The Dogfather

Once Will was out of sight, Fred and George dropped the serene mask they had put on for her sake. She had already so much on her mind, they didn’t want to add to it. They went to the infirmary, using as many secret passages as possible.

It was very likely that most of the students were outside, enjoying the sun that had become scarce and the castle’s grounds finally cleared of the Dementors that had depressed them all year long. But the boys didn't want to take any risks, they knew how fast the rumors were going in Hogwarts, and they had already heard students in the Great Halle talking about professor Lupin being a werewolf.

By the end of the day, everyone in Hogwarts would know about this and the man would probably have to disappear to escape the parent’s wrath, outraged to know that a werewolf had been so close to their offspring.

Honestly, Fred and George had found out about their professor’s condition long before Snape, oh so subtly, told the students about it and they didn’t really care. They had honestly enjoyed Lupin’s classes which had been interesting and fun, and the twins had particularly liked the challenge that this new teacher had represented.

Not once had the boys managed to prank him. Each time the two had set a trap for him, and he had avoided it with nothing more than a flick of his wand. He made sure to address a discreet "well tried" or "next time maybe" to his students during the next lesson. It was indescribably frustrating for the two young jokers, but they also developed a certain respect and a bit of admiration for the older wizard.

But as much as Fred and George wanted to drown the wizard under questions, it just wasn’t the moment for that. They had more pressing matter to attend to, first being: how the hell were they going to help Will get away from those “relatives” of hers ?

The twins knew by the summer after the first year that Will’s family situation was far from perfect. They had seen the cupboard under the stairs and the "Willow’s room" drawing on its door.

They had learned to spot the signs of her less than perfect treatment at the hands the Dursleys: her thinness, her difficulties with food, her tension when their mother held her in her arms, how she always seemed surprised that the twins cared about her and so many other issues.

It was painfully obvious that she lacked any sense of self-preservation seeing how she had risked her life to save Ginny, fighting a giant Basilisk and being bitten in the process. And she did it again by going after a man, supposed mass murderer at the time, who wanted to kill her specifically.

 But even then, not for a moment had they imagine that these terrible excuses for human being had done worse than the neglect, which was already unforgivable in their book. They realized that night, seeing the scars on Will’s back, they had seriously underestimated how horrible these people were.

Their magic had lashed out in reaction, destroying everything it could, and it had taken the combined efforts of a Calming Draught and Dobby’s magic to put the room back in order.

Once they recovered from their emotions, one thing was certain, there was no chance they would let her return to this place. If they had to kidnap her to keep her safe, well the boys were sure that Charlie would be delighted to show them around Romania, or maybe Bill would accept apprentices and go back to Egypt.

Otherwise, the States were always an option, given their feelings towards Britain, the Magical America would be very happy to welcome English expats, even more a celebrity like Willow Potter. But before they went to plan B (How to kidnap a celebrity), they had to at least try to solve the problem without becoming wanted criminals. Which brought them back to the present situation.

It was hard to think that the man in front of them was really the monster that all parents depicted to scare their children. Remus Lupin looked as pale as it was possible to be, his face tired as if he had not slept for days, and the pajamas in the infirmary did nothing to hide that he was only skin and bones. Yet he still had that gentle and patient smile that he had in class when paying attention to students' questions.

Their teacher made a second chair appear and invited the boys to sit down, patiently waiting for them to speak. They hesitated for a moment, looking at each other before accepting, wondering if they had really done well to come. They knew close to nothing of this man after all, what if he did not agree to help them or worse what if he told something to Dumbledore. It could seriously jeopardize their plan to get Will out of the Dursley’s.

Deciding to try their luck, they sat down. If something went wrong, they would pass this confrontation as big brothers’ concern, which was in fact true. Ron had almost been eaten by a werewolf after being kidnapped by a criminal after all.

The brothers took care to take out their wand and leave them in plain sight so that their teacher could see them. They didn’t want to take any chances, using a little spell of confusion on a teacher wouldn’t stop them from sleeping at night.

Lupin raised an eyebrow intrigued by the implicit threat, but waited to see where all this would lead.

"You know, professor," Fred said as if he himself were a teacher giving a lesson, "When Will told us of yesterday’s events, we were confused".

"Confused?" repeated Lupin, looking disconcerted. This wasn’t the reaction he seemed to expect from students who just discovered that their teacher was a werewolf.

'Oh, not about your little monthly problem, professor. Or maybe you’d prefer Mr. Moony?” said George in the same calm voice.

Lupin opened his eyes, shocked "How do you know...?" But they ignored his question, continuing their discourse.

"No, it’s been a while since we understood that one, I mean you were absent at the same time every month, it wasn’t very difficult to find out."

"It was a child’s play" Fred said.

"Not even a real challenge," added George.

"But what we don’t understand…” Fred began.

 “…Is which side you are on" George finished.

It appeared to the twins that their teacher’s face was stuck between the expressions of surprise and confusion, constantly passing from one to the other. They held back a smirk; they had to admit a certain satisfaction in destabilizing the man.

"I... I’m not sure I follow you," the wizard hesitated. His face reflected all his confusion about the present situation.

"Well, you see, we’re confused because after the Dementor on the train and the lessons for her to learn the Patronus' spell, one might think you’re on Will’s side. That you want to protect her, all of that," explained Fred to the teacher.

"And yet," George continued, "being one of the Marauders, and while you were supposed to protect her from another Marauder, you did not condemn any of the secret passages of the castle. Not even after Sirius Black broke into Gryffindor’s common room. You have to admit it’s confusing." He finishes his sentence, glaring at the man.

"Not to mention that no one seemed to know that he is an animagus, which allowed him to move as he wanted without any problem," insisted Fred.

"If he really wanted to hurt Will, he would have succeeded," George said coldly.

"And you would have made it easier for him," Fred accused him.

Lupin seemed horrified by all these accusations, but he could not honestly be so surprised that the boys had doubts about him. Not only because of all this secret passages situation, but also because of his post here in Hogwarts.

The twins had begun to see a pattern that had been repeating for three years now. Every year, the DADA teacher since Will came to Hogwarts, tried to attack her in one way or another. Although this seemed to be a problem that did not worry the headmaster too much.

And even if it could be an honest mistake, they found it very suspicious that their werewolf of a professor conveniently forgot to take his potion on a full moon night when he knew he would meet at least five people including three of his students.

Fred and George were really hoping that this was just an error of judgment, rather than another premeditated attempt to attack Will. But in the end, it didn’t matter, if anyone else wanted to hurt her, the boys had vowed to protect their friend and they had every intention of doing so. Even if it was a professor, they wouldn’t hesitate. Said professor took them out of their dark thoughts.

"No! No! No, I would never. It was an accident. Listen, I know I made mistakes, but I never wanted to put anyone in danger, especially not Will. As for Sirius, I..." He hesitated, not seeming to know how to formulate his thoughts. "All I can say is that I always kept this secret and I ... I couldn’t betray him that way. I just…. I couldn’t."

The twins were unhappy with his answer because they understood, but even if they did, it didn’t change the facts. What were the chances of a prisoner escaping and that same year his school friend found himself working in the school that is the goal of the escapee. Fred and George didn’t believe in this kind of coincidence, so the headmaster probably hired Lupin in the hope that he could arrest his old friend. Except instead he helped him by keeping his secrets and not condemning secret passages. And this is probably the second inaction that the boys had trouble accepting.

Fred especially wasn’t convinced; ok so he couldn’t betray his ex-friend secret, but he could have done something himself.

"Let me clarify something, we agree that until yesterday’s events you thought him guilty, didn’t you?" he asked him dryly.

"That is correct."

“So how do you explain the secret passages? You wanted to keep it a secret that he was an animagus very well, maybe you didn’t want to talk to Professor Dumbledore about it, no problem, but what prevented you from blocking secret passages by yourself ?!" Continued Fred, letting for the first time his façade slide. "You could have made it harder for him, at least slow him down, you didn’t even have to talk to anyone about it. But You. Did. NOTHING. If anything had happened, you would have been as much responsible for it than the culprit."

He had finished his accusation standing, trembling angrily, his wand crackling with sparks, clenched in his fist. George placed a soothing hand on his arm, discreetly pointing to the door.

He hurriedly left the infirmary before losing control of his magic again. That’s not the way the discussion was supposed to go, but he couldn’t help it, because his friends and his younger siblings had been in potential mortal danger all year long.

And to know that the adults who were supposed to protect them had almost held the door open to the very threat they were supposed to keep them from made him with rage. It wasn't only about Black, but also the Dementors. How could Dumbledore have allowed to have these creatures of nightmares near a school full of children?! What if the Dementors had succeeded in their attack on Will or anyone else for that matter!?

And what was the deal with the headmaster anyway !? Nothing he did made sense, he says he want to protect the school and the students, that Hogwarts is as safe as ever but at the same time fail to see Voldemort who hides for a year as a professor, let a gigantic deadly snake loose in the school allowing several students to be petrified and invites Dementors and a Werewolf into the school to supposedly hunt a mass murderer who waltz in the school as he please.

So yes, maybe taking out his anger on Lupin alone wasn't fair but he wasn't feeling in a particularly charitable mood at the moment.

George watched his brother storm out of the infirmary. He wanted to go after him and comfort him, but he knew Fred needed time to calm down. Especially since they had not yet obtained what he wanted from the bedridden wizard.

He was no less angry than his twin, after all they had time to discuss all the events of that year, which led to discussing the previous two school years, all the inconsistencies, all the decisions that did not make sense. And what they discovered didn’t please them at all.

But unlike his brother, George tended to bottle up his emotions, he kept them hidden from everyone; people then thought he was always calm, and that Fred was the brash one. Even if he had to confess that the day before, his control had slipped, they both had exploded in their rage of discovering the abuse’s evidence on Will’s skin and had destroyed their dormitory.

But right now, George couldn’t afford to lose his calm. He turned to his teacher, who seemed confused not to see George following his brother, which he soon vocalized.

"Um, maybe you should go with him, he seemed pretty upset," Lupin suggested hesitantly.

"No." The redhead simply replied." Professor, I will be direct with you. You have questionable behavior that makes us question your motives. I’d like you to swear on your Magic that you have no intention of harming Will, and never will, and a vow of confidentiality. If you agree I’ll explain the situation, if you can’t, I will be obliged to erase this encounter from your memories, and you will be considered a potential threat, as are Peter Pettigrew and Professor Dumbledore."

Okay, on second thought, maybe he wasn’t as calm as he thought he was. Calm people don’t threaten other people, but at least the message was clear.

The wizard stammered his response, clearly baffled by the menace, "What... What, Professor Dumbledore? A threat?! But what in Merlin’s beard are you talking about? It’s absurd...! Wait, did you just threaten to erase my memory?"

Fred, who was sitting on the floor in front of the infirmary, heard his brother sitting beside him and dropped his head on George’s shoulder. Without asking, his twin told him the end of the discussion with Lupin. He had to hold back a smile when he heard about George's threat, and sighed, relieved when he told him that Lupin had sworn on his magic to keep their secrets.

"He didn’t know she was with the Dursleys," George whispered.

"Did you tell him everything ?" he asked in the same way.

"Not everything, just enough to make him question things. And I told him about Will’s first two years here." George replied. "I didn’t want to betray her trust more than necessary." He ends in a small voice.

At this Fred turned completely to take George in tight a hug. Neither wanted to betray the trust Will had placed in them, but they also knew they couldn’t help her on their own.

"She’ll understand Gred, you know that. Remember we’re doing all this for Willow." he said with conviction.

George nod, tightening his arms around Fred before replying, determined.

"For Willow."