Chapter 1
***
The first person to interrupt Remus Lupin’s game of Solitaire was a kid with flyaway hair and dark, excitable eyes.
Solitaire was the perfect choice, Remus had decided, for the moment. It gave the right sort of self-sufficient air against the reek of desperation he was sure hung about him like a bog-stench, his certainty that no one in their right mind would ever choose to sit with him on this train and that he would never make any friends at the fortress-school and so he’d just die of loneliness, probably, before being buried alone at a crossroads up north where the wind cried cold and colder o’er highland heaths.
So, Solitaire. It was something his mam did to keep her hands and mind busy sometimes, a tidy little home-rite, and she and his nain had given him the card deck for his very own self, and sure, maybe he was alone outside the village wards for the very first time ever but he’d see them all at Midwinter so he was fine, just fine, Remus Lupin was fine on his own. He had a trunk and a wand and freshly picked-out hair and he was very nearly eleven and a half years old, which was old enough not to need anybody at all, especially not any new friends.
Which was why he jumped so hard when the compartment door CLACKed open.
“Hullo, is anyone sitting there?” said the unfamiliar boy, and Remus shook his head. “Cool. Are you a first-year as well? Isn’t it grand, how the trunks liked to put themselves away once we got on the train?” he added as the trunk in question indeed floated to the shelf above their heads and slotted itself neatly across from Remus’s. “I noticed it on the platform, too, it sort of --” he made a few wiggly motions, then gave up and stuck his right hand across the compartment table. “Anyway, I’m James, James Potter, call me James. What’s your name?”
NO.
The bottom dropped out of his belly and the magic from his very soul, so aghast -- flobberwormed -- flabberghasted, was Remus Lupin. Not twenty seconds into his first actual conversation with a real live church wizard and already -- but what, what, who even asked a question like -- even if they didn’t keep the old ways he’d thought they’d at least -- was this what they would all be like? Root and stars, he’d never survive Hogwarts.
“It’s the place,” he said instead of answering the worst question in the history of ever. He shook James’s proffered hand anyway, for lack of anything better to do with it. “This is an old path. Probably helped along by charms and that.”
“Like house magic. Cool.” James Potter withdrew his hand, giving Remus a once-over. “You haven’t said what I should call you.”
That version was better, at least: two names for two names, then. “Remus Lupin.” He tried on a smile, and got a beaming grin in return.
On second sniff, James Potter was probably not a church wizard. He had the cold posh accent of their so-called purebloods, true, but his posture was relaxed and inviting, and his magic had a scent like red heat and brightworked gold. It shaped curves that smelled neither of the square corners of Latin incantations nor the woven threads of clan magic, for all he might look like he could be from back home. Whoever his first teachers had been must’ve had strong traditions, though unfamiliar to Remus’s nose, for James Potter’s magic had been steeped in them.
So clearly James Potter’s clan kept different old ways to his, then. And maybe in James Potter’s clan it was normal to ask for a person’s name, maybe they didn’t hold to guarding names at all, or, or or or maybe they didn’t even do --
“Good to meet you, Remus.” James brought a hand to his hair, picking his fingers through it and making it stand even further on end. “What’s this game? Is it like Exploding Snap? Can I play, too?”
“The cards don’t explode,” said Remus, who had decided he liked James Potter after all. “But --”
…CREEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAK…
The compartment door slid back again, narrowly, with a timidity that made Remus want to just throw it open already, for the love of troubled water --
“Hi, erm, can I -- could I?” The newcomer was an Anglo sort of boy with blue eyes and a cap of blondish hair, who poked his head in before wedging the rest of himself through when James waved. “Peter Pettigrew. I’ve brought cakes to share?”
Peter Pettigrew’s magic tasted quiet, like cold butter and climbing ivy and river clay. Remus had the passing thought that perhaps his own magic smelled a bit like this to others: fresh-churned, full of potential.
He knew better, though.
“Good to meet you, Peter,” James said easily as Peter heaved his trunk toward the shelf. “I’m James. Remus here was about to teach us a new game, only the cards don’t explode, so it might be boring. Are you a first-year as well?”
Peter sat next to James and gave Remus a wave. “Yeah!” His face fell a little upon catching sight of the table, where Remus had just begun to gather up the cards from his now-abandoned Solitaire run. “Oh, but I know this one, it’s just for one player.”
“Ahh, no, did I interrupt? Sorry,” said James. “Could we do a new one, then? Wait, was that the whistle? I think we’re moving!” He stuck his entire torso out the compartment window. “BYE!” he bellowed to some people who must’ve been his family, waving wildly. Peter was also at the window, waving at the platform as the train departed, leaving Remus to sit and shuffle the cards as London began to slide by.
BANG.
He started -- the compartment door had slammed open for what he sincerely hoped would be the final time today, because his nerves couldn’t take much more of this.
“Brilliant, can I sit in here with you? Only I don’t want to ride in the ‘pureblood’ car, they’re a bunch of bloody lampreys, but if my cousins catch me out I won’t have a reason to say no.” The newest arrival was angular and poised, with silky-weave hair tied back in a velvet ribbon like a proper dwt lord and robes that seemed to look better on him than the rest of them, for some reason. He didn’t wait before sliding in next to Remus, tearing the ribbon out and shaking his head vigorously. A waft of magic crackled over Remus’s skin in sheafs of nightclouds and thunder: a child of church wizards, for certain. “How should I call you, then?”
James offered a hand slantwise across the table. “I’m James Potter.”
“As in Sleekeazy’s?” The new kid’s eyes flicked upward during their handshake just as James tousled his own hair again. “You’ve some rather brilliant family.”
“Yeah, Dad’s a cracker potioneer -- but even he didn’t think the coconut oil base would be so ‘revolutionary’ here. For us it’s just normal.” James shrugged. “My auntie says she scried it, but I think that’s a load of dibble-dung.”
“Your tad invented Sleekeazy’s Hair Potions?” Remus had a tin and a bottle of their finest in his trunk. “My family all swear by that stuff, now you’ve started selling more than just relaxers. Remus Lupin,” he said to the new kid beside him, the one who’d asked how should i call you like a regular person.
“Ta, mate.” It was hard to tell if James Potter was being so smiley on purpose or if that was just his face. “I’ll tell Mum you said so -- she’s the brains behind the business operation.”
Meanwhile, Peter Pettigrew’s mouth was hanging open. “But… you’re Welsh,” he said to Remus almost accusingly.
Remus sighed: this again. “Yeah.”
“But if you’re -- you know -- then how come you’re, you know…”
“Black?” Remus finished dryly. James winced.
“No, I’m Black,” muttered the dwt lord under his breath, snickering a little. Remus didn’t get the joke.
“No, that’s not what I -- I only meant -- how come you’re Welsh?” It was the best recovery possible for that sentence, all things considered.
Unfortunately, that still didn’t make it a good one.
“Oi, Pete,” said James. “You can’t just go ‘round asking people why they’re Welsh.”
Remus drew himself up very tall in his seat. “Pettigrew, right?” It was a society surname, so he did the thing he’d practiced in his best Wolf-Speaker voice: “We tended the magic of this land long before your priests arrived to declare themselves wizards, Little Crane.”
Peter Pettigrew blinked twice. His chin wobbled.
The new kid snickered again. “Well, that’s you told, then. And in Welsh, to boot.”
That burst the dam. “I didn’t mean it like that!” Peter wailed. “I only -- I didn’t -- look, you had cards out, proper normal playing-cards, is all, and I thought you had a, a -- I thought maybe you were -- or that you were like me, with one of your parents, at least.”
“Be honest,” said James, not unkindly. “You meant it the other way a little.”
“Maybe,” said Peter miserably. “But also because of the Muggle things, like.”
“Oh.” Remus felt his posture soften. “Mam’s from the village -- she’s clan now, but she’s not got the inborn magic. And I went to Muggle primary school, for a bit.”
“Clan magic?” The polite dwt lord’s eyes lit up. “You’re a druid!” At Remus’s nod, he let out a breath and grinned. “Wicked.”
“Wait, wait,” said Peter. “There are real --” but the new kid wasn’t listening to him.
“Lupin… Clan of the Wolf?” Remus nodded again, at this fey boy whose attention felt like guts roiling, who was now tilting his head in thought like a grownup and speaking names in that smooth cold accent: “You’ve got Lyall, at the Ministry; and Bleddyn, who sits on the Wizengamot.”
Remus stared for a moment. “And you’ve got me at a disadvantage,” he said, using one of the society phrases from his stories, because who among the church wizards’ children would have reason to know of not just their Speaker, but Remus’s own father? And now this new kid had four names to Remus’s zero. “What do I call you?”
“Right, sorry -- hello, I’m Sirius. Sirius, erm, Black. Charmed, I’m sure.”
“-- druids, like the kind in books?”
Remus couldn’t help it: the temperature in the compartment dropped by about two degrees. Peter’s question trailed off to hang in the air, and the only sound was the hollow thunk! of James’s foot against the seat -- because yes, even the old clans knew that surname, and of course the Black heir would know of anyone who was anyone, and -- oh.
So that was why he’d laughed, earlier. Funny.
Sirius Black looked as aghast as Remus had felt not two minutes previous. “Ah, no, please don’t -- no, don’t do that, I’m just -- look, forget my surname, all right? Just Sirius. Not Black.”
Wait -- wait, you could ask for that?
“No,” said Remus, because this was was a revelation, and it deserved to be known. “I’m Black.”
Sirius blinked for a moment, then burst into laugher in a shower of knees and elbows, one or two of which jabbed into Remus’s side a bit. Remus didn’t mind. “Ahahahaha! You’re all right, Remus ap Lupin.”
“Just Remus.” Perhaps that gut-roiling sensation wasn’t Sirius’s magic after all. “Forget the rest.”
Another elbow in his ribs. “Just Remus, then.”
James banged on the table. “Hang on -- back up, I’m with Peter, I only just got here --”
“What do you -- we’re all first years, we all only just got --”
“But I’ve basically spent the last five years with my cousins in Caer Nytyca, haven’t I? So I really only just got --”
“Wait, have you really?” Sirius’s eyes lit up again, that thunderous attention now focused on James. “Did you go to --”
“What’s Kartanaka?” Peter asked the compartment at large.
“What’s --?” James reared back, indignant.
Sirius rolled his eyes. “Only the birthplace of magic, you --”
“But I thought druids were the original --”
-- and then the crosstalk began in earnest.
“-- site of the Font, like, thousands of --”
“-- actually, according to our histories there are lots of --”
“-- not been in England past August since I can --”
“-- blame you there, we don’t winter here either, it’s bloody freezing --”
“-- just signed up to live in a Scottish castle for --”
“-- talk about the seasons like --”
“-- so can someone please explain to me WHAT IS A DRUID?!” James’s last few words rose high enough above the rest to bring everyone to a halt.
“They’re magic,” Peter answered promptly.
And now James rolled his eyes at Peter. “Yeah, I’d got that part, thanks.”
Sirius waved a hand in the kind of languid gesture Remus had seen his father imitate while telling stories. “They’re the old clans. They like full moons and rituals and trees.” Remus pretended not to feel the twist in his heart that happened just then. “They’ve a few seats in the Wizengamot to look out for their interests, but mostly they keep to themselves,” Sirius was saying. “And they almost never send their children to Hogwarts.” He looked at Remus askance.
Remus shrugged back, because despite the dismissive attitude and the fact that both Sirius and Peter had seen fit to speak on his clans while he was sitting right here… it wasn’t a totally inaccurate description. “Someone’s got to know how you lot think.” His heart was beating fast beneath his robes: he’d practiced this, too.
This time James snickered. “You sound just like my nan. What’s a druid, then, since you really are one?”
Remus shrugged again. “About what they said. We keep the old ways, don’t much go in for your Latin chants and that. And we aren’t half mad for trees.”
“So you’re, like -- I mean --” stumbled Peter. “When you say old ways…”
Remus did another Speaker-saying, in English first this time. “Older than your Normans, Little Crane. Older than the Saxon kings and the Roman priests.” He turned the wolf-grin on Sirius. “But you remember who taught Merlin, don’t you, Dogstar?”
A lot of people were staring wide-eyed at Remus today.
“Wicked,” James breathed.
“I said that already,” Sirius mumbled, brow turning a little stormy.
Meanwhile, Peter: “Why’d you call me Little Crane?”
“Well, it’s your name, isn’t it?” Sirius tossed his hair over his shoulder, composure already regained. “Petite grue, or didn’t you know?”
Peter looked like he was making a very brave smile. “I guess I didn’t.” He looked at his hands in his lap. “We’re not very close with my dad’s family.”
Sirius was rocking on the edge of his seat like something had clicked in his head. He opened his mouth to say -- something, Remus was willing to bet it was some devastating bit of society knowledge about the Pettigrews, and Peter already on the verge of tears --
“Remus, weren’t you going to teach us that game?” James asked rather loudly. “The one with the cards which don’t explode?”
And just like that, Sirius’s attention was diverted again. “Oooh, I bet I could make them,” he said. “Explode, that is.”
“Bet I could, too,” James retorted, a light of challenge in his eye. “Maybe we can add exploding rules after we’ve learnt it.”
“Please don’t,” said Remus. “I like these cards, my nain gave ‘em me.”
James’s eyes got wide as he whipped his head round to stare at Remus, again. “You’ve got a nannamma, too?”
A wh--? “Dunno, is that something from Caer Nytyca?” Remus asked. “Nain’s just my grandmother.”
James grinned. “So’s mine. Sort of -- I mean, she’s got other grandchildren as well, so she’s not just my grandmother, is she? She’s not from Karnataka though, that’s my mum’s side. My dad’s Telugu.”
“Oh.” Remus saved the words like stones in his pocket, to be smoothed and polished and identified in time: Nannamma. Telugu. Kar-na-ta-ka. “Cool.”
They got round to playing cards eventually, though only after tearing into Peter’s foil-wrapped cakes -- after which the food trolley came round and James bought everybody sandwiches while Sirius got an armful of sweets and fizzy drinks, so they all had a good long time to pepper each other with questions over their sort-of lunch as Mercia rolled into Northumbria outside the window.
James to Remus: “Do you live in a forest?”
“Sometimes.”
Peter to Remus: “Can you talk to trees?”
Remus tried for a Sirius-style handwave. “Anyone can do that.”
“What?”
“It’s listening for the reply that’s the hard bit.”
Sirius: “Wicked.”
Remus to James: “Where’s Karnataka? Are there forests there?”
James tilted his head back and forth. “It’s in India, so the forests have all got tigers and things. I’m not allowed to go in by myself, but plenty of people live there.”
Peter to Remus: “Do you have big trees? Proper big ones, like the Ents?”
“Yes, big. Not like Ents.”
Sirius to Peter: “What’s an Ent?”
“It’s a massive tree that walks around and talks, like, really slow. They’re not real, though.”
James to Remus: “How big is the biggest tree you ever saw?”
“Really big.”
Sirius to Peter: “How do you know they’re not real?”
“Well, Remus said they haven’t got any where he’s from, but I… don’t know that they’re not just somewhere else, I suppose?”
James to Remus: “Bigger than a house?”
“Yes.”
Peter to Remus: “Bigger than a skyscraper?”
“Yes.” He really didn’t want to talk about this anymore, so why was everyone joining in?
Sirius to Remus: “Bigger than a mountain?”
“Come off it, you can’t be serious,” Peter chided. “There’s no such thing as a tree that big.”
Sirius scoffed and slid down in his seat a little, shoulders hunched. “‘Course not. I’m never serious.”
“Except you are, though, aren’t you,” said James. “Like, all the time.”
A grin bloomed across Sirius’s face that quick, his posture opening back up, and Remus felt a swish past his leg as Sirius kicked at James’s shin under the table. “You’re all right, James Potter.”
“Cheers, you too. Anyway, I’ve seen a tree as big as a mountain,” James continued. “There’s ones in Karnataka about as old as your druids, I reckon. Maybe older.” Another facet of stone revealed: Karnataka-in-India, source of the gold-shaped magic, with trees as old as home.
“Not serious, not a Black…” Peter hmmmmed. “What should we call you, then? Something White?”
Sirius raised one eyebrow and pointed to his face. “Not quite, old chap.”
“Grey, then.” Remus cleared his throat. “You’re Jester Grey.”
This time he was ready for the jumble of delighted knees and feet and elbows that came with the Jester’s laugh.
James waved a hand. “Me! Me! Do me next! You’ve given both of them nicknames, where’s mine?”
Remus shook his head and reminded himself that James Potter kept different old ways. “Can’t force a byname.”
“Hssssssst!” Sirius, apparently, had no such qualms. “Really? Don’t pull that kind of thing at Hogwarts, or I’ll have to pretend I don’t know you.”
James looked at Sirius, brow furrowed. “What? Why?”
“You can’t ask for names, they’re given!”
Peter to Remus: “Is that a real thing?”
“For us it is. Not all church wizards follow it, but the society ones mostly do. Them that keep the old ways, anyway.”
James to Sirius: “So I can’t ask Remus to give me a nickname?”
“No! And you never ask someone else’s name, either.”
Peter to Remus: “What’s a church wizard?”
“But that’s barmy -- if I can’t ask someone’s name, how would I ever know who anybody is?”
“Them that use Latin spells, like what’s taught at Hogwarts.”
“No, no, you just say something else, like what are you called, or -- Merlin’s pants, Potter, have you just been running around demanding people’s names?!”
“Are there other kinds of wizards, then?”
“I don’t know, maybe? I’ve met a lot of new people today! And anyway, I asked Remus’s name earlier and it was fine!”
Remus, his attention drawn elsewhere: “Yeah, lots. Like the old clans.”
Sirius to James, grabbing Remus’s arm: “You didn’t. He’s the worst person here you could’ve done that to, tell me you didn’t.”
Peter to Sirius: “Wait, James didn’t what?”
James, uncertain: “I… think I might have?”
Remus to James, matter-of-fact: “You did.” He didn’t add that James had also passed his name to Peter -- that was a whole other flute of flobberworms.
Sirius to Peter, horrified: “James asked Remus’s name.”
Peter to James, newly aghast: “Oh, that’s… that’s really bad. I’m not himself here, with the pureblood etiquette and all, but even I know that.”
Sirius, indignant: “Oi!”
James to Remus, wide-eyed and earnest. “Look, I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude or anything.”
“Who said I had pureblood etiquette?!”
Remus to James: “S’alright, you didn’t know. And it was trade in kind, anyhow.”
“You did, just now, with the etiquette lesson.”
James to Remus, quizzical: “How’s that?”
Sirius, extremely put out: “That’s not etiquette, that’s just manners!”
Remus, wearing a Wolf-grin: “A name is a precious thing, Potter. Be sure to remember when you’ve given someone yours.”
Everyone but Remus: “... wicked.”
Peter, by virtue of having had the Wolf-grin and Speaker-voice aimed at him not just first but twice, was also the first to collect himself. “And anyway, we’ll hear all our year-mates’ names at the Sorting before long. They call you up one by one, my mum said.”
“Good luck remembering everyone after hearing it just the once,” said James. “Where do you lot think you’ll be Sorted, then?”
Sirius rested his chin on folded arms, glum. “My whole family have been in Slytherin.”
“Blimey!” James was the last of them to give a ghastly expression this train ride, but he got there eventually. “And I thought you were all right!”
“Maybe I’ll break the tradition.” Sirius didn’t look like he thought it very likely. “Where are you headed, if you’ve got the choice?”
James struck a pose. “Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart! Like my dad.”
No surprise there, James Potter was certainly a Gryffin if Remus had ever smelled one, but -- “What’s wrong with being claimed by the snake?” He’d be glad if any of the Houses wanted him, truth be told: the impending Sorting sat like a lump of cold grease in his belly.
“They’re awful and I hate them, is what,” Sirius hissed, with venom. “And I don’t fancy sleeping in a dungeon for seven years. What about you, Pete?”
Peter shrugged. “Mum was a Hufflepuff. Don’t know about my dad, though.”
“Bet we could find out when we get there,” James said confidently. “My dad said the Hogwarts Records Room takes up a whole floor, it goes back almost thousand years. I bet we could look up the House for every student that ever went.”
“Are we ever going to play Remus’s game?” Sirius whined. “It can’t be worse than talking about old Slytherins, even if the cards don’t explode.”
“Let’s clear all this up, first,” said James, indicating the mountain of food-related detritus on the compartment table. “Don’t want to mess up Remus’s nan’s cards.”
So yes, they did eventually get to the card game James had requested, in the end. The hard part wasn’t even persuading the rest into it, because Sirius was keen on learning Muggle games and Peter was just glad to have something familiar to do. (Remus knew the feeling.)
No, the hard part was figuring out which game to actually play.
Gin was a dud, despite the promising name (“Ugh, boring, it’s just picking cards up and putting them back down and holding ours close to the chest while we all try to cover our tracks,”) as was Go Fish (“So we’re just supposed to lie to each other?!”) Promethean Corkscrew had entirely too much slapping involved for Remus to want to teach it to people he’d just met, Spit really was just Exploding Snap without the explosions, and Spoons had all the same problems as Gin with the added bonus anxiety of Musical Chairs.
No, what they needed for this long train ride was a game that had intrigue without suspicion, competition without violence -- one in which nobody would end up as the odd one out…
Oh. Of course.
“It’s got betting, and teams, and you get to change it up a bit each round,” Remus explained as he dealt the cards. “I play it with my nain and her friends sometimes. Our partners are whoever’s sitting cat-a-corner from us, and you can’t talk about what’s in your hand. You’ve just got to sort of… be a team. Yeah.” He smiled encouragingly at Peter while James and Sirius high-fived and hooted.
“You two are about to get stomped!”
Peter smiled back, unruffled. “Think I’d rather be with Remus than either of you. He’s the one who knows the game, after all.”
“Good point,” said James. “Budge over, Little Crane, you can have the Jester.”
“Oi!”
“You’re just mad you didn’t get there first, Jaz.”
“No, no, Potter, my feelings are really hurt. So hurt that I simply couldn’t think of playing with you anymore! Trade seats with me, Peter, I’m heartbroken.”
“We can rotate partners, so it’s fair.” Remus settled back into his seat now that the cards were down. Something was blooming warm and soft in his chest. “The name of this game is Bridge.”
***