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innerslytherinRegions of Kindness, Part One
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
-- Kindness, Naomi Shihab Nye
They work together on the “pet werewolf project”, as Snape has dubbed it (not without irony), for over a year, and that summer when Dumbledore asks Remus to take over the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, Remus nearly accepts. He is highly qualified for the position, and he thinks he would enjoy teaching. But he remembers the rumours he heard last year, that Snape has applied for this position, and been denied, and he wonders if having a steady job would be worth sacrificing this strange, brittle new friendship he has with Severus.
He thinks about asking Snape directly, but they are very careful about the questions they ask one another. The only subject about which Severus will ask a direct question is the lycanthropy. At other times, with other subjects, he is skilled at hinting, making pointed remarks until Remus understands what it is Severus wishes to ask. Remus thinks perhaps it is a defence mechanism, something Severus does to keep Remus from asking the questions he does not wish to answer. If that is the case, it works. Remus only asks direct questions about potions; anything else requires hints and silences, and sometimes Snape understands them, and sometimes he (deliberately, it seems) does not.
So Remus declines the position, arranging instead an alternate that Dumbledore approves. In exchange for helping Severus with the potion and Sprout with the greenhouses, Remus receives room and board, and a small research stipend that serves to meet his needs quite adequately. For the first time since leaving Hogwarts he gets enough to eat on a regular basis (because even at the beginning, when he and Sirius were together, Remus’ pride wouldn’t allow him to accept charity, especially from a lover). He has good companionship in the staff at school, and he has free run of the library, and he has a twice-weekly chess match with Snape. Remus has discovered it is possible to be happy.
Full moons are still difficult, but Snape is experimenting with variations on a potion base involving aconite and valerian, and there are times, now, when Remus can describe his time as the wolf. He isn’t injuring himself as badly these days, either—there is still the initial fury of transformation, but once his first fear and anger are spent, the wolf settles into pacing along the walls of the Shrieking Shack. It is tiring, but not dangerous. There are nights when Remus-as-man dreams of pacing, and he knows he is dreaming about Remus-as-wolf.
It has occurred to him that it probably required a great deal of courage for Snape to even set foot back inside the tunnel that leads to the shack. He often wonders how Snape bears it, coming down that tunnel, remembering what it was that had been waiting for him that first time. Remus has never said anything about it. He doubts he ever will.
The first week of July, Remus sends a birthday gift for Harry, taking great care to buy a Muggle book and use the Muggle post. He hopes it will arrive on time; he has no idea how long it takes Muggle things to be delivered, and with the full moon on the 11th he wants to be sure to give it enough time. The last two potion variations have had ill effects that kept him in bed for days after the change, and he doesn’t want to miss Harry’s birthday. He has sent a present every year, though of course there is no way for him to know what Harry would like or not like. Dumbledore may not let Remus see Harry, but Remus doesn’t want Harry to feel forgotten.
~
“Why do you persist in your attempts to maintain such a stoic façade?” Snape’s voice is impatient. He is supporting Remus as they walk slowly up the tunnel towards the castle, because Remus refuses to let him levitate him.
“I suppose because it lets me feel as though I have at least some control over my situation,” Remus grunts.
Snape obviously hadn’t been expecting an answer. He is silent for a long while, then says, “Then it has nothing to do with trust.”
Surprised, Remus exclaims, “No, of course not!” and then wonders if that is true. But after another minute of silence, during which Snape’s arm around his waist tightens slightly, Remus decides it is true.
They make their way to the prefect’s bathroom, and Snape seals the door behind them. He leaves Remus propped against the wall and begins running a bath, opening vials and pouring various extracts into the water. Remus can smell peppermint and rosemary; he isn’t sure what else is in the mixture. Snape often explains the making of each potion to him, but Remus has never been particularly skilled in the art, and he only understands and remembers half of what he is told.
Before long Remus is soaking happily in the bath while Snape scribbles notes in a book. He has asked several questions about how Remus feels and how the soak is affecting him. Remus’ answers have become increasingly languid as he feels his tight muscles begin to relax. His eyelids are drooping, and he breathes deeply, enjoying the noise of Snape’s quill scratching on parchment. After a time, even that noise stops.
“Lupin, are you awake?” Oddly, Snape’s voice doesn’t sound as sharp as it usually does—even though he attempts to gentle his behaviour around Remus for the full moons, he usually ends up losing patience and forgetting.
“Mmm.”
“You’ll drown yourself if you aren’t careful.”
Remus gives a warm chuckle. “You won’t let your test subject drown, will you?” His eyes are still closed.
“The state I’m in, I could hardly save you,” Snape admits. “This steam is more potent than I had expected.” His voice is loose, languorous, almost a caress. Remus looks at him, curious about how Severus looks, relaxed. The Potions Master is sitting on the floor, leaning against a bench. His head is tilted back and his eyes are half-closed. His dark hair is like a raven’s wing against the white of the towels and dressing gown. Remus feels a sudden desire to fan his fingers through that hair, and squelches it harshly. Oh yes, that would be perfect, to begin fancying Snape now that the man is finally not treating you like a pariah, he thinks at himself.
“Why are you doing this, Severus?”
“You really can’t believe I would simply do it for you?” Snape asks. There is an odd tone in his voice, something almost sad, or wistful perhaps. Remus can think of nothing to say in response to that, and Severus takes it as agreement. “Then tell yourself it is because I have seen first-hand what the Dark Lord will do with werewolves, and I don’t want that to happen when he returns.”
It’s amazing how a single sentence can shatter a calm, a friendship, a heart.
The meaning of what Snape has said comes clear all in an instant. “You--what?” Remus’ eyes are wide open now, and he sits up straight, ignoring the twinge from his abused body.
“Oh, fuck!” Snape utters in very heartfelt tones. “I don’t—I wasn’t—I didn’t mean for you to learn of it like this, Remus,” he says, and only a moment ago it would have mattered that Snape has never used his first name before, never in all the years they had known each other.
Remus glares at him. “It would appear to me that you never meant for me to learn of it at all,” he snarls. “You’ve seen first-hand, have you? The only people who’ve seen Voldemort first-hand, and lived, are Harry Potter—and the Death Eaters.”
“I was a spy,” Snape retorts. “What did you think I did? Transfigure myself into a spare mask? Bloody hell, Remus, you’re not usually as thick as the other Gryffindors! Yes, I was a Death Eater! Do you want the brutal truth? I was a Death Eater before I became a spy for the Order! I served the Dark Lord of my own volition, through my own choice, and it was only later that I came to regret that decision. Does that mean I am suddenly a monster in your eyes?” He is on his feet now and shouting.
Remus feels suddenly that being in the bath makes him vulnerable, weak. His angry pride won’t allow that. He splashes out of the water and advances, naked and dripping, on Snape, who is between him and his towels.
Oddly, Snape gives ground. Remus utters a sharp bark of a laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of me, Snape? You know very well how dangerous I am right now.” He reaches out and grasps the towel, wrapping it around his waist and stopping to glare.
Snape’s jaw is set, his breathing harsh. He scowls back at Remus. “You’re being unreasonable, Remus.”
Merlin! Remus wants to laugh. Years of trying to be friendly with Snape, and only now, when Remus truly wishes he could commit violence against him, does Snape suddenly cave and begin calling him by his first name. “Unreasonable? Unreasonable? Unreasonable is me thinking they were ever wrong about you. Unreasonable is me feeling guilty for allowing them so much leeway. Unreasonable is the fact I thought we could be friends!” He is angry, his voice rising.
Severus’ hands have clenched into fists. “So you won’t even listen.”
“What could you possibly say?” Remus howls. “You gave me a Dreamless Sleep potion on the night of their murders! Did you know it was going to happen then? You knew I would get in the way, you knew I would kill Sirius for what he did—and you knew Peter wouldn’t be able to! Damn you, Snape! How could you have done it?”
Severus’ expression has changed; although it is still angry, there is something almost pleading in that stern face. “I didn’t know,” he replies, his voice pitched low but still heated. “I couldn’t even discover the identity of the spy. Don’t you think I tried? I knew how important the Potters were! I didn’t want them dead any more than you did, you fool!” He sighs gustily. “For a time I thought it was Pettigrew, because I couldn’t imagine any other reason Bella would be going out with him. But I was just as surprised as you when Black betrayed them.”
Remus is beyond listening. “Don’t speak to me,” he orders, his voice harsh. “Don’t speak to me ever again.” He unseals the room and stalks out, ignoring Severus’ angry swearing behind him. He manages to get up a flight of stairs and partway down the corridor before he collapses, sobbing, into an alcove. His anger has carried him this far, but anger suddenly deserts him and despair floods in.
Alone again. Alone all along. He should have known better than to trust anyone ever again, because people always betray you. “All you have in this world is yourself,” Remus mutters bitterly, and gives a sobbing laugh. Snape was right—and even then Remus had been too much of a fool to listen.
~
He leaves the next day, before he is properly recovered, because he simply cannot stay in this castle any longer. He cannot spend another minute living in rooms that are near Snape’s, cannot bear Poppy’s unhappy expression or the inexplicable disappointment on Minerva’s face. He packs quickly and leaves without saying goodbye to Snape or Dumbledore.
He will go to Mrs Pettigrew, he decides, and that will give him a week to plan his next move. After a year of living in one place, he has forgotten how to drift. Now he is worried about where he will get his next meal, worried about whether he will be able to sleep in a real bed tonight.
Of course Mrs Pettigrew doesn’t know he is a werewolf, but Remus stays only a week with her before moving on. All the same, the pathetic gratitude she shows him for visiting shames him, and he resolves to return again soon.
He has heard of a village in Lancastershire fighting an infestation of doxies, and for a modest fee he clears the village. The townspeople are grateful enough that they offer him twice what he asks, and for a moment he is tempted…but his conscience gets the better of his greed, and he declines. Before he leaves they give him the name of a farmer who will pay to have an infestation of bundimuns cleared from his house.
Two days after the first full moon, Remus is wakes up with a tawny owl perched on his arm. It has a letter, of course, addressed in harsh black letters: That bloody arsehead, wherever he’s gone. It almost makes Remus laugh, before he remembers it is a Death Eater’s handwriting he is looking at. He sighs and fixes the letter back to the owl’s leg. “Go on,” he says. “Take it back to him. I don’t want it.” The owl gives him a disapproving look, but flaps silently away.
After the second full moon, the tawny owl wakes him up by pecking at his toes. Remus comes awake with a startled yip and stares around him for a moment before realizes what it is. He glowers at the bird, but it gazes back at him with a level stare, and he sighs. “Go away, you,” he mutters, realizing he doesn’t know the bird’s name. “And you needn’t deliver any more letters from him. I won’t take them.”
By the third full moon, Snape has obviously lost his patience with him, because the bird not only wakes him by pecking at him, but goes on pecking at him, delivering a sharp nip to his hand. Putting the injured finger in his mouth, Remus glares but finally sighs. “Oh, very well. Give it here.” The bird extends its leg politely and lets him remove it, but when he goes to set the letter aside, it flaps to his shoulder and pinches his ear.
“Bloody hell!” Remus exclaims, surprised and offended. “All right, I’ll read the sodding thing.” He smooths the envelope (Remus John Lupin, Absent Without Leave) and sighs again. Why does the sight of that handwriting fill him with such turbulent emotions? Why can he not simply accept that Snape, too, has betrayed him, and it only means that life is consistent, and every man stands alone?
Lupin,
I had expected better of you, though why I am not sure. I have accepted that you will not allow me to explain, so you may rest assured that I shall not attempt to do so here. Minerva is sick with worry that you haven’t returned to the Shrieking Shack, and the headmaster himself has been giving that building preoccupied looks lately. I don’t know what you think you’re proving by walking away from us all entirely, but the only thing you’re actually proving is that you’re a fool. I don’t even know if you’re alive or dead, and Prometheus keeps coming back with my letters unread. I assume that’s because you are angry, or perhaps because you hate me. Fine, go on being angry. Go on hating me if you want. But tell me if you are alive or dead.
Severus
P.S. You are being a bloody arsehead.
When he finishes the letter, Remus is smiling, which makes him angry. He turns over the parchment and then wonders if he has a pen. Scrounging in the bottom of his pack produces a pencil. He thinks for a long time before he writes his reply.
Severus,
I am alive. Keep working on your aconite brew. I miss it. Your owl bit me.
Remus
P.S. You would know.
After that there are no more owls.
~
And so it goes; he travels from town to town across Scotland and England and Wales, walking because there is no point in Apparating when you have nowhere in particular to go, and performing odd jobs ridding people of Dark Arts incursions. He is not happy, he is not even content, but he is surviving, and he manages it quite well, despite the fact that he has taken to spending his full moons in caves and deep forests, and twice has been nearly to the edge of a village when he wakes in the morning. He has no memory of his transformations, and can only hope he has not bitten or killed anyone. But that is the price he must pay, if he is to trust no one. As far as Remus knows, this will continue for the rest of his life, and he believes he has accepted that.
Until one day, quite to his surprise, he meets the Werewolf.
~
“You look done in.” For a moment, Remus thinks the man is going to trudge on past his campsite, but ten seconds later Remus’ words seem to register with him and he stops on the path. Slowly he turns his head to look at Remus, and his eyes catch the firelight and throw it back at him.
“Aye.” His voice is harsh and rusty.
“You’re welcome to stop and share my camp.” Remus’ speaks quietly. His senses have already told him much about this man.
“You don’t want me here, lad.”
“Why not? You and I are alike.”
The admission seems to surprise the man. He hesitates a moment longer, then turns and limps into the circle of warmth. It is April, too early really to be sleeping in the woods, but Remus gets the impression that this man has been living in the wild for a long time. He studies the man, knowing he himself is being inspected warily.
The man has drab-coloured hair that falls past his shoulders, and a patchy beard. His eyes are green, which surprises Remus; he has always imagined that his own golden-brown eyes were a product of his lycanthropy. The man’s clothes are ragged, and he is barefoot; his toes look blue, though Remus can’t tell if this is a product of the dim light, or the cold. The rest of the man’s skin is rough and red. He sniffles frequently, a quiet noise that nonetheless grates on the nerves after only a short time.
“Why would you do this, a good-looking bloke like you?”
Good-looking? Remus blinks at this, then realizes the man is speaking of his general appearance: slightly unkempt, perhaps, but no more so than most of the young men who are walking across England these days—Muggles, most of them, just out of university, and quite keen on hostels and backpacks. Remus has passed for one of them many a night these past few years.
Remus hands the man his only cup, a heavy clay one that he has charmed to keep drinks always the right temperature. “Because if we aren’t kind to each other, no one else will be,” he says finally. “It isn’t as if the wizards give a tinker’s damn about us.”
The man holds the cup under his nose for a long time, breathing in the minty scent of the tea. “That’s the truth,” he grunts. “But I can’t say as I understand why it makes you want to be nice. I avoid ‘em all, but I’ve known plenty of young blokes who go all snarly with it.”
Remus sighs. “Perhaps I’m not as young as I look.”
The man laughs at that, but it is a frightening sound, the sort of laughter that comes from bitterness and desperation, not from humour at all. “They all say that,” he wheezes. “But they’re always younger than they look, in the end.” His laughter winds to a halt. “How old do you think I am?”
“Er. Seventyish?” Remus hates trying to guess at age. He’s never right.
The man gives him a dark look. “Aye, look it, don’t I? What year is it?”
“Nineteen-ninety.”
“I’ll be fifty next year, then.”
Remus blinks, unhappy. “I’m thirty,” he replies.
“Think you can take another twenty year of this?” the man asks. “Because I’ll tell you, son, I know I can’t. One of these days…” He rubs at the back of his neck then and shrugs. “Ah, well. What you got there to eat?”
“Chicken. Paid for, not stolen.”
The man gives him a wry look. “When you’ve been out here as long as I have, you won’t worry about whether it’s stolen or not.”
When Remus asks the man’s name, he says he doesn’t really have one, but he thinks of himself as Loper. Remus wonders then if he is talking to the man, or the wolf, but he doesn’t ask. They settle down with the campfire between them, and Remus waits until the man isn’t looking, then casts a small ward to protect himself—just in case. He hasn’t liked to bring the wand out in front of the other werewolf. It would be unkind, a flaunting of what Remus has that Loper will never have.
~
The next morning, they clean up their small campsite in easy companionship, and in silent accord they both turn the same direction along the path. When Remus decides it’s time for lunch, Loper agrees casually, and by the end of the meal it is certain, though no words have been spoken, that Remus and Loper will continue on together for a time.
Loper is good company. He is good with his hands, and Remus entrusts him with the pocketknife that has spent the past ten years zipped into the pocket of Sirius’ leather jacket. Evenings, Loper carves little figures out of whatever wood he has picked up. He sells these in the villages they pass, and Remus does whatever physical labour he can find—Loper, he discovers, isn’t strong enough for much, though the man does try. They share their resources, and rarely argue, and always sleep with the fire between them. It is inherent in a werewolf’s nature, Remus thinks, to distrust everyone else. Even—or especially—another werewolf.
They spend the summer wandering northward, and when autumn comes they turn south again, stopping for a few days at a time when Remus finds a farmer who needs help with the harvest. The winter is difficult; the cold is hard on Loper’s joints. In early December Remus manages to find a position with a Muggle stationer’s in Kent. This allows them to take a room in a boarding house, and they stay for three months before Remus is turned away for poor attendance. They move on again.
In March Remus hires on with a shepherd, and Loper wheezes in amusement at the idea of a werewolf tending sheep. Remus is less amused, but that’s because Loper is ill, and Remus has come to think of the man as a friend. They have kept many details of their private lives—their past lives—to themselves, and yet they share their personalities freely, and full moons with Loper have been less frightening. Remus has the doctor in to see him, though it takes nearly all their meagre savings, and Loper recovers, but his lungs and heart are weakened, and it’s obvious Loper’s health is failing him badly.
They struggle on for another year, scraping by, barely making ends meet, but somehow always managing to hold things together. Remus has learned that Loper left his family behind once he was bitten. Somewhere in the world there are a woman and child who may still miss their man. Remus wonders if he would ever have walked away from those who loved him—and then realizes this is exactly what he has done. He feels somehow ashamed of this, and in his darker moments, his thoughts return to roost on this shame.
Loper has pneumonia again in April of 1992, and they both realize, somehow, that he isn’t going to get better.
~
“Remus, lad, I want to bid you farewell.”
Remus scowls over at him, carrying a cup of chicken brother over from the fire, where he’s been heating it. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lope. You’re going to be fine.”
“No I’m not.” Loper gives a wheezing cough that soon has him curled double and gasping for breath. “I’m tired of fighting it, and I’m tired of running.” Loper sighs. “I’m going to turn myself in for the bite I done years ago, and the Ministry’ll end it for me.”
“You—bit someone?” Remus asks, his breath quickening.
“Once. Just a little feller, he was. Course I didn’t know it at the time. Woke up with blood all over me, but I didn’t remember how it got there. Didn’t find out ‘til a few days later that a lad next village over’d been werewolf-bit.”
Remus is surprised by the rush of anger this revelation brings. Then he realizes anyone would be angry. Loper is confessing that he condemned another person to this horrible life. Remus’ heart begins to pound—if only he hadn’t been a werewolf, perhaps James and Lily would still be alive. Perhaps Sirius wouldn’t have gone over. Perhaps Snape wouldn’t have become a Death Eater… He is breathing hard as he considers the possibilities. What if…what if…
“Always thought I’d turn myself in, once I got tired of living this way. Only every time I think of letting the Ministry end it for me, I get scared, thinking about what might be waiting for me, over there. So every time, I put it off. Just another moon, I tell myself, and then I’ll do it. And then I want just one more moon after that.” The man has finished drinking the tea, but he still cradles the mug in his hands. He stares into the fire, not looking up at Remus’ face. “And last moon, I said it. Now this moon’s only a couple days away.”
Remus nods, feeling numb. Suddenly he has ceased to see his friend Loper, the person with whom he has shared so many moons. Instead he asks himself, Is this the one? Is this the werewolf who made his life the misery it has been? Is this battered, broken-down old thing the reason Remus can trust no one? His heart is filled with a dark, sick fury, a consuming desire to hurt him, to make him weep and wail for mercy. The desire frightens Remus, but he allows his thoughts to dwell on it, wondering if he would enjoy it, wondering if he could go through with it.
“Have some broth,” Remus says, and helps Loper sit up enough to drink.
~
During the night, Remus wakes, heart thumping in his chest, wondering what is wrong. A moment later he hears the snarl from the other side of the fire, and turns to look. Loper has twisted onto his side and his lips are pulled back from his teeth. His eyes are closed. As Remus looks on in morbid fascination, the man twitches, then suddenly relaxes. Some time later he curls up again, breath rattling in his lungs.
Troubled, Remus cannot get back to sleep. When morning comes, he has resolved very little, but he is sorry he has no reason to write to Severus, because suddenly he misses the horrible taste of the aconite potion, and the awkwardly gentle way Severus used to swab his wounds with specially formulated antiseptic potions, and the peppermint tea he brought later to settle Remus’ stomach.
For the first time in a long time, Remus thinks about home, and realizes he knows where it is, and knows there is no way to get there.
~
Loper dies two weeks later. Remus is working when it happens, and by the time he gets back to the room where they’ve been staying, it is too late. He calls the Muggle authorities, and they take Loper’s body, pronounce the cause of death to be pneumonia, and arrange for a pauper’s burial; Remus has no money to pay for anything better.
He is strangely numb. Learning of Loper’s sin has confused his opinion of the man greatly. Remus has spent hours wondering if Loper is the one who bit him. Now, with Loper dead, Remus finds it doesn’t matter any longer.
He has gone through his friend’s pack and found a picture of a woman and small girl. They will look much different now, of course, and Remus has no idea where to begin looking, but he will find them. Regardless of how long it may take him, he will find them. He will carry to them news of Loper’s death, and then he will write to Minerva, and he will try to discover if he can ever go home. His pride is no longer worth the price he has paid for it.
~
On to Regions of Kindness, Part Three!
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
-- Kindness, Naomi Shihab Nye
They work together on the “pet werewolf project”, as Snape has dubbed it (not without irony), for over a year, and that summer when Dumbledore asks Remus to take over the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, Remus nearly accepts. He is highly qualified for the position, and he thinks he would enjoy teaching. But he remembers the rumours he heard last year, that Snape has applied for this position, and been denied, and he wonders if having a steady job would be worth sacrificing this strange, brittle new friendship he has with Severus.
He thinks about asking Snape directly, but they are very careful about the questions they ask one another. The only subject about which Severus will ask a direct question is the lycanthropy. At other times, with other subjects, he is skilled at hinting, making pointed remarks until Remus understands what it is Severus wishes to ask. Remus thinks perhaps it is a defence mechanism, something Severus does to keep Remus from asking the questions he does not wish to answer. If that is the case, it works. Remus only asks direct questions about potions; anything else requires hints and silences, and sometimes Snape understands them, and sometimes he (deliberately, it seems) does not.
So Remus declines the position, arranging instead an alternate that Dumbledore approves. In exchange for helping Severus with the potion and Sprout with the greenhouses, Remus receives room and board, and a small research stipend that serves to meet his needs quite adequately. For the first time since leaving Hogwarts he gets enough to eat on a regular basis (because even at the beginning, when he and Sirius were together, Remus’ pride wouldn’t allow him to accept charity, especially from a lover). He has good companionship in the staff at school, and he has free run of the library, and he has a twice-weekly chess match with Snape. Remus has discovered it is possible to be happy.
Full moons are still difficult, but Snape is experimenting with variations on a potion base involving aconite and valerian, and there are times, now, when Remus can describe his time as the wolf. He isn’t injuring himself as badly these days, either—there is still the initial fury of transformation, but once his first fear and anger are spent, the wolf settles into pacing along the walls of the Shrieking Shack. It is tiring, but not dangerous. There are nights when Remus-as-man dreams of pacing, and he knows he is dreaming about Remus-as-wolf.
It has occurred to him that it probably required a great deal of courage for Snape to even set foot back inside the tunnel that leads to the shack. He often wonders how Snape bears it, coming down that tunnel, remembering what it was that had been waiting for him that first time. Remus has never said anything about it. He doubts he ever will.
The first week of July, Remus sends a birthday gift for Harry, taking great care to buy a Muggle book and use the Muggle post. He hopes it will arrive on time; he has no idea how long it takes Muggle things to be delivered, and with the full moon on the 11th he wants to be sure to give it enough time. The last two potion variations have had ill effects that kept him in bed for days after the change, and he doesn’t want to miss Harry’s birthday. He has sent a present every year, though of course there is no way for him to know what Harry would like or not like. Dumbledore may not let Remus see Harry, but Remus doesn’t want Harry to feel forgotten.
~
“Why do you persist in your attempts to maintain such a stoic façade?” Snape’s voice is impatient. He is supporting Remus as they walk slowly up the tunnel towards the castle, because Remus refuses to let him levitate him.
“I suppose because it lets me feel as though I have at least some control over my situation,” Remus grunts.
Snape obviously hadn’t been expecting an answer. He is silent for a long while, then says, “Then it has nothing to do with trust.”
Surprised, Remus exclaims, “No, of course not!” and then wonders if that is true. But after another minute of silence, during which Snape’s arm around his waist tightens slightly, Remus decides it is true.
They make their way to the prefect’s bathroom, and Snape seals the door behind them. He leaves Remus propped against the wall and begins running a bath, opening vials and pouring various extracts into the water. Remus can smell peppermint and rosemary; he isn’t sure what else is in the mixture. Snape often explains the making of each potion to him, but Remus has never been particularly skilled in the art, and he only understands and remembers half of what he is told.
Before long Remus is soaking happily in the bath while Snape scribbles notes in a book. He has asked several questions about how Remus feels and how the soak is affecting him. Remus’ answers have become increasingly languid as he feels his tight muscles begin to relax. His eyelids are drooping, and he breathes deeply, enjoying the noise of Snape’s quill scratching on parchment. After a time, even that noise stops.
“Lupin, are you awake?” Oddly, Snape’s voice doesn’t sound as sharp as it usually does—even though he attempts to gentle his behaviour around Remus for the full moons, he usually ends up losing patience and forgetting.
“Mmm.”
“You’ll drown yourself if you aren’t careful.”
Remus gives a warm chuckle. “You won’t let your test subject drown, will you?” His eyes are still closed.
“The state I’m in, I could hardly save you,” Snape admits. “This steam is more potent than I had expected.” His voice is loose, languorous, almost a caress. Remus looks at him, curious about how Severus looks, relaxed. The Potions Master is sitting on the floor, leaning against a bench. His head is tilted back and his eyes are half-closed. His dark hair is like a raven’s wing against the white of the towels and dressing gown. Remus feels a sudden desire to fan his fingers through that hair, and squelches it harshly. Oh yes, that would be perfect, to begin fancying Snape now that the man is finally not treating you like a pariah, he thinks at himself.
“Why are you doing this, Severus?”
“You really can’t believe I would simply do it for you?” Snape asks. There is an odd tone in his voice, something almost sad, or wistful perhaps. Remus can think of nothing to say in response to that, and Severus takes it as agreement. “Then tell yourself it is because I have seen first-hand what the Dark Lord will do with werewolves, and I don’t want that to happen when he returns.”
It’s amazing how a single sentence can shatter a calm, a friendship, a heart.
The meaning of what Snape has said comes clear all in an instant. “You--what?” Remus’ eyes are wide open now, and he sits up straight, ignoring the twinge from his abused body.
“Oh, fuck!” Snape utters in very heartfelt tones. “I don’t—I wasn’t—I didn’t mean for you to learn of it like this, Remus,” he says, and only a moment ago it would have mattered that Snape has never used his first name before, never in all the years they had known each other.
Remus glares at him. “It would appear to me that you never meant for me to learn of it at all,” he snarls. “You’ve seen first-hand, have you? The only people who’ve seen Voldemort first-hand, and lived, are Harry Potter—and the Death Eaters.”
“I was a spy,” Snape retorts. “What did you think I did? Transfigure myself into a spare mask? Bloody hell, Remus, you’re not usually as thick as the other Gryffindors! Yes, I was a Death Eater! Do you want the brutal truth? I was a Death Eater before I became a spy for the Order! I served the Dark Lord of my own volition, through my own choice, and it was only later that I came to regret that decision. Does that mean I am suddenly a monster in your eyes?” He is on his feet now and shouting.
Remus feels suddenly that being in the bath makes him vulnerable, weak. His angry pride won’t allow that. He splashes out of the water and advances, naked and dripping, on Snape, who is between him and his towels.
Oddly, Snape gives ground. Remus utters a sharp bark of a laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of me, Snape? You know very well how dangerous I am right now.” He reaches out and grasps the towel, wrapping it around his waist and stopping to glare.
Snape’s jaw is set, his breathing harsh. He scowls back at Remus. “You’re being unreasonable, Remus.”
Merlin! Remus wants to laugh. Years of trying to be friendly with Snape, and only now, when Remus truly wishes he could commit violence against him, does Snape suddenly cave and begin calling him by his first name. “Unreasonable? Unreasonable? Unreasonable is me thinking they were ever wrong about you. Unreasonable is me feeling guilty for allowing them so much leeway. Unreasonable is the fact I thought we could be friends!” He is angry, his voice rising.
Severus’ hands have clenched into fists. “So you won’t even listen.”
“What could you possibly say?” Remus howls. “You gave me a Dreamless Sleep potion on the night of their murders! Did you know it was going to happen then? You knew I would get in the way, you knew I would kill Sirius for what he did—and you knew Peter wouldn’t be able to! Damn you, Snape! How could you have done it?”
Severus’ expression has changed; although it is still angry, there is something almost pleading in that stern face. “I didn’t know,” he replies, his voice pitched low but still heated. “I couldn’t even discover the identity of the spy. Don’t you think I tried? I knew how important the Potters were! I didn’t want them dead any more than you did, you fool!” He sighs gustily. “For a time I thought it was Pettigrew, because I couldn’t imagine any other reason Bella would be going out with him. But I was just as surprised as you when Black betrayed them.”
Remus is beyond listening. “Don’t speak to me,” he orders, his voice harsh. “Don’t speak to me ever again.” He unseals the room and stalks out, ignoring Severus’ angry swearing behind him. He manages to get up a flight of stairs and partway down the corridor before he collapses, sobbing, into an alcove. His anger has carried him this far, but anger suddenly deserts him and despair floods in.
Alone again. Alone all along. He should have known better than to trust anyone ever again, because people always betray you. “All you have in this world is yourself,” Remus mutters bitterly, and gives a sobbing laugh. Snape was right—and even then Remus had been too much of a fool to listen.
~
He leaves the next day, before he is properly recovered, because he simply cannot stay in this castle any longer. He cannot spend another minute living in rooms that are near Snape’s, cannot bear Poppy’s unhappy expression or the inexplicable disappointment on Minerva’s face. He packs quickly and leaves without saying goodbye to Snape or Dumbledore.
He will go to Mrs Pettigrew, he decides, and that will give him a week to plan his next move. After a year of living in one place, he has forgotten how to drift. Now he is worried about where he will get his next meal, worried about whether he will be able to sleep in a real bed tonight.
Of course Mrs Pettigrew doesn’t know he is a werewolf, but Remus stays only a week with her before moving on. All the same, the pathetic gratitude she shows him for visiting shames him, and he resolves to return again soon.
He has heard of a village in Lancastershire fighting an infestation of doxies, and for a modest fee he clears the village. The townspeople are grateful enough that they offer him twice what he asks, and for a moment he is tempted…but his conscience gets the better of his greed, and he declines. Before he leaves they give him the name of a farmer who will pay to have an infestation of bundimuns cleared from his house.
Two days after the first full moon, Remus is wakes up with a tawny owl perched on his arm. It has a letter, of course, addressed in harsh black letters: That bloody arsehead, wherever he’s gone. It almost makes Remus laugh, before he remembers it is a Death Eater’s handwriting he is looking at. He sighs and fixes the letter back to the owl’s leg. “Go on,” he says. “Take it back to him. I don’t want it.” The owl gives him a disapproving look, but flaps silently away.
After the second full moon, the tawny owl wakes him up by pecking at his toes. Remus comes awake with a startled yip and stares around him for a moment before realizes what it is. He glowers at the bird, but it gazes back at him with a level stare, and he sighs. “Go away, you,” he mutters, realizing he doesn’t know the bird’s name. “And you needn’t deliver any more letters from him. I won’t take them.”
By the third full moon, Snape has obviously lost his patience with him, because the bird not only wakes him by pecking at him, but goes on pecking at him, delivering a sharp nip to his hand. Putting the injured finger in his mouth, Remus glares but finally sighs. “Oh, very well. Give it here.” The bird extends its leg politely and lets him remove it, but when he goes to set the letter aside, it flaps to his shoulder and pinches his ear.
“Bloody hell!” Remus exclaims, surprised and offended. “All right, I’ll read the sodding thing.” He smooths the envelope (Remus John Lupin, Absent Without Leave) and sighs again. Why does the sight of that handwriting fill him with such turbulent emotions? Why can he not simply accept that Snape, too, has betrayed him, and it only means that life is consistent, and every man stands alone?
Lupin,
I had expected better of you, though why I am not sure. I have accepted that you will not allow me to explain, so you may rest assured that I shall not attempt to do so here. Minerva is sick with worry that you haven’t returned to the Shrieking Shack, and the headmaster himself has been giving that building preoccupied looks lately. I don’t know what you think you’re proving by walking away from us all entirely, but the only thing you’re actually proving is that you’re a fool. I don’t even know if you’re alive or dead, and Prometheus keeps coming back with my letters unread. I assume that’s because you are angry, or perhaps because you hate me. Fine, go on being angry. Go on hating me if you want. But tell me if you are alive or dead.
Severus
P.S. You are being a bloody arsehead.
When he finishes the letter, Remus is smiling, which makes him angry. He turns over the parchment and then wonders if he has a pen. Scrounging in the bottom of his pack produces a pencil. He thinks for a long time before he writes his reply.
Severus,
I am alive. Keep working on your aconite brew. I miss it. Your owl bit me.
Remus
P.S. You would know.
After that there are no more owls.
~
And so it goes; he travels from town to town across Scotland and England and Wales, walking because there is no point in Apparating when you have nowhere in particular to go, and performing odd jobs ridding people of Dark Arts incursions. He is not happy, he is not even content, but he is surviving, and he manages it quite well, despite the fact that he has taken to spending his full moons in caves and deep forests, and twice has been nearly to the edge of a village when he wakes in the morning. He has no memory of his transformations, and can only hope he has not bitten or killed anyone. But that is the price he must pay, if he is to trust no one. As far as Remus knows, this will continue for the rest of his life, and he believes he has accepted that.
Until one day, quite to his surprise, he meets the Werewolf.
~
“You look done in.” For a moment, Remus thinks the man is going to trudge on past his campsite, but ten seconds later Remus’ words seem to register with him and he stops on the path. Slowly he turns his head to look at Remus, and his eyes catch the firelight and throw it back at him.
“Aye.” His voice is harsh and rusty.
“You’re welcome to stop and share my camp.” Remus’ speaks quietly. His senses have already told him much about this man.
“You don’t want me here, lad.”
“Why not? You and I are alike.”
The admission seems to surprise the man. He hesitates a moment longer, then turns and limps into the circle of warmth. It is April, too early really to be sleeping in the woods, but Remus gets the impression that this man has been living in the wild for a long time. He studies the man, knowing he himself is being inspected warily.
The man has drab-coloured hair that falls past his shoulders, and a patchy beard. His eyes are green, which surprises Remus; he has always imagined that his own golden-brown eyes were a product of his lycanthropy. The man’s clothes are ragged, and he is barefoot; his toes look blue, though Remus can’t tell if this is a product of the dim light, or the cold. The rest of the man’s skin is rough and red. He sniffles frequently, a quiet noise that nonetheless grates on the nerves after only a short time.
“Why would you do this, a good-looking bloke like you?”
Good-looking? Remus blinks at this, then realizes the man is speaking of his general appearance: slightly unkempt, perhaps, but no more so than most of the young men who are walking across England these days—Muggles, most of them, just out of university, and quite keen on hostels and backpacks. Remus has passed for one of them many a night these past few years.
Remus hands the man his only cup, a heavy clay one that he has charmed to keep drinks always the right temperature. “Because if we aren’t kind to each other, no one else will be,” he says finally. “It isn’t as if the wizards give a tinker’s damn about us.”
The man holds the cup under his nose for a long time, breathing in the minty scent of the tea. “That’s the truth,” he grunts. “But I can’t say as I understand why it makes you want to be nice. I avoid ‘em all, but I’ve known plenty of young blokes who go all snarly with it.”
Remus sighs. “Perhaps I’m not as young as I look.”
The man laughs at that, but it is a frightening sound, the sort of laughter that comes from bitterness and desperation, not from humour at all. “They all say that,” he wheezes. “But they’re always younger than they look, in the end.” His laughter winds to a halt. “How old do you think I am?”
“Er. Seventyish?” Remus hates trying to guess at age. He’s never right.
The man gives him a dark look. “Aye, look it, don’t I? What year is it?”
“Nineteen-ninety.”
“I’ll be fifty next year, then.”
Remus blinks, unhappy. “I’m thirty,” he replies.
“Think you can take another twenty year of this?” the man asks. “Because I’ll tell you, son, I know I can’t. One of these days…” He rubs at the back of his neck then and shrugs. “Ah, well. What you got there to eat?”
“Chicken. Paid for, not stolen.”
The man gives him a wry look. “When you’ve been out here as long as I have, you won’t worry about whether it’s stolen or not.”
When Remus asks the man’s name, he says he doesn’t really have one, but he thinks of himself as Loper. Remus wonders then if he is talking to the man, or the wolf, but he doesn’t ask. They settle down with the campfire between them, and Remus waits until the man isn’t looking, then casts a small ward to protect himself—just in case. He hasn’t liked to bring the wand out in front of the other werewolf. It would be unkind, a flaunting of what Remus has that Loper will never have.
~
The next morning, they clean up their small campsite in easy companionship, and in silent accord they both turn the same direction along the path. When Remus decides it’s time for lunch, Loper agrees casually, and by the end of the meal it is certain, though no words have been spoken, that Remus and Loper will continue on together for a time.
Loper is good company. He is good with his hands, and Remus entrusts him with the pocketknife that has spent the past ten years zipped into the pocket of Sirius’ leather jacket. Evenings, Loper carves little figures out of whatever wood he has picked up. He sells these in the villages they pass, and Remus does whatever physical labour he can find—Loper, he discovers, isn’t strong enough for much, though the man does try. They share their resources, and rarely argue, and always sleep with the fire between them. It is inherent in a werewolf’s nature, Remus thinks, to distrust everyone else. Even—or especially—another werewolf.
They spend the summer wandering northward, and when autumn comes they turn south again, stopping for a few days at a time when Remus finds a farmer who needs help with the harvest. The winter is difficult; the cold is hard on Loper’s joints. In early December Remus manages to find a position with a Muggle stationer’s in Kent. This allows them to take a room in a boarding house, and they stay for three months before Remus is turned away for poor attendance. They move on again.
In March Remus hires on with a shepherd, and Loper wheezes in amusement at the idea of a werewolf tending sheep. Remus is less amused, but that’s because Loper is ill, and Remus has come to think of the man as a friend. They have kept many details of their private lives—their past lives—to themselves, and yet they share their personalities freely, and full moons with Loper have been less frightening. Remus has the doctor in to see him, though it takes nearly all their meagre savings, and Loper recovers, but his lungs and heart are weakened, and it’s obvious Loper’s health is failing him badly.
They struggle on for another year, scraping by, barely making ends meet, but somehow always managing to hold things together. Remus has learned that Loper left his family behind once he was bitten. Somewhere in the world there are a woman and child who may still miss their man. Remus wonders if he would ever have walked away from those who loved him—and then realizes this is exactly what he has done. He feels somehow ashamed of this, and in his darker moments, his thoughts return to roost on this shame.
Loper has pneumonia again in April of 1992, and they both realize, somehow, that he isn’t going to get better.
~
“Remus, lad, I want to bid you farewell.”
Remus scowls over at him, carrying a cup of chicken brother over from the fire, where he’s been heating it. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lope. You’re going to be fine.”
“No I’m not.” Loper gives a wheezing cough that soon has him curled double and gasping for breath. “I’m tired of fighting it, and I’m tired of running.” Loper sighs. “I’m going to turn myself in for the bite I done years ago, and the Ministry’ll end it for me.”
“You—bit someone?” Remus asks, his breath quickening.
“Once. Just a little feller, he was. Course I didn’t know it at the time. Woke up with blood all over me, but I didn’t remember how it got there. Didn’t find out ‘til a few days later that a lad next village over’d been werewolf-bit.”
Remus is surprised by the rush of anger this revelation brings. Then he realizes anyone would be angry. Loper is confessing that he condemned another person to this horrible life. Remus’ heart begins to pound—if only he hadn’t been a werewolf, perhaps James and Lily would still be alive. Perhaps Sirius wouldn’t have gone over. Perhaps Snape wouldn’t have become a Death Eater… He is breathing hard as he considers the possibilities. What if…what if…
“Always thought I’d turn myself in, once I got tired of living this way. Only every time I think of letting the Ministry end it for me, I get scared, thinking about what might be waiting for me, over there. So every time, I put it off. Just another moon, I tell myself, and then I’ll do it. And then I want just one more moon after that.” The man has finished drinking the tea, but he still cradles the mug in his hands. He stares into the fire, not looking up at Remus’ face. “And last moon, I said it. Now this moon’s only a couple days away.”
Remus nods, feeling numb. Suddenly he has ceased to see his friend Loper, the person with whom he has shared so many moons. Instead he asks himself, Is this the one? Is this the werewolf who made his life the misery it has been? Is this battered, broken-down old thing the reason Remus can trust no one? His heart is filled with a dark, sick fury, a consuming desire to hurt him, to make him weep and wail for mercy. The desire frightens Remus, but he allows his thoughts to dwell on it, wondering if he would enjoy it, wondering if he could go through with it.
“Have some broth,” Remus says, and helps Loper sit up enough to drink.
~
During the night, Remus wakes, heart thumping in his chest, wondering what is wrong. A moment later he hears the snarl from the other side of the fire, and turns to look. Loper has twisted onto his side and his lips are pulled back from his teeth. His eyes are closed. As Remus looks on in morbid fascination, the man twitches, then suddenly relaxes. Some time later he curls up again, breath rattling in his lungs.
Troubled, Remus cannot get back to sleep. When morning comes, he has resolved very little, but he is sorry he has no reason to write to Severus, because suddenly he misses the horrible taste of the aconite potion, and the awkwardly gentle way Severus used to swab his wounds with specially formulated antiseptic potions, and the peppermint tea he brought later to settle Remus’ stomach.
For the first time in a long time, Remus thinks about home, and realizes he knows where it is, and knows there is no way to get there.
~
Loper dies two weeks later. Remus is working when it happens, and by the time he gets back to the room where they’ve been staying, it is too late. He calls the Muggle authorities, and they take Loper’s body, pronounce the cause of death to be pneumonia, and arrange for a pauper’s burial; Remus has no money to pay for anything better.
He is strangely numb. Learning of Loper’s sin has confused his opinion of the man greatly. Remus has spent hours wondering if Loper is the one who bit him. Now, with Loper dead, Remus finds it doesn’t matter any longer.
He has gone through his friend’s pack and found a picture of a woman and small girl. They will look much different now, of course, and Remus has no idea where to begin looking, but he will find them. Regardless of how long it may take him, he will find them. He will carry to them news of Loper’s death, and then he will write to Minerva, and he will try to discover if he can ever go home. His pride is no longer worth the price he has paid for it.
~
On to Regions of Kindness, Part Three!
