Remus Lupin set his suitcase down. He took several semi-effort steps back. The transport that had brought him to this place scrunching gravel as it rolled away over the bumps of sullen grass. The grinding engine faded into the distance. He was alone to observe the camp several fences away from the one which he was stood in front of.
This was not a place he felt it was safe for him to take part in this weight of a task he had been trusted with. At the grand age of 25 he was not quite sure that he had quite removed the half-breed look about him. It unfortunately stuck out like a sore thumb. Nazi Germany had quite the stereotypes to be getting on with, though. He was not disabled in any way. At least, not in their eyes and the only crime he committed on a day-to-day basis was reading an inhuman amount of books. Fittingly, as he was not quite fully-human as they would see him. He was hoping they would look past his obvious weakened mannerisms and write him off as reasonable build. Introverted, just about blonde enough...
He could not quite get the view of the camp as he wanted to. Nor did he think it needed the added humiliation of his prying eye. He had not been properly briefed by the ministry what type of role to take. Much as he saw it; it seemed to involve improvisation. Not a skill he was particularly gifted with,. Oh but he could conceal secrets as soon as he gained a secret best wisely kept. That, after all, was what saw him through schooling.
He took the opportunity for a breather to construct a simple but achievable story. Rolling the pads of flesh directly underneath his thumbs palm side-up together he breathed coldly against his hands as he vouched for the attention of a soldier not too far off. He waited solemnly but he supposed for a Nazi, it was rather pleasant. His smile paled as he thought of the horrors that lay beyond the gates.
Remus was not used to unpacking quite so quickly. He'd gotten in quite alright, but he felt that he was just asking for an interrogation all gunged up with a blocked nose and wary hands. He was a target if he'd ever seen one. His left had rested on the top of his thigh quite absently as he had identified himself and he was now quite alone. Asking for it, but alone. He unturned his socks from the balls he had neatly folded them in. The walls were barren and the bed quite wooden. He had a nice little lamp and he felt ashamed for the adjective to even cross his mind.
For all he knew it could have belonged to a man or woman packed into the camp not very far from him. It seemed like they would recycle in that way. He imagined her name to be Margerie. Perhaps a widow, a squib but a very happy one. She got by. He imagined that she might have been the sort that strutted through Diagon Alley without a care, or an inch of magic in the world. Margerie, he thought, had not been hurting anyone. He imagined that she might have children. Older, he did not know if he hoped for or not. Yes, they would be fighting the good war away from dismal end, but loneliness was often a fate worse. He knew that himself.
He took to the corridor in cautious, guided steps. The landing was dark and yellowing concrete flushed the construction but still he did not have a window to view what was beyond. It was silent, but with his sort of hearing it was not difficult for him to listen further and to what was really there. Steps and turns and reloads of rifles jolted by a soldier outside. Given a gun but until used it was a play-thing that makes noises. Remus knew that he would be cleverer to swap his cardigan for a uniform. One he certainly would wash himself for the rest of his life for fitting his skin.
He stepped carefully down the stairs. The world around him began to feel like it was activated and there was more movement to observe mainly from the kitchens. Car doors being shut, and soft simmering that made his ears bleed because he could not hear beyond it like a curtain had been drawn and he did not know where to find it.
He sat on a bench in the hallway, his legs lightly open as if they were somehow defying the order of the place. He liked order in his life as any other man. Maybe more than most he was particularly attuned to uptight genes but for the first time he wanted them to dishevel. His personality was no sin but it made him feel ill to witness so much of it in the same radius when there were people's modesty being torn apart down the slopes of hill behind him.
He made his structure assurative as a cook walked past into the door beside him. He wondered if it was painfully obvious; his intentions. To those designed to be less looking for it as the men in power being able to sense it, smelled it on him. It was possible. For someone who had spent his lifehood being quiet and vivid in mind so he didn't look quite so vacant he felt loud.
Maybe it was because he had nothing to read. But he had abandoned fiction before entering and it was clear he would not visit an alternate universe for quite some time however long he would bound himself to the walls. He itched his nose. He had to admit that had been a bit of a worry before arrival. Whether it was too big. Rather, whether that was on the list of many things that they ticked off as inferior. Little did they know it was not quite credible as they would have themselves think. Severus Snape has quite the nose and was considered quite highly. At least, by his own standards and, he supposed, no one would dare tell him even Remus although he had acquired the infinity of entertaining the thought. He stood, trying to be stoic as what he assumed to be the commanding officer judging by patch and badges approached.
Moustached and grim he spoke as if every vowel were an order. "Journal-i-s-t?"he barked, the last three letters rising like he was addressing his men.
"Yes." Remus stated. "Propaganda as assigned byGoebbels himself. I have the documents here with me."
"And your duty here?
"Mainly keeping a keen eye on your men and their high performance."
The officer watched Remus steadily, his face screwing like a straining closed fist. "No negative comments may leave this establishment or you'll find a hand-held on your back on your way out and you won't make it out with your crummy little dirt on us. We don't have time to step carefully around the fuhrer and his crafted image. He has been quite adament with us from the beginning that we do what we do to get the jobs done and for a smooth execution."
Remus felt ill but did not let it show. It was the standard for him to never look as if he was not up to speed with full health and like he needs a good two-week rest because he always needed one. "I understand the conditions. I am only here with an upholding patriarchal objective to Hitler, and to our land and ever-growing empire."
The officer gave a slight nod. His lip curdled and leaned his head to the side gravely. "Uniform." he ordered with a grumble. "Days last between 6 and 12. You are not permitted to go off on your own accord after this allotted time. If it's inside the camp you want I will all be glad to accompany you myself. No one but me, you understand?"
Remus kept eye contact, looking old and tired and harmless. "I do. Where might I find this uniform?"
Remus had retreated to his room after that. It was quite enough ordeal for one day and he preferred to keep out of sight and out of mind. He had not eaten as much as for his sake as being aware that the more that was left over, the more there would be to feed the children that worked manual labour on the house. He had learned to subdue his appetite and he had some chocolate knocking around for desperate measures if he so needed it.
The bed was not comfortable but the sounds and the knowledge of where he stayed were less so. He very much desired a nice warm fire right now. Not only for the warmth, but for the straight, clean-cut uniform to be set light to that hanged on a metal hanger a metre away.
He wished it was not a requirement but accepted that it was nothing more than clothes to clothe the body. They did not know the mind which it would be disguising. Using the basin he had rediscovered the noticability and the skin-deep appearance of the scar that bridged his appearance. Maybe it would be received as a battle wound. It could be passed off as it. They weren't to know, and he was going to engage with as few of them as he could except from the bare essentials where he would have to submit himself to it.
Communication from the ministry and Dumbledore was going to be few and far-between. He was cut-off from the owling network but he supposed he could pop a envelope or two into the post every month. He'd prefer them to be at length but any massive updates he had been advised to neglect and store away in the bound books with parchment pages that filled half this suitcase. He could very well see it turning into a diary which felt senseless when there were people who were in dire need of putting experience to paper out there first-hand. He was not one of them.
He left his room in the early hours of the morning. The absence of conversation hadn't gone unnoticed and he rather missed James mincing around with egg in his hair and Lily holding him still to get it out while he watched over a newspaper. He was wearing the uniform. So far it had not reduced any jeopardisation of self-identity or a desire to rip it off just yet.
He had been told six am was the earliest he could be up and about and it being his first day it didn't do to ignore the rules too fast too soon before he had even begun however wandering silently about at five fifty five gave him certain shivers of pleasure and good spirits to last him into the ordeal. Book and pen in pocket he pushed open the wooden doors to the front that lead round into the back garden. He was stunned to see light green grass and patios and the chirp of birds. He'd expected grey skies. He opened the side door and entered the back garden. Save a few scuff-marks and trampled flowers and foot-prints and stench of moulding vegetables in the bin there was nothing extraordinary about the scene if not for context and it disturbed him within.
It was not much different to the Weasley's set-up. He didn't approve of the comparison but his mind had taken him there without thought.. He made a mental note to sit down with Arthur and Molly and apologise profusely. Dandelion seeds swept by the breeze floated over the hedges and he could see a hint of black smoke hurtling up like a beanstalk from an obscure muggle fairytale.
His throat swelled and he felt dizzy using the gate to hold himself up. He had been victim to much stigma and prejudice but it felt unfair in his mind that his had not ended with him inside barbed fence. He moved one foot in front of the other as if paralysed from the waist upwards and he was just learning how to walk for the first time. His hand wobbled near his ribcage where he felt wounded.
He kept walking through. He brushed the shrubs with German-manufactured boots stopping to dirty them as half-frenzied attempt for justice to be served and entering the field that lay beyond narrowly avoiding nettles and now gradually poorly-kept grass grounded down. No bit seemed as if it had not been stood on and scraped clean of life and growth. His eyes were bright and despairing as he looked forward over at the dull mechanical camp that nazley puffed out streams of ash and smoke.
Remus dropped to his knees making sure he was out of sight. His bones hung to his heart as he came tumbling down. He wanted the ash to cover his face. He wanted to inhale the fumes and to feel how it felt to breath it in such amounts that it would make his heart shudder. He shakily set up protection spells pushing himself to stand and weaved them, disorientated as he walked. He removed all motion and it laid as straight as his leg as he moved ever closer to the camp. Remus knew all that went on despite the lack of written word on such things. Word of mouth, and the emptiness of hate he was familiar with mere moments after he had been stripped away by Greyback. He knew it all by his very own experiences and how such things could be amplified at grand scale.
He saw people of all sorts. Confined for being the same, but so marginally diverse. He felt that it was incredulous how a man bent, crooked, marvellous green-eyes..a woman permed hair, freckles, a little girl missing her front two teeth and one shoulder slightly shorter than the other if you had the means to look hard enough could all be condemned when their beauty had no bounds.
Most, the lucky some it seemed, were dressed in blue and white costumes. The word costume entered his mind because they did not accommodate the shape of any of them. He owned pyjamas like that that his mother had given him and a nostalgic theme of nightwear he continued to buy to this day when he had all worn them out. He was ill that in a drawer in his flat they were and how it was a mocking normality a choice was to put them on. He numbly acknowledged the clangs and cries of a world that was not dignified and does not have a conscience or half perceptive brain to rub together.
Remus unearthing from the mental chants of his mind had seemed to lock eyes with a boy on the other side. Young, unruly, eyes. That looked as if they'd cause quite the trouble back at home where he came from. The boy had noticed him looking and he was making quite a spectacle of it too, not being subtle at all to where he was. His expression darkened and Remus gained the rising suspicion that this black haired child was sussing and interrogating him. Of all things. He scolded his indecent imagination. He did not look as afraid as the other children, and that is what fascinated Remus the most. Now he didn't believe the fear wasn't there. But he hoped that it was buried enough so that at least it would be one out of the few children in the same situation that made him hopeful until the end. The end, he pondered, the end he couldn't bear to think about.
The boy was still looking at him and was inching closer conspicuously and innocently walking in loops. He sneezed and shrugged and wiped it on his trousers and Remus watched on tirelessly, pitilessly open-mouthed at the force of nature that was ever closer. The boy stood next to the barbed wire. Remus suddenly feel himself tense. If anybody would grab onto it, it would be that boy. Slightly feminine in posture and rough around the edges. Remus looked to where the boy was now staring with clenched teeth and it was two women Remus supposed to be family who were currently being beaten down for refusing to push wheelbarrows containing something Remus had rather he had not been subject to seeing in between rags and stones.
The boy had a demour similar to James and Remus found comfort in the characteristics he exhibited. Remus couldn't tell what age he was and for some reason that would haunt and hound him late at night is why when he looked at him he knew internally they were meant to be the same age almost as if he had stopped at eleven but should be at Remus' own point of life. The boy was oblivious to Remus' apparent unwinding of mentality stared on. His eyes were hard and remarkably unforgiving for someone so young but for some reason Remus knew without doubt there was concrete reason even in these circumstances. "Your wand. Pretty good model." Remus was so taken aback by the voice that he straightened. "Wand...?" he spoke. "Whatever could you...oh. I see. I..I wasn't expecting that."
A warm, mildly arrogant laugh which Remus could feel was watered down followed. "Mine's slightly longer. More lightweight." Remus, confused and struck that these words were that of an eleven year old pulled a reply out of thin air. "And you have this wand on your person?"
The boy nodded, not entirely obligated to the conversation. Remus took this time to take note if he had injuries but all that he seemed to find were either self-inflicted or healed but of course he had no idea if they differed under his shirt. He wondered quite worriedly how the old wounds had come about. Although they were old, they were not ancient. It frustrated him that this boy's horror hadn't started with the war. Remus attempted to think of the next route for the conversation. "I'd keep it very concealed. And I trust you are familiar with how you may use it to escape?"The boy looked offended and just scoffed. Remus tried again. "Very well then. Good..." he felt blood rush to his fingers again. "Good." It was good. However his nerves could not take that he still remained on the wrong side.
The boy looked at him curiously in that moment and he moved his hand like flicking away a cigarette. Remus blinked. Had he imagined it? The boy continued to look and a light seemed to turn on in his irises and his smile quirked slightly. He looked mysteriously smug as he leaned in. "All good marauders have a plan." Remus almost spluttered.
The coincidence he couldn't take in all at once. Remus chose his next words soundlessly. His voice came out like a croak. He felt the compulsion to rest his hand on the boy's shoulder but he was restricted from the luxury. "I've heard that marauders never not have a good plan. I've met many myself."
and he was gone.
Remus felt the loss like someone had reached for him and squeezed his heart into dust into as many grains as the ash that he breathed into his lungs. He felt the warmth where the boy had been but the rest of him felt like it was being plunged into ice cold water and tears that knew more than he did trickled with it.
That night it was good to be rid of the uniform and return to modest cotton again. It felt weightless and like he was being held in some other's arms than his own. He had spent so long down at the outskirts of the camp that he had forgotten he had been wearing it at all. It bothered him to know this now and to have been so oblivious at the time. The boy who he still did not know the name of had seen him in it. He wondered if the good and kind adult impression he had thought he had given off was modified by the contradicting enemy image he wore. Surely the child would not have come to him if he suspected that Remus was a soldier. He was far more intelligent. Remus' face certainly gave away any doubt the boy would yet have had and his painfully English responses were more than enough. Remus hoped if that being the case he would have put on a very good show and entertainment to him in the face of what he was going through.
Remus stood shakily to wash his face in the basin from where he had muddied himself and seemingly been in so much stress his nails had pierced his skin. He was glad that he could take away some harm he felt he should be at the forefront of in the camp even if it was not done to him. It would take some explaining if anyone questioned him on it but he was relying on that issue not to press him. Since his arrival back into his room he had filled endless pages with the days worth of his discoveries. At the rate he was going he expected it could not be long until he used it all up but for now he relished the opportunity to use his emotions for purpose. It was one, if not the only thing he was good for.
Remus slept like he was in the hospital wing on a full moon. The boy wandered around his mind and how distinctly he seemed to know him into the early hours of the morning. He didn't know what his name was but somehow he knows it rolls off the tongue. He didn't know his favourite things to do but he knew the earth moved and quivered beneath him. There was much that Remus knew. It was a sinking notion that it was probable he would never discover whether he was right or wrong, or why he even had a right to. He did not know him. He did not deserve to but he felt that they were part of the same cage. It was then, a full demonstration of the madness within, that he decided to not only save him but to save every person in that camp. He knew that when he decided to, this that is all he ever had in mind.