This story will be published serially, one chapter at a time. Completed, it will run for 4-6 chapters.
Chapter One: a Ghost, a Grown-Up and a Greeting
Professor R. J. Lupin stood in the patchy robes worn grey from countless launderings, holding his wand up to a single piece of parchment. Bluish light danced off the rutted stone corridor. His head was crooked to the side slightly, as if to question the parchment, though it was completely blank. In the shadows, a cat's tail flicked by and disappeared as quickly. Only the professor's eyes moved up and down the paper, reading the greasy thumb print in one corner, the worn folding marks dividing the page into eighths. Not a sound interrupted his reverie.
"Everything all right, Professor?" asked a kindly voice emerging from the solid, stone wall.
"Yes, thank you, Friar," replied the professor politely. Though he had not lifted his eyes from the parchment, his demeanor evinced no surprise at the ghost's unheralded appearance.
"The headmaster has sent his regards. He's asked me to let you know that a fresh box of cinnamon rolls has found its way to the staff room." The Fat Friar smiled wistfully. "How I do miss the creature comforts..." he murmured as he drifted on through a mouldy tapestry.
Professor Lupin remained silent. He touched the middle of the parchment with one finger. A fingerprint sprouted from the centre of his touch, glowing violet and spreading forth, its whorls and spirals curling like vines. And then a line of writing unfurled. It was hasty cursive, a young man's scrawl.
Indicium Aedificis
The glowing words melted back into the parchment and disappeared, along with the fingerprint.
"But how did—hmmm," wondered Lupin. "Unless it recognizes—but I don't think... it could."
"Good morning, fy gariad. How's the head doing? Good, I see the bump's nearly gone."
Remus scowled and pulled the blanket over his head.
"Up you get, come on. I made breakfast and your room needs tidying before your friend gets here." Mrs. Lupin bent over to pick up a pair of trousers that had been tossed haphazardly onto the laundry hamper's lid. The attic room was mostly neat, though several books sat on the floor, and unfolded robes were spilling out of the trunk.
Remus made a muffled moaning noise, which might have been interpreted as "I don't need to get up this early to pick up textbooks off the floor and put them on a different part of the floor." Mrs. Lupin ignored the semi-verbal communiqué and pulled open the dusty blue drapes. The sky was dark and overcast, fraught with a humid tension.
"Oh dear," said Mrs. Lupin. "I hope the roads don't flood over. A storm is coming."
Remus rubbed the crust out of his eyes with a balled up fist. Slowly, he peeled back the covers and glanced out the window. It did look ominous out there. However, he was unconcerned as could be.
"Mam, James' whole family is magic," he said with exasperation. "They don't need to worry about the weather." As far as he knew, the Potters didn't need to worry about anything.
"I guess you're right, then," his mother said nervously. "I do forget these things. You know." She clasped and unclasped her hands and then eyed the overflowing trunk, where the black robes formed a sort of waterfall, which drained into a puddle of cloak. Unable to help herself, she folded the pile and placed it back into the trunk neatly.
Remus could hear the shift in her tone and knew not to push further. "I'll get dressed," he said. "Why don't you go on and eat and I'll be down in a few minutes."
Mrs. Lupin, satisfied in the compromise, kissed Remus on the forehead (he shrugged her off predictably) and headed down the ladder that led to the main floor. As soon as she was gone, Remus got out of bed and tipped his trunk over, spilling a mess of robes, quills, socks and various trinkets onto the wood plank floor. He went to his bookshelves, which were really just milk bottle crates turned on their sides, and rearranged the books into a random order. Without magic, messing up a room properly took about as much work as cleaning it up. You couldn't just throw some things about and leave the bed unmade and think that it would be convincing enough. Maybe it would be to some people –people like Mrs. Lupin–but it took more effort to deceive a habitual deceiver like James.
The postcards Remus had collected from all over Europe–cards he had purchased himself, never written in or sent to anybody –were tacked to the wall too carefully. He had hung butterfly clips on the thumbtacks and clamped the cards in the clips so that he would not have to pierce holes in the postcards; however, Remus knew this type of consideration was much too precious for a thirteen-year-old Gryffindor. (Maybe there was more leeway for such things in Ravenclaw.) He faced the uncertain choice between messily re-hanging the postcards with thumbtacks pierced right through, or taking down all the cards and letting James think he'd never been anywhere or done anything exciting that James hadn't done twice over.
Remus realized he could fix the cards with magic later. He tacked them up as carelessly as possible. The Icelandic moving postcard of a real white-knuckled water troll got pride of place in the centre, because James got a kick out of that sort of thing.
Remus heaped another serving of scrambled eggs onto his plate as his father prepared to leave for work.
"Goodbye, dear," he said, kissing Mrs. Lupin on the cheek as she scrubbed dishes. He pointed his wand at the sink. "Scourgify!" he said, cleaning all the plates at once.
"Diolch, Lyall," she said appreciatively.
"Remus," said Mr. Lupin, "tell your friend hello from me when he gets here. I'll be home late. And for Merlin's sake," he lowered his voice, "be discreet this time."
"He already knows, Dad," Remus sighed grumpily into his eggs.
"I meant playing in front of the Muggle children. You know we don't need another Ministry visit –"
"That was literally one time!" insisted Remus, looking for support from his mother, who turned away and scrubbed the perfectly clean plates while humming a tuneless melody.
"Well, I know that," said Mr. Lupin as he stepped out of the cramped kitchen and into the hall. "And I know your friend knows, I spoke with your Head of House. Have a nice day, darling," he nodded towards Mrs. Lupin. And with a loud crack!, he Disapparated.
Mrs. Lupin jumped at the sound. "You know, I still can't get used to that," she said.
"I s'pose you'll have to when I start doing it." Remus reached for the milk and poured it into his mug until the coffee was off-white in colour. Caffeine gave him headaches, but he needed it for today.
"But Daddy said it was really dangerous, didn't he? He said if you messed up, you could splink –"
"Splinch," he corrected through gritted teeth.
" –splinch yourself right in half."
"Well, you won't have to worry about it 'till I'm of age, then." Remus gulped down the rest of his coffee and pushed his chair back from the table. He fixed his mother with a plaintive look. "And please don't call him Daddy in front of James. I know he has a first name, really.
Mrs. Lupin's brow furrowed hesitantly. She took a step towards Remus but then paused and stepped back. Her son was quite a bit taller than she remembered, his lanky frame recalling a giraffe's awkward posture.
"Remus," she began tentatively. "I'll...be in the garden. I won't bother you two, I promise. You won't even know I'm there. Why don't you show him the falcon's nest out back?"
Remus paused. Because James has a whole owlery at his house. "Okay," he said.
Mrs. Lupin smiled at him lightly. Her pale brown hair was tucked into two messy braids. She wore her gardening galoshes and a muddy apron. Remus thought she looked sad but not anymore than she usually did. He helped her get the big pruners off the highest shelf in the storage closet and she pressed a shiny pound into his palm.
"Thank you, annwyl. Buy yourselves something tasty in the village."
"Thank you, Mam," he said, and scrambled up the ladder.
The upper-years' Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom was a cavernous space with a tall, groin-vaulted ceiling. The evening light filtered through blue and red stained-glass windows, casting a coloured pattern onto the ancient desks. Professor Lupin had often admired his luck in landing such a beautiful class in which to teach, but that evening, he strode through the room towards his office without noticing his surroundings. Through a door locked by several varieties of complicated spellwork, as well as an old-fashioned Muggle lock (for cats had an uncanny ability to disregard the laws of magic when it suited them) laid his office, which connected to the lower years-Defence classroom on the other side. He quickly removed his cloak and lit a lamp. Lupin sat down at his desk and placed the blank sheet of parchment down on it. He tapped it with his wand once and whispered, "Latronem sum, and you, I presume?" The words already tasted silly in his mouth, but then, they hadn't been his idea.
The names appeared. They were familiar and foreign, like a mother tongue long abandoned when he arrived on a faraway shore. Professor Lupin instinctively curled a hand around the top of the map as though to shield it from the prying eyes of classmates long gone.
Messrs. Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs
are positively flatulent with joy
upon the long-awaited return
of Messr. Moony
to their humble creation.
He couldn't help but smile as the paragraph faded away, to be replaced by two words.
"Toujours Furr"