Chapter Fifteen
I wanna be the underdog
Up against the wind
Shooting at the moon
Knowing if I bring it down
That it'll rise again
The sun ascended, sweeping dawn over the edge of the horizon and filling the bookshop with a soft, orange glow that brought The Unicorn to life. Despite the early hour, it was as busy as Remus had ever seen it. He spotted Tarun hurrying around, followed by flying chairs that he was trying to cram into the space. Remus hadn’t been to the werewolf meeting in a long time. He felt out of place; a sheep among the wolves. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched, and after a while, he was able to pinpoint that feeling specifically.
Across the room, a woman with bright green hair was staring at him, haughtily. He caught her eye, and swiftly looked away. When he glanced back, her eyes were still on his. There was something familiar about her, and it unnerved him.
"Who is she?" Eloise had suddenly materialised at his side. He only had time to shrug before it was time for Rowan’s speech. He’d been unable to get through the crowd to speak to him before, so instead, he listened.
Rowan looked like gold. He had his audience captivated from the start, as he spoke of the packs, and the importance of living authentically, the way they were all meant to. He dreamed of a future where young wolves never knew the fear of a cramped basement, only the freedom of running in the woods.
Remus frowned. It was a nice dream, but it sat at odds with reality. Living in a pack cut you off. If the wrong leader got in, you could be trapped. Fights were bloody, and accommodation was bleak. And you couldn’t have contact with anyone who wasn’t a wolf.
“What has life among wizards done for us anyway?” It was as if Rowan could hear his thoughts. “We’ve been imprisoned, impoverished, denied medical treatment. It’s time to leave their world, and build our own!”
The crowd cheered.
After the talk, Remus stayed seated. He saw the woman from before slip quietly out the back without speaking to anyone. It took a long time for the bookshop to empty, it seemed everyone else there wanted to talk to Rowan, or to shake his hand. It had turned fully to day by this point, but the light seemed somehow colder. Remus didn’t mind waiting, in fact he was putting off the moment he knew was ahead. These moments were the last of the steps they would take together, before their paths split. They’d been travelling companions for so long, Remus didn’t know how he would walk alone.
Finally, the last of the wolves stepped out into the sunshine, and Tarun and Kitty switched their sign back to open, and moved out of the backroom to open to the public. They were alone.
“So…” Remus began. “You’re really leaving.”
“I have to.” Rowan replied, softly, like a leaf in the wind.
He was silent for a moment.
“I’ll be back now and then, to make sure you lot stay on the right path without me, and to take on the odd case. But I really believe this will work.”
“I know.” Remus wouldn’t stop him. “I really hope it will work, too.”
He found he meant it.
“Besides” Rowan smiled sadly at him. “It seems you’ve got someone else to look after you now.”
Remus looked up, embarrassed.
“It’s ok” Rowan said, and grinned. It looked almost authentic. “I’m glad you found your way back to each other. It would never have worked between us. I’m far too famous and busy.”
Remus laughed, and then they lapsed into silence. Slowly, they stacked the chairs, taking their time and pushing them into a corner. They manoeuvred the tables back into their original positions. Remus gathered discarded mugs of coffee, while Rowan collected his books and placed them into his rucksack.
How often they’d performed this routine. Remus remembered his first meeting. He’d been in such a dark place, back then. He owed Rowan his life, a thousand times over. Remus didn’t know how to express his love and gratitude, but he didn’t need to. Resetting the room together was a language they’d created that transcended words.
Finally, they couldn’t elongate the process anymore. Rowan went to turn out the light.
“Wait…” Remus interrupted him. “Let’s leave it on. Just for a while.”
Later, when Remus got home, he found Harry sat on the floor, working on an essay.
“Alright down there, Harry?” Remus smiled at him. “I don’t have a lot, but I do have chairs, you know.”
Harry bit his quill and didn’t move. “It’s better down here.” Was all he said.
Remus shrugged, and went to make them both tea.
“Professor…” Harry called to him from the living room.
Remus was trying to stop Harry calling him Professor, but was yet to have any luck with it.
“Can you read my history essay please? It’s meant to be on the goblin rebellion, but Kitty told me a very different version of the story…”
“Mm hm” He picked up the scroll Harry was pointing to, and took it back through to the kitchen to read while he brewed the tea. As he scanned the page, he felt emotional. It was a really excellent piece that explored wizarding-goblin relations, questioning the role most people seemed to think wizards had played. It was the complete opposite of what Hogwarts was teaching him, and exactly the kind of thought the world needed.
“Harry…” he said, as re-entered the room with Harry’s work and tea in hand. “This… It's really good.”
“I just thought…” Harry spoke slowly, deep in thought still. “Well, it didn’t seem right that wizards could just come and take all that land that didn’t belong to them, and keep all the goblin goods, and then force goblins to pay them reparations?”
Remus had to take a moment not to be overwhelmed. Harry was usually quite last minute with his homework, easily distracted by more exciting activities, and never trying too hard in subjects that didn’t interest him. However, once something did engage him, he followed through with such care and insight, and was able to produce excellent results. Remus had never expected Harry to write like this about History of Magic, but he was constantly surprising him.
“Can I - can I make a copy of this Harry? I think Kitty would love to see it.”
“Sure” Harry shrugged, and then went back to his charms essay, which Remus noticed he was scrawling much more hastily and with considerably less research than his previous work.
Remus sat down next to him, and pulled him into a hug. Rowan might be gone, but The Unicorn was bigger than ever.
He just wished Sirius was with them, sat on the old armchair with his legs over the side. Family , Remus thought, and a lump rose in his throat.
Remus was distracted by a sudden burst of owls. He expected them to be for Harry, who apparently couldn’t go more than a couple of days without messaging his friends, and, to be fair, his godfather who had only just come back into his life and with whom he’d had precious little time. Surprisingly though, these owls were all for Remus himself.
As it turned out, they were the result of work he and Rowan had been pushing for a few summers prior. They’d campaigned to allow people who had been wrongfully expelled due to discrimination to retrain and use magic legally. They’d been waiting years, and heard nothing, and then all of a sudden, it had happened. Apparently it had trickled through the painfully outdated cogs of the Ministry and by some miracle, ended up in the correct place.
Remus suspected that Arthur Weasley may have had a hand in convincing people within the Ministry to consider the bill. They’d become quite close through Remus’s frequent trips to drop Harry off at the Burrow, bonding over a shared interest in muggle welfare, and he seemed very interested in the proposal. Arthur was an unusual wizard, but intensely likeable, and able to influence many people purely through his commitment to logic and kindness. The world was changing, and it felt like Spring. He wished he could write to Rowan, and let him know, but he was still off the grid.
Regardless, it meant that, for the first time in his life, Remus was having to turn down work. After he lost his job at Hogwarts, he’d placed a covert ad at the Unicorn. Now, his lessons could take place in the open, and there were few wizards willing to take on such a jumble of clients. He was inundated with owls requesting lessons. He took on five people for individual tutoring in the day time, and held pay-as-you-feel night classes in larger groups to accommodate those who couldn’t afford much or anything. As Hagrid had already completed lessons, he was able to take his exams in the first round available, and Remus gratefully took him on as an assistant over the Summer. That would change when term started, of course, because Hagrid would never leave Hogwarts. Nevertheless, it was a strong start. His largest client demographic was werewolves whose education had been collapsed the moment they were bitten, but there were also a a few muggle-borns who’d had to go into hiding during the war and not been allowed back to complete their studies, and even a couple of squibs who were interested in Herbology and Wizarding History.
Really, Remus thought, it was insane how large a proportion of the population the Ministry had simply tried to make disappear. The pureblood rhetoric might have been most strongly held by Voldemort and his supporters, but it bled through the whole community, and no one’s hands were clean. No wonder so many werewolves had joined the Death Eaters before, where else did they have to go?
He held his lessons, of course, at The Unicorn. It was only two blocks from his flat, and he and Harry treated it as an extension of their space rather than a separate building. It was there he saw the woman from the talk with the werewolves again, although with different hair. In fact, her whole face looked different… but he still knew, somehow, that it was the same person. How did she manage that?
“Can I help you?” He asked, a little sarcastically, as he noticed her peering at him through the shelves.
“Remus Lupin?” She replied, completely unembarrassed.
“Who’s asking?”
“I - whoops!” As she started towards him, she’d knocked over a whole pile of books that hadn’t been shelved yet, ruining her mysterious air significantly. “Oh, damnit.”
While she fumbled with her wand to repare the mess she’d made, Remus watched her curiously. Why did he feel like he knew her already?
“Erm… I’m Tonks. Sirius’s cousin… sort of.” She frowned. “You know him, don’t you?”
Something about her abruptness made Remus pause. He remembered Andromeda, who had married Ted Tonks. She was the one family member Sirius had stayed close with. Still, he had to be careful.
“I… knew him.”
“Look, I don’t believe what they’re saying about him. I know it sounds mad, but it’s not! And I shouldn’t be saying this, but him and my mum - they weren’t like the rest of that family. I think he was framed.”
She was speaking in a rush, and sharing too much information, too freely. Her appearance seemed to be changing as she spoke, but her nose stayed that same regal shape, along with the inclination of her head - she looked so much like Sirius, even with her clearly metamorphmagus abilities, and Remus couldn’t help but trust her.
“Not here.” Remus cut her off, and gestured into the back room. Once inside, he quickly cast a silencing spell so they couldn’t be overheard.
“What do you want?”
“I just want… I know you can’t reveal any information to me, in case I’m a spy or anything, but I want you to know that there are some people who do believe him. I’m in my final year training to be an Auror, and I want to make a difference. If there’s going to be another war, I want to fight in it.”
As she spoke, her hair went from lilac to pink to a fiery red. Sirius had been like that once; ready to throw himself headfirst into a war from which he would never resurface. Remus pulled on his own hair; it was thinner now, and greying in places.
“Go home, Tonks. You’re too young for this.”
“Fine.” She folded her arms defiantly. “But if you see him… tell him wotcher from me alright?”
Then she was gone. Remus tried to locate her in the shop, but her blending in skills were clearly better than he’d anticipated. In fact, Remus had the distinct impression that he’d only been able to recognise her before because she’d let him.
Smart, he thought, and knew then that this wouldn’t be the last he’d see of her.
He realised he was late to meet with his first pupil. Thankfully, Tarun and Kitty were keeping them entertained. They were beyond thrilled to see so many muggle-borns coming through the shop to learn. Remus thought they’d make excellent teachers themselves, but they were too shy to speak up. They worked tirelessly but silently, offering up a safe space, printing and displaying pamphlets, and they were always happy to discuss matters with people they trusted. They’d never put one toe on a stage, and Remus couldn’t blame them. The war had done irrevocable damage to an entire generation, and if Tarun and Kitty didn’t want to talk about their experience, Remus knew not to ask.
Even as they began an era of healing and new opportunities, Peter Pettigrew sat uncomfortably on the edge of the frame in Remus’s mind. He was out there, somewhere, in the darkness. Remus knew it was more a matter of ‘when’ than ‘if’ his escape would come back to haunt them. On good days with Harry, the future seemed further away. If only they could put time in slow motion, preventing anything from happening. But then Harry’s nightmares started.