Chapter 8
“You dosed the boy?”
“Only very mild calming draught, from Poppy’s stores,” Remus protests. “He only had half a serving, and it didn’t make him tell me anything he wouldn’t have already. It was just to make him feel more comfortable, less agitated. I stopped asking questions as soon as he expressed discomfort.”
Minerva glares at him sternly from across her desk. “And did you inform him of the potion before he drank it?”
“Well—no.”
A tense moment passes between them, Remus feeling like a scolded schoolboy again. The illusion is only strengthened by the fact that he’s sitting in her office, surrounded by student papers and variously recognisable teapots. Finally, Minerva sighs, and the spell is broken.
“You, Mr Lupin, have a lot to learn about earning a child’s trust,” she says wryly, though she doesn’t seem so very annoyed with him anymore. “I admit I understand your intentions; Merlin knows I’ve struggled with my share of recalcitrant children. Still, I wouldn’t make a habit of it.”
Remus doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s been ashamed of himself since the first moment he slipped the potion into Harry’s hot chocolate, even if he only meant to make things easier for him.
He finds his head in his hands again. It’s become a common refrain for him lately.
“He didn’t tell me what he meant by ‘punishment’,” he says miserably. “I can’t help but draw the worst sort of conclusions.”
Minerva makes a displeased noise. “I told Albus,” she says, frosty. “I told him that they were the worst sort. I could tell that just from watching them for a day. Merlin knows how much worse they may have gotten with a magical child underfoot.”
“They call him a freak. Punish him for his magic. Lie to him about his own heritage. Who knows what else? And that’s before all this, before he was bitten, before their son got caught up in the transformation! Sending him back there, I can only imagine—”
“Take a biscuit, Remus.” Minerva shoves the dish towards him impatiently until he gets the message. “They’re not laced, I promise.”
Remus groans.
She waits patiently until he’s nibbled his way through half the biscuit.
“Now, I agree that we can’t possibly send Harry back to that house until we know what we’re sending him back to,” she says archly. “I’ve been dubious of Albus’ handling of the matter for a while. He says the muggles are still upset about the attack, and yet he wants to just ship Harry back to them with barely a backwards glance, and he won’t entertain the idea of my meeting with them myself. I refuse to believe he knows of any mistreatment that may be occurring in that house. Albus is many things, but I cannot accept that he would willingly keep a child in that sort of environment.”
Remus swallows thickly at the very idea.
“However,” Minerva continues. “He is quite adamant that Harry must return. Unless you think we can get Harry to divulge more details…”
Remus wavers for a moment, but eventually shakes his head.
“… then I think you and I should pay a visit to his relatives to get a handle on the situation ourselves.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“I hope very much that we’ll find ourselves with a wasted trip,” Minerva says. “I hope his relatives, while understandably rattled by the incident, are suitably concerned for Harry’s welfare and happy to have him home. If so, you’ll at least have a chance to meet them and answer any questions they have about Harry’s condition, and how they may keep their family safe. I’ll have a word with the aunt about the best ways to handle accidental magic. We’ll both rest easy knowing Harry will be safe and healthy in Surrey until next September.”
The picture she’s painting sounds very nice indeed. It would certainly make Remus’ life much simpler, much easier, wouldn’t it? If he could go home, secure in the knowledge that Harry was safe in the hands of other people once more, letting Remus fade into the background again.
But he’s made that mistake before.
“And if that isn’t the case?” he asks, voice hard. “If we find out his relatives aren’t suitable at all?”
Minerva’s mouth thins. “Then Merlin help Albus if he doesn’t listen to our concerns,” she says coldly.
Remus almost collapses in sheer relief. He’s so glad to have someone on his side, someone who’s just as concerned as he is. It makes him feel as if he isn’t messing this all up quite as badly as he fears. He has no idea what he’s doing. It was never supposed to be up to him.
“Minerva,” he says, a little desperately. “If they really are—If they have been—How do I live with that? Knowing that he’s been with them all this time, while I’ve been grieving his parents and doing nothing to help him?”
“Let’s worry about that if we come to it,” she says wearily. “And if you figure it out, Remus, do let me know.”
*
Remus does not sleep that night. He is haunted by too many ghosts.
*
Minerva apparates them to Privet Drive, as the only one who has been there before. Remus tries not to think about it, about the coil of shame in his belly. Lily’s eyes have been following him all night, keeping him awake.
Remus eyes the muggle neighbourhood with trepidation. He’s no stranger to the muggle world, not with a muggle mother and a decade of half-living as a muggle himself, but Privet Drive is another realm entirely. The rows of houses are identical, the cars almost so, and he gets the uncomfortable impression that the sight of him is strongly unwelcome on the well-kept street.
He has never been a believer in the idea that magical children should be separated from their muggle family simply for being magical, but he can’t help but think that any magical children here must feel strangled by it all, suffocated by the expectation to conform.
This is the type of place James and Lily would have hated.
“Number 4, this way,” Minerva says, taking the lead.
They’ve dressed as muggle as they could without offending either side’s sensibilities, but Remus still feels like they’re sticking out like a sore thumb.
Minerva’s in a smart enough skirt and blazer that she transfigured out of her day robes, but there was only so much she could do with Remus’ own tattered wardrobe. He’s wearing trousers and a collared shirt, but the ends are fraying, and the joints are almost worn through. He can’t tell if being next to Minerva makes him look more or less pathetic.
He doubts it matters, in any case. Minerva’s confidence carries them down the street well enough.
A thin woman answers the door of Number 4. She’s blonde with big, pale eyes, and her expression is immediately unpleasant, as if she’s smelled something offensive. She looks almost nothing like Lily, but Remus thinks she might have, once upon a time.
Petunia Dursley susses them instantly.
Her eyes go flat and cold, fury lining her features. “Your kind isn’t welcome here,” she hisses. “Not after what that thing did. I won’t have it, not in my home, not near my Dudley.”
Remus’ heart sinks to his shoes. He tries to keep his face passably neutral.
“Mrs Dursley,” Minerva says politely. “I apologise for dropping in on you unannounced. I was hoping we could have a word?”
Petunia goes to slam the door in their faces. Minerva sticks her heeled boot in the way just in time.
“It will only be a moment,” she says.
“Vernon!” Petunia shrieks to the house. “Vernon!”
A lumbering form of a man comes to tower over her shoulder. Vernon Dursley has a great, rippling moustache and terribly mean eyes. He doesn’t catch on as quickly as his wife had, but the state of her agitation seems to spell things out for him.
“How dare you come to my house!” he says. “How dare you upset my wife—showing your faces after what happened with our Dudley—I want you off of my property immediately—”
Remus sidles up beside Minerva, jostling her gently to the side. “Mr Dursley,” he says in a restrained fashion, ignoring the growing lump in his throat, the dread cooling his palms. “My name is Remus Lupin. I was—”
“I don’t bloody well care who you are!” Dursley cries. “I know you’re one of those lot, like the boy, and I won’t stand for it. We did our part, looked after the mongrel all these years, not a word of complaint, and he goes and repays us by disfiguring our son! They still haven’t managed to fix his face up! All manners of treatments—stitches and bandages and staples, none of it doing any good. So if you’ve come to beg us to take the bastard back, you turn around right now!”
Hearing him call Harry all these names is making Remus feel ill, and from the look of things, Minerva is struggling with the same. Still, Remus is doused with another kind of horror.
“Wait,” he says, throwing up a hand. “Wait, you mean your son—He hasn’t been healed since the attack? No one’s come by to help?”
Dursley puffs up again. “We don’t need your kind of help!”
“I think you do,” Remus says quickly. “Mr and Mrs Dursley, I’m so sorry, I had no idea. I assumed someone else would have helped.” Assumed it was someone else’s problem. Merlin, how does Remus keep making the same mistake? “Muggle doctors haven’t been able to help because very little can heal wounds inflicted by a werewolf.”
“So, what? Dudley’s stuck like this, bleeding all over the place—”
“No, no, you misunderstand. I mean only magic can heal him, a specific kind of potion. I—I have some, right here. I can help.”
Remus had brought some silver and dittany with him on the off-chance the Dursleys would welcome an open conversation. He’d had ideas of explaining to them the dangers of lycanthropy, as well as the best treatment for wounds, should Harry have need of them in future. Helping them understand that they’d have to keep a supply of the potion well-stocked, and showing them how to administer it. He pulls out the phial from his pocket now, showing it to the enraged couple.
Vernon Dursley does not seem convinced, bristling again. Neighbours are starting to poke their heads out from windows, curtains twitching. Remus is sweating.
Petunia puts a restraining hand on her husband’s arm. Her gaze is locked on the phial. “You really think that—stuff—will help him?” she asks.
“I do.”
She swallows nervously. Peers over her shoulder, into the house.
“Vernon,” she whispers. “Vernon, for God’s sake, let them in. The neighbours.”
Reluctantly, Vernon steps aside. Minerva sniffs and steps over the threshold first, Remus trailing behind. Petunia hastily shuts and locks the door behind them.
The house is perfectly normal looking, for a muggle residence. Too perfectly normal. Neatly posed family pictures hang on the walls of the entranceway, three Dursleys peering at the camera in stiff suits and floral dresses. A portion of the living room is visible from the doorway, giving Remus a view of fussy lace curtains, blankets over the backs of sofas, and an impressively sized television taking centre stage. More photos on the mantle: wedding photos, birthday photos, school photos, all of the same large blonde boy.
No sign of another child anywhere. No hint of Lily or James. Nothing, even, of the older couple Lily once showed Remus a picture of back in seventh year—Lily and Petunia’s kindly parents.
“Dudders is upstairs,” Petunia says tightly, catching Remus’ wandering eye. “That… that potion. How do I use it?”
Carefully, Remus hands it over. She handles it gingerly, with great disgust, like it’s rat entrails. Or some kind of bomb. She pinches it between her fingers and holds it far away from her body.
“Two drops on each wound,” Remus instructs. “More if it doesn’t seem to be working after thirty seconds. Don’t let him ingest any of it. I’ll follow you up if that’s alright. I won’t touch him,” he adds hastily at her darkening expression. “But I can assess how bad it is, see if he needs anything more.”
Petunia visibly examines him, focusing on his own scars. Her lip curls up in a sneer, but she nods sharply.
“Fine. Don’t come into his bedroom, and don’t speak to him. He’s fragile, and I won’t have your kind upsetting him.”
Remus locks eyes with Minerva as Petunia turns to the stairs. The professor inclines her head, switching a wary gaze back on a blustering Vernon. Satisfied that she’ll easily handle things downstairs, he dutifully follows Petunia at a safe distance.
“Oh, Diddy Duddums,” Petunia croons as she disappears into one of the rooms. “I’ve got some medicine for you. Not to worry, my love, you’ll be fixed up in no time.”
“Mu-um,” a childish voice whines. “I’m in the middle of something.”
Remus finally gets close enough to see into the room. It’s a typical child’s wonderland, full to the brim with colourful toys and gadgets, spilling off of shelves and trailing over the floor. There’s a large television screen showing some garish cartoon, and a boy sprawled on the bed, leaning away from his mother.
Dudley has an electronic game of some kind clutched in a meaty fist and a swath of white bandages wrapped around his head, disappearing under his shirt. Remus feels a tight coil of tension loosen slightly at the sight of him. A part of him had been imagining a figure barely recognisable as a human child, nothing but strips of skin stitched together into the form of a person, the stuff straight from his worst nightmares.
But no. Dudley Dursley is in one piece. As Petunia fusses and unwinds the bandages, Remus gets a better idea of the damage, and while it’s not pretty, it’s not horrible. It’s not entirely unlike Harry’s own scars. Admittedly, the healing process will be rougher, as Dudley is a muggle, less resilient than wizarding children in general; but the dittany solution should help.
Petunia carefully dribbles the potion over the wounds. Dudley whines and complains but makes no sign of being in pain.
Remus holds his breath right alongside Petunia as they sit back and watch the potion start to come into effect, knitting the skin back together. It leaves only some ugly, raised scars, slashing from Dudley’s cheek to his neck.
Petunia dissolves into tears, pressing kiss after kiss to Dudley’s face.
“Mum!” Dudley cries. “Gerroff!”
In his efforts to wriggle away from her clutches, he spots Remus hovering in the doorway.
“Oi,” Dudley says, frowning. “Who’re you?” His eyes catch on Remus’ scars. “Hang on, you’re… you’re not like him, are you?”
Remus takes a step back, not wanting to distress the child. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” he says gently. “I’m glad the po—the medicine worked.”
Dudley stares at him with big blue eyes, similar to his mother’s. “Get out,” he says. “Get out, I don’t want you here. Mum, I don’t want him here, make him leave, make him—”
“Duddy, oh, Dudders,” Petunia fawns. “Of course, my darling. You heard him! Out! It’s alright, Dudley, you’re safe, Mummy will keep you safe…”
Remus hurriedly backs away, heading to the stairs. On the way, he spots a few more doors, some of them open. He sees two bedrooms, presumably the master and Harry’s, and two closed doors. He makes a mental note to ask Harry about his room later.
“…don’t want it back in the house,” Vernon Dursley is saying angrily as Remus makes his way down the stairs. “No, I won’t have it.”
He’s facing off against Minerva in the living room. She’s looking even colder than before.
“I don’t think that will be a problem, Mr Dursley,” she says. Spots Remus as he inches into the room. “Ah, Remus. I think we’ve gotten the answers we came for. Mr Dursley was just informing me of some of the… measures they’ve taken to keep Harry in line.”
Remus feels like he’s been hit with a Freezing Charm.
“He’s a menace,” Vernon says quickly. “You’ve no idea what it’s been like, living in fear in our own home. We had to do something, I had to keep my family safe—”
“Yes, thank you, Mr Dursley,” Minerva says sharply. “Remus, I think you’ll find the cupboard in the hall quite illuminating.”
The only cupboard he sees in the hall is the one under the stairs. For a long moment, Remus really doesn’t want to open it. Whatever’s inside has the potential to upset the balance of everything in his life, and for a breath, he’s selfish enough to want to keep it closed. He doesn’t need to know. Minerva says they already have enough to keep Harry from this place. Remus’ job is done.
He opens the door with a quick flick of the latch.
*
Remus is shaking with rage by the time Minerva decides it’s time to leave.
Vernon Dursley, the disgusting brute of a man, shouts insults and derogatory names at their backs the whole time, dragging Harry’s name through the mud despite not uttering it a single time. Petunia insistently refers to Harry as it, Vernon as freak and beast and mongrel. Dudley wails and stutters and can’t look Remus in the eye as Minerva flings open the door to the child’s second bedroom.
Remus does not want to scare a child, not even Dudley Dursley. The boy’s been traumatised enough by werewolves, however unintentionally.
His mother and father are different matters entirely.
“What you’ve done, how you’ve treated the child entrusted to your care, is despicable,” Minerva informs them. She focuses on Petunia. “Your sister was one of the kindest, brightest women I have ever known. Do you think she would have treated your son the same if your roles were reversed? She would be disgusted with you.”
Petunia turns pasty white, clutching tightly to her son.
Remus is too angry to say anything at all.