Title: Every Farthing of the Cost

Author: Abi Z.

Fandom: Harry Potter (with a little BtVS mixed in for fun)

Summary: "...From this night not a whisper, nor a thought, nor a kiss nor look be lost."

Pairing: SB/RL

Spoilers: PoA

Archive: You want it, it's yours.

Rating: PG-13

Warning: Whoop whoop! Er... better make that "schmoop schmoop." Guys
smooch. Sirius thinks naughty thoughts. Nothing offensive unless
you're a member of the Christian Right. And if you're a member of the
Christian Right, what are you doing reading about wizards, anyway?

Disclaimer: Dear Ms. Rowling, Please release Book Five, and I promise I will stop conjoining your characters in various unholy ways. At least, for a while.

Author's notes: If any of you have read my BtVS/Angel fic "Eastward" (archived here: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=548219), you may remember that we encounter Oz, post "New Moon Rising," on his way to Vermont to join a community of people who are "like him." Well, Oz is not the only werewolf wandering around in search of a home, so the premise for this story is that Remus has found his way to this place as well. (N.B.: In this story, Oz and Remus *do not* hook up. Sorry, folks, but in my world, Sirius Black is the only man for Remus Lupin.) Finally, thanks to my fabulous betas, Helena and especially Louise, who knocked down all my obstreperous Americanisms and put in all the U's where they belonged.

Contact: Praise and constructive criticism to crescentia@yahoo.com.
Flames to jesse_helms@helms.senate.gov.


Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
- W.H. Auden

He Apparates early on a Saturday morning, when the world is
still too slow and sleepy to notice a haggard man appearing out of
nowhere in the Vermont woods. It's high summer, but the mornings are
chilly this far north, and in his Muggle T-shirt (which is grey and
advertises nothing, the way he prefers them) he is cold.
It's a short walk to the gates. He's thankful for his magic
here: the blocking spells are good, and any Muggle (and indeed most
wizards) would have been fooled. But he knows the one who placed them,
and long ago he learned his way around those barriers.

The gates mark the beginning (or end, depending on your
perspective) of a dirt road, and they're guarded by two sentinels.
Despite the good blocking spells, these people are still careful. The
sentinels are a man and a woman--a boy and a girl, really--both dressed
in thick wool sweaters. The girl is tall and slender, with dark hair
tied back in a messy ponytail. The boy is about her height, and his
hair is a shocking shade of red--not Weasley red, this colour is not
found on any human chromosome. His nails are painted dark purple.
Sirius knows he has startled both of them: scents generally
don't just appear out of nowhere, and if he'd walked here instead of
Apparating five hundred meters away, they would have been able to smell
him ages ago. He approaches slowly and comes to a stop about three
meters from the entrance. He isn't going to tread immediately on their
territory.

"What do you want?" the girl asks. She's not glaring yet, but she's wary.

"I'm looking for Remus Lupin."

The hackles go up then, both the girl's and the boy's. With his own Animagus senses, Sirius can tell that they're protective not only of their territory, but also of Remus himself. He's glad Remus has found a place like this.

"Who are you?" the boy asks.

"He'll know me as Padfoot."

The boy's guard starts to fall, but the girl doesn't move yet. Sirius recognises that instinct from Harry's friend Hermione, and from what he remembers of the girl who became Molly Weasley. "Prove it," the girl says.

"I'm Padfoot," he tells her, "here to see Moony. I would have brought my godson with me, but he's in Little Whinging with those bloody Muggles. Remus will have had letters from me, probably delivered by some sort of flashy tropical bird."

The girl relaxes a bit. "Who is Albus Dumbledore?" she asks.

"A bloke with a non-linear nose who happens to be the greatest wizard that ever lived."

"And Severus Snape?"

"A wanker."

Both boy and girl grin. "Sirius Black," the girl says. "It's
about time. About bloody time," she corrects herself. She puts her
hand out and Sirius shakes it. "Alejandra Villar," she says.

"Sirius Black," he says, though of course she already knows it.
It feels good to give his real name, finally.

"I'll stay here," Alejandra says to the boy. "You take him up. You know where Remus might be?"

"Probably the kitchens."

Alejandra rolls her eyes. "No doubt reading some mile-long book in a language no one knows and acting like he's not stealing food."

"Don't forget the tea," the boy adds.

"Right. And drinking weird tea. Which is delivered by owl."

"Milkgrass tea," Sirius says. "He's the only person I know who can stomach the stuff."

"You've heard of it?" the boy asks.

"He's drunk it for as long as I've known him. When we were in school he used to stay up all hours reading mile-long books in languages no one else knows and drinking mug after mug of milkgrass tea."

The boy shakes his head, smiling. "Guess he hasn't changed
much. Oh, I'm Oz. I live by Remus." He kisses Alejandra quickly and
there's a brief flood of warmth between them. Oz starts up the gravel
road, and Sirius, the bag on his back growing heavy, follows him.

The road winds for at least a mile, mostly uphill. Sirius
wonders if the land was chosen deliberately, with the incline as one
more deterrent for outsiders. Oz is friendly but not overly chatty,
which is fine with Sirius, as he's winded after the first five minutes.

At the end of the road lies a small village. Sirius sees what looks like a barn and silo, some equipment sheds, and a large, one-story rectangular building with windows on every side. "Farm buildings are, obviously, farm buildings," Oz says. "Big blocky thing is where we eat, have meetings, that kind of thing." A stream runs behind the buildings, and Oz points to the footbridge that spans it. "Houses that way. But I bet Remus is already in the kitchen."

Sirius shrugs his rucksack off and sets it on the veranda, and
Oz pokes his head inside. "Someone here to see you, Remus. Can you
can tear yourself away from _Everything You Always Wanted to Know about
the Dark Arts But Were Afraid to Ask_?"

The voice is how Sirius remembers it, even and with a hint of quiet humour. "If it's Quinn, his berries can wait until after I've finished my breakfast."

Oz walks in and so does Sirius. Remus glances around for something to mark his book. "Quinn, your berries are not going to die--" he opts to mark his place with a fork, and glances up to keep talking. "--if I eat breakfast first-- Sirius!"

He's out of his chair instantly. Oz wanders into the kitchen, no doubt intent on stealing some food himself. There's a long pause, silent but for the clinking of dishes in the back, and then Remus's arms encircle Sirius.

Remus feels more solid than Sirius remembers, more muscular
certainly, but also plain old better-fed. He's still thin, but his
weeks with these people have done him some good. He holds Sirius with
arms stronger than the ones he had that terrible night at Hogwarts.
When they finally pull back from each other, Sirius can see
that Remus's face looks fuller, younger, less drawn. Someone has cut
his hair. It falls across his forehead but not, probably for the first
time ever, into Remus's eyes. Sirius remembers finding Remus's first
grey hair when they were in their seventh year at Hogwarts. There's a
lot more grey now, mostly around his temples and across his fringe.
But his eyes are the same, the colour of the sea under cloudy skies.

"You look good," Sirius says.

"You look... better," Remus replies. Delicate fingers brush
Sirius's hair back from his face and trace his hairline and jaw.
Sirius tries not to shiver at those careful hands, much too fragile to
be rent into claws each month. "But you still look like a man in need
of some good food and good company."

"That about sums it up." He wants to touch Remus, but Remus's
gentle hands have him frozen into place.

"You're in luck, then. Breakfast is in ten minutes and you
can have both. Gabby's scones are superb. Better even than Hogwarts,
I'd wager." Remus smiles at him, and his hands stop their exploration,
but Remus doesn't remove them. "It's good to see you," he says simply.

"It's good to see you, too."

There is a pause.

"After breakfast," Remus says, "I'll get off work, and you can
tell me where you've been for the past month."

"I'd like that," says Sirius.

Two young children, a blond boy (who looks oddly like Draco
Malfoy might, if Draco would stop sneering for five seconds) and a
dark-skinned black girl, both about seven, careen through the front
door and into the dining room. They see Remus and Sirius and giggle,
but Sirius gets the impression that it's more because Remus is being
soppy than because Remus is being soppy with a man. The girl marches
forward and the boy hangs back. She announces to Sirius, "Hi! I'm
Claire!" then reaches back and yanks the boy forward. "This is my
kind-of brother Jake. Who are you?"

Sirius doesn't even try to puzzle out how these two could
possibly be related, and instead he introduces himself. The girl
shakes his hand; the boy waves from behind her.

"Claire, is your mother coming to breakfast?" Remus asks. "I
need to convince her to let me off work today."

Claire rolls her eyes. "Good luck."

Oz meanders out of the kitchen carrying a stack of plastic containers packed with food. "Violet let someone off work? That'll be the day."

"Y'all talkin' about me?" says what must be a deceptively sweet
voice in an accent Sirius can't quite place. It's not British, but
it's not American, either. It takes him several minutes to place it as
belonging to the Southern United States, which is somehow an amalgam of
the two. The woman, obviously Claire's mother, is tall and pretty,
hair spiralling from her head in innumerable tiny plaits. Jake bolts
to her, but Claire is more interested in causing trouble. She nods at
Remus. "He wants to skip work!"

"I heard, baby." The woman's eyes, Sirius realises with a start, match her name: they are not blue but something like indigo, and under her dark skin and hair they are as startling as a hidden moon suddenly emerged from behind a cloud. It's rude to stare, particularly at a woman he doesn't know, but it's equally difficult not to. Violet strokes the shy Jake's hair and looks at Remus. She's not outwardly smiling, but her eyes are gentle. "I reckon we can work out a deal," she says, then turns to Sirius. "You must be Remus's friend from school. I'm Violet Albertson."

"Sirius Black."

If she's noting the fact that he looks like a tramp, she isn't
saying anything. "Welcome to Cashay Farm, Sirius." She looks up at
Remus, although she is tall enough not to have far to look. "I was
going to bake bread this afternoon, but I'd rather be outside with the
carrots and tomatoes since it's such a nice day."

"You'd give up bread duty for garden work?" Remus says.

This time Violet smiles, focusing back on Sirius. "I hear you're also a wizard, Mr. Black. You know anything about blocking spells?"

"He designed most of the ones we've got," Remus tells her.

"So bread duty today and Monday, and two wizards on spell duty," Violet says. "Deal?"

She and Remus shake on it.


Oz disappears back to the gate with breakfast for himself and
Alejandra, and Sirius finds himself at a table with Remus, Violet,
Violet's husband Ty, Claire, Jake, and two women both about fifty years
of age. There are jugs of water on the table, as well as orange juice
and milk and two pots of tea. Saturday breakfast is muffins (which
are, true to Remus's word, possibly better than at Hogwarts), bacon,
blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and porridge. After being in
the tropics, fresh fruit no longer seems the miracle it once did--but
after being in Azkaban, any food tastes miraculously good. And he
hasn't had blackberries in years. They've made the porridge with
raisins and brown sugar, and Sirius eats three bowls of the stuff, as
well as berries and tea and bacon.

He's been alone for so long that the lightning pace of
conversation is too much for him to participate in. He's been free for
some months, of course, but he's been on the run, and often in dog form
to avoid being recognised. Sirius settles for listening, laughing when
Violet teases Remus (which she does often, and with affection), and
watching when Jake gathers his breath and leans forward to venture a
sentence. He watches the preternaturally quick Claire; he listens as
Violet and the two women discuss the clothing and food budgets, and the
school curriculum. He wonders if Remus will teach. Sirius gets the
idea that he might be sitting in the nerve centre--and possibly the
heart--of this place, and he feels a burst of gladness that these
people are here to care about Remus as much as they do.

The washing up has already been delegated to other people, and the kitchen clears out quickly after the meal. Only Sirius and Remus are left, along with three teenage girls who are apparently in charge of lunch. They giggle and say hello and then depart to the other side of the kitchen where they giggle some more. "As unbelievable as it may seem," Remus says in an undertone, "they're three of the best cooks here."

Remus is wearing some sort of bizarre Muggle trousers with numerous pockets up and down the legs, and he produces his wand from one of them. His Muggle clothes, Sirius notes, are as frayed as his wizarding robes always were. He starts to Summon ingredients from the various pantries and cabinets while Sirius stands and stares as if under a stupefaction spell. Milk, shortening, butter, sugar, salt, yeast, flour, and maple syrup (maple syrup?) all appear on the counter. "Cool, he's making things fly!" one of the girls exclaims. But apparently it's a sight they've seen often enough, because the discussion turns back to the local teenage boys. It's all so strange and unexpected and wholesome--that's it, wholesome--that Sirius starts to laugh uncontrollably and can't stop. It's all too much, the openness and the strange community and the sheer number of people in one small place.

"Padfoot," Remus says softly. Sirius thinks that he would sell his soul to hear his nickname again in that mild voice. He feels Remus's hands again, gentle on his face and hair. "Padfoot." There it is. "It's alright."

Sirius breathes. The girls are clanking dishes and gossiping
and arguing over ingredients. One insists on tarragon in the pasta
sauce; another thinks this is disgusting. Another likes her sauce with
lots of cheese. "But what about the vegans?" "Fuck the vegans!"

"This is such a strange place," Sirius says, wondering what a vegan is.

Remus smiles. "All the places you've been, and this is the strangest?"

"Everyone is so- wholesome! And friendly! And they're all werewolves!"

Remus shakes his head. "No, actually." He pauses. "Cashay is a friendly place. I suppose it's because everyone knows what happens to shapeshifters in the outside world, and it's important to everyone to create a haven."

"Are these people Animagi?"

"No. You're the only true Animagus on the property right now. Everyone here is some kind of were-beast, shifting at the full moon, although not everyone is a wolf."

"So these people are wizards?"

"No. I am, obviously. So is Violet. Claire too. Most are Muggles who were born into the wrong family, or who were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Did Violet go to wizarding school?"

"No. She was thrown out of the Roman Catholic Church." At
Sirius's look of mild puzzlement, Remus's mouth quirks. "Since I
happen to know that you only got through Muggle Studies with my better
efforts, I'll tell you that the Catholics, among others, used to like
to burn witches, or try to. Anyway, Violet was trained by Wiccans.
They're a group that tends to be about half-Muggle and half-wizard.
They use earth-based magic from the Celtic traditions. Violet's the
reason Cashay has more fertile fields than any other farm in Vermont,
but I'm just starting to teach her the wards and Transfiguration."

"What's going to happen to Claire?"

"I'm going to try to talk Violet into sending her to one of the
American wizarding schools, once she's old enough." Remus pauses.
"This place is a lot to take in. I understand."

Sirius glances down at the bread ingredients. "And you're just
going to make that the Muggle way?"

"Well, not entirely. Watch."

Sirius has never made bread, so he looks on with fascination as
Remus commands the ingredients to pour, the utensils to stir, and the
oven to heat. When it has all been conglomerated into one large bowl,
Remus says, "And now we knead it."

"We need what?"

"We knead. The bread. With our hands. We do this part the Muggle way."

"Oh. Why?"

Remus shrugs. "Because the magical way isn't any faster, and because there's something meditative about kneading bread. Oz taught me how to do this."

Despite the obvious affection between Oz and the black-haired girl, Sirius wonders if Remus and the brazen-nailed boy are lovers as well. "He did?"

"The second day I was here." Remus smiles one of his small
smiles. "I showed up in their fireplace looking like hell. Didn't
want to talk to anyone. Oz adopted me. He said I reminded him of
someone he knew from home. He was on bread duty, and we kneaded half
the day. In the end there was enough bread to feed everyone for two
weeks." A pause. "Don't be an idiot, Sirius. He's a good decade and
a half younger than I am, and mad about Alejandra." Remus turns around
and puts a bit of white greasy stuff--shortening--on his fingers, then
coats his hands with flour. His next sentence is spoken at the level
of breath, and Sirius almost doesn't hear it.

"And he doesn't smell like you."


Tarragon Girl wins the battle of the sauce, and it's surprisingly good: the tarragon is fresh, grown in the garden behind the kitchens. There's plenty of bread for today and tomorrow, which means that Remus can knock off the rest of the afternoon. During the course of the bread-baking, they've managed to get flour all over themselves, so after lunch they jointly retire to Remus's rooms to change their shirts. Sirius shoulders his bag again and dumps it on Remus's floor when they arrive.

Remus lives in a small one-room cabin that sits in a row of several. Housing, he explains, is allotted by family size, so naturally single people have the smallest. He doesn't have much in his cabin yet: the hardwood floors are bare, as are the walls. But there are books on the shelves, and Sirius takes this to mean that Remus intends to stay for a while. The biggest shock of all, though, sits on the desk, in the form of two framed pictures. There are three frames in all; the first shows Remus's parents, both as slight as their son, waving happily as the sea crashes behind them onto a shore somewhere. The other two pictures Sirius recognises from Hogwarts. The first is himself, James, Remus, and Lily, laughing on the last day of their seventh year. He wonders why Peter isn't in the picture; perhaps Peter had taken it. And then there is one of just Remus and himself in the Gryffindor common room, sleepy and content on one of the sofas, propped up on pillows, Sirius's arms around Remus. The eighteen year-olds in the picture fall asleep occasionally, or sometimes picture-Sirius will kiss the hair or ears of picture-Remus. Their smiles, though, remain constant. He tries to remember when it was taken, and can't. Sometime
in the seventh year, and it would have to have been when the common room was nearly empty, because Remus would not have consented to that level of demonstrativeness around anyone but close friends. Lily must have taken it; God knows James wouldn't have let them get away with a soppy display like that, and Peter would have felt too uncomfortable.

"You remember that picture," Sirius hears Remus say from behind him.

"You had it on your desk at our flat."

"It's the only picture I had of just us."

Just us. Sirius shivers. "So you never threw it out, then?"

He hears Remus's indrawn breath. "I... I couldn't. I put it away. But I needed to see your face sometimes." Another breath. "Here, let me find you another shirt to wear." And the warmth behind him is gone. Sirius hears the opening of a drawer, and rustling on the other side of the room.

A black shirt lands gracefully on his shoulder. Sirius picks it up. "'Dingoes Ate My Baby'?"

Remus smiles. "Must be one of Oz's. He and Alejandra sneak clothes into my laundry because I have so little. But I cannot account for their tastes." He proffers the shirt he's holding. "We can swap. This one is plain."

Years ago, Sirius would have kept the labelled one, but
suddenly he feels every minute of his age. He accepts the swap. With
his hair short, wearing the silly shirt, Remus looks about ten years
younger than he has any right to look.

They walk outside and downstream for a while, wandering away
from the buildings but still well within the bounds of the blocking
spells. Sirius doesn't sense the end of their boundaries anywhere
nearby; this property must go on for a while. They follow the stream
for a mile or so until the woods clear, and the water forms a cool,
clear pool. Remus picks up several flat rocks. "Violet keeps trying
to teach me to skip stones, but I can't get the hang of it."

"What's the story with Claire and Jake? Did they adopt him?"

"In a manner of speaking. Did he happen to remind you of anyone?"

"Lucius Malfoy's son, actually, now that you mention it."

"Right. Draco looks like his mother, Narcissa. And Narcissa Malfoy is Jake's mother's sister."

"You're joking."

"I wish I could joke someone out of that family."

"So what is Jake doing here?"

"You'll remember how anti-Muggle those people are."

"Of course."

"Gracie--the sister--had the misfortune to fall in love with one."

"Oh no."

"Yes. They disowned her--though I get the idea she was happy to leave. Jake's father was American--another strike against him in the family's eyes---and he and Gracie moved to the States. They settled in Boston and had Jake, who met Claire at primary school. Gracie and Violet got to be friends." A pause. "Jake and his parents were attacked by were-leopards. The parents were killed, and Jake was turned. He was five."

"Good God."

"He shows no magical abilities, and even if he did, the Malfoys still wouldn't have anything to do with him. But luckily he had Violet, Ty, and Claire. Violet's a wolf; it runs on both sides of her family."

"Claire too?"

A nod.

"What about Ty?"

"No. Just happened to marry into a family of them. They moved here straight away after Jak's parents died, to help him learn to live with it."

"It's no wonder he's so shy." Sirius shakes his head. "Malfoys. What rotten human beings."

Remus doesn't reply. He aims a stone at the water and casts it
out with a flick of wrist and elbow. It skims the surface three times,
then drops with an almost imperceptible splash.


The sun starts to dip down on the horizon, and dinner will be
calling soon. Sirius's stomach has had two excellent meals today, and
is eager for another. In the meantime, Sirius has figured out the art
of stone-skipping; he has also spent a judicious period of time lying
prone in the sunlight, wondering if he is so pale that he does,
actually, reflect. He lifts his head. "Isn't it almost time to eat?"

Remus laughs. It's the first time Sirius has heard this particular sound in years, and in this instant he remembers how much he has missed it. A laugh from Remus was precious when they were young, and how Sirius had loved to be the catalyst for it. Later, it had seemed impossible that he would ever hear it or any laughter again. Remus says, "That's how I know Voldemort hasn't taken over your body. No one else in the world could possibly be as obsessed with food as you are."

"James Potter," Sirius says.

They both taste the name on the air. It's the first time
they've spoken it to each other outside the context of the murders, and
instead simply as one friend remembering another.

"But he was never quite as willing to defy rules over it,"
Remus says. "Let me rephrase that. Prongs liked his mischief
well-planned, whereas you were willing to fling caution entirely out
the window if it involved food."

Remus holds out his hand, and Sirius pulls himself to
a standing position. They wind their way back up the path.

"Are we in any sort of condition to present ourselves at
dinner?" Sirius asks when they're closer to the dining hall.

"We're fine. The field crew will have just come in, so we'll
be sparkling clean by comparison."

They sit at the same table as at lunch, and there's tea, water,
milk for the kids, wine for the grown-ups, broccoli, carrots, a
risotto, and of course their bread. Violet pours milk for Claire and
Jake, and Oz pours wine for everyone else. Sirius hasn't had wine for
a good thirteen years, and he has no idea what it will do to him now.
He imagines that the intervening years--and poor nutrition--have
probably altered his body chemistry and once-legendary alcohol
tolerance. He sniffs hesitantly at the glass Oz pours.

Oz mistakes the hesitancy for a discrimination of taste. "It's good. Merlot."

"We trade for it with a vintner in New York state," Alejandra
adds. "Organic berries, cheese, and herbs for organic wine."

"It isn't that," Sirius says. "It's just been a while. I seem
to have forgotten what it tastes like." He takes a sip, and finds that
merlot is as good as he remembers.

Violet passes the risotto and Remus starts the vegetables.
Alejandra cuts slices of bread and passes that, too. Sirius remembers
that it's good manners to wait until everyone has been served, or
perhaps this is so ingrained that it's instinct by now. At such time
as it's polite, he tastes the risotto, which is rich with spinach,
mushrooms, and cheese. The carrots, he discovers, have been cooked
with a ginger sauce, and the broccoli doused healthfully with lemon
juice. The bread, too, is delicious with butter and honey. Sirius
closes his eyes while he eats.

He opens his eyes to serve himself some more carrots, and sees Alejandra poke Oz. "I'm cutting your hair tonight. You're starting to look like Don King."

"Mind cutting Jakie's, too?" Violet asks.

Jake's hands fly to his head. "How short?"

"Just a trim, baby," Violet assures him.

Alejandra smiles. "So that everyone can see how handsome you are."

Jake looks at his plate and blushes, but he smiles, too.

Sirius hasn't bothered with his hair yet: cutting it himself would no doubt leave him looking like a Muggle doll after an attack of the hairdresser game, and he's been Padfoot so much anyway that it hasn't mattered. Half-consciously, he reaches up to finger the strands that fall around his shoulders. He grew it long in his late teens, partly because it was fashionable and partly because Remus liked putting his hands in it. But it's been unkempt and stringy and perpetually in his eyes for the past thirteen years, and Sirius can't wait to rid himself of it.

He feels Alejandra smiling at him. "Do you want to risk it?" she asks.

"Here we go, she's found another victim," Oz says.

Sirius finds it almost easy to smile back. "I'll take the risk. In the worst case, I'll just shave it entirely." He feels Remus shudder beside him, and a small thrill runs through him to see that the threat is still effective after all these years. "Or maybe I'll mohawk it," Sirius improvises.

"Perhaps in blue?" Alejandra suggests. "To match your eyes?"

Remus snorts. The threat works, but it is, after all, merely a threat. Sirius notices that Remus is smiling a bit. He goes back to his carrots.

[continued in part two]