Terror
‘Any updates? Are you staying warm/eating? I miss you, yours, RL’
‘I’m fine. Still staked out. Something is going to happen soon. I can feel it. Any day now. We’ll be home before you know it. Love, SB’
‘Please be safe. I’m worried. Yours, RL’
He never heard back. Otsana returned with nothing tied to her leg. Remus wished he had written “I love you” and not his usual “Yours”.
He had looked, unseeing, at his old coffee table, with its chips and water rings from uncostered mugs. Sirius would not have sent Otsana back without a response. No matter how short or frustrated or tired his answers were, he always responded.
His hands shook around his coffee mug, he swallowed thickly, felt his eyes heat behind the lids, blur. He had been so worried something would happen and now— he pulled in a deep breath. No. He couldn’t panic now. He owed it to Sirius to be strong, to search as soon as he knew, to pick himself up and look.
Gryffindor was a strange house. He had never felt nearly as brave as his friends. Even Peter had at numerous times seemed braver to Remus than he himself felt. And yet, he’d been placed among the lions- despite feeling like a coward.
He had been too scared to see Lily's body. He - he had looked away. He had even felt grateful, in some sick way, that James’ body had been disintegrating in the fire so he wouldn’t have to risk looking at it and knowing what his friend's corpse looked like.
And Harry? Merlin, he was scared to see the boy, to see his friends in Harry’s face and have no idea what to do with it. What was it like to see the dead in the living?
He traveled, although he hated to do so with his condition. Being a werewolf in unfamiliar territory was never a good thing. Although thanks to his magic he didn’t have to use public transportation, small mercies.
Lupin had learned from riding the night bus that being in a confined, moving space with numerous strangers was excruciating when he was close to his transformation. The smells, the sounds, the unpredictability, the rough stops, it was all violently overwhelming.
He had not needed to grab something of Sirius’ to sniff, to imbue himself with before his shift. Remus knew Sirius’ smell better than the back of his hand. It was the first scent he had memorized beyond his family.
It was dangerous, the game he played, letting himself change without precautions in order to better track Sirius. He put people in danger.
But he rationalized it - poorly.
He needed to do everything he could to find Sirius and he would. Remus would become a monster for Sirius if fate demanded it.
He tracked the man, his partner, to the edge of a forest. The air was thick with magic and the moon was heavy in the sky. His hackles raised. His gums ached along the edges of his teeth, a distinct itch telling him to bite.
It was close to time now and although he did not want to find Sirius, or perhaps even Harry, in such a state in case of danger, something deep within his instincts was telling him to hunt.
He slept, small and hidden away, in a muggle tent he had bought at a shop in the nearby town. When he shifted the cheap nylon and polyester ripped easily under his claws, shedding around him like water around jagged rocks. The support poles clattered uselessly to the ground, the stake and rope torn from their place. Amongst the noise he realized, in the parts of his mind that could, that it was raining. If he wanted to hunt he would have to do so now while the rain was fresh and had not yet washed out the scent.
Remus set his nose to the air.
Sirius was in the woods, of that he was sure and there, hidden deep in the pine sap and honeysuckle, was a scent almost like James’.
He pressed forward and on the edge of the woods, before the branches became too thick and the leaves too plentiful, where he could still see the moon clear and crisp, he lifted his head and howled, long and low so as to be heard. Sirius knew him, knew his sound and if he was in there, and he surely was, he would hear him and know he was coming. His howl would carry over the low brush and through the dark, held in the air. It would reach Sirius, he was sure if it.
Remus ran into the woods.
Time passed and it was cruel to do so, but nothing could be done to stop it.
One transformation turned to two, to three, to four and five. Months slipped by and nothing of substance came to Remus, nothing recent enough to lead him to Sirius quickly.
Still he pursued.
Remus did not leave the forest. He knew Sirius lay within it. He did not want to lose his scent — he could not risk it. The other man’s fur was scattered about, birds plucked it from the ground and made it into their nests when spring and summer came properly. His paw prints were pressed into the mud by a wide river, dried up in the bed during a stretch with little rain,
Remus settled by the prints. Surely with so little rain Sirius would need to return to the river to drink and if he had drank from the spot safely before he might return.
Days passed and on the fourth the sky split open with a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning. The sound of it rushed through the leaves, approaching from the west, the wall of water scattering down to catch him, but Remus was in no mood to run. He stayed, let the torrent find him, and howled into the wind.
The river rose around him and mud swelled to catch his hands, legs, paws, whatever they were then because it didn’t matter and he couldn’t remember and he felt so in danger he could not find the sound of it on his tongue.
He drank the moon like mead, let its honeyed light fill him.
He could not remember the sun and he did not care to.
His nose was full of the scent of his lover, but no warm body ever came to press against him. There was no comfort, no softness. There was no reason and no satisfaction.
But there was the river, and the mud, and the moon and the birds' nests filled with his lover’s fur and the imprints of paws swept away by rain. There was thunder and birdsong and the hum of insects.
There was — days, years, weeks, moments later — the body of a stag, torn and bloodied, killed by whatever had ripped its throat out, or perhaps killed sooner than that. It smelled of the fur he chased, iron, and an old memory from his teenage years - a man, a boy, who had worn a crown of antlers.
It was a frivolous memory. It made something in him shrink and beg for ignorance. What bliss would it have been to forget? What joy would it have been to shy away without guilt?
He remembered, there before the stag, faltering at the edge of a lawn, fire engulfing the house before him. The smoke smelled of skin and muscle and dark magic pulsing with malice. Sirius had said something, fear filling his voice, but his ears had been ringing.
Remus hadn’t done anything.
Remus’ friends had died and he hadn’t done anything.
What a useless coward.
He awoke with a start on his kitchen floor, jolting upright only to be overcome with nausea the likes of which he had felt only in his youth, when his transformation was newer and horrendously rough on him. He scrambled to his knees, unable to gather his feet under him and tried to reach the bathroom.
He failed.
Underneath him the tile stained with vomit as his mouth opened of its own accord, jaw wrenching wide. The contents of his stomach turned over, falling to the floor with a wet slap and looking at it, Remus was unsure what it consisted of.
Shivering, he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand before reaching into his pocket to pull out his wand and —
Nothing.
He patted himself down, searched his body and found himself unarmed and vulnerable.
He was violently ill and wandless, his mind was scattered and body broken. He was a mess of sweat and vomit and the blood on his clothes. He didn’t know where the blood had come from, but it stained his pants and large splotches of his shirt. It wasn’t his, at the very least.
Remus squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his hands in his hair, letting out a pained moan.
“No. No. No. No. No. No.”
How had he gotten here?
He had just been in the forest following Sirius’ trail and now? He was back in Number Twelve.
The wards were silent.
He was alone despite being unable to fathom how he could have apparated, let alone across such a distance in his state. But no one had sidealonged him and he could not remember touching a portkey and if he had then a portkey designed to place one directly in the Black family kitchen was extremely specific, not to mention damned near impossible given the house was a pureblood household and a meeting place of the Order.
Nothing made sense.
Remus continued to clutch his head.
He’d need to clean up his mess and without a wand that would be needlessly troublesome. Remus wasn’t sure he’d ever done such a thing and Merlin knew he couldn’t get Kreacher to listen to him so that was likely off the table.
Wait!
“Kreacher!”
The elf did not respond and Remus swallowed thickly, grimacing at the taste.
“Kreacher!”
“Yes?” The elf asked as he popped into existence so close to Remus that it made him startle.
“Merlin,” Remus complained, rubbing at his face with his hands. His fingers were filthy but he didn’t care at this point. “Is Sirius here?”
He knew no one had come with him but he had to be sure— after all that had happened he needed to ask, to double check.
“No.” Kreacher said, looking down at the mess with clear disgust and elaborating no further.
Remus sat for a time, knowing the elf wouldn’t clean up the mess. Kreacher hated him even more than he hated Sirius. It would make him smile to watch Remus wallow in his own filth.
“How long have I been gone?” It was clear that he’d receive no answer of how he'd been flung all the way back to the Black family home and it was, therefore, a better use of his time to piece together what he could.
“Almost a year.”
Remus jolted, looking back to Kreacher, terror gripping at him, “No, no, that isn’t possible I just left in August.”
“Yes. Last August.”
“Last?”
“Yes.”
Months gone, just like that, like nothing - a snap of the fingers.
“And Sirius? Have you seen him at all.”
“No.”
Sirius gone for over a year. Sirius vanished into thin air. Sirius most likely dead.
‘No.’
‘Don’t think like that.’
He sat, in shock, for so long that Kreacher left his side, not that Remus had expected him to stay, but his absence further cemented the ringing in his ears. He was alone. Sirius was gone - disappeared at the very least and he, despite having done something this time, was left once more on the outskirts of an event he could feel looming. The forest and James’ house, both locations and instances had altered him, ruined something about him, and he felt as hollow now as he had all those years ago, useless.
He had thought he could change fate by following Sirius into the forest the way he hadn’t followed Sirius towards Lily’s body. He had believed that this time would be different, but it wasn’t.
His presence, whether absent or given, had meant nothing, had changed nothing.
And now he was here, on the floor, wandless and struck dumb with fear and confusion, a mess of himself, the room around him putrid with the scent of his vomit.
What good was he?
What good ever came from him?
He had told Sirius, Peter, James, all of them, Remus had told them that nothing good came from him. He was a werewolf, a danger, and scared on top of that. He hadn’t known how to be a good friend, or a good fighter, or any of it and yet they’d stuck by him and for a time that had seemed like enough.
But where was he now? Alone. James was dead. Peter had betrayed them. Sirius was gone. And Harry… who Remus had thought was dead, was alive experiencing god knew what. And what had he done about that? He had tried to convince Sirius that it was unlikely he was alive, had thought secretly to himself that it might have been better if they had found Harry’s body because at least then Sirius could have grieved properly for his godson, could have held that dignity.
Merlin how the guilt ate him. Sirius had seen Harry alive and Remus had, in the dark of many nights, wished they had found his small body.
What was wrong with him?
A few days went by. The house was too loud around him. He should tell Dumbledore he was alive, inform the other Order members of his whereabouts, something - but he didn’t.
He could hardly make his body move.
He’d cleaned up the mess in the kitchen and then laid down on the tile. He awoke hours later. His mouth had tasted of death.
Without a wand or the energy to do anything, he had stared up at the ceiling, unable to send the smallest message to anyone.
Remus wished, rather desperately, to rot into the floor.
Perhaps everything would simply go away if he just closed his eyes forever.
“I need to clean here.” Kreacher said one day, nudging Remus’ side rather hard with a broom.
“Clean around me.”
“No. I need to clean under you.”
Remus winced as he was jabbed in the side again.
“Clean around me.”
“I need to clean the floor under you.”
“Too bad.”
Kreacher struck him again, hard enough to make him yelp and sit up, but this was of course what the house elf wanted and he set about cleaning the admittedly nasty floor underneath him.
“Shower.” Kreacher commanded as Remus rubbed his side, “Go outside after.”
“Why?” Remus scoffed. His stomach turned over and he remembered in the back of his head that he hadn’t eaten since he’d arrived. He was hungry and faint, but couldn’t imagine keeping food down.
“You need fresh air.”
More like he wanted Remus out of the house. Kreacher had never expressed any kind of care towards him. The elf wasn’t concerned with what Remus needed, he just didn’t want him around.
“I don’t want to go outside.”
“Maybe if you had a dog you’d want to.”
Remus froze, anger welling up inside him. He knew Sirius had been disowned and that, as a result Kreacher thought blatantly little of him, but to bring up a dog like that, to tell Remus that he was lacking one was — “Excuse you?”
He whipped around to glare at Kreacher, face hot with rage. Sirius was gone, gone and likely dead, and Kreacher dug in the knife further into Remus’ chest, twisted it, “How dare you say such a thing. Do you have any ide—”
“The Malfoy family got a new dog recently. We elves talk. A large, shaggy, black one, apparently.”
His anger left so quickly that he shivered, heat leaving him as if a gust of wind had swept through the house.
“What?”
“The elves at Malfoy manor have long held ties to the Black house, being a noble family, word is the Mistress of the house, Lady Narcissa née Black Malfoy, has opened her home to one large, shaggy, black dog.”
Remus scrambled onto his feet, ignoring the white spots in his vision, pushing past how his head swam. “Are you sure?”
“Quite.”
He was weak with hunger, but it didn’t matter. There was no one else the dog could be. Narcissa had him. Sirius was alive and Remus was going to rescue him. Sure Narcissa had helped Sirius avoid a long Azkaban sentence, but Remus didn’t trust her. She had ulterior motives, he wasn’t stupid enough to think otherwise. If she had Sirius in her clutches who knew what she would do, especially if she worked out that he likely knew where Harry was.
“I’m leaving.”
“Shower.”
Remus looked down at Kreacher, “Have you lost the plot? Sirius is out there and I need to get him.”
“You are filthy.” Kreacher said.
“And? What does that matter?” Why was he arguing with Kreacher? He knew from experience that it was absolutely pointless.
“It’s impolite.”
“Impolite! You’ve got some nerve, you were hitting me just moments ago. You’ve no right to speak of politeness, who even cares about all that nonsense anyway!”
And yet he knew as soon as the words left his mouth.
The Malfoys.
The Malfoys cared about etiquette and the niceties of high class society. They cared about how one presented themselves and had always been unbearably snobby.
As if they’d let a mad werewolf in their house, especially looking and smelling how he did. He reeked. He looked and felt abhuman, more so than usual that was. He couldn’t go rushing in, as much as he longed to. Remus wanted nothing more than to bust down their no doubt ornate door and blast anyone who got on his way to bits. He wanted to grab Sirius and run.
But he couldn’t. He didn’t have his wand and even if he did he was tired and hungry and outnumbered. He had to be safe and level headed for Sirius’ sake. This was enemy territory Kreacher was talking about, a Death Eater nest. He had to be careful.
“Right,” he said, giving Kreacher a curt nod, “I’ll wash up.”
Wash up, eat, rest, and find his emergency wand back at his flat, years buried and near forgotten. He’d pull on good robes and do his hair and present himself to the Malfoy’s with as much social grace as possible. He’d give Sirius a fighting chance to escape.
He’d say:
'So sorry you had to deal with him, but I’ll be taking back my partner now. Thanks so much again for keeping him out of Azkaban.’
And all that rot.
He could play the well groomed, reasonable man from time to time.
Remus crushed a glass of firewhiskey a in his hand.
“No! That’s bulkshit! He can’t get stuck, he’s been an animagus since Hogwarts. Sirius knows what he’s doing.”
Narcissa sighed heavily, leaning back in her ornate chair.
“Do not yell at my wife, Lupin,” Lucius hissed, fingers tight around his own drink, knuckles white with his grip.
“I’ll yell all I want! You’re to give him back!”
“He’s in our custody,” Narcissa said, “And, as we’ve explained and proven, it’s all legal. On top of that, it’s only until we get him someone skilled in the mental arts to heal him and he’s able to change back.”
“Sirius can change back.”
Lucius rolled his eyes, “Merlin, do you even speak English? Haven’t you been paying attention? Sirius is trapped in his animal form due to some magic we cannot dispel. His talents have nothing to do with it.”
Narcissa nodded calmly even as Remus vibrated with anger, “I know just the person to call in to help him and once they have cured Sirius he will be returned to you.”
“And just why can’t he stay at the Black ancestral home while your so-called healer looks at him?”
“Because he’s family,” Narcissa said smoothly, “when he’s sick it’s only right that we host him”
“I’m his family.”
Narcissa took a sip of her tea, having chosen not to indulge in the firewhiskey, “Not legally.”
Remus grit his teeth, “The Blacks disowned Sirius.”
Narcissa hummed, settling her cup down and picking up a delicate sandwich. She did not bother to look at him.
“You’ll recall my last name is Malfoy.”
Remus’ hands fisted against the fabric of his trousers, right over his knees. He stared down at the ground. “At least let me see him,” he begged, “Show me him and I’ll go… I’ll go if you prove to me he’s here and he’s being taken care of and that you are getting someone to help him.”
He didn’t trust the Malfoys to do that for his partner, but if they held Sirius legally, as it appeared they did according to the documents he’d been shown, then Remus needed to at least see the conditions they kept him.
According to the Malfoys they had been called to the ministry after a feral dog had been captured in Ireland. The dog had expressed magical properties and had, at first, been believed to be a church grim that had gone mad. Such matters fell to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and they had been dispatched to deal with the issue. Yet, upon capture, the dog had been revealed as an animagus and beyond the department’s custody.
From there it had been determined that, although no one could get the dog to change back into its human form, the animagus bore Black family blood and was, therefore, the legal custody of the nearest, viable relative until he could become human again and have charges pressed against him for being unregistered.
Andromeda Tonks had been disowned and Bellatrix Lestrange was still in Azkaban, so Narcissa was naturally the top candidate to take him on and she had.
It was as the Malfoys said — if Remus had wanted custody of Sirius he should have made such a connection to the other man legal and binding. The law cared nothing for if people were romantically involved if there wasn’t a contract of marriage. His feelings for Sirius meant nothing,
He had to take what he was given now.
“Of course,” Narcissa said and if Remus were an idiot he’d say she held no malice towards him, that her words were genuine, but he knew better. “We’ll show you his quarters, but I must warn you they are a mess. He’s quite mad.”
“As if I would care about such things as madness.”
Sirius had been mad, stark raving really. He had torn up the furniture in his room, marked every corner, and tossed his food about. He didn’t even seem to respond to Remus. He growled and snapped at the man when he had tried to reach out his hand, offering up his fingers for Sirius to sniff at him and take in his scent,
If the Malfoys hadn’t had Draco about, he would have insisted he stay for his monthly transformation in hopes that seeing Moony, whom Padfoot typically spent the most time with, would cause him to recognize Remus. But he didn’t want to put Draco in danger. He may have hated the Malfoys, but Draco was a child. If anyone knew a werewolf shouldn't be around children, it was Remus and he couldn’t fault Draco his parentage, despite knowing that the little pureblood heir would likely become as insufferable as his father.
He was about Harry’s age. Narcissa had introduced them, though Merlin knew why, and Remus had again been filled with guilt at having wished they had found Harry’s body. Looking at Draco it had been difficult to imagine Harry at the same age. The boy had proudly proclaimed he would be in Slytherin, like his mum and dad, and Remus had tried to envision a world where Harry could have told him that same thing — that he was going to be in Gryffindor just like his mum and dad.
In the end he had left, there was nothing much else he could do without involving Dumbledore and the old man would likely tell him that the Malfoys, while untrustworthy, were doing nothing overt or illegal.
Narcissa told him they were getting someone skilled in the mental arts to heal Sirius, although she wouldn’t say who. Apparently she hadn’t confirmed if the person would be willing to work Sirius’ case or not and couldn’t promise that they would. If they did not choose to help Sirius then she would have to work towards finding someone else, a process that could take quite a bit of time.
It enraged Remus and they had another fight, this one worse than the others. He had been escorted off the property, shouting as he’d been forced beyond the wards where he’d had no choice but to return to Grimmauld.
A week or so had passed and he had contacted Dumbledoor. The Order had been overjoyed that he and Sirius were alive after having gone missing, but as predicted there was nothing they could legally do.
He was told to wait for things to pan out and had spent days stewing at number 12, longing to be beside his partner once more.
In the meantime he had tried to come to terms with the year he had lost. Other Order members caught him up to date, but nothing much had happened beyond them searching for him and Sirius. He did not know what had happened, only that the forest had been the key to his memory loss. He longed to return to the site and investigate, but feared losing more time or forgetting about Sirius entirely.
He had never heard of a forest capable of such magic, nor any witch or wizard. Focusing on what little he did know, Remus found he was fairly certain that at some point he had stopped transforming and had been in his werewolf form for weeks, if not months, at a time. The forest had stolen the ability to change back from him, and it was in this that he discovered a thread,
His transformation was controlled by an ailment, a disease of a particular kind. Remus had been made into a werewolf by an outside force, the bite of another. The forest had forced him to remain in his werewolf form for an extended period of time, muddling his brain in the meanwhile. But once he’d been removed from the space he had changed back, no longer under the forest or the moon’s influence, his affliction had gained control over him once more, switching him back despite his mind feeling weakened by what had happened to him.
Sirius though, he had learned how to be an animagus. Padfoot was something he had chosen. Padfoot took focus, a strong mind.
The forest must have addled his mind too, to the point where even removed from its confines he could not summon the focus to change back.
Remus had changed back because he didn’t have a choice.
Sirius remained Padfoot because he could not gather enough of himself up to force himself to return to his human body.
He needed to tell Narcissa, tell the mind healer, something. He couldn’t just wait around. Perhaps if they knew they could investigate the forest and determine the magic within that had impacted both he and Sirius.
Remus had reached out to Narcissa, had sent her an owl immediately and had, to his great disappointment, been rebuffed. Narcissa had written back quickly, and at first he had been thankful for that, but as he’d opened the letter disappointment and anger had overwhelmed him.
‘Dear Mr. Lupin,
While I thank you for the information, no such mental effects have been recorded regarding magical forests and as such we have elected to continue pursuing a more traditional route regarding Sirius’ treatment.’
Remus scoffed at the writing. Who did she think she was using stupid, flowery language? Some Malfoy, that’s who.
All she’d really said was ‘That sounds like bullshit and I’m going to ignore you.’
The letter crumpled in his hands as he read on.
‘Regardless, I am as anxious as you are to see Sirius restored.’
Not bloody likely.
‘To this end Lucius and I have successfully procured the healer I spoke of during our last discussion and have introduced them to Sirius. I assure you that they are up to the task and have begun their work as I write.'
At least— at least that was something, although Remus wished Narcissa had bothered to tell him just who was working on healing Sirius. The lack of information was driving him insane. Would it have killed her to give him a name? Perhaps. He wouldn’t put it past the Malfoys to ask some dark wizard to look at Sirius, for all he knew they had involved a bloody Death Eater. Wouldn’t that be just his luck?
‘I will keep you updated on Sirius’condition and, if all else fails, we can return to your idea regarding the forest near Galway.
Best,
N. Malfoy.’
“You bastards!”
Remus slammed his hand against the entrance to the Malfoy estate, palm aching where it came into contact with the gate.
Narcissa had reassured him that she would update him on the progress the healer was making with Sirius, and yet he had heard next to nothing in three, almost four weeks. Nearly a month had gone by and Sirius was no better.
There was no good news, or bad news for that matter. Remus knew nothing, was told nothing. His last owl had gone ignored. For all he knew Narcissa’s damn mind healer had never existed - or worse, had killed Sirius.
He’d had enough of it.
“Let me in, you bastards! Let me see him!”
Narcissa and Lucius appeared at the gate, in their night clothes and clearly upset, but he didn’t care. Let them be disturbed. They didn’t deserve a good night’s rest, not when they were keeping Sirius from him.
“Let me in!” He demanded again.
“To what do we owe the pleasure,” Lucius asked and Remus sneered at him.
“You know damn well,” he pointed at Narcissa, more than half tempted to brandish his replacement wand even though he knew it wasn’t all that good in a fight. He glared at Narcissa, “You ignored my last owl.”
“We haven’t received an owl from you in over three weeks.” She said, voice even and she may have looked tired a moment ago, but she didn’t anymore. She had always pulled herself together quickly.
“Bullshit!” He said, “My owl returned from your manor without its letter! You received it!”
“I assure you, we did not.” Lucius said.
“Shut up! This has nothing to do with you.”
“Mr. Lupin,” Narcissa said, her tone hardening ever further, “This is our home, the Malfoy estate, it has everything to do with both me and my husband.”
“Sirius could have bitten off his left nut and it still wouldn't have anything to do with him.”
Lucius rolled his eyes, “Charming.”
“Let me in.”
Narcissa and Lucius acquiesced, a good decision on their part considering Remus had been more than willing and ready to camp out just outside the bounds of the wards.
He brushed past them as they walked back to the main entrance, aggravated by their slow pace.
“We’ll show you to a guest room,” Narcissa said, “Get some rest, Remus. I’ll take you to him after breakfast in the morning.”
Remus stiffened at the use of his first name. As if she were familiar with him. He turned back to her as they entered the manor. “I’ll see him now.”
“He isn’t well and besides, he’s resting now,” Narcissa’s said, stressing once more that they should be sleeping, but Remus didn’t want to sleep.
But beyond that she had just revealed that Sirius wasn’t well, that he was still sick, that despite her claiming to have brought someone to help, Sirius was still very ill. His hand curled around one of the vases at the entrance to the manor, he was tired and worn thin and scared and angry, so incredibly angry, and he knew he shouldn’t have but he threw the vase across the hall because the next best thing was casting a hex, “You told me you had someone skilled in the mental arts working on him!”
The vase hit the nearby wall and bounced off, protected by a charm no doubt meant as a measure against the young little Malfoy heir and drunk party goers.
“I do,” Narcissa said, paying no mind to the vase.
“Then why isn’t he better yet?”
Lucius brought his cane down hard against the floor and Remus sneered. Why had the Bastard even bothered to bring his cane down, it was the damned middle of the night. “I have told you before, Mr. Lupin, not to yell at my wife.”
Remus’ hands flexed at his side, itching to grab something else at the reminder of their earlier arguments, “Your wife? I shouldn’t yell at your wife? Your wife shouldn’t have stolen my partner.”
Lucius narrowed his eyes at him and Remus knew they had had this conversation before and knew where it was going,“If you hadn’t wanted her to take custody of him you should have bothered to marry him.”
It wasn’t his fault Sirius wasn’t exactly keen on marriage. They had talked about it, of course they had. They had been together since fourth year, it had come up. But Sirius had been born to a family where marriage was an obligation, an expectation, a duty. As a male heir it was his job to marry a pureblooded woman and produce more male heirs. The same was true for women like Narcissa. Birthing offspring was paramount.
Love was not considered, although it was appreciated when it occurred within the correct circumstances. Remus was, needless to say, not considered a correct circumstance. He was a man and a werewolf, he had no money and little prospects due to his condition. He had not come from a well known, respected family and he couldn’t give Sirius children.
Sirius associated marriage with pain, with contracts and negotiations and the merging of estates. A marriage meant offspring and bank business, not happiness. A marriage furthered a bloodline and deepened financial assets, it did not signal love or dedication.
And so, although Remus had desired marriage, he gave it up. It was something he had had to let die.
Maybe if he’d just pushed Sirius harder they could hav—
“Dear,” Narcissa said, quieting Lucius by placing her hand gracefully upon his shoulder before returning her attention to Remus, “I do have a wizard skilled in the mental arts working on Sirius. It is simply that the project was more complicated than anticipated. Please, let’s put you up for the night, it’s late and we have no disagreement. We both want Sirius to recover and that is being worked on. ”
She was damned wrong if she believed they had no disagreement.
Remus clenched his jaw, teeth setting against one another, “Put me up with him, then.”
“He’s still - in his state,” Narcissa warned, but Remus didn’t care.
“As if I haven’t seen him like that,” he said, “as if I don’t know.”
The door to Sirius’ room shut behind him. Remus’ hand lingered in the frame. Sirius was up, staring at him suspiciously, his eyes full of the fear his low growls did not convey,
He had awoken the moment the door to his prison had opened, alert and on guard. His eyes tracked Remus as he sat down, back to the door, legs crossed in front of him. His ears pinned to his head, lips curling around his teeth, a threatening rumble leaving his chest.
Remus hated to see Padfoot so defensive, to see the tense lines of his body, the stiff set of his shoulders, his tail pressing against him, just barely remaining untucked from between his legs. It was painfully clear that Padfoot did not want to express fear, but was terrified. He was absolutely frightened and Remus knew that at the slightest provocation he was likely to stop snarling and start whimpering and cowering.
Sirius was putting on a show of bravery, but if could crumble to dust in an instant and didn’t Remus know just how that felt.
Sitting down heavily on the floor, Remus sighed.
There were no chances of Sirius calming enough to come to him, to press up against him so they could both get a good night’s rest.
“Oh, my love, what have they done to you,” he asked, unsure of who they even were. He knew it was unlikely the Malfoy’s had done this to Sirius. They were conniving, but this was too much even for them. Why would Narcissa go through the trouble of getting Sirius out of Azkaban only to curse him to live the rest of his days in his animagus form and then convince Remus that she had hired a mind healer? If she wanted something out of him, or Remus, or hell - the Order, she could have gone about it in a million other easier ways.
He only wished Sirius could tell him what had happened.
The next morning an elf escorted him down to breakfast. He wasn’t too keen on eating with the Malfoys, but the smells wafting through the halls, enhanced by his delicate senses, made his stomach growl. He could not remember the last time he’d had a good meal. He wasn’t a great cook and Kreacher did not cook for him.
Remus had been subsisting off of take away for the most part and a few tins of soup and cold vegetables when he’d worked up the drive to go to the muggle store.
He wasn’t strong enough to resist and soon found himself sitting at the Malfoy table. He waved his replacement wand over his eggs and toast, testing it for poison or any other kind of tinkering despite how Lucius and little Draco eyed him.
Remus didn’t care what they thought. He didn’t trust them.
“Where’s Narcissa,” he demanded as he decided his food and drink were safe enough to consume.
Lucius’ mouth twisted in that snotty, prudish way it always had when he was disgusted by something uncouth, “the lady of the house is tending to another one of our guests.”
Remus almost laughed at that, “the lady of the house,” he mocked.
“Yes,” Lucius said, “the healer she brought in is a bit busy today, so she is watching his young son and bringing him down to breakfast.”
Why was the mind healer busy? Should they be busy fixing Sirius, not working on some side project? And why did they have their young son here at the mansion? Were they living here full time? If that was the case Remus might have felt a bit better about the work being put in to heal Sirius. But still, why would Narcissa care for the boy? As far as he knew Narcissa barely involved herself with the day to day care of her biological son, leaving those tasks to the elves. Why should a child guest be any different?
“His name is Adam,” Draco said between a neat bite of food. He ate far too cleanly for a normal child. “He’s seven, like me.”
Great, more children just Harry’s age.
Remus knew he should ask Draco if he got along with Adam, if he enjoyed having a guest over that was his age. He could tell from the look on Draco’s face that the boy expected him to engage in polite conversation, the sort he had no doubt been trained in during the etiquette classes Narcissa made him attend. But he couldn’t be bothered. He wasn’t about to play polite little house guest for the young lord Malfoy.
He focused his energy on eating and Lucius picked up a conversation with Draco about his etiquette lessons. On the surface the action was meant to cheer Draco up from his poor interaction with Lupin, where his practiced small talk had not gone over well, but Remus knew it was also meant to overtly chastise him for not having enough etiquette himself to talk to a seven year old who, unlike him, practiced social grace and was just looking for the opportunity to use what he had learned.
If he could have rolled his eyes out of his head he would have.
Merlin, these people were stuffy.
Remus did not have much more time to think about that though, in fact he wouldn’t think about such trivial things again for a long time, not when, as Narcissa cleared her throat primly to indicate she had entered the room, he laid eyes on a boy he had not seen in years.
Harry was nothing like the body he had pictured, guiltily wishing they had found him so Sirius could rest and move on.
Harry was living, breathing, and the absolute image of James.
Remus had not known James before Hogwarts, but he could see the man in his son, could see the slope of his nose, the soft set of his lips, the way his ears poked out from his mess of hair.
It was as if his friend were in front of him, as if death had stolen him. Perhaps James had simply had an accident, de-aged himself — Remus had heard of such spells and potions gone awry.
But no, Harry’s eyes were Lily’s. He was not his father, not James, despite their resemblance. He was her too and, looking closer, Remus saw he was something entirely different as well. In Harry’s gaze was something, some person he did not understand, had not met. Harry looked at him and in the split second that stretched between them Remus saw a level of exhaustion and resignation he had never once witnessed in a child.
As James and Lily had appeared shortly before they lost their lives, Harry looked as if he had gone to war.
“Harry!” He scrambled out of his chair, launching himself across the table. He didn’t have time to wonder what Harry was doing at the Malfoy manor or why he was clearly the child guest Lucius had described Narcissa as tending to despite Draco saying his name was Adam.
Such questions were silly at the moment. They paled in comparison to the most important questions Remus had asked himself in a while.
Could he run fast enough to catch up to Harry?
Could he grab onto Harry and run to Sirius and take the both of them as far from the manor as possible? Could he make it past the Malfoy wards?
Could he save his family before the Malfoys put a stop to him?
Because now he knew for certain that they would.
Remus knew who Sirius had been chasing, knew who he had found. There was only one man who would have Harry.
Snape.
Severus Snape was there, somewhere in the manor and he was the healer Narcissa had recruited. He was the one ‘fixing’ Sirius. Remus had no doubt in his mind that Snape was hurting him, that the reason Sirius wasn’t any better was because Snape was making things worse.
Sure Dumbledore had said the Malfoy’s were not doing anything overtly illegal, but he would put a stop to Snape. The man was a confirmed fugitive Death Eater and although everyone knew that Lucius was a Death Eater as well he’d managed to wiggle his way out of justice. Snape though? Dumbledore had no reason to defer to politics when it came to the greasy git.
On top of that they had evidence that Snape had kidnapped Harry and now he was working on Sirius. If nothing else Dumbledore could point out that the Malfoys were not fit to hold Sirius because they were harboring a child kidnapper and encouraging him to practice major mind healing without any kind of license or training.
All Remus had to do was get Harry and Sirius and run and everything would be okay. They would find someone to help Sirius and they would be okay.
He ran after Harry, chased him out and into the hall. Narcissa and Lucius shouted something behind him but he couldn’t hear.
Harry was quick.
He was pressing his hands over his ears and running like his life depended on it. What had they told him to make him so scared, so frightened? Did he know who Remus was?
It wasn’t likely. He didn’t know what Snape had done to the boy, but he was going to work hard to reverse it. He was never going to wish Harry was a corpse ever again. He was going to hold onto him tightly and love him the way he should have been loved.
“Harry please!”
He reached out, he was so close. His heart pounded in his ears. Harry tripped and a worried, frightened sound escaped his throat as he tumbled forward, reaching his arms out in front of him and then-
Nothing.
Harry was gone.
It was as if he apparated, there one moment and gone the next, although no crack of apparition had followed his disappearance.
Remus fell to his knees.