Chapter Nine
I don’t want to.
He crouched, hands wrapped around his knees, barefoot on the garden grass; it was soft and lush underfoot. It soothed the aching somehow. There was a ladybird perched on a particularly long green stem—it was brilliantly red, moving slowly upward, about to take flight into the sweet balmy air of dusk.
And then it did, but the little beetle did not fly upward into the twilight. The ladybird landed softly atop the back of his palm. He willed his body not to tremor.
“A good luck omen,” she said.
He turned to look at her.
She had crouched beside him now, and was smiling softly down at the little red beetle sitting on his arm.
“If a ladybird lands on you, you must count the black spots, and that will tell you the number of years until your greatest wish comes true.”
He stared hard at the little insect, and counted six black spots. Six years.
He was five years old; six years was longer than he had lived. It was more than a lifetime away. He’d be eleven by then.
I don’t want to. Make it stop.
“It’s time,” his father’s voice called.
“You could bring the ladybird with you,” his mother said gently.
He looked up at her in alarm, “I don’t want to hurt it.”
“Then I’ll take it, shall I? It’ll be waiting for you in the morning,” she said, reaching out her index finger in front of where the ladybird sat on his hand. The beetle scurried forward onto her fingernail. As soon as it was off his arm, he allowed the tremor to rattle through him, making his teeth clack.
“No, let it go, Mum,” he said once the tremor had subsided, looking away from her toward the sun sinking beyond the hills.
“Alright then, cariad. But you’ll still get your wish.”
There were many things a boy such as him could wish for. Make it stop, came to his mind first, of course. A mantra running in his head since March. But that wasn’t his greatest wish. It was July now, the height of summer, and he heard the other children laughing and splashing in the stream that flowed in the forest nearby. He heard their bicycle wheels turning and crunching on gravel as they rode away. He couldn’t play with them. He would never see his old friends again from the park in town—no more playing dragons and knights with the sandcastle they built together in the sand pit, no one to chase after him in a game of tag around the playground or the trees surrounding the big park. He liked to run with the others, his heart pounding, the air thick with growth, the others footsteps and exhilarated hollering filling the silence in his ears. He did not like to run alone.
I wish for friends again. The best friends in the world. Who accept what I am.
It was his dearest wish; for the dearest friends in the world. It was such a good wish, in fact, that he knew he could wait six years for it to come true.
But still, even the greatest wish, embellished with the idea that it might one day come true, did not stop his mind from returning to that old familiar begging—I don’t want to—as his mother lifted her delicate finger, and the ladybird flew away into the growing dark. He rose to his feet, his legs shaking, and she offered him her hand as they walked back toward his father.
The cellar doors were open, the darkness waiting below.
His father held his wand tight in his hand, knuckles white.
“Go on,” his father said, turning away. Not looking at him.
His lips trembled, and his mother leaned low to kiss his sweat-coated brow.
He was only half-way down the wooden steps when his father waved his wand, and the cellar doors snapped shut above him. There was no light at all, but his eyes were stronger now, since the bite. He could see the shapes of the walls around him, see the tangled blanket in the corner from last month. He laid down onto the floor, his hipbones screaming with the pressure, and squeezed his eyes shut. He did not want to see when it started. He did not want to know what he looked like.
I don’t want to. I don’t want to. I don’t want to.
His blood became hot, his heart roared in his ears, and suddenly his bones felt too large in his body—he felt his jaw snap…
Everything hurts.
The scream escaped him and even if he had allowed himself to open his eyes he would have been blinded by the pain.
He continued to scream, and scream, and scream…but the last thing he thought before he lost himself, before the wolf took over, was of his greatest wish.
“Moony…?”
Remus Lupin opened his eyes. It was early dawn of September 1st, the sky outside already bright with London’s early summer sunrises. Sirius lay beside him, his bare skin bathed in that yellow light…
Sirius’ finger stroked his cheek, his brow furrowed, “You were whimpering, darling. What did you dream?”
After the first night following that terrible Full Moon, Remus had refused the Dreamless Sleep Potion. He knew Sirius grated against it, because Sirius had said so about a thousand times now, but Remus could be stubborn. He didn’t want to go quietly into the dark anymore, buoyed with the promise of oblivion. His anger and his pain and his grief needed an outlet—the Order missions and their search for a means to obtain a basilisk fang helped, but there was still Teddy, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He’d let them see the shadow of the wolf before, but he fought against it. The last outlet left to him were his dreams.
But this one had not been a nightmare like all the rest he had had since the Greyback’s attack on his pack. It had been a painful memory, yes, but also held within it the small pearl of hope, fulfilled.
"My wish came true,” Remus whispered, his lips spreading into a soft smile as he lifted a hand to tuck some of Sirius’ sleep-tussled hair behind his ear.
“In the dream?” Sirius asked, confusion clouding his dark eyes.
Remus shook his head, “Maybe there is some merit to omens after all. I dreamed a memory of a wish. But it really happened. The wish really did come true. It took six years, just as my mother said it would.”
Sirius leaned forward, kissing Remus’ temple, “What did you wish for, Moony?”
And Remus told him. On this day twenty-seven years ago, Remus had received the dearest friends in the world.
Later that same evening, Remus stepped outside of a stone pub where he and Sirius had been meeting with Sturgis and Tonks on the southern coast of England, and looked out toward the great expanse of the English Channel.
“Come on, Moony,” James laughed, “I mean, Cornwall’s grand, we know that well enough, but I said if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Not anywhere in Britain!”
Remus smiled shyly, and James propped his chin up on his hands, his brown eyes, wide behind his glasses, were full of dreams that Remus loved to hear, but never imagined for himself.
“I’d say Paris,” Sirius said. Remus turned to look at him from across their table in the corner of the Common Room. Sirius was lounging back in his chair, his eyes on the ceiling, a wicked smile on his lips. His fingers tapped the table absentmindedly and Remus felt heat burn in his cheeks, remembering where Sirius’ fingers had been the night before.
James laughed again, “Of course you’d say Paris, Padfoot,” James said, rolling his eyes, “You’re such a bloody romantic.”
Remus blushed deeper, his eyes darting away from Sirius as his stomach twisted. He and Sirius were dating now, yes, but no one knew. James was referring to Sirius’ past relationships with girls, Emmeline among them. Would James still think Sirius’ relationship with Remus was romantic? Or would he think it was…
"Oi!” Sirius said, his eyes dropping from the ceiling as he sat up in his chair, “That’s rich coming from ‘James I’ve-been-dreaming-of-marrying -Lily-Evans-since-I-was-eleven Potter’!”
James grinned, unabashed, “Still, I wouldn’t have said Paris.”
“Well, where would you go, Prongs?”
“I want to hear what Moony has to say first,” James said, turning to look back at Remus, waiting eagerly.
Remus bit his lip. Paris did sound nice…he heard the pan-au-chocolat was brilliant there…and if Sirius wanted to go...
Remus sighed, looking away from James and out the window beside their table. The moon was waxing. It’d be Full in two days.
“I don’t know,” Remus said quietly, “I don’t know if it’s safe for me to go anywhere.”
“That’s bollocks, Moony,” James said firmly, “You can go anywhere any of us can.”
Remus turned back to look at James and Sirius. By the fireplace, Peter was playing Wizard’s Chess with Lily, his small eyes shining with triumph as he moved his piece and put her in Checkmate.
I don’t want to go anywhere without you all, Remus wanted to say, I don’t want to be anywhere you aren’t.
“Where’d you go, Moony?” Sirius said.
Remus blinked, and looked away from the roiling sea. Sirius stood outside the pub beside him, the wind lifting the curled locks of his black hair, his hands in his pockets against the chill, looking up at Remus with his fair brow furrowed.
Remus smiled at him, “Where I always want to be. I’m right here. With you.”
Sirius stepped closer, taking one hand out of the pocket of his jeans and resting it on the small of Remus’ back, “As you should be,” Sirius said softly.
They Apparated a minute later into the entrance hall of 12 Grimmauld Place and Sirius pulled the rolled-up newspaper Sturgis had brought for them from the inside pocket of his leather jacket as they took the basement stairs down into the kitchen.
“We’ve come with news,” Sirius said as he stepped into the kitchen and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Teddy looked up from their supper, “And you won’t like it.”
“What’s happened?” Ron said apprehensively.
Sirius shook his head and threw down the newspaper in front of the teenagers as Remus walked over to Teddy’s chair and scooped him, perching him on his hip as he went toward the teapot to sort himself out a cup of tea.
Ron, Harry, and Hermione bent their reads over The Daily Prophet.
A large picture of a familiar black-haired man stared up at them, beneath a headline that read: SEVERUS SNAPE CONFIRMED AS HOGWARTS HEADMASTER.
“No!” Harry, Ron, and Hermione cried together.
Hermione was quickest; she snatched up the newspaper and began to read, her eyes flashing across the page as she muttered, “I don’t believe this! Snape, headmaster! Snape, in Dumbledore’s study—Merlin’s pants!” She shrieked, leaping out of her chair and hurtling from the room, shouting as she went, “I’ll be right back!”
“‘Merlin’s pants’?” Ron repeated, looking faintly amused, “She must be upset.”
Remus frowned, looking up the stairs where Hermione had run. Teddy tapped Remus’ chest, beaming up at him, “Pudding, Dad?”
Remus looked down at the child and smiled warmly, “Alright then.”
“The other teachers won’t stand for this,” Harry said, staring down at the newspaper, his face contorted with outrage.
“They haven’t got a choice but to stay,” Sirius said, sitting across from Harry and crossing his arms, “If the Ministry and Voldemort are behind Snape, it’ll be a choice between staying and teaching, or a nice few years in Azkaban.”
Harry and Ron shivered subliminally, and Sirius’ face shadowed for just a moment. He shook his head, cleared his throat, and continued, “At any rate, I reckon they’ll stay to try and protect the students.”
Harry flipped over the newspaper angrily, “Well at least we know where he is now.”
Ron addressed Sirius, “There were more Death Eaters outside today than usual. It’s like they’re hoping we’ll march out carrying our school trunks and head off for the Hogwarts Express.”
“It’s weird not being on it, isn’t it?” Harry said quietly.
“Yeah,” Ron agreed.
Remus sat at the table beside Sirius, Teddy in his lap as he laid a large plate of apple crumble on the table. Teddy grabbed his small spoon and tucked in happily.
“Oh here she is,” Ron craned around in his seat to watch Hermione reentering the kitchen, “And what in the name of Merlin’s baggy Y Fronts was that about?”
“I remembered this,” Hermione panted.
She held up a large, framed portrait of man, which she now lowered to the floor before seizing her small, beaded bag from the kitchen sideboard. Opening it, she proceeded to force the portrait inside.
“Oh, well done, Hermione,” Remus breathed, his brown eyes wide.
Hermione went pink-cheeked.
“Bloody Phineas,” Sirius growled, scowling.
Harry understood at once: the painted image of Phineas Nigellus was able to flit between his portraits in 12 Grimmauld Place and the Hogwarts’ Headmaster’s study.
“Snape could send Phineas to look inside this house for Harry,” Hermione explained to Ron, “But now all he will able to see is the inside of my handbag.”
“Good thinking!” Ron said, looking impressed.
Hermione smiled, “Thank you,” she turned to Sirius and Remus, “So what else happened today?”
Sirius waved a hand, “No luck with the source on a basilisk fang. It was a dead-end.”
“Tonks says she saw Arthur yesterday and he’s doing well, all things considered,” Remus told Ron.
Ron nodded his appreciation of that news, taking a fork and diving it into the apple crumble.
Suddenly Harry’s hand shot to his forehead and he doubled over, grunting with pain—
He was gliding along a twilit street. The buildings on either side of him had high, timbered gables. He approached one of them, then saw the whiteness of his own long-fingered hand against the door. He knocked; he felt a mounting excitement…
The door opened and a laughing woman stood there. Her face fell as she looked into Harry’s face, her humor died, terror replacing it…
“Gregorovitch?” said a high, cold voice.
She shook her head.
“I want Gregorovitch.”
“He no live here!” She cried, shaking her head, “He no live here! I know him not!”
Harry stepped toward her and she backed away down the dark hall, and Harry followed, gliding toward her, and his long-fingered hand had drawn his wand.
“Where is he?”
“He move! I know not, I know not!”
He raised his wand. She screamed. Two young children came running into the hall and she tried to shield them with her arms. There was a flash of green light—
“Harry! HARRY!”
Harry opened his eyes; he had sunk to the floor. Sirius was crouched beside him, his hands on Harry’s shoulders.
“You were screaming, Harry…” Sirius panted, his face white as he helped Harry sit up. Remus appeared beside him; chocolate bar extended towards Harry.
“I…” Harry glanced around and saw Hermione holding Teddy, the toddler staring down at Harry in fear.
Harry leaned toward Sirius, “I saw Voldemort murdering a woman,” he whispered, his voice breaking, “By now he’s probably killed her whole family. And he didn’t need to. It was Cedric all over again…they were just there…”
Sirius pulled Harry into his chest, his strong arms around Harry’s shoulders. Harry took deep breaths, willed himself to imagine the drawing room, a warm fire, the record playing a song that was something soft and kind…
“I know what he’s doing,” Harry whispered at last, pulling away from Sirius, looking up at his godfather’s worried face, “He’s after Gregorovitch.”
Sirius’ eyes flashed to Remus, the crease between Remus’ brow deepening as he murmured, “But the rumor is that Voldemort himself kidnapped Ollivander. He already has the best wandmaker in Britain, why would he want the best from the continent?”
No one spoke.
Finally, Hermione said, in a shaking voice, “Harry…Occlumency…”
Harry shook his head, pulling fully away from Sirius, “Yeah, I know, alright? But this…this connection—it’s bloody useful! I want to know what Voldemort’s up to!”
“It’s your decision, Harry,” Remus said quietly.
Sirius nodded mutely; his face still carved with concern.
An hour later, Harry cleared his throat and looked at Sirius and Remus sitting on the drawing room sofa across from him, “I think Hermione, Ron, and I have to go. We have to start looking for the other Horcruxes.”
Ron and Hermione’s eyes widened, but their faces became set.
Sirius ran a hand through his hair, “But we still don’t have a means of destroying the locket yet—”
“I know,” Harry interrupted, “but we’ve got to start looking for the rest. Maybe we can find something to destroy the Horcruxes on our search for them. And if you do first, you can send it to us. But we can’t stay here anymore. It’s time to go.”
Remus blinked slowly, but his lips quirked slightly upward, and his brown eyes shone with pride. Sirius stared and stared at Harry; his face anguished.
“Where should we start?” Ron asked Harry.
Harry squared his shoulders, “I want to go to Godric’s Hollow.”
A noise escaped Sirius’ throat and he closed his eyes as a shiver passed through him. His hands clenched into tight fists in his lap. Remus wrapped an arm around Sirius’ waist, but he shielded his face from Harry, his breathing audibly ragged.
“It’s where it all stared for Voldemort and I,” Harry said quietly, “I feel it’s important in all this to go. And I…” Harry swallowed, “I’ve never seen their graves.”
Sirius’ head fell into his clawed hands, and Remus squeezed Sirius’ waist tighter as he turned to look back at Harry. His jaw was tight in his face, but his eyes were sharp.
Hermione fidgeted, “I know how much it means to you to go there, Harry, but don’t you think Voldemort will expect that?”
Harry looked at her sharply, “I know that I need to go there.”
Hermione shifted under his gaze but she didn’t look convinced, “I know that you want to go there. But I don’t think he’d put a Horcrux there, Harry. It’s too public; too well-known. We know the snake is always with him, but the others—”
Ron spoke up, “I get it, Harry. You want to feel like we’re really searching—”
Harry jumped to his feet, fighting his anger as he strode to the fireplace, his back to the others. The green light still flashed behind his eyes, the cries of the woman in the hallway…
Remus spoke, his hoarse voice carrying in the silence, “Destroying the locket will be dangerous, that we do know. If you want to go, it would be best if you went somewhere remote, not only for your own safety, but for when the time comes to destroy it.”
“I’ve packed camping supplies,” Hermione piped up, “In case we needed to go on the run.”
Harry turned away from the hearth, his eyes locking on Remus’. Sirius still held his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking, Remus’ arm still around his waist. But Remus’ eyes were clear, misted only slightly by that age-old pain.
“Godric’s Hollow—” Harry started.
Remus rose to his feet so quickly that Harry blinked and took a step back.
But Remus merely slid his scarred hands into the pockets of his trousers as he walked slowly forward, “I cannot stop you from going there,” Remus said softly, “nor do I want to. You deserve to, Harry. And it is so very long overdue.”
Harry blinked, taken aback.
“But what do you wish for more, Harry?” Remus said gently, his eyes searching Harry’s face, “What are you willing to wait for?”
Harry took only a second to consider, the anger leaving him.
"I want to destroy Voldemort. The rest can wait.”
Remus smiled softly, though it did not quite reach his eyes, “Then that is what you must focus on. You have one Horcrux; you must destroy it. The basilisk fang is so elusive…you must find another way for now. Find some means of destroying them, find the other Horcruxes. That is what you must do.”
Harry nodded, throat thick, “Okay.”
“You, Hermione, and Ron shall go in the morning then. You shall take the Horcrux and go camping,” Remus’ mouth twitched slightly but his voice and face were grave.
“Alright,” Harry said, squaring his shoulders.
Sirius spoke up at last, his voice barely more than croak, “We’ll always be with you,” he said, “whether you can see us or not. But still—use the mirror, eh?”