled to push himself upright, waiting for the tang of blood in his mouth, the horrible nausea that came with the vague memory of crunching something tiny up in his huge horrible jaws...

The memory never surfaced, and instead there was the distinctly puzzling one of following a cat. And not wanting to eat the cat, that was the puzzling part. A ten pound cat was a nice meal for a hundred pound wolf.

Something warm wrapped around his shoulders, and he started, turning his head. The world was a blur, and a monochrome blur at that. He reached out blindly.

"Shh, it's okay."

Minerva.

Well, that explained the cat.

"Where -- oh g-god -- Sirius -- " he managed, shaking his head, trying to clear it. Hands tightened the blanket around him, and supported his back when he tried to sit up.

"It's all right, everything's fine," she said, soothingly.

"No, Sirius -- Peter -- "

"Shh, just breathe."

"But H-harry -- "

"Remus, they're safe."

"I lied to you," he blurted. "S-sirius is an anim-magi..."

"Dumbledore told me," she said gently. His vision began to clear, and he looked into her face, trying to discern her features.

"You came for me," he said, wonderingly.

"Of course I did. Dumbledore sent me. We couldn't have you getting hurt, or hurting someone."

"Much more l-likely to be the l-latter," he said, trying to get his voice under control.

"Shh, don't talk," she said, stroking his hair. He blinked away the last of the blurred vision, and shook his head.

"Harry?" he asked.

"Safe. When I left he was sleeping in the infirmary, unhurt."

"Sirius?"

"Escaped, Dumbledore didn't say how. Peter too, unfortunately."

He let his head fall back, and tried not to weep. He was always weakest right after the Change, and in those last three years at Hogwarts, the others had mercifully left him in the Shack to sleep it off, or one of them would sit with him, usually Peter.

Peter.

He was too exhausted to feel much rage, but as he fell, his arms no longer supporting him, he felt Minerva catch and hold him. He shook helplessly.

"Sirius is still free," she whispered to him. "He's innocent and still free. Harry's not hurt. You'll be fine. I watched over you. It'll be all right."

No it won't, he wanted to say, but couldn't. Peter is gone again, and Sirius is innocent, and I lied to you...

How can it ever be all right again...

He trembled against her, trying to gather his strength. He would not let her see him weep over this.

"You're all right," she continued, voice soothing, hands stroking his hair, his back under the blanket. "It'll be all right."

"Yes," he said thickly, giving up and believing her. He wanted to. She was here, after all, and would care for him. She came for him when he was in trouble.

The first rays of sunrise trickled through the leaves, falling on the pair of them, until it was indistinguishable where the division between them lay.

XXVI. Departure

He was used to packing quickly. He'd had to do it many times, and this time was no different. There were always regrets and there was always that ache, familiar to him since before he could remember, that once again his Difference had changed things, made them difficult, made them go wrong.

They'd encountered Hagrid when Minerva was bringing him back to the castle, just after sunrise, and he'd reassured the Groundskeeper that he hadn't...well, hadn't eaten anything, the night before. By the time she left him in the infirmary, to be examined by Madam Pomfrey -- the school was in uproar and she was needed more elsewhere -- he already knew he had to leave; if he'd had two days to think about it he might have talked himself out of it, or been talked out of it by Dumbledore, but Snape --

His hands shook a little as he pressed his new clothes -- the nicest he'd owned in some time, bought on a real salary -- deeper into his suitcase, laying some papers from his office desk on top of the white shirts. He forced himself to be steady as he added the small green-and-gold music-box Minerva had given him, wrapping it carefully in a handkerchief.

I am not angry at Severus, he told himself. If anything I am grateful. He forced me to do something I would not have had the courage to do on my own.

He'd already tendered his letter of resignation, and Dumbledore, who usually heard everything that happened in the castle sooner or later, had accepted it without protest. By then the Slytherins already knew he was a werewolf, and were spreading the news.

He sensed Harry before the young man knocked on the door-frame, and located the Marauder's Map on his desk, checking it to be sure. When Harry did knock, he looked up and forced himself to smile.

"I saw you coming," he said. Harry, with all the directness of youth, did not stop to greet him before demanding if it was true that he'd resigned.

He had not been looking forward to this discussion, and had hoped he could avoid it. It was one of two he simply did not want to have, but when faced with it, what choice was there?

Harry didn't want him to go. The thought warmed him a little, as did being able to give him back James' invisibility cloak, and the map. Being able to explain to Harry, with a steady voice, that there were people less tolerant in the world, who would not want a werewolf teaching their children...being able to tell Harry he was proud of him, something he was afraid to do most of the time, in case it should seem like favouritism...

Remus had trained himself to look for the good in every loss. One had to, in order to survive. These goods were so small, though, and the loss was so great.

Dumbledore's arrival cut him short, and he nodded to Harry, shook the Headmaster's hand, and fled. It was a dignified bolt, but there was no doubt as to what it was.

He slunk through the corridors, keeping as much as he could to back-ways and shadows, hoping not to encounter anyone else. Once on the grounds it was a short walk to the gate, and he refused to look back as he loaded the small briefcase and slightly larger aquarium into the carriage --

"Remus!"

Oh god.

The other conversation he really, truly did not want to have.

He turned around.

Minerva McGonagall stood in front of him, breathless; she must have run from the castle.

"Madam Pomfrey said you'd gone -- " she gasped, then clutched her stomach, catching her breath. He waited. It would be rude, now, not to. "I was torn between chasing after you and finding Severus Snape and slapping seven kinds of hell out of him..." she added, with a small smile. He steadied her, holding her by the shoulder.

"You'd be reprimanded," he said gently.

"It would be worth it," she answered, breathing a little easier now. "I'm glad I caught you."

"Severus only did what he had to, in order to protect the children. You once did the same," he reminded her, dropping his hand from her arm. Anger flared in her eyes.

"And wasn't I wrong?"

"No. In the end, you were right."

She moved forward as if to hug him, and he moved back.

"I don't -- I'm dangerous," he said. "I can't help that. But I could have saved us all a lot of trouble...I lied to you..."

"You protected Harry."

"Not very well."

"Remus, stop being an ass."

He gave her another small smile. "I'm trying to make this easy for us. Please don't make it harder, Minerva. Surely you see I'd never be allowed to stay here."

"Do you love me?" she demanded.

He stared at her. "Of...of course I do...but that's not the -- "

"Marry me."

Surely he'd misheard.

"Marry me," she repeated. "Marry me and stay here. You can't be thrown out if you're married to a professor at the school -- "

"No, but you can be fired," he whispered, stunned.

"I've taught at Hogwarts for thirty years. I'll fight that battle. I'm good at fighting."

"Minerva, I can't."

"Yes you can -- I'll help you -- "

"No, you don't understand," he said. "I can't marry you."

She looked as though he'd slapped her.

"Why not?" she demanded. He flinched.

"Ministry regulations," he said, spreading his hands. "They...I can't marry without written certification from the Ministry. No werewolf can."

She stared at him in horror.

"And..." he continued, wretchedly, "And they'd never give me permission to marry you."

Silence fell. After a moment, he shrugged.

"I was going to write to you when I was far enough away," he said softly, looking down. "I was going to explain everything, I was going to apologise..."

He felt her hands on his face, tipping it just slightly, and her body pressed against his when she kissed him. Oh, it was like the first time he'd kissed her, after dancing, both of them breathless and tense, his arm around her waist just like that and she was so warm, so real...

"I'll write," he promised, against her lips. "I'll write to you -- I'll be back for visits -- to check on Harry, to, to go to Hogsmeade, and see Dumbledore, and it'll hardly seem like I'm gone at all..."

"That's not good enough," she said, pressing her face against his neck. "I don't want letters. I want you."

He sighed, stroking her hair, wanting to remember the smell of her, the feel of her, wanting to remember that right this minute, when he held her, he could feel that she was still wearing the charm he'd given her.

"If I could stay I would," he said softly. "But I can't; it's too dangerous, too difficult. I can't stay in Hogsmeade, they'll know and I'll never find a job there now. I can't even marry you."

He released her, and summoned a true smile from somewhere. "I have to go," he said, stepping back. "I'll owl you as soon as I know where I'm headed."

"Just a day or two -- "

"I can't, Minerva. We both know that."

The hardest three steps in his life were the ones it took to get him into the carriage. She stood there, fingers on her mouth where his lips had been a moment before, and the world jerked and rattled as the carriage moved away.

He sat back in the seat, covering his face with his hand, and tried to remember how to breathe.

When he'd had a few moments to gather himself, he opened the suitcase on the seat next to him, and took out her music box, flipping up the lid and setting it down where the sunlight would hit it through the carriage window.

The waltz played all the way to the station.