Part I- Anamnesis

16 years later.

Ch.1- Tumbling

Harry heard the bell ring out politely just as twilight was sneaking over the sill of his window. He stepped down the stairs carefully, expecting his guest, but nevertheless cautious. When he got to the front door, he placed his palms flat against it and stood slightly on tiptoe to look through the eyehole. Dropping his heels back to the floor, he hesitated, then he cleared his throat.

"What did Sirius Black give me the last Christmas before he died?" he softly asked the door.

"That's a trick question, Harry. Technically, Sirius andI gave you a collection of books called PracticalDefensiveMagicandItsUseAgainsttheDarkArts. But Sirius also gave you another gift that holiday, if I'm not mistaken. Do you know what it was?"

Harry's finger traced down the wood grain of the door. He could feel his cheeks burning.

"A two way mirror."

"And what did he use it for originally?"

"To talk to my dad when they were in separate detentions," Harry's voice felt hoarse.

"May I come in?" Lupin asked quietly. Harry unlocked the door and opened it.

Lupin's eyes were sad. They were always sad, but Harry had thought being with Tonks might have helped to ease that somewhat. If anything, though, Lupin looked worse than the last time Harry had seen him. Deep shadows smudged under his warm golden brown eyes and over his gaunt cheeks. Harry stepped to one side and Lupin crossed the Dursley's thresh hold, his back very straight, his hands deep in the pockets of his worn gray overcoat. It looked too big for him, hanging loosely over the hills of his shoulders. The collar was turned up against the unseasonably damp evening. Harry closed the door quietly and the deadbolt gave a loud click as he turned it.

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

Harry tried to smile, to show that the sentiment went both ways, but his face felt stiff, more like a grimace, and he eventually gave up.

"Thanks," he said, "You too."

Lupin pressed his lips together in a tight halfhearted expression of his own, and set a hand lightly on Harry's shoulder.

"Shall we sit?" he asked.

"Of course. I'm sorry," Harry shook his head at himself and led the way into the living room. It was cold in the house. Harry, being still underage, was not allowed to use magic outside of school, and had refrained dutifully. The last thing he needed was the Ministry to come pounding down the Dursley's door. Lupin eyed the half boarded up fireplace and turned to him.

"Your Aunt and Uncle have gone?"

"Yeah," he said, "They said I didn't need them to be here to be able to call it 'home.' I actually suggested it. Bit shocked they listened to me for once."

"That was wise, and considerate, of you, Harry."

"Yeah, well. It's not their fight really is it?" he looked down at his bare feet, curling his toes against the cold carpet.

"It is all of our fight," Lupin held Harry with his eyes for a few moments. Then he turned, withdrawing his wand, and aimed it at the fireplace.

"Incendio," he murmured and the wood in front of the brick hearth ignited and shot backward into the grate. The corner of Harry's mouth twitched up, a mix of appreciation and slight jealousy flicking fingers across his scalp with the new heat.

"Thanks."

"Certainly," Lupin pocketed his wand and collapsed onto the sofa with a sigh that he was not entirely successful in concealing, and a slightly pained expression crossing his face.

"Would you like some tea, Professor?" he nodded wearily.

"That would be lovely. Thank you."

Harry watched him as he crossed to the kitchen to retrieve the kettle. Lupin's eyes slipped closed and his head dropped against the back of the couch. Harry's brow furrowed as he poured hot water from the kettle into the waiting teapot. Gripping the tray, Harry turned, stopping abruptly just inside the kitchen door. Lupin had shrugged out of the large woolen coat, leaving it draped behind him over the cushions. He looked thin, bony, his button down shirt hanging oddly on his frame. Reclining on the sofa, almost as if he were sleeping, Harry realized how young Lupin actually looked underneath the scars and world worn lines. In that moment, if he hadn't known better, he wouldn't have thought that Lupin was very much older than himself.

Harry sat down gingerly beside him, and set the tray down on the coffee table. Lupin looked up with a faded smile. Harry poured the tea and handed him a cup, which Lupin held, just under his nose, wrapped in his slender fingers. His eyes slipped closed again as the steam collected in his eyelashes.

"Professor Lupin?"

"Remus, Harry," he said, without opening his eyes. "I'm not your teacher anymore."

"Remus?"

"Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yes. I'm fine. Thank you," he sighed and turned, his eyes seeming to darken, but he didn't elaborate.

"How is Tonks?"

He stiffened visibly and sat up.

"You didn't ask me here in order to talk about me," though his words were abrupt, they were not unkind. "Would you like to tell me what this is all about? Your letter sounded quite urgent."

Harry pulled one foot up on the couch and folded it under his opposite thigh. He took a breath.

"I need information. Dumbledore told me about some things before he died, things that have to be done to defeat Voldemort, but I . . . "

Lupin was watching him, intensity flickering orange with the refracted light from the fireplace in his eyes.

"Go on, Harry."

"I need to know anything you can tell me about Horcruxes."

Without pause, Lupin leaned forward and set his teacup down on the coffee table. His expression didn't change, but it was a long time before he spoke.

"The Headmaster explained the concept to you, I assume."

"Yes."

"Then what do you want to know?"

"How to destroy them."

"Them?"

Harry hesitated. Lupin didn't.

"Harry. How many are there?"

"Four more."

"More?"

"Yes. I . . ." Harry trailed off. Dumbledore had been clear that he wanted this kept a secret. A wave of guilt swept through him at what felt disturbingly like betrayal in his veins, but he pressed on. "Two of them have been . . . dealt with, and I know what the third one is, but not where."

Lupin was very still for a long time.

"So there were 6."

"And Voldemort."

"And Voldemort. How were the other two destroyed?"

Harry took another deep breath.

"With a basilisk fang . . . " he said slowly.

Lupin fell back against the couch.

"Tom Riddle's diary. Of course." His hands shoved up into his hair so that it splayed up between his fingers in odd directions. "And the other?"

"It was a ring. It belonged to Riddle's Grandfather. Professor Dumbledore destroyed it, but I don't know how. That's how he injured his hand last year."

A disconcerting shadow was settling over Lupin's face as he gazed fixedly on the ceiling, his hands still fisted in his hair. Harry could see some emotion writhing underneath Lupin's surface, but he couldn't decipher it.

"Uhm . . . Remus?"

"And the third? The one you've identified but not located?"

Harry reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out the fake locket he had taken from Dumbledore's body. His hand cupped around it, as he extended his arm and dropped it to the sofa cushion between them. Lupin stared at it for a long time, only his eyes slanting downward. Finally, he smoothed his hands along his scalp, wiped his palms on his threadbare trousers and leaned over to examine the locket.

"It's fake," Harry said, but Lupin was already frowning.

"I've seen that before," he reached out to turn it over with one finger. Harry felt a chill wash run down over his arms.

"You have? Where?"

Lupin didn't answer. His fingers closed around it gingerly and flipped at the catch. The locket popped open and the note fell from inside into Lupin's lap. He reached down and, grasping it with his delicate fingers, unfolded it carefully. His eyes moved rapidly across the small parchment, his face growing paler with each movement.

"Profes . .er . . . Remus?" but he still didn't respond. He seemed to be reading the message over again. Finally, his eyes flicked up like darts.

"Well, I can help you on one point at least, Harry," his voice was oddly clipped, almost mechanical, and he dropped the paper to the sofa seat so that the slanting script was upright and visible. "RAB. Regulus Arcturus Black," he said.

A thousand words jumped to Harry's brain to say, but none of them seemed to be willing to move passed his lips. It was very quiet in the room. Finally, Harry's mouth delivered a question.

"You're certain?"

"Yes. I . . . recognize the handwriting."

"Sirius' brother."

"Yes."

"But he's dead."

"It's clear from that note that he expected to be soon after writing it."

"Sirius said that Regulus panicked. That he tried to run away from Voldemort, from being a Death Eater. He said he got scared."

"He may have said that. I expect he would have wanted to believe so, but we never knew for sure."

"What do you mean he wanted it to believe it?"

"Harry," Remus sighed and leaned forward, "Surely you've realized by now that Sirius covered up a lot of grief regarding his family."

"Grief? Sirius hated his family."

"Yes. And why do you think that was?"

Harry stared at him in confusion. Sirius had said himself why he hated his family. They had followed Voldemort, had supported him. Sirius had hated their pure blood mania, their prejudice. He had told Harry that. But something was brushing at the corners of Harry's mind with icy fingers, and as he watched Lupin watching him, it started to crystallize into sharp chilling points in his mind.

"Sirius was raised in that family. Why didn't he believe the same way they did? Why did he get sorted into Gryffindor?"

Lupin didn't answer, and Harry wouldn't had heard him if he had. His focus was far away, buried in memory. He remembered standing in the drawing room in Grimmauld Place, the day Sirius showed him the Black family tree. That was the day he'd told Harry about Regulus- the first and only time Harry had ever heard him speak of his brother. Actually, it was the only time he'd spoken of his family at all, in any more detail that a flippant comment of sneering contempt, at least. Harry could still hear the bitterness in Sirius' voice when he talked about his name being burned off that tree, the anger when Harry had asked him why he'd run away and when he'd spoken of Bellatrix. There had been pain in his eyes, and something deeper, something guarded and curled and trembling. Shame.

"He was afraid of them," Harry breathed.

"Of himself, more to the point, but yes." Lupin looked away. "I remember when Regulus was sorted into Slytherin. He was only three years behind us in school, you know."

"No, I didn't know that."

"Your father went into Hogsmeade through the passage that night and stole a bottle of fire whisky. He spent the evening getting Sirius very very drunk, almost drunker than I've ever seen him. Almost. He was very upset."

Lupin gave an apologetic little smile, as if Harry would be offended by this additional entry in the long list of inappropriate deeds his father and Sirius had engaged in. Behind the smile, though, there was an intensity in his eyes that made Harry have to resist the desire to draw back. When Lupin spoke his voice was shaking slightly with repressed anger.

"As it turns out, there was far less of a monster in the Black blood than Sirius always believed."

A thick hot knot formed suddenly in Harry's throat, and he swallowed around it with effort. Lupin straightened, easing himself to his feet. He paced to the fireplace and back before he faced Harry again.

"I saw that locket at Grimmauld place, when I was staying there with Sirius, before . . . " he broke off, shaking his head quickly. "Sirius had taken it away from Kreacher. One of his salvaged remembrances of his former masters."

Harry sat up, every part of his body tingling and alert.

"So it could still be there?"

Lupin was biting his bottom lip, a worried line etched deeply between his eyebrows.

"Possibly."

"Well, where else would it be?"

"I don't know, Harry."

"Well, we can at least look, can't we?" Harry heard his voice rising, urgency pulsing in my ears, but seemed helpless to quiet it.

"Of course. Grimmauld Place is yours. You can go there whenever you wish."

"But . . . " Harry's brow furrowed to match Lupin's as logic caught up with adrenaline. "Even if it's there, how do I destroy it?"

Lupin was looking at him steadily. There was a determined set to his shoulders and the set of his worn shoes in the carpet that lit a pinprick of hope deep inside Harry's heart.

"I don't have an answer to that, Harry. But, " he had wilted, but Lupin cut in quickly, soft but insistent, "I do know someone who may."

He crossed to Harry then, extending his hand. Harry took it and stood up.

"Gather your things. We're going to the Burrow. Bill and Fleur's wedding is coming soon. I'm sure the Weasleys would appreciate your help. Ron and Hermione know about all of this I assume?"

"You can stay there for the time being. I'll know more in a few days."

"But, we have to go to Grimmauld Place. What if-?"

"Harry," Lupin's hands rested on Harry's shoulders, and he bent his frame to look him in the eyes, "Our first priority is to keep you safe. That was Dumbledore's priority as well. I'm asking you to trust me."

After a long minute, Harry nodded.

"Come on," he said, turning Harry's body gently with both hands toward the stairs, "Get your things. We're leaving."