Remus John Lupin
Chapter 2 - Remus John Lupin
Sirius had just appeared outside Remus’ door, he had read in the Evening Prophet the news about Cedric Diggory’s death, and how Harry emerged from the maze clutching his body. The look on Sirius’ face was enough to make Remus expect the worst: Voldemort was back. The disappearances, Harry’s scar hurting, the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup, and most importantly, Wormtail’s escape all pointed to this horrible, inevitable truth. Remus knew it was only a matter of time, Wormtail’s secret was out, and he knew Sirius would try his level best to do him in, which is why he returned to Voldemort in the first place.
The members of the Order were contacted, and they were supposed to have their first meeting in a week's time. Sirius brought Remus up to speed, as he had just been to Hogwarts. Remus wished he was still at Hogwarts as Harry’s teacher, he would have been able to provide some sort of comfort to Harry. But unfortunately, he was all the way here in this blasted cottage, earning meagre wages from jobs which he was way too qualified for. Remus knew this was the life he was meant to live, no point being bitter about things you can’t change, he constantly reminded himself.
Sirius offered up his parents house as the new headquarters, where Dumbledore was now Secret Keeper. Remus knew Sirius hated that old house, but was eager to do something useful for the Order nonetheless. Remus gathered some of his things, before mounting Buckbeak with Sirius. Remus had placed disillusionment charms on all three of them to prevent them from being seen. The sooner they got there, the better. That house had been empty for years, God only knew what sort of creatures had decided to call it their home.
The old house gave Remus the creeps, the old portraits stared at them as they made their way in. The portrait of Sirius’ late mother, Walburga gave them the ‘warmest’ welcome of all, yelling how Sirius had besmirched the name of Black by becoming a blood-traitor, and a friend of half-breeds. Remus knew she was talking about him. He had been here once or twice during their time at Hogwarts. Thankfully, she shut up as they covered her portrait with the curtains surrounding it.
The first meeting was to be held the next week, so Remus, and Sirius decided to make the house as habitable as they could within the next few days. Thankfully, their household spells were somewhat decent, seeing as they both had lived alone, although Remus was better. Nonetheless, Sirius helped as much as he could, keeping the surliness to a minimum. To make things worse, their old house-elf Kreacher was still around, and although he pretended to be pleased to see Sirius, he was constantly muttering how he wished Sirius was still in Azkaban under his breath.
Remus suggested Sirius set him free, but even at Remus’ words, Kreacher started bawling his eyes out. They decided to let the matter rest before turning in for the night. Surprisingly, Kreacher obeyed when Sirius asked him to shut up. Sirius made his way to his old bedroom, which was almost the same as the last day he set foot in it, although it was full of dust and cobwebs now. Sirius told Remus he could have any room he wanted, except his mother’s room, that would be Buckbeak’s from now on.
Remus chose the nearest spare room to Sirius’, but he slept badly. He could feel the eyes of late Black family members constantly goggling him, whispering to each other. He knew by now word would have gone out that he was a werewolf, thanks to Mrs. Black’s enthusiastic introduction when Sirius and him first set foot in the house. He didn’t have much of a choice, almost every room in that house had at least one portrait of a pure-blood loving Black family member. And to make matters worse, they would bring their cousins to gape at Remus, happily pointing out his scars as they gossiped about him
Even if Remus wasn’t having the time of his life, he constantly worried about Sirius. He knew how much Sirius hated his childhood home, he had spent almost every Christmas and Easter holiday at the Potters, and occasionally the Lupins. Whilst Remus was a werewolf, he had loving parents who doted on him. That made his excruciating monthly transformations just slightly more bearable. But Sirius never had loving parents, although wealthy, he very much preferred to spend time at Remus’ parents in the country in their small cottage, where he actually felt loved.
Remus woke up early the day of their first meeting, and was mildly surprised to see Sirius up and about, fully dressed. Sirius informed him the Weasley clan would be arriving, along with Hermione Granger that same afternoon. They both smiled as they remembered their last encounter with her last summer, and how she had addressed Sirius as “Mr. Black”. Remus was particularly fond of Hermione because of her lack of prejudice against him. She fully well knew what he was for months, but treated him the same, and most importantly, kept it to herself. This could also be attributed to muggle-born ignorance, but Remus was still grateful.
They reminisced about the first wizarding war, and how they lost both Gideon, and Fabian Prewett, but were glad their sister Molly decided to join the fight this time. It felt strange without James and Lily, and Peter too, but they kept this to themselves. Gone were the days when they were three unregistered animagi, and a werewolf, roaming the Hogwarts grounds in the dead of the night. Remus knew his friends loved the adventures, but he always had this fear inside of him, that he would hurt someone, or worse doom them to the same fate he had been destined for since he was four.
Dumbledore sent his Patronus informing them that the Order meeting was to take place at 7 p.m. that evening, and that Kingsley managed to recruit young blood from the Auror department. That was their first bit of good news in a while, and Mad-Eye, who had been in St. Mungo’s was deemed fit by the healers once again, and was eager to get down to business. This lifted Sirius and Remus’ spirits quite a bit, they were both fond of the old hero very much. Snape, much to their displeasure would be there too, bearing news from Voldemort himself.
Granted that Remus tried not to bear a grudge against Severus, Sirius didn’t skip a beat before verbally abusing him. He had yet to forgive him for the events that took place last year, and was surprised that Remus seemed so forgiving. True, if it wasn’t for Severus, Remus would probably still be teaching at Hogwarts, maybe he could even have protected Harry better, and there was no way in hell he would have allowed Harry to participate in the Tournament without a fight.
But, Dumbledore must have had his reasons, although Remus didn’t agree with them sometimes, he just somewhat blindly placed all his trust in the wise old wizard who took a chance on him when he was just an 11-year-old werewolf, and then again when he was 33. He was, after all, the only one Voldemort had ever feared, and if someone as cold and ruthless as Voldemort feared him, Remus would do well to trust his judgement.