History's Footnote

September came and went, and it swept Harry away back to Hogwarts. Remus didn’t protest when Dumbledore came to collect him, whatever he was planning, it didn’t matter now. It also meant Remus wouldn’t have to take Harry to the station. He’d stopped leaving the house altogether by this point.This is what Sirius went through, he thought, alone in the house. Still, he can’t bring himself to leave it, as if suffering will reconnect him back to Sirius, somehow. 

Work continued, he was physically present for meetings, and life went on. But Remus was empty, except for whispers of sadness and anger tucked into tiny corners of his mind that he couldn’t sweep out. Eloise came to visit him, as often as she could. He was always the same. After an excruciating couple of hours, she was relieved by the arrival of Tonks. Remus seemed to relax around her somewhat. 

Tonks hugged her fiercely as they exchanged places, and wished her good luck. Today was the day. Remus hadn’t even remembered it, but she was doing it for him all the same. She left, wrapping her scarf round her tightly. At the Ministry, she checked herself in the reflection, took a deep breath, and stepped inside. It looked almost the same as it had 7 years ago, but that was about to change.

When she left, it was with the confirmation that Wolfsbane could now be manufactured by licensed potions masters outside of the Ministry. And you didn’t have to be registered to buy it; the Ministry had finally accepted that keeping current werewolf populations safe would lower the number of future bites. She took her first batch of graduates, and set up a not for profit. At the beginning, batches were small, but Eloise had a plan. As they grew, they’d be able to grow more of their own stock and work more efficiently. She would work to push prices down, and was liaising with companies abroad whose governments were adapting in similar ways on setting up their own versions.  

They celebrated at the pub. About an hour in, she was surprised to see Remus enter. Kitty and Tarun rushed to his side, coddling him. He shook them off, and walked straight to Eloise, with the ghost of what might have been a smile on his face. 

“Thank you.” Was all he said. There weren’t words to describe the enormity of what she’d done to change the world. 

It’s this memory that Remus will always consider the last time he saw Eloise. In fact, there were a few more encounters. But he was too centred in his own grief, or the war efforts, to recall them. He probably wasn’t present enough in them, maybe he snapped at her when she spoke, and he almost definitely didn’t hug her goodbye. So when the news reaches him that her body’s been found, mauled by a werewolf under the guidance of Fenrir himself, he thinks of that night in the pub with everyone together, a single night when it felt like they could make a change. 

He knows that everything is going to repeat itself. All the faces in the room will fade away from this world, that he will be left behind, alone, again. He doesn’t think he’ll survive it this time. 

*

A week passed before Tonks arrived on Remus’s doorstep. Tonks, who believed in Sirius when no-one else did, who never let her bloodline define her. Who wore matching fluffy socks with Eloise, who was the life of the party and who looked out for Harry at all times. Tonks, who stood before him now, steeped in a misery that was dressed with anger, and told him “I know who did this.”

He watched her as she passed him a piece of cloth, glancing down as he realised the smell.

“Werewolf, right? Can you track it?” She asked.

Remus took in her ragged appearance, she looked exhausted save for the fiery look in her eyes. He envied her, suddenly, for having a mission like this to seek revenge. The feeling made him sick, but he nodded. Why should they be starting every day feeling this way while Eloise’s murderer was out there, alive and free? 

They apparated straight into the centre of the forest, knowing their smell would give them away if they took too long. The group was smaller than he expected, and there was no sign on Fenrir. There were about 12 of them total, and to an outsider, it could look almost like a regular group of campers. They were crowded round a fire, bowls of soup being passed round, completely off guard to intruders. But Remus knew better; that they were murderers. He clutched the cloth and scanned the air until his eyes fell upon the one he was searching for. He looked young, younger than Harry, just a boy. He hesitated, just for a second, but Tonks had already noted his change in breath, and together their anger reignited. He took a step, and was greeted at once with an arrow whizzing past his face and embedding itself into a tree trunk. Perhaps the group was not as off guard as he’d imagined. He turned, and came face to face with Firenze, along with another centaur he didn’t recognise .

“Remus.” Firenze was calm, but his bow was drawn. Remus felt Tonks seething beside him. 

“Let me pass.” She hissed.

“I won’t.” The centaur replied.

“STAY OUT OF THIS! It is none of your business!” Remus shot back.

By this point, all the members of the camp were staring at them, huddled together round the boy. Remus doesn’t care; if they’re complicit, he’ll take them all. 

“Like how you stayed out of centaur business?” Firenze drew Remus’s attention back to himself.

“That’s different, thats - ” Remus faltered, and in this moment of silence, Rowan was suddenly there, his warm hand squarely on Remus’s chest. 

“I won’t let you do this. The boy is under my protection.”

“HE KILLED HER! HE KILLED ELOISE!” Remus’s fury exploded out of him, and he pushed Rowan off of him, making him stumble backwards. Tears blurred his vision, and as he shook them away he noticed that Rowan was crying too.

“It wasn’t his fault.” Says Rowan. “He had transformed, Fenrir engineered the whole thing.”

“I DON’T CARE -” Remus began, but Rowan interrupted him again.

“He’s with us now. I’ve sworn to protect him. Don’t you see? This could have been US. It could have happened to any of us. This is what they want - us to tear each other apart.” Rowan looked him dead in the eye. “If you kill him now, this pack will hunt you down, I can’t stop them. I won’t stop them. And I can’t stop you, if you really want to do this. But then - where does is end? What’s it all for?”

“It’s for nothing, I don’t care!” Remus retorted. “There’s nothing left I care about.”

Rowan stepped towards him again, more slowly this time. Remus tensed, but he didn’t reach out to him.

“I don’t think that’s true. I think there’s plenty you care about. We’re all broken, Rem. Not -” he faltered here, but only for a moment. “Not Eloise, she was wonderful. And she’s given us a way out of the violence. She’s given us a chance to access a way to keep our minds and each other safe. Don’t let that be a waste. What would she say if was here now? You’re here full of war and vengeance and fury, but what would Eloise do?”

“She’d forgive him” said Tonks, breaking her silence for the first time since Rowan had arrived. 

“No.” Remus turned from Tonks back to Rowan. “I can never forgive him.”

He looked over at the boy in question. He was half hidden by a second teenger, who stood in a protective pose before him. Remus sighed, and saw how young they really were. “I won’t forgive him. But… I can’t kill him.” 

He turned and walked away. 

For the first time, the forest didn’t feel like a home to Remus. He was uncomfortable in his own skin, and out of place in the entire world. He didn’t know where he belonged any more. He felt Tonks fall into pace beside him, and without looking at each other, they grasped hands and disapparated on the spot. 

*

More weeks slip by.

Dawn lifts the room into grey from black, day after day after day. I will bear this, thinks Remus. I must, I must, I must. If he stops repeating this line, he’ll forget to fight and disappear into oblivion. It’s an oblivion no one will leave him alone to accept. He knows he’s heard Rowan outside the door more than once, banging followed by talking followed by silence. He doesn’t let him in. He’s not sure how long this goes on, but at some point his silence fails to deter, and he finds, somehow, that Dumbledore appears to be in his living room.

“We might not always see eye to eye, but you really do place all the ills of the wizarding world solely at my feet” 

How long has Dumbledore been speaking to him? 

“Do you remember your first day at Hogwarts?”

“You told me not to tell anyone what I was.” Remus finds himself answering automatically, his voice dull from lack of use.

“And I was right to protect you. I know you have larger dreams for the world, but I’ve got to be practical. My steps brought you here, I made you who you are. I dream of the same world as you, you know. We only differ in our methods.” Anger has slipped into his voice. He tried a new tone. “You know… that I always tried my best.”

It was unlike him to appear unsure.

“I’m going to tell you something only one living soul knows about me.” 

And then he told Remus about Grindelwald. 

The name clashed against Remus’s brain. To think that his parents, his grandparents, grew up with a totally different figure that produced the same fear, the same losses, and that maybe one day Harry would have children, but that they’d experience this all over again in a new form. 

“I have often been accused of being sentimental.” Dumbledore continued, “You know that not to be true. So here’s something that is true. I loved him, and he - no. We lead each other down a dark path. He just went further down it than I ever could. Maybe I would have gone all the way too, if it weren’t for Ariana.”

A tear threaded itself down his creased face. A genuine emotion? 

“Now I see that path everywhere. That’s why I believed Sirius had turned against us. That’s why, before that, I believed you were the spy. That’s why I kept my distance from Harry when he needed me most. I see that darkness in everyone, everywhere.”

Remus says nothing.

“But you were there for Harry this year, both of you were, and that changes everything. I have a mission to complete, and that means I have to continue to play this role. Sirius is gone, Remus. But I need you to still be there for Harry.”

Remus felt his heart straining against his chest. He knew he was being manipulated, that Dumbledore was taking Harry to meet old acquaintances, giving him private lessons, training him. And yet, what could he do? There was no other reality than the one in front of him now.

Slowly, he nodded. Dumbledore returned the gesture, and a minute later, Remus was alone again.