Notes: Hello again, beautiful readers! Apology #1: Sorry for the delay. I thought I had enough left for like a two-thousand words coda. …. Yeah, that didn't happen. That didn't happen so hard. Apology #2: This is only chapter 4a (yep, did it again, so sorry). This is by far the wordier bit. After that the story will be concluded with chapter 4b, which I PROMISE will be posted on Sunday.
Thank you very very much for your comments and everything. I'm looking forward to reading what you think! (Really, I do. Especially this time. I tried my darndest to wrap up this impossible thing, and most of the wrapping up is in this here chapter, so tell me if you find it convincing – or not! Chapter 4b, on the other hand, will be mainly about what a badass Remus Lupin is.)
Warnings: mentions of suicide. And creepy mind magic.
Still Life with Skull, part 4a/4
For the past twenty minutes, Remus has been telling himself he's just taking a detour. Delaying the inevitable, rather than avoiding it altogether. It's a tough sell - as much as the Map is still rotting in Filch's office, it's inside of him, too, and so he can't quite delude himself into thinking he's merely taking the long way round to Dumbledore's office. Plus, the wine bottle he's carrying is rather giving it away. Much as he respects Albus Dumbledore, experience has taught him that this respect is best paired with a nice chilled glass of sobriety.
Remus'd watched the old man during the Welcome Feast and wondered when, exactly, he'd missed that critical moment – the last moment he could have possibly divulged that mildly relevant piece of information he'd been procrastinating on for the last twelve years. Probably a month ago, he decides. After the breakout.
Granted, before the breakout would probably have been even better, but then, you'd expect the most secure prison this side of the late Iron Curtain to be able to hold on to a single mass-murderer, so it's probably not all on him.
Be that as it may, he should definitely turn around, knock on Albus's door, and swallow down that old, childish jealousy that tells him it's his secret, the last sad scrap he has of his friends, the one thing that really, truly, only belongs to him. It'll be the shortest Defence tenure in recorded history, even by that position's lousy standards, and it'll just prove that after twelve years he still can't catch a break, but who cares. Best foot forward, Gryffindor, escaped prisoners don't capture themselves.
But.
It's a technicality that niggles on his mind. If not for the Dementor, he'd have thought that weird not-dream, not-memory on the train had been a guilt-trip administered by his inner prefect. Go to Dumbledore. Go directly to Dumbledore. Do not pass GO. Do not collect 200 Gallons…
But there had been a Dementor, and Remus is fairly sure this isn't how Dementors work. Soul-crushing despair, yes. Mind puzzles and guilt trips and skipping stones on the Black Lake, probably not, and fuck it all, he's passing GO so hard, because he needs to know.
And so he lets his feet carry him the familiar way to the Infirmary, fascinated and more than a little put off by how very, very little has changed around the place. The Welcoming Fest had only been the start. He'd been sat at the table with the professors – with the other professors, oh god -, about eighty per cent of whom had already been ancient fifteen years ago, and had since surrendered themselves to a sort of quiet desiccation. Severus Snape had been there, too, younger than everyone but still same old, same old, glaring at him in a familiar way - as if Remus needs to be put down, and Severus would be happy to do it.
Outside the Great Hall, even less has changed. Making his way along the corridors, he makes a point of not looking up from his scruffy boots any more than necessary. This place is largely history, wearing a tiny, fleeting present like a loincloth. Like a fig leaf. Every mouldering tapestry, every chip in the paint, every mysterious stain on the ceiling holds a memory, ready to trip him up, ambush him, carry him away to a time that is no more.
And until he has figured out a thing or two – until he understands exactly what bloody happened on the train today – that is a time that is best observed from a distance.
Which is easier said than done.
Time punches him square in the face when he opens the door to the Infirmary. It's the smell of disinfectant and peppermint that takes him back with vengeance. For a short, terrifying second, he is sure he is going to wake up in a bit, right in that there hospital bed at the far end of the room, and he's going to be twelve or fourteen or fifteen years old again.
But no. He's awake, he reminds himself, he's definitely awake this time, and definitely thirty-three, and nothing says this more clearly than the face that is now peering through the office door, sporting a stern expression. Because that face has grown older, too.
"Poppy!" he says. She must be what now? Forty, forty-five? There's still very little about her that suggests matron, except probably to a teenager – but finally, change.
Her face breaks into a wide smile, and, after stern Minerva, charitable Albus, and slightly homicidal Severus, he's nothing short of delighted he's finally found someone who actually looks happy to see him.
"Remus!" she cries, and a second later he finds himself with an armful of nurse. "It's so good to see you!" She pulls back a little, hands resting on his shoulders momentarily, and looks him up and down. "You're not here for –"
"Not here for anything," Remus tells her. "I didn't see you at the feast and wanted to say hello."
"Oh, the feasts, they give me anxiety," says Pomfrey off-handedly, "I can't recall the last time I spotted a vegetable there –"
Remus grins. "Chips are technically vegetables, aren't they?"
"Don't you wish," says Pomfrey. "And those treacle tarts are just way too much sugar for developing bodies."
Remus takes this moment to peer over her shoulder. "Are those Honeydukes delivery boxes in your office?" he asks politely.
"They're medicinal," exclaims Pomfrey, "and speaking of which, you do look a little peaky -"
"Gee, thanks -"
"And no wonder, with that Dementor on the train – I'm surprised the Infirmary isn't packed – those Honeydukes boxes won't last the week I'm sure - Dementors! Are you sure you don't need anything? Wasn't there a moon just now – oh, drat, I swear I used to know the lunar cycle from heart."
Remus lays what he hopes is a calming hand on her arm. "Poppy, breathe," he says. "Look around you. The school year hasn't even started. The Infirmary is empty. And I take Wolfsbane now."
"That's right!" she says, and her face lights up. "I was going to ask about that! How is it?"
He gives her a rare, genuine smile. "Life-changing," he says simply. "Poppy, I swear it's just me, a bottle of wine, and the declared intention to catch up. If you can spare the evening."
"Oh, come in, come in," she says. "And please forgive the clutter. People don't usually come here to chat."
"Yeah, I can tell," says Remus, and his smile widens into the sort of lopsided grin he's more at home with. "You're not required to get it all out in under a minute, Poppy."
She smiles. "Cheeky, Mr Lupin. I might have to inform your head of house. Out after curfew, too, I see."
He follows her into her office, past the rows of neatly made beds, the dustless medicine cabinets. "And I snuck booze into the castle, too," he says. "Please don't tell Minerva, I'll be in detention 'till Christmas."
Pomfrey stops just to turn and smirk at him. "Best get rid of the evidence, then. Oh, by the way, did you become a professor for the sole purpose of finally calling the staff by their first name without repercussions?"
"I'm not convinced it works like that," says Remus, "Argus threatened to flay my backside just for old times' sake."
"Hippie," says Pomfrey with what he's fairly sure is a wink.
Her office, in stark contrast to the spotless Infirmary, is crowded. Not messy, just full of things. Stacked against her desk are the boxes of Honeydukes chocolates he's already spotted, the walls are lined with shelves overflowing with books in all states of tatteredness, volumes of medical journals, cartons of informative brochures. Her desk is covered in a plethora of familiar journal issues, pamphlets, and notes, topped with a copy of "History of Penal Law in Wizarding Britain", left open on chapter two, "Azkaban", next to "A Cross-Referenced Guide to Mind-Affine Dark Creatures". Remus recognises them because his desk back home has been in much the same state for the past four weeks.
Pomfrey is cleaning the clutter away with both hands when he gets over his misplaced surprise. "Been reading up, have you?" he says.
She looks up from what she's doing. "They placed a hundred Dementors outside the gates," she says. "Yes, I have."
But nothing is ever new in Hogwarts, Remus thinks as he remains in the doorframe, careful not to disturb Pomfrey's space until she's shifted things to her liking.
Eleven year old Remus hadn't paid a whole lot of attention during his first consultation with Pomfrey, but this he remembers clearly: Pomfrey's office, covered in notes and books and journal articles, all of them on Werewolves. Back then, it all had a hint of frustration about it: Spiky scrawled notes. Entire paragraphs crossed out. Ghastly depictions of Werewolf transformations corrected with heavy strokes of her quill. The way she treated books had seemed daring, almost illegal. He'd quickly become engrossed by it while his father did most of the talking.
There'd been a sort of dress rehearsal later, with the Whomping Willow and the tunnel and the Shrieking Shack. The Shack had been a repurposed barn building, but warm and inviting inside, and it had blankets and a sofa and, for some inexplicable reason, a piano, and he'd looked at his father, and his father had looked away, and he had felt very guilty about that piano because he'd known he was going to break it, and it did eventually break, years later, but not before Sirius got the chance to play him that god-damn fugue in G minor.
He's still trying to banish that memory from his head when suddenly the nightmare image of a Dementor hijacks his field of view. He jolts so hard it feels like waking up, like he's still asleep on that fucking train.
But no. It's just Pomfrey holding a printed booklet under his nose.
"I've owled the Ministry about twelve times," she says, "and all I got was a couple of lousy brochures for adults –"
"Impressive," says Remus, still reeling a little. "They drew a Dementor and they made it uglier –"
"No-one could tell me how they'd affect the children," says Pomfrey. "Just keep them away, they said. Ridiculous. Their influence is known to be super-additive, what if it breaches the grounds, or even the castle itself?"
Remus recalls a recent, rather technical paper from Defence Today. "It's a fairly complex function," he says tentatively. "They're moving about all the time, and you'd need to take into account geography, wind direction…"
"I did the maths," she says shortly. "Parts of the Black Lake, the Quidditch pitch, even the Divination classroom, all will feel it when the weather is right. And so, in turn, will the Dementors."
There's a hard and thoroughly disappointed expression on her face. "And the Ministry doesn't care," she says. "It's on us to protect the students. Are you planning to teach them the Patronus charm?"
"I've considered it," says Remus, and realises as he's saying it it's not good enough. "For my N.E.W.T. students. But they're awfully behind as it is, it's ridiculous. It looks like they haven't learned a thing last year. "
Pomfrey sighs. She looks like she's going to point out he's teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, not Defence Against the Ministry-approved Exam Questions, but then thinks better of it.
"Oh, yes," she says, "you'll find they were taught by an incompetent berk last year. Tried to mend a student's broken arm once, managed to Vanish all the bones instead -"
Remus's hand involuntarily flexes in sympathy. "Yes, I've met Gilderoy," he says. "Sounds like something he would do."
"Look on the bright side," she says with exaggerated cheer. "If you ever need to know the difference between lilac and lavender, I believe they're all experts."
Remus looks down on himself. His clothes are, as usual, an inoffensive combination of assorted non-colours.
"Oh god," he says. "They'll all fail their exams and guess who'll get the blame?"
Pomfrey puts two wine glasses on the table, with perhaps more force than necessary. "Welcome to teaching?" she says. "Just the one glass, mind. I know they all say they're fine – but there'll be nightmares tonight, mark my words."
Great. They haven't even sat down, and already Pomfrey has circled in on the matter that Remus was going to spend at least a bottle of wine and an hour to dance around. He's feeling the old impulse to just chicken out. Let matters be.
Consequently, he hesitates. "I can come back another day," he offers. "If you're busy."
"Oh, sit down, sit down," she says. "It was good for you to come, really. What did you bring?"
"Nothing fancy," he says. "Same old Château de Tesco we smuggled in for the Leaving Feast."
Remus is not exactly a wine connoisseur. In fact, he'd debated just rolling a spliff - he knows Pomfrey has about ten potions on heavy rotation that are more mind-altering than a few crumbs of hemp – but hasn't expected smoking to go over well in the hospital wing.
Pomfrey, however, has a pragmatic approach to social inebriation. "Works for me," she says.
She unscrews the bottle with a quick wave of her wand and pours them both a glass before holding hers up to the light, where it sparkles ruby-red, somehow looking five times more expensive. Then she sits down opposite him, and they clink glasses with a dainty ping that somehow sounds far too fancy.
"So," says Pomfrey, after a sip. "What brings you here, Remus Lupin? The Dementor on the train?"
He raises his hands in protest. "I did want to catch up, you know" he says.
"It's been fifteen years," says Pomfrey. "We might have to pick and choose."
"I sent Christmas cards," says Remus.
"They're in a box on the bottom shelf," says Pomfrey with a smile. "Except for 1981, that one never got here," and this, right here, is the reason it would be very easy to dislike her, thinks Remus: Her unquestioned determination to put her finger exactly where it hurts.
"I was in the hospital," he answers the question that isn't. "Moon gone wrong. Long story." Does it feel odd, defending himself for a perceived oversight he'd committed twelve years ago? It does. With Pomfrey, it also feels natural.
Long story it may be, but it's one she can probably piece together with the information she has. "It's okay," says Pomfrey. "It's not like I put a lot of effort into reaching out. But," and here she smiles again, "here you are. How can I help?"
It's maybe just a tad narcissistic, he thinks. Something to do with the medical profession. And much as he's loath to prove her right, there's still that part of him that remembers she's the one person in Hogwarts he's not supposed to ever, ever lie to.
Still, he delays his answer by taking a sip of wine. It's not very good wine, not a whole lot of nuances beyond tannins and acidity and what may very well be added sugar. He hadn't wanted to jump right in, and even with Pomfrey asking directly, it still doesn't feel right.
On the other hand, he has an early start tomorrow, and spending half the night beating around the bush is probably a habit he should had left behind in the seventies.
"The Dementor on the train," he says.
"Knew it," says Pomfrey. She leans back, sizing him up. "Feeling a bit shaken up, are you? I suppose I don't have to explain to you that they will bring up your darkest memories."
"That's just the thing," says Remus and it comes out quieter and more deliberate than intended.
He remains silent for a very long moment, trying to coagulate his pervasive sense of unease into something words can describe. He doesn't look at Pomfrey's face, because what is there, pity? Of course she'd know the shape of his darkest memories.
"How?" he says finally. "How do they do that?"
"A rhetorical question, Professor Lupin?" says Pomfrey.
"I like to think of it as Socratic."
"Oh, you would," says Pomfrey with just a hint of friendly mockery. "They feed off your happy memories until there's nothing left. The bad memories come up to fill the void, like air rushing into a vacuum."
"Exactly," says Remus. "That's the popular theory . They're not interested in bad memories, it's just… physics. Well, mind physics. The question is. The question is –" he stalls, taking a confused sip of wine, "If it's air rushing into a vacuum, does the air change?"
Yes, definitely pity. Or something else. "Sometimes the air carries lost things," says Pomfrey gently, and who knows what memories she's thinking of. Small-child memories, the bite, a four-year-old locked into a fortified basement for the night, none of which Remus remembers beyond what little his parents have told him.
"But not impossible things," says Remus. "Never impossible things. Dementors induce memories so accurate they've been used in witness interrogation, when there's a mental or magical block."
"What sort of impossible things?" asks Pomfrey.
"Very impossible things," he says.
A Dementor scuttling through the Infirmary window in 1974. Regulus Black on the edge of the lake, demonstrating proper stone skipping technique with a pale hand over Remus's scarred one, two years before they'd ever exchanged words. A nickname that hadn't come into existence until 1975. A train ride that happened twice, once with Sirius, once without –
"And it made me think," he adds. "What if -" He draws a deep breath. "What if we underestimate Dementors?"
Judging by her narrowed eyes, this has piqued her interest. "Oh, the Ministry definitely does," she says.
"I don't mean the Ministry," says Remus. "I mean us. Me. Dumbledore. You. What if we are far from realising how powerful they really are?"
Pomfrey laughs suddenly, which is a bit disconcerting – Remus has an altogether high opinion of her, but her sense of humour never played much into that assessment.
"Were you just going to casually drop this into the conversation? I thought you were here to drink wine and catch up!" There are tears of laughter in her eyes. "Remus Lupin, you are hilarious. Tell me more."
"I don't exactly have a formulated theory here," says Remus. "I mean, I was dreaming when that Dementor stepped on the train, so that alone probably made things a fair bit weirder than necessary. But." He pauses. "What do we actually know about Dementors? You know, for sure?"
"Well, as you know, I did a spot of research myself –" says Poppy, waving at the heaps of notes stacked several feet high on her desk. "It's not a terribly popular field of research. It's hard to find actual investigations more recent than the nineteenth century, and that was a terrible time for scientific rigour."
"Do they think?" says Remus. "Do they have memories of their own? Do they have agency? Ambition?"
"Not according to the literature." Pomfrey takes a thoughtful sip of her wine. "Well, we do know they can be sent on missions, as long as the parameters are kept fairly simple," she says, referring delicately to their ongoing hunt for Sirius Black. "They can summon each other over considerable distances, indicating a mental link. A hive mind, perhaps. We also know that they're instinctual beings – they get distracted easily. My guess is that they're not a whole lot cleverer than ants. Or vultures. Or redcaps. Are you telling me you disagree?"
"Patience, Poppy. The theory is still a work in progress," says Remus. "How does the Ministry communicate with them? They're not deaf, but I'm fairly sure they can't speak."
"Ah," says Pomfrey. "I asked the Ministry the same question. You know, on the off chance those extremely dangerous, highly instinctual, easily distracted dark creatures hanging around the castle cause an incident. You know what the Ministry replied?"
Remus is unfortunately intimately familiar with Ministry pig-headedness. "Classified?" he guesses.
"Classified," confirms Pomfrey. "They did send me a preposterous pamphlet on the Patronus charm, however." She sighs. "You really picked a wonderful time to come back."
Pomfrey swirls the wine around in her glass, which, Remus has to admit, is clearly preferable to drinking it. She also rather looks rather impatient for him to pick up the threads he's lost – or rather, laid aside for later - over the course of this conversation.
Remus obliges her. To a point. "Okay," he says. "To summarise: We know they have total access to a person's memories. Even forgotten, suppressed, or blocked memories. We know they can parse the content of memories to some extent – at least enough to identify those they wish to consume. We know they're on a man hunt, but we also know they're blind. How will they find who they're looking for? It stands to reason they can identify a person if they have some sort of – I don't know, a pattern, a template. Something to check against the memories they extract."
Pomfrey catches on quickly. "Are you saying that –" she starts.
"I'm not saying anything right now," says Remus. "Just bear with me for a little while longer. Do you remember 1974? Specifically, the first full moon of the school year?"
Pomfrey just looks at him for a long while. For a moment he thinks she's forgotten – he might have expected an event like this to stick out in her memories, but her job is probably full of excitement.
Turns out she just needs a moment to toggle her mental focus. "That was when the wolf took off your arm, wasn't it? Well, no wonder -"
"That's the one."
She shakes her head. "That was a horrible year," she says, and reaches out until the tips of her fingers are almost touching his. "Can I see?"
Remus hesitates, but then, her curiosity has always been a force of nature.
"Please? I don't often get a chance for a long-term follow-up," she says. "And that was the first complete limb reattachment I've ever done on my own. Indulge me?"
He entrusts his hand to her, and she takes it, unbuttons his sleeve with a precise turn of her fingers, then draws up the fabric until his forearm is exposed.
Remus doesn't often contemplate his scars. His arms are definitely top of the list of things he ignores – it's where the wolf can easily reach, and by now they're a ravaged landscape, ridges and shallows, a relief of what might be hieroglyphs. On the surface, the message is fairly simple: Pain. Futility. Hiding. But at the same time, the absence of all three. The gap between moons.
Just below his elbow, there is it: A jagged ring of scar tissue that circles his forearm, numb and, by now, faded to a silvery white. Underneath it, ripped muscles, torn sinews, splintered bone, scattered parts spelled back together with equal parts skill and bloody-minded perseverance.
"Does it give you any trouble?" says Pomfrey.
"Not in a long time," says Remus "The magic was a bit… erratic at first, but you were there for that."
He's lying just a bit, and he knows she knows. He had to re-learn spell-casting – where there'd been a steady flow of magic before, good for quiet, competent spellwork, suddenly there'd been a branched-out maze of conduits, his magic flashing across the gaps in arcs. The first few months had been scorch marks and desperation. And even in the long term, it had changed the character of his magic, made everything come out just a touch more explosive. Funnily enough, it had helped in the war.
She turns his arm over now, her fingers tracing the network of scars that came after her, many of them old by now. If anyone can read the hieroglyphs, it's probably her. Her thumb, maybe out of habit, stops momentarily over the pulse point, before running over the sunken brand on the underside of his wrist. A sequence of letters and runes. That, too, hadn't been there the last time.
"That's quite enough," he says gently, and pulls his arm away.
"Apologies," says Pomfrey. "I forget, you're not my patient anymore."
She leans back in her armchair, arms crossed over her white robes, her clear blue eyes raking over him as if she's caught him in a lie.
"I thought the wolf had calmed down," she says. "Thought when it took your arm that was the worst of it. It came back, didn't it? After school?"
"Was bound to happen, probably," says Remus, pulling down the sleeve and closing the buttons. "It's a grown-up wolf, I suppose it's par for the course."
"Remus," she says. "I studied every single case report on adolescent lycanthropy I could get my hands on." She pauses, possible for dramatic effect. "The fact of the matter is, you should never have gotten better in the first place."
Remus holds his breath as if that could stop her from talking. But Pomfrey's face is closed off as she recalls no-longer needed pieces of knowledge. "You were turned at a younger age than most of them," she says, " and statistically, you should have been dead or permanently disabled by eighteen."
"And how many of these cases grew up homeless, or in a facility, or in a feral pack in the woods?" says Remus finally. "I was lucky. I was safe."
"Safe for others," says Pomfrey quietly. "You transformed in captivity."
Remus looks down at the hand he's retracted. Even in the soft skin between his knuckles, the ball of his thumb, the pads of his fingers, there's that imprint of pain, that web of scars, that exoskeleton he's built over the years. He's sort of suspected they knew what it was doing to him, the cellars, the Shack, the Ministry cages. Three fifteen-year-olds had figured it out, after all.
"Yes," he says. It's only three seventh of a lie.
"What happened, Remus Lupin?" says Pomfrey. "How did you survive? What made you better?"
Remus reminds himself they'd hidden this thing right under her nose once. If she hadn't figured it out then, she's not going to figure it out now. And if she does – well, then the secret is at last out of his hands, isn't it?
"You make it all sound so dramatic," he says lightly. "It waxes and wanes, you know."
"I thought you were going to die that time," she says bluntly. "When you were fourteen. I thought you were dead when I found you in the Shack, and I was absolutely certain you'd die before I got you to the Infirmary."
He blinks. That's news to him. "No," he says. "I think you got that all wrong. I thought I was going to die. You had it all under control, remember?"
Pomfrey snorts. "I almost had you transferred to St. Mungo's against your father's wishes." After all these years, there's still disapproval resonating in her voice.
"St. Mungo's would have informed the school board," Remus reminds her. "Goodbye, Hogwarts. And then?"
"Surely a life is more valuable than an education?" says Pomfrey.
Remus shrugs. "We actually spoke about this, my father and I," he says. "The summer before, when it first got difficult. It was my decision, not his."
The disapproval is clearly not going anywhere. "Big decision for a fourteen year old to make, isn't it?" she says.
"Who else?" Remus holds her gaze. She's always criticised this about him – how he's so glib about his own life, but he's not: It's just that, after so many compromises, he'd needed something. A line in the sand. Something he wouldn't give up no matter what. Deep down, he sometimes thinks that this is the only thing keeping the wolf in check: That he won't do everything to save himself. And he'd bring the wolf down with him.
"It's a mess," says Pomfrey with a pent-up sigh. "I'm not surprised the Dementor brought this up."
Remus feels like the worst sort of pedant when he says, "Well I am. Because at least three things are odd about this." But if he doesn't get to the bottom of this now, it'll eat at him for the rest of the school year, he's sure of it.
"Well then," says Pomfrey, leaning back. "Count them up."
"One," says Remus. "Without going into detail, it's not my worst memory. Not by a long shot."
She wants to say something. The tension is hanging in the air between them, but he can't let her. They'd be here all night.
"In fact," he adds, "I hardly remembered it until today."
"As I recall, you had a funny reaction to the Dreamless Sleep Potion at the time," says Pomfrey. "You didn't make much sense at all for about two weeks after the full moon."
"Two," says Remus. "It wasn't even a proper memory. It contained things –"
"Impossible things, you said –"
He nods curtly. "Things I didn't know until years later. It contained things I'm fairly sure never happened. It contained things that probably should have happened, but never did."
"Memories are not an immutable thing," says Pomfrey. "They're not formed once and then conserved. They remain plastic, they're overwritten all the time, amended, revisited." She pauses. "Soured. Corrupted. Especially, I fear, the memories of your school years. Am I right?"
Remus would have to drink far more before he answers that question. "Not the memories a Dementor brings up, usually," he points out. "They're renowned for unearthing the original trace. Even through forgetfulness. Even through memory charms. Even through distortions of time and wishful thinking. Even through amnesia."
"True," she says.
"Point three," says Remus, then he thinks it through. "No, it's too weird. Let's leave that one for later. But the question still remains, doesn't it? Why that particular memory? Two weeks during which I was high on Dreamless Sleep Potion, nothing made sense and I didn't know what was real or not?"
It's a question he's about to answer himself, but when he sees her sit back and think, he lets her.
"Obvious, isn't it?" she says finally.
"That's… not the word I was going to use," says Remus.
"You said it yourself," says Pomfrey. "The Dementors are on a mission. They're looking for a pattern, a template…"
Remus closes his eyes, steels himself. "It's okay," he says. "We can name the elephant in the room."
"Sirius Black, then," says Pomfrey, finally, and even if he's invited it, that name cuts the air between them like a guillotine. "Of course. It was a time when you relied on your friends a lot, wasn't it?"
"I think that's how the Dementor found that year," says Remus. "My friends were just… worried. They were around a lot. The Dementor must have sniffed him out."
"I remember," says Pomfrey. "Hospital wing like a train station." There's still a hint of disapproval in her voice. "So you're saying that the Dementor actively looked through your memories for a trace of Sirius Black?"
"Quite literally," says Remus, shivering as images from the dream come back to him. "It kept turning up in the corner of rooms. So yes, it did that. And worse, it disguised the search as a dream, and its own presence as part of it."
"Clever," says Pomfrey shortly.
Remus is quite relieved that Pomfrey is sharp enough to follow his thoughts so effortlessly, and yet still ignores the glaringly obvious: His friends had been around a lot for ten years of his life. Why, then, had this memory in particular come up?
Remus is ignoring it, too. Eventually, he will have to meditate on the question why, when the Dementor was looking for Sirius Black, Remus served it the most nonsensical, drugged-up, never-happened memory he could find in a hurry.
"Did it find him?" asks Pomfrey.
And he will also have to meditate on the question why, even though Sirius Black had been all up in his business at the time, he'd been largely absent from the memory Remus offered the Dementor.
Almost as if he were hiding.
Almost as if he'd been hidden.
"… Eventually," says Remus. "But what it wanted was, I think, something it could use against him. Something that would help it find him."
"And did it find something like that?"
"There's nothing in 1974 that would help anyone find Sirius Black today," says Remus lightly. It's not even a lie. "He's changed too much."
Actually, he remembers uneasily, the Dementor had come bloody close. James had almost said it. Regulus had almost said it. Sirius himself had almost said it. Remus had said it – Padfoot – but had caught himself before the Dementor could understand.
Animagus.
He really needs to meditate on all this.
A glance at the clock on the mantelpiece tells him the evening has progressed considerably, and he's barely halfway through his glass of terrible wine. Pomfrey has had even less.
"So, are you going to have a stab at explaining the third thing?" says Pomfrey.
"Sorry," says Remus distractedly. Maybe he's already meditating. "The third what?"
"You said there were three odd things about the memory the Dementor brought up," says Pomfrey patiently. "One, it wasn't your worst. Two, it contained things that never happened. Any progress on number three?"
Remus thinks long and hard. Then he asks, very carefully, "What else do you remember of that time, Poppy?"
She sighs. "Night's getting on, Remus," she says. "Can't you make a simple point without taking a detour?"
Remus feels weary by now himself, even as the puzzle is finally starting to come together. The Dementor had looked for Sirius in his memories, yes, and Remus had thrown it the most unhelpful memory he could find, also yes, and the Dementor had inserted itself into them anyway and watched and observed and consumed, and Remus had twisted the narrative and hid what he could, and the Dementor had shown him exactly how it thought this thing was going to end, one way or the other, with Sirius Black swallowed whole by the void, and all in all it had almost been –
Communication –
The bile rising in his throat has nothing to do with the horrible wine. "It's the last detour, I promise," he says. "Please, Poppy. 1974, if you don't mind."
"It was an intense year," she says. "A year that stays in the mind, wasn't it? Not just you and the wolf. There was all the trouble with the Whomping Willow – I don't think that kid ever regained his full eyesight… Then there were the psychedelics. The Muggle flu epidemic. Someone kept stealing the Dreamless Sleep Potion from the Infirmary –"
"Ah," says Remus. He says nothing more.
"It sounds so insignificant now, in the grand scheme of things," says Pomfrey. "But I could have been in no end of trouble, it's a restricted substance… well, somewhat restricted. Still."
"Did you report it?"
"Of course not," says Pomfrey. "I hid a note in the screw top, saying to come talk to me, but they never did. It stopped eventually." She sighs. "Do you know who stole it?"
Remus considers giving her his best Who, me? expression, but that hasn't worked on her in decades.
"I think," he says, "it might have been stolen either by, or for, Regulus Black."
He waits with what he has to admit is baited breath, because this is it, he knows that much. This is where things come together.
Pomfrey, however, stares at him for a long moment, then shakes her head. "I don't think so," she said.
"Why not?" Remus doesn't know whether to be disappointed or not.
"He had a prescription," says Pomfrey. "Came down here once a week to pick it up. Stuck in my mind, really, rich kid who couldn't sleep. Scared of shadows and deep water and the leaves in his tea. Hard to believe someone like that would join You-Know-Who, or that You-Know-Who would have him."
"He defected," says Remus. "Not many people know." He rubs his eyes, starting to tire. "I suppose they should. Anyway, he ran and was murdered for it."
Pomfrey looks equal parts relieved and repulsed. "How?"
Remus is himself a little shaky on the details. "I suppose there is no safe way to defect from the Death Eaters," he says. "From what I've heard, the whole stunt seemed to be a mix of suicide and stupidity. Of course, the source was… biased, so what do I know."
In fact, he'd heard it from Sirius, who'd been broken and angry and so ready to dole out blame that everyone got a part of it, even Regulus, who couldn't argue back.
"And doesn't that describe the entire war," says Pomfrey, with a voice that is drier than the wine they're, by now, ignoring.
"Was he depressed, you think?" asks Remus carefully. "In 1974, I think."
Her answer is just as careful. "Thirteen-year-olds don't just get prescriptions for Dreamless Sleep Potion because they're happy and well-adjusted, Remus," she says. "Isn't this a bit of a wide detour? What's the third odd thing?"
"This, exactly," he says. "I always knew something happened in the Black family in the summer of 1974, something terrible, but I never found out what. It's not something I forgot. It's not something I repressed. It's something I never knew."
"And now you do?"
Remus thinks, turning over phrases in his mind. He feels like it's important to get this worded exactly right, this thing, this unexpected truth he's discovered. No longer does he wish to be alone with this horror, and for this, he has to make her understand -
"Such things leave traces," he says finally. "Like a murder spatters the ceiling with blood. Like a drowning victim changes the currents downstream. It's something I never knew, but it still threw shadows. Hints, allusions, nightmares. The Dementor took them, and it constructed – reverse-engineered – the thing that cast them. Perfectly."
Pomfrey is silent for a long moment. "Remus –"
"And the worst thing," continues Remus, "the worst thing is, we should have guessed. After all, Dementors draw up perfect memories. Even if the victim was Obliviated. Even if the victim was a baby at the time. You said it, memories aren't perfect, they just aren't. Our brains aren't made for it. Then where do these perfect memories come from?"
"What did it construct, then?" says Pomfrey. "What impossible truth?"
"Regulus Black," says Remus. "He tried to kill himself that summer, didn't he?"
In hindsight, he doesn't know what he expected. Poppy looks down and there's a hint of devastation in the stiffness of her shoulders, like he's glimpsed before, in those rare moments when she can't help a child. But then she looks at him and for a split moment he's certain she's going to tell him, no, it's all wrong, you've got the wrong brother, and how the fuck hadn't he noticed then, it's not like they weren't worried about Sirius –
Instead she says, "I don't know. He didn't talk much."
Remus breathes out. Frustrating roadblock it is, then. He's racking his brain for about the hundredth time today, but it's not taking very long. He's fairly sure he's never exchanged more than five sentences with Regulus, and exactly none of those before Fifth Year.
"Suppose you're right," says Pomfrey eventually. "Suppose a Dementor's powers are even greater and more terrible than even the pessimists among us expected. Why would the Dementor do that? It wasn't exactly… relevant, for lack of a better word."
"To send a message, I think," says Remus. By now he's really feeling the chill. "Resistance is futile. Don't hide a thing. It talked, in the only way it knew how."
It's clear to him now. That Dementor had sought him out on the train because it had sensed the traces of Sirius Black in his memories, and it had opened its black and putrid mind wide and talked and threatened and mocked, and yet, Remus's dreaming mind had hidden Padfoot for as long as it could.
And then, another thought, this one even more terrible. Is that why the Dementor swooped down on young Harry Potter, too? Does Harry retain memories of his godfather, tickling him with his long hair, teaching him patiently to say Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail, Prongs, as if he hadn't been plotting to sell the baby out to Voldemort? Does Harry remember the shaggy dog he'd napped with, tiny fists curled tightly in its fur? Would a baby's scattered memories be able to betray Padfoot?
And wouldn't Sirius deserve it, just for that? Just for that fucking wink he'd given Remus when the baby had beamed up at them both, saying something that could have been "Moony" but also 'Noomy' or 'Oony'? Just for that fucking wink and the betrayal behind it?
"It talked to you," says Pomfrey flatly.
"Think so."
"And you talked back?"
"Well," says Remus, keeping his face carefully blank. "I set a Patronus on it, so I believe it got the message."
"Oh, god," says Pomfrey. "Are you going to tell the Ministry?"
Remus is about halfway through recovering from his heart attack when she adds, "About the Dementors."
"Oh, I'm sure they know," says Remus, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Why sent them on this man-hunt, if they were merely half-sentient prison guards?"
"Point," she says. "Seems like it's on us to keep an eye on the children, isn't it?"
Remus nods, and for a moment, they sit in companionable silence.
He's just had another idea, one he is definitely not going to share. They'd fought, he and that Dementor. In his own head, on a battleground of his own choosing, with weapons the Dementor had forged out of sparse, confusing memories. Memories that Remus had offered it.
So why offer it Regulus? Why had the kid come up in the first place?
You know why, idiot, he thinks. Not because he'd known Regulus Black in any meaningful way at all, no. Because Remus remembers (and he remembers, and he remembers): The time Sirius had found out his brother had joined the Death Eaters. The other time Sirius had found out his brother had died. Something in Remus still refuses to believe that grief like that – so raw, choking, all-consuming – could be faked, or else how someone could ever turn around from all that and serve Voldemort himself.
Because if there is one thing that Sirius was ever good at – is probably still good at, Remus thinks, hypnotising his neglected wine glass -, it's holding a grudge.
Remus is a little surprised when he comes to this conclusion. That somehow, impossibly, after twelve years, most of which were terrible, none of which were good, a part of him – the part that fights Dementors while he's asleep - still stupidly, naïvely believes –
"Remus," says Pomfrey gently, and he realises she's said his name twice now. He looks up, and once again it seems Pomfrey is one step ahead of him.
"What?" he says eloquently.
"Call me a hippie if you must, but –"
Despite himself, he laughs. "I always call you a hippie. Why?"
"I believe," she says, solemn now, staring into the depths of her wine glass, "I believe Azkaban is an abomination."
A horrible feeling starts spreading from somewhere behind his solar plexus. "Where are you going with this?" he says carefully.
"I believe his crimes were horrible," she says. "I can't even imagine a punishment that could possibly weigh up his sins."
"There is none," says Remus quietly. "It is not in the nature of punishments to undo the things he did."
"But if there were such a thing," continues Pomfrey, in her soft-spoken scholarly voice. "If there were a counterweight to this, some atonement, some repentance, if something could possibly level this scale – don't you think that twelve years of Azkaban might come close?"
Remus takes a deep breath. "Poppy –"
It reminds him of what James had said, when he'd let Sirius back in, months after The Prank. Hasn't he suffered enough? It had never been the most convincing of arguments, except to people as unbroken and magnanimous as James Potter, but Remus had followed suit anyway. Because he'd suffered, too.
"I suppose it depends on what he does with his freedom," she says, now looking him straight in the eyes, and her gaze is bright and clear. "By the way, you're welcome to agree. I know you're a hippie, too."
He wants to agree, and he's not quite sure why. Maybe because he does crave an ally in this, someone who understands his jealous, selfish, twelve year old decision to keep Padfoot to himself, even though Prongs and Wormtail are gone and the truth can't hurt them anymore.
But that is just it: Whatever Sirius Black does now, it's on Remus, too. The last thing he deserves is an ally.
"Please," he says, forcing his tone into something approaching conversational. "Let me ignore this issue in the privacy of my own head."
And before he can contemplate this further – before Pomfrey has a chance to even nod - there's a noise from the Infirmary, and without any fucking warning, Severus Snape sweeps through the office door.
Apparently, knocking is for imbeciles.
Snape's eyes sweep over the room – the mild chaos, the books, the boxes of chocolate, the Werewolf relaxing in an armchair holding a glass of red wine – and settle on Pomfrey herself.
"The Dreamless Sleep Potion," he says softly. "Sixty doses, as requested." He places two corked bottles on her desk.
"Thank you, Severus," she says. "I'm sure you remember Remus from your school days, do you?"
Remus tries to catch her eyes, tries to send her a warning, or, since it is too late for that, a mild scolding, but to what point? Pomfrey had been there for the aftermath of The Prank –Remus, half torn to shreds because he'd carried the brunt of the wolf's frustration, Severus, consumed by shock and righteous anger, but otherwise fine, and demanding reparation by way of Remus's execution, or expulsion, or at least complete, humiliating exposure. As if he hadn't guessed, as if he hadn't stalked Remus for years, as if he hadn't known better than walk into a trap set by Sirius fucking Black.
With that sort of shared history, even the force of nature that is Poppy Pomfrey can't force a new beginning.
"Unfortunately," says Severus, regarding him with less than a sneer. "I'm afraid I can't linger, Poppy. Some of us have lessons to prepare."
Despite himself, Remus gives him a nod and even a mild smile, and if Severus Snape were any good at smiles, he'd understand. I remember, says that smile. I remember you standing over my bed after I almost died at fourteen. I remember what you said even before you knew what I was.
I'm still here, says that smile, and I've got the job you want.
So he's petty. So what. But Severus Snape isn't good at smiles, and he sweeps out without a further word. Remus reads Pomfrey's wristwatch upside down. Gone ten.
"I should probably go, too," he says. "But let it be known for posterity I've already prepared all of my lessons."
"I'd have expected nothing less," says Pomfrey drily. "Go on, then. And I expect you to come back, we've still got most of that wine to go through."
He regards the bottle on the table critically, the half-empty glasses. "Or I could just roll us a spliff next time," he mutters.
"Remus Lupin, I am shocked," says Pomfrey, as she rises to accompany him to the door. "On a weekend, maybe. When the kids are off to Hogsmeade."
"Trust me," says Remus with a slight grin, "You're not as shocked as I am right now."
On the threshold, she looks him straight in the eyes, hand on his arm. "Seriously, I mean it," she says. "We're not done with this. Don't be a stranger this year."
Translation: She doesn't expect him to last.
Good, because he doesn't expect himself to last, either.
"Poppy," he says. "You're one out of maybe five people in this castle who's not over eighty or under eighteen. I guarantee you, I'll be round so often you'll want to be rid of me in no time."
"Looking forward to it." She laughs, stands on her tiptoes and gives him a kiss on the cheek. "Good night, Professor Lupin," she says.
"Good night to you, too, Madam Pomfrey," he says, knowing fully well he's not done with this.
After leaving Pomfrey in the warm light of her still-lit Infirmary, Remus takes the long way back, still thinking, thinking, thinking. He thought he'd had it in the end, grasped it by the tips of his fingers, a flimsy thread of truth, this close to unravelling, and then Snape turned up and everything was full of the wrong sort of memories -
Turning a corner, he very nearly runs over three tiny First Years, Hufflepuffs, judging by the friendly yellow trimmings on their robes. They are in the sort of quiet hysterics that comes from trying to move noiselessly and then running straight into a teacher anyway.
"We're not out of bed," pipes up the tallest of the trio, who comes up to maybe Remus's elbow.
With effort, Remus drags himself back into the real world. Feeling like the world's hugest hypocrite, he points out, "You really sort of are."
The children hold a brief, hushed conversation. "Little bit?" the tall one concedes. "But we were only trying to –"
Remus takes a closer look at the trio. Two of them are sort of protectively crowding the third, a tiny little girl with a tear-streaked face.
"Let me guess," says Remus. "Nightmares?"
The little girl is crying harder. She is clinging to the other two and they don't look too sure how they have acquired her in the first place, but peer up at Remus with a look that seems to say, "What can you do, eh?"
Actually, that seems to sum up Hufflepuff house rather well.
"There was a thing on the train and it spooked her and now she can't stop crying," says the tall one, "and she says she's cold, like even in front of the fire, and she's been sick like twice, and now we're all sort of spooked, I mean, it's just nightmares, right? It can't be here still, right, it can't?"
"Just nightmares," says Remus in what he hopes is a reassuring voice. "Trust me, you'd have noticed."
"Please, sir," continues the kid, "we can't have any more points taken off when the year hasn't even started, everyone will hate us –"
The 'sir' does something funny to Remus's brain. The sight of the little girl with her lingering nightmares of who-knows-what does the rest. "You'll want the Infirmary, I presume."
"Yeah," pipes up the medium-sized kid to the little girl's other side. "That was sort of the plan, only we got lost… first day, see. Big castle."
"Oh, you have no idea," says Remus. "Come with me, I'll walk you."
Still a bit wired, but ostensibly reassured that there seems to be a grown-up with at least some sort of idea what is going on, the children follow him.
"You, tall one," says Remus.
"Derek."
"And I'm Carlotta," the other one pipes up. "And that here is Mindy."
"Pleasure," says Remus. "I'm Professor Lupin. Derek, what did you mean, can't lose any more points?"
"We ran into a teacher," says Derek. "He didn't even listen! Took points off and sent us back, but, you know –"
"Didn't exactly solve the problem," says Carlotta. "So we sort of… went back out?"
"Please, we don't want to get into any more trouble," says Derek.
"Say no more," says Remus in a tone that he hopes gives nothing away. "How many points?"
"Thi-thirty," says the little girl – Mindy - abruptly. "Ten each."
"Well, then," Remus says, just as they reach the Infirmary . He raps softly on the door. "Have ten each to Hufflepuff. For looking out for each other."
"I haven't –" starts the girl.
No, thinks Remus, but you're ill, and he shouldn't have taken any fucking points off you in the first fucking place. Instead, he says, "I'm sure you'll find an opportunity," and gives her a friendly smile.
When Pomfrey opens the door, she just looks at him with an expression that clearly says, "Told you," as she ushers the children inside. He gives are a shrug in response.
The tall one turns around. "Thanks, Professor Lupin," he says.
"No problem, Derek," says Remus. "And don't you think I won't walk you back to your common room. You're really not supposed to be out on your own after curfew."
At this rate, it's going to be a short night, he thinks, waiting in front of the Infirmary. But then, weird sort of day…
Maybe it's because it's such a welcome distraction from, well, basically everything else, but suddenly Remus realises he's a lot angrier about the stupid thing with the house points than he rightfully should be. Because he's known since his second year, deep in his heart, that house points don't matter. They're just made up. Ergo: It's not the house points he's angry about.
He takes a deep breath, wills that anger out of him, that sharp, compelling impulse to march up to Snape's office and inform him that the castle is surrounded by Dementors, and if Snape ever actually went fucking outside, he might have fucking noticed.
Best not.
If they were on better terms, on any sort of terms at all - something he should probably try to be except shit like this comes along all the time - he supposes he could ask Snape about Regulus Black, get insight on those last little details that elude him. They must have known each other, they were basically colleagues for a while, weren't they, and he can just imagine Snape's sneer right now, Transparent, Lupin, he'd say. The brother with a moral compass. Shame your Black wasn't more like him.
Fuck off, Severus, is what he wants to tell the Snape in his mind, don't you dare talk to me about anyone's moral compass, not when yours only ever pointed to Lily Potter, but not enough, not even enough to keep that fucking prophecy to yourself -
But it's petty, petty, petty, he's just bitter because how the fuck did Snape turn out good when Sirius didn't, he's bitter because the Snape in his mind is so completely, overwhelmingly right: Remus Lupin really is as transparent as glass. This entire fucking trip down memory lane, it doesn't mean a thing. Wishful thinking, nothing more.
He's going to see Dumbledore first thing in the morning, and tell him the escaped prisoner Sirius Black can turn into a dog.
To be continued.