Chapter Text
8 November 1981
A grey sky loomed over London as Remus walked, at a quick clip, down the cobblestone street. It was vibrating with a quiet thrill; smiles and tips of hats and handshakes, warm and earnest, abounded. Remus kept to himself, eyes down. It had been days of this nonsense; hadn’t the world calmed down yet? Of course, the Dark Lord’s fall was a relief, of course, but how anybody could celebrate when his friends, when James and Lily, had been—
He shook the thoughts from his head, letting determined feet carry him through a blissfully ignorant city. He was a pack animal at heart; his pack was gone. He knew very well he had nothing now. But there was someone else who had less.
Remus didn’t pause until he reached the Ministry phone booths, where he quietly rung himself in. The Wizengamot would have adjourned for a morning recess very lately; they were now, generally speaking, continually in session, sentencing the Death Eaters who were brought in daily and delivering justice through life sentences to Azkaban. A Floo that connected directly to the prison was heavily guarded and surrounded by a clear, magical shield, so the law-abiding wizards and witches outside could see the convicted being ushered in, heads down, shame-faced—or, sometimes, red-faced and proud—away, away.
A little buzz of magic drifted past Remus’s head as he entered the lift to the Department of Justice. Memos, it appeared—little yellow papers, folded like birds, fluttering about as if bursting with enthusiasm at their news. For Merlin’s sake, was there nobody properly sober about what had happened on Halloween? Was there no respect for the dead?
When he reached the third floor, Remus swatted the memos that attempted to exit the lift before him, then marched down the hall, irritated, with his hands jammed in his pockets. Dumbledore would be in his own office, a room he had probably seldom used before this week. Remus was used to seeing Dumbledore at Hogwarts—his own former headmaster, in an office always stocked with enchanted candy. Whimsical, there. He had, in the past three years, also grown accustomed to seeing Dumbledore at the war headquarters, putting on a more serious air and handing out assignments—here, Remus, the wolves are as of yet undecided. You can persuade them, can’t you? Good man—and bowing his head when Mad-Eye, the Auror, read the list of the missing and the dead. Now, Remus reached the door to find it open and occupied by a wizard wearing black judicial robes, no hat, and a look of considerable gravity. He looked up.
“Ah, Remus. Come in, won’t you?”
Remus did as he was bid, pulling the door closed behind him the old-fashioned way. Dumbledore seemed amused by this, raising an eyebrow. Remus then took a seat without being invited to do so, and tried—and failed—to return Dumbledore’s rather tired smile.
Dumbledore said, not asked, “To what do I owe the pleasure.”
It was a speech Remus had practiced for days—as soon as he realized the mistake the Department of Justice had made. As soon as he’d surfaced from his grief to find that the facts didn’t add up. He had it all planned out, points and evidence and persuasive rhetoric—but Remus was no speech-giver. He opened his mouth, and out tumbled the words, “He’s innocent, Dumbledore.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sirius. There’s no way it was him. None. None whatsoever. I know him, and I know he would never—”
Dumbledore smiled tightly, raising a hand to quiet Remus. Below Dumbledore’s sight line, Remus made a fist in frustration with himself, already ballsing it up. Dumbledore said, “While I understand your loyalty to your old friend—to James’s oldest friend—you must realise that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests otherwise.”
Remus said, “I do not realise that at all, in fact. What I realise is that the Aurors arrested him and sent him directly to Azkaban without so much as a trial! Without even an investigation!”
“An explosion that killed dozens of Muggles is usually evidence enough to make an arrest.”
“I don’t object to his arrest, if it was the first step in a process of justice,” Remus said, lifting his chin as he remembered the lines of his little speech he’d practiced last night. “And I do not dispute that there was evidence of a crime committed, but there was not evidence of who committed the crime.”
“There certainly was,” Dumbledore replied, looking down at some papers on his desk. Straightening them. Remus felt his hackles begin to rise again, and his confidence with recollecting the last bit of his planned speech faltered. Dumbledore couldn’t truly believe Sirius was guilty, surely?
In an effort to get Dumbledore’s eyes back on himself, Remus rose his voice a little and said, “For Godric’s sake, nobody even checked Sirius’s wand, they just had it destroyed—”
“They did check his wand,” Dumbledore said.
Remus’s blood ran cold, but he made every effort at angry conviction as he said, “And?”
“And there were no spells out of the ordinary, which proves very little when once considers that Pettigrew’s wand was never found, and Sirius might have just as easily cast using his.”
“Might have! It’s all speculation, then, isn’t it? It’s all—Well, this might have happened—but anything might have happened! Nobody knows, do they?”
“I know that Sirius was the Potters’ secret keeper,” Dumbledore said, finally turning an icy blue gaze on Remus, “and therefore, the only person who could have sold them out to Voldemort.”
“He would rather die,” Remus spat, sitting forward in his seat—then instantly scooting back again, remembering that aggression would do him no good. That he had exactly one friend with power here, and if he burned that bridge, he would not get another chance at justice. He must and would be patient—if it killed him, he’d be patient.
“I recognise your—history,” Dumbledore said slowly, “with Mr. Black.”
Remus paled, his resolution for patience not quite strong enough to withstand so soon a test. He said, with a heroic effort at calmness, “Our history is beside the point. Or, if you insist on making it a point, it’s still in my favour, because Sirius ended things between us months ago, and I’m still sitting here telling you, he’s innocent!”
Dumbledore leveled a stare at Remus and said, “Yet emotions like these aren’t so easy to turn off, are they?”
Remus wanted to shout, “Fuck you!”, wanted to rise to his feet and storm out of the little office without another word. But his fury wouldn’t help Sirius. He said, “Maybe not. I won’t say I don’t care about him. But you ought to care about him, too, Dumbledore. He was one of your best fighters.”
“Apparently I wasn’t the only one he was fighting for,” Dumbledore said coolly.
Another wave of rage struck Remus. He counted to ten. Then, “I can see that you’re feeling betrayed. But what if you’re wrong? Hm? Would you send him to Azkaban, innocent?”
“I do not believe he is innocent.”
“Do you believe he has been proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt?” Remus asked. When Dumbledore gave a little start at that, Remus was proud of himself—though he successfully tamped down a smile. He hadn’t even thought up that line in his speech preparation last week; it had just come to him. Maybe he wasn’t so bad at this, after all.
But then Dumbledore said, “To reopen his case would require an introduction of new evidence, Remus. Do you have new evidence?”
“We could start with the original evidence that never went to trial,” Remus said petulantly, then corrected when he saw the look on Dumbledore’s face, “No, sir, not yet—but if I could just talk to Sirius—”
Dumbledore sighed and began to shake his head. “Maximum security—”
“Requires an exemption from the Wizengamot. Yes, I know,” Remus said.
“This is a war,” Dumbledore added, “every action I take is being scrutinized, if I grant an exemption to a war criminal—”
“He isn’t a war criminal!” Ah, hell. That was not as calm and patient as Remus had meant it to be. Frustrated, he dragged his fingers through his hair, closed his eyes—and an image sprang to his mind of Sirius, years ago now, running his fingers through Remus’s hair, just like this. He’d leaned over him, pushing Remus onto his back, and his dark hair was a curtain all around them, smelling faintly of honey. Sirius had smiled, all joy and mischief, when he pulled back from their first kiss, hard and unexpected in the rain. They’d been studying by the lake and were caught in a downpour. No one had ever looked at Remus quite like that before in all his life.
When he opened his eyes, they felt wet. He blinked rapidly, glad that Dumbledore wasn’t looking at him anymore, and when he’d swallowed back the knifing pain, he said, with all his heart, “Sirius is innocent. I swear on my life, Dumbledore, the man is innocent. And if he is, that means the real spy is still out there.” This, too, was a new idea, and Remus was startled by his own thoughts—though he’d always been quick under pressure. Across from him, Dumbledore had finally looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Had you thought of that? That if it wasn’t Sirius, it was someone else, and that person is still around? And even if Voldemort is dead, there’s still—there are others. Other dark wizards, other—potential crimes.”
He hadn’t finished strong, but it didn’t seem to matter to Dumbledore, who was deep in thought, now. He was looking out his charmed window, where a mourning dove had made its nest in the branches of a pale green tree. It was spring, in Dumbledore’s window. Magic to delude a person into leaving their jacket at home. Remus waited, holding his breath.
“You can see him,” Dumbledore said at last. “I’ll arrange it. But beware—people will be suspicious, if you do.”
“Fine," was his petulant reply, "I don’t care what people say.”
When Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, Remus added, “Thank you. I’m sure, in time, you’ll see—”
But Dumbledore raised one hand again, to silence him, and then wrote something on a piece of parchment. He passed it silently to Remus, then dismissed him with a wave of his quill.
The note—an official Wizengamot exemption granting him access to a prisoner of Azkaban for one quarter of an hour—was like gold in Remus’s hand. Literally, the script was enchanted, and the letters shimmered with golden light, and nobody stopped Remus when they saw its commanding lustre. He walked quickly to the line for the Floo, showed his note, and was ushered straight to the front, ahead of a dark witch who spat at him, then catcalled as he walked by. Ignoring her easily enough, he stepped into the fireplace and then stepped out onto an island in the North of England.
It was a little shock. There were two tunnels—one for visitors, one for criminals. Unlike the main prison, which was guarded by dementors, the entrance tunnel was manned by two human guards. They saw Remus’s exemption, nodded him into the visitor’s tunnel, and trusted him to find his own way.
The stone pathway was dim and looked as if it was seldom cleaned. No one else walked through it in either direction, and Remus was able to come directly to the little window, where an attendant said tiredly, hardly looking up, “And which prisoner are you here to see?”
“Sirius Black,” Remus pronounced. The attendant nearly dropped her quill.
The visitation room was windowless and small, with a single chair for the visitor, but no similar accommodation for the prisoner. It seemed rather inhumane to Remus, but then, so did everything about this place. He had been brought up by the same attendant who checked him in, and he had seen no dementors, at least. He was sure he would see one soon, however; Sirius would be escorted by one of the dark creatures, feeding on his every good thought, flooding him with misery. As if the events of the past week—of the past three years—hadn’t given him misery enough.
After a few minutes of waiting, Remus observed that he was on one side of a magical partition—not made of glass, but of spells. It looked strange, shimmering in a manner not quite solid, and Remus prodded it gingerly with his wand to see if it would give. It did, a little. Very curious, and hard to know what the point might be. Perhaps to pass things to the prisoner. Should he have brought something for Sirius? He padded his pockets quickly, wishing he’d thought to bring a Chocolate Frog, at least, or something—but of course, he hadn’t. A quick search of his jacket pockets found him better luck—a half-eaten chocolate bar he’d forgotten about days ago. That was a pathetic offering, but better than nothing, if Sirius wanted it.
Minutes passed. Remus played with his wand and let his mind wander. Damn unreliable thing, it wandered straight to James and Lily, and hit the usual block of disbelief and horror. The reality of it hadn’t quite sunk in. He kept thinking he could go to their house and find them there, playing with Harry on the floor, eating crisps straight from the bag like they had last time Remus had seen them, teasing Remus the night before the full moon, calling him Moony. Sirius had been there, of course, apologizing flippantly that he couldn’t run with him this month. Maybe next, he had said, and Remus had understood. It was a war, after all.
A sound—footsteps. The unlatching of the door. It opened, and Remus rose to his feet, horrified with himself for how unprepared he felt for this moment, this confrontation. How odd it was to feel like the one with the upper hand; how gladly he would have conceded it.
Sirius was pushed through the doors by a shadowy figure, and behind him, the door closed with a little click. Sirius’s eyes fell on Remus, and he burst into tears. Remus thought, unhelpfully, of the night they had broken up, back in the spring, outside of James and Lily’s house. That had been before the Fidelius charm, of course. It was a small risk, standing outside together, but Remus had come willingly when Sirius had invited him. He’d thought Sirius had wanted privacy for another reason; he was just returning from a long mission with the werewolf pack, and he’d expected to be kissed. Sirius had been dry eyed and indifferent, then. And now, look at him.
Sirius stumbled toward Remus with a cry of pure agony, shredding through Remus’s heart. He didn’t notice the magical partition was there until he hit it headlong, stumbling, and then he pounded on it with an angry fist. For him, it didn’t give an inch. “Moony,” he sobbed.
Remus went to him, and the magic gave way at his touch. He knelt, wrapped his arms around Sirius, who had now fallen to the floor in a heap, and held him as tightly as he could. Sirius buried his face in Remus’s neck.
“You know I didn’t—you know—”
“I know, of course I know,” Remus said. “You would have died first.”
“Yes, I—oh, James,” he cried, and cried harder, and then said, “I wish I had died. I wish—oh, god—”
“Shh,” Remus stroked Sirius’s hair. It was oily, tangled. He still buried his fingers in it, finding Sirius’s scalp and massaging it softly. “Sirius, I—I don’t have long.”
Sirius didn’t respond to this at all; he continued to weep, soaking straight through Remus’s robes and onto his shirt, and so Remus had to say it again. “I only have fifteen minutes with you, Padfoot.”
This seemed to get through, and he sat up, trembling and wiping his cheeks, looking ashamed of himself. Remus still held him by the shoulders, and he shook his head, as if to say, It’s me, you never need to be embarrassed.
Sirius nodded, wiped his nose, and scooted nearer to Remus again. He laid his head on his shoulder and said, “I thought I wasn’t allowed any visitors.”
“You aren’t. Dumbledore.”
Sirius’s head snapped up. “He thinks I’m innocent?” he said, eyes wide with hope.
Remus hesitated long enough that Sirius’s face fell. Scrambling to recover, Remus said, “He’s open to considering other evidence, if I can find some.”
“Other evidence,” Sirius said, scoffing. Now, he pulled back, shrugging Remus’s hands off his shoulders. Remus tried not to take it too personally.
“Well? If you didn’t do it, somebody did. We just have to prove it.”
“Prove it,” Sirius repeated, shaking his head. Cursing, once, bitterly.
“Do you know who—”
“Of course, I know who!” Sirius snapped. “I’m the one who—who bloody set him up to do it!”
Remus’s heart started pounding. “What?”
Sirius nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t kill them, but it’s still my fault they’re dead. It’s still my fault—” He stopped talking, covering his face with his hands. He was too far from the partition for Remus to reach now, but his arms ached to pull him close. He had a thought, faraway and unbidden, that Dumbledore was right—six months apart had done nothing to change how he felt about Sirius. It had also, apparently, done nothing to change how Sirius felt about him. He was leaning back, away from Remus, knees up, wrapping his arms around them. Rocking slowly.
Like he might’ve approached a spooked horse, Remus said, very gently, without moving a muscle, “Explain it to me.”
Sirius’s gaze was blank, peaking out from behind his hands, at a nondescript point in the distance. “It was Peter, Remus. We changed it.”
Peter—another friend, dead and gone. Remus didn’t understand. “What was Peter?” he said.
Sirius’s voice was cold, now. Clinical. “It’s my fault. I told them it would be better to choose Peter as secret keeper, nobody would suspect him, nobody would think we’d choose someone so weak, it was to be the perfect trick.”
“What are you talking about, Sirius?” Remus said, forgetting to be soothing as his sense of urgency rose with every word Sirius spoke.
Quietly, with his face downturned, Sirius said, “You kept going on these missions, always away longer than you said you’d be, and you never—you never said where, and—and there were the werewolves, of course, who were all on the Death Eater side, and so we just—”
“Yes, fine,” Remus said impatiently, still not comprehending at all, “you might not have had time to tell me everything, I understand that, but what—”
“We didn’t want you to know we’d changed the secret keeper,” Sirius said, letting his head fall forward against his knees.
Everything was a fog, and Remus pushed hard against it, searching for purchase, searching for anything that made a smidge of sense. “You—didn’t want me to—”
“It was Peter,” Sirius said, and suddenly, he raised his head to show Remus a face torn with rage, almost frightening with it. His jaw dropped as he heard Sirius say, “He betrayed them. He led Voldemort right to them, he killed them—it was Peter!”
Peter? Peter Pettigrew, who had purportedly died at Sirius’s own hand? Remus repeated, mind whirling with confusion, “James and Lily made Peter their secret keeper?”
“I convinced James that Peter was the best choice,” Sirius said, voice emitting tremors—a volcano about to erupt, “and that bastard betrayed us all! He was the spy, Remus, it was—it was Peter!”
Still hardly comprehending, Remus said, “And so you killed him.”
“No! No, I—he set off the explosion himself, Remus, he isn’t dead, he’s—he’s Wormtail! He transfigured, he—”
“Everyone thought you were the secret keeper,” Remus said, still not quite comprehending, though his fierce belief in Sirius’s innocence had not subsided. “That’s what you told Dumbledore, and me, and—”
“We couldn’t tell Dumbledore the truth, because he would have told the Order, and the Order had a spy!”
“Couldn’t you have told me?” Remus repeated.
Sirius met his eye for just one second, then looked away—and there was a split second when Remus still didn’t understand. But then, the look in Sirius’s eye—a look he’d never seen before—suddenly made sense. It was guilt. Everything Sirius had just said replayed in Remus’s mind; his heart shattered like glass.
He pulled back and stood up in total horror, ignoring how his heart twisted sharply when Sirius stood too, and reached for him, again meeting the magical barrier. This time, Remus didn’t reach back.
They had believed Remus was the spy.
It hurt. It hurt worse than being let down gently in the quiet shadow of James and Lily’s house in Godric’s Hollow. Worse than running alone with no pack under a full but hollow moon. It was decidedly not worse than Lily and James’s deaths, but it pressed over the same tender spot in Remus’s heart. He’d lost everyone, everyone he loved. He’d thought he lost them on Halloween night, but perhaps he’d lost them sooner and hadn’t even known it.
Bitter tears sprang to Remus’s eyes, and Sirius sobbed again when he saw them. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “It’s my fault. It’s my fault they’re gone, it’s—”
Remus’s anger curled through him, and he glared at Sirius, feeling the heat of betrayal that rivaled the warmth of his love for this man—this man he'd grown up with, adored, cherished. Who had, apparently, never felt the same way about him.
But justice was justice. So Remus wiped roughly at his tears, swallowed them back, and said, “How can we prove it, Sirius?”
Sirius looked up at him, wide-eyed, and sputtered, “Wh—but I thought there wasn’t to be a trial?”
“There wasn’t,” Remus said sharply. “But if I can find some proof—”
“You—” Sirius stopped, overcome, face scrunched with a new wave of tears. Remus looked away from him. The man he’d loved wasn’t the man standing before him now. Now he stood eye-to-eye with a stranger.
“You say Peter is alive?”
“Yes, yes, he’s—he’s Wormtail now, he’s—”
“I’ll find him,” Remus said—though he hadn’t the first clue how he would go about it. He’d have to. That was that.
Their fifteen minutes might have been nearly over—or not. Remus couldn’t say. He only knew that he didn’t want to be in here with Sirius anymore. He walked to the door, lifting a hand to rap his knuckles against it.
Sirius let out a desperate little, “No,” and when Remus turned, said, “Please, Remus, I’m so—fuck, I'm so sorry.”
“I know,” Remus said. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair how much he loved this man, even now. He looked away, straightening the sleeves of his robes for something to do. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
Sirius said, “No.” Softly. After a pause, he said, “Where’s Harry?”
Remus looked up, startled. For all the agonizing over James and Lily and Sirius he’d done the past week, he hadn’t given much thought to the little boy. “He’s living with his Aunt and Uncle, apparently.”
“Not Lily’s sister, surely.”
Remus frowned.
“The one who hates magic? No, Remus, we mustn’t—”
“We mustn’t what?” Remus snapped, unwilling to let Sirius’s usual confident bluster win the day, when Remus was still tender, and angry, and hurt. “You can't do anything for him where you stand, can you? And what can I do? Would Dumbledore allow the boy to live with a werewolf? Should anybody live with a werewolf? You certainly didn’t want to.”
“Remus—”
“No.” Remus turned a cold eye on Sirius. But then, he sighed, because Lily’s sister truly was awful. Remus had met her once. He glanced at Sirius and said, “I’ll check on him.”
Sirius nodded his head, bit his lip. He wiped his cheeks again and seemed embarrassed for having cried in the first place. This time, Remus wasn’t as inclined to mitigate that feeling.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to visit you again,” Remus said, eyes on the floor, “but I’ll keep an eye out for Peter. I’ll—I’ll make sure the truth is found.”
Sirius walked forward and touched the magical partition. He whispered, “Thank you.” When Remus didn’t reply, Sirius added, “I was wrong, Remus. I was so stupid. It’s all my fault.”
Remus turned to look at him, at the sorrow in his face, and it was too much. He said, “Don't be stupid. It's arrogant, even for you, to think all of this was your fault, just for trusting one of your friends.”
When Sirius snorted a wet little laugh, Remus looked away again, and just in time, for the guard returned then to Remus’s side to escort him out. He couldn’t look at Sirius, couldn’t bear to see the fear that would surely be in his eyes when the Dementors returned. Remus nodded once, sharply, and followed the guards back out to the dirty tunnel, the Floo, and the grey skies of London.
What to tell Dumbledore was the next question. The Wizengamot was back in session when Remus reached the Ministry, and he spent only ten minutes waiting, walking back and forth along the bright halls, before he determined that there was nothing for it. Without evidence, Sirius’s story might be nothing more than the desperate accusations of a mad man.
Yet, Remus believed him. His heart tore and bled and raged within his chest, but he believed every word. Sirius had not loved Remus, but he had certainly loved James—loved him so completely that he would push Remus away rather than allow even the possibility of a betrayal. But why, why had Sirius suspected Remus? Was it really just because he was a werewolf? He wasn’t sure anything had ever hurt him worse, if it was true.
Not to mention, why had Sirius trusted Peter more than him? The pain of it was so sharp that Remus simply couldn’t allow his mind to process it. He folded it away, thinking instead of the righteous anger he felt at the one who had truly betrayed them all—Peter Pettigrew. Little Peter, always so adoring, always following them everywhere. And fearful, too. During the war, hardly able to help with anything, unwilling to take any major risks. And nobody would have asked him to. He was weak, after all. A perfect choice, Remus thought bitterly, for a secret keeper nobody would have suspected.
Perhaps Peter had been tortured. Perhaps he had given up the secret against his will. Perhaps—oh, fuck it all. Remus tugged his brown jacket around himself tightly, observing with a start that the chocolate bar was still in his pocket. He felt a spike of spiteful pleasure that he hadn’t given it to Sirius, then scolded himself for having such a petty thought. There were matters more important than Remus’s foolish heartbreak. He walked down the marbled halls, to another Floo that brought him directly back to his own flat. Small, a single bedroom and a dusty table, books scattered about, dishes unwashed in the sink. He rummaged in the refrigerator and, finding nothing, turned to the freezer, where a bottle of vodka was laid on its side. This past week, he had taken to drinking himself to sleep. But, somehow, when his fingers touched the bottle, his arm gave a jolt, and he thought of little Harry. He closed the freezer again, paced for a minute or two, then Disapparated with a loud pop.
He landed gracefully on an Apparition point in Little Whinging. Privet Drive was the address. Remus had been here before, in fact. He had come with Lily, at her request, when her sister first moved in. She’d meant to drop off a house-warming gift, and a little toy for Dudley, who was just a month older than Harry. But Petunia had refused the gift, and Lily had nodded and said, “Yes, just as I expected,” to Remus as they walked briskly away to the apparition point. “That’s why I didn’t bring James,” she added. “Petunia prefers those of us who still have a bit of Muggle in us.”
Remus had smiled and said softly, “And a bit of wolf?”
And Lily, with an affectionate twinkle in her eye, had said, “Perhaps it’s best if we don’t tell her that bit.”
Now, the house looked perfectly ordinary, just as it had that day, but even before he reached the door, Remus could hear the sound—wailing, sailing through the walls.
Remus cast a quick Disillusionment spell over himself and crept up to the window, peering inside. Sure enough, there was Harry—the source of the noise that Remus could hear from the sidewalk, nearly. He was shut up in a room, banging little fists on the door, sobbing. The word “Mama” escaped his lips, and Remus’s hands formed fists, his heart tight and sick and furious. He hurried to another window. Could it be that the family wasn’t at home? Would they have left the boy all alone? Reprehensible, if they had.
But they were at home. All of them, sitting in the living room, with a television blaring and another child, a tubby thing with a curl of brown hair sweeping over his broad forehead, gnawing on a teething biscuit. He was in his mother’s arms, and his father was gripping the television remote controller like it was a lifeline, knuckles white around it. Ignoring the screaming from the next room.
Remus cast his Patronus before he could stop himself, and waited there, hours passing. The child stopped crying after an indeterminate period. Remus walked back over and observed that he had exhausted himself and passed out on the floor of the little hallway where he’d been locked away. When Harry woke up and resumed crying, Remus cast his Patronus again. It was nearly nightfall now, and Dumbledore Apparated directly to the house, rather carelessly, and looked about, frowning. Remus let down the Disillusionment and said, “This must be a joke, Dumbledore, and it’s a cruel one, even for you.”
The old wizard frowned at him, and Remus cast another Disillusionment spell, covering them both. “Look,” he said, pointing in the window to where Harry lay on the floor, positively shrieking, little fists pounding the floor. “They haven’t touched him all day, they haven’t given him anything to eat, or—or—”
Rage twisted Remus’s voice, and Dumbledore’s blue eyes looked pained. He nodded, but his voice was firm when he replied, “He must live here, Remus. He must. There is nowhere else—”
“I’ll—I’ll bring him to my bloody flat,” Remus said, shaking. “Or I’ll get a new one, something, just—just—you can’t leave James’s son here like this, you can’t.” His voice was a wreck.
Dumbledore looked pained. “He is safe here. He is alive.”
“You call this safe? And what, do you think I’d let anything happen to him? My best friend’s son? You have some opinion of me. You and—” He had been about to say, You and Sirius both, but the words and their bitter taste died on his lips.
Dumbledore shook his head, however. “You don’t understand. The magic—the magic that protected him from Voldemort was blood magic, Remus. It’s still flowing now. Can’t you feel it?”
Remus paused, closed his eyes—but all he felt was rage.
“Lily’s sister,” Dumbledore explained, as if it was a fascinating academic topic, “has her blood in her veins. I’ve cast a spell to extend the protection, as long as Harry lives in his Aunt’s home.”
Remus’s jaw fell open, and he stared at Dumbledore, feeling, for the hundredth time that day, that nobody had ever told him anything important, nor ever trusted him at all. He said, rather numbly, “Fine, well—doesn’t Harry have Lily’s blood in his veins? Couldn’t his own blood protect him, then?”
Dumbledore hesitated. “It—could, perhaps.”
“Or another Fidelius charm,” Remus said. “He can live with me, under a Fidelius. And you’ll be our secret keeper. There, you see? This,” he gestured to the window, where the child still wailed, “is unnecessary, and cruel, and—and—”
“Yes, yes, very well,” Dumbledore said. He looked in at Harry again, pained. “I did not realise.”
“You didn’t care,” Remus said, feeling a pang—because, until today, until Sirius, he hadn’t cared, either. Harry had been here for a week now, and who knew how he must have suffered? Remus wouldn’t have checked, if not for Sirius. He didn’t particularly like children, though he’d always felt fondly enough towards this one. He wasn’t even angry at Dumbledore, really. He was angry with himself. Still, the words struck and couldn’t be taken back.
“I have many cares,” Dumbledore replied coldly. Remus stood watching him for a moment before he let down the Disillusionment again. He found he couldn’t apologize.
“Do it, then,” he said.
Dumbledore swept to the doorway, face a blank, and knocked once. A portly man came to the door, then made to shut it again, but Dumbledore stepped inside, anyways, and Remus waited outside, heard shouting, louder wailing—now, both children were upset—and a woman’s voice, defensive, saying, “—already have one child, and what am I to do with this one, hmm? What would you expect me to do?”
When Dumbledore emerged half an hour later, the street was completely dark. Harry was in his arms, awkwardly squirming, still wailing and trying to get away. When the boy saw Remus, however, he sobbed with relief and threw himself towards him. Though he hadn’t seen him in a month, the boy clearly recognized his face, and Remus came at once, though he’d never thought himself a particular favourite of Harry’s before, and gathered him against his chest. Fat little arms squeezed his neck, and tears poured against his throat, and Remus patted his back, overwhelmed and at a loss for words. Harry smelled as though he needed a new nappy, and the rage Remus had been feeling reared up again. Was he to learn to change nappies, now? But, of course, he would. Even now, there might be a rash. His arms tightened around Harry, fingers threading through his hair.
“There, there,” he whispered. “You’re safe now.”
But of course, that had never been true.
Remus stood awkwardly across from Dumbledore, who appeared deep in thought again. Silently, he counted down the days until the next full moon. It would be in ten days. Plenty of time to get settled.
“You’ll have to watch him for me,” Remus said to Dumbledore, breaking the stalemate, “when I shift.”
Dumbledore looked at him darkly. Then he grabbed Remus’s arm and Disapparated them all without another word.