Hey guys so since finals are over and I have no school for the next like 2 weeks I decided to celebrate and give you guys a new chapter. I wrote back in December. I swear I was going to post this before Christmas, then for my birthday, then over Presidents day. And then I didn't... opps.
So please review and let me know who you guys would like me to do next.
ENJOY!
"Reading in rembrance ... of Remus Lupin" Dumbledore read.
Instantly all good moods where vanished.
"No" Harry whispered barely audible as Snuffles laughed himself at Remus and howled like there was no tomorrow.
"At least I can see Lilly and James again." Remus said weekly.
"...The last true Marauder..."
Everyone who knew Sirius suddenly grew ten times as depressed. I mean it was bad enough as it was to lose Remus but Sirius as well.
"...Who wasn't just a amazing father..."
The Hall erupted in congratulations.
"My kid will never know me."
"Don't worry we'll tell them about their father." Harry said.
"...An incredible husband...
... A brave hero..."
"Well at least I died a hero." Snuffles whimpered at the thought of his best friend dead.
"...But was also a freaking awesome werewolf..."
Laughter was heard throughout the hall. At the staff table Umbridge sneered in disgust.
Another projection started this time they were on the Hogwarts Express.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione set off down the corridor, looking for an empty compartment, but all were full except for the one at the very end of the train.
This had only one occupant, a man sitting fast asleep next to the window. Harry, Ron, and Hermione checked on the threshold. The Hogwarts Express was usually reserved for students and they had never seen an adult there before, except for the witch who pushed the food cart.
The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard's robes that had been darned in several places. He looked ill and exhausted. Though quite young, his light brown hair was flecked with gray.
"Who d'you reckon he is?" Ron hissed as they sat down and slid the door shut, taking the seats farthest away from the window.
"Professor R. J. Lupin," whispered Hermione at once.
"How d'you know that?"
"It's on his case," she replied, pointing at the luggage rack over the man's head, where there was a small, battered case held together with a large quantity of neatly knotted string.
The name Professor R. J. Lupin was stamped across one corner in peeling letters.
"Wonder what he teaches?" said Ron, frowning at Professor Lupin's pallid profile. "That's obvious," whispered Hermione. "There's only one vacancy, isn't there? Defense Against the Dark Arts."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had already had two Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, both of whom had lasted only one year. There were rumors that the job was jinxed.
"well, I hope he's up to it," said Ron doubtfully. "He looks like on, good hex would finish him off, doesn't he? Anyway..." He turned to Harry. "What were you going to tell us?"
"Sorry Lupin" Ron muttered, knowing that he would probably be apologizing to his former professor a lot.
"It's fine Ron. Too be honest it wasn't totally wrong" Lupin replied. Another projection started.
"Let me see, let me see..." he muttered, taking out his wand and smoothing the map out on his desk. "Reveal your secret!" he said, touching the wand to the parchment. Nothing happened. Harry clenched his hands to stop them from shaking.
"Show yourself!" Snape said, tapping the map sharply. It stayed blank. Harry was taking deep, calming breaths.
"Professor Severus Snape, master of this school, commands you to yield the information you conceal!" Snape said, hitting the map with his wand. As though an invisible hand were writing upon it, words appeared on the smooth surface of the map.
"Mooney presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business." Snape froze. Harry stared, dumbstruck, at the message. But the map didn't stop there. More writing was appearing beneath the first.
"Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git." It would have been very funny if the situation hadn't been so serious. And there was more...
"Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor." Harry closed his eyes in horror. When he'd opened them, the map had had its last word.
"Mr. Wormtail (Queue growling from everyone who knew the truth) bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair , the slime ball." Harry waited for the blow to fall.
"So..." said Snape softly. "We'll see about this... He strode across to his fire, seized a fistful of glittering powder from a jar on the fireplace, and threw it into the flames. 241
"Lupin!" Snape called into the fire. "I want a word!" Utterly bewildered, Harry stared at the fire. A large shape had appeared in it, revolving very fast. Seconds later, Professor Lupin was clambering out of the fireplace, brushing ash off his shabby robes.
"You called, Severus?" said Lupin mildly.
"I certainly did," said Snape, his face contorted with fury as he strode back to his desk. "I have just asked Potter to empty his pockets. He was carrying this." Snape pointed at the parchment, on which the words of Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were still shining. An odd, closed expression appeared on Lupin's face.
"Well?" said Snape. Lupin continued to stare at the map. Harry had the impression that Lupin was doing some very quick thinking. "Well?" said Snape again. "This parchment is plainly full of Dark Magic. This is supposed to be your area of expertise, Lupin. Where do you imagine Potter got such a thing?" Lupin looked up and, by the merest half-glance in Harry's direction, warned him not to interrupt. "Full of Dark Magic?" he repeated mildly.
"Do you really think so, Severus? It looks to me as though it is merely a piece of parchment that insults anybody who reads it. Childish, but surely not dangerous? I imagine Harry got it from a joke shop -"
"Indeed?" said Snape. His jaw had gone rigid with anger. "You think a joke shop could supply him with such a thing? You don't think it more likely that he got it directly from the manufacturers?" Harry didn't understand what Snape was talking about. Nor, apparently, did Lupin.
"You mean, by Mr. Wormtail or one of these people?" he said. "Harry, do you know any of these men?"
"No," said Harry quickly. "You see, Severus?" said Lupin, turning back to Snape. "It looks like a Zonko product to me -" Right on cue, Ron came bursting into the office. He was completely out of breath, and stopped just short of Snape's desk, clutching the stitch in his chest and trying to speak.
"I - gave - Harry - that - stuff," he choked. "Bought - it... in Zonko's... ages - ago..."
"Well!" said Lupin, clapping his hands together and looking around cheerfully. "That seems to clear that up! Severus, I'll take this back, shall I?" He folded the map and tucked it inside his robes. "Harry, Ron, come with me, I need a word about my vampire essay - excuse us, Severus -" Harry didn't dare look at Snape as they left his office. He.
Ron, and Lupin walked all the way back into the entrance hall before speaking. Then Harry turned to Lupin.
"Professor, I -"
"I don't want to hear explanations," said Lupin shortly. He glanced around the empty entrance hall and lowered his voice. "I happen to know that this map was confiscated by Mr. Filch many years ago. Yes, I know it' s a map," he said as Harry and Ron looked amazed.
"I don't want to know how it fell into your possession. I am, however, astounded that you didn't hand it in. Particularly after what happened the last time a student left information about the castle lying around. And I can't let you have it back, Harry." Harry had expected that, and was too keen for explanations to protest. "Why did Snape think I'd got it from the manufacturers?"
"Because...," Lupin hesitated, "because these mapmakers would have wanted to lure you out of school. They'd think it extremely entertaining."
"Do you know them?" said Harry, impressed.
"We've met," he said shortly.
80% of the hall burst out laughing.
"Bloody hell I forgot how scary that was. Here I was trying to come up with a reason I had all of this Zonko's stuff and it was insulting him." Harry said.
"Wait you know the Marauders" Fred asked.
"You could say that." Before the twins could ask anymore the next projection started.
"You see!" said a strained voice. Tonks was glaring at Lupin. "She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten! She doesn't care!"
"It's different," said Lupin, barely moving his lips and looking ' suddenly tense. "Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely —"
"But I don't care either, I don't care!" said Tonks, seizing the front of Lupin's robes and shaking them. "I've told you a million times. . . ." And the meaning of Tonks's Patronus and her mouse-colored hair, and the reason she had come running to find Dumbledore when she had heard a rumor someone had been attacked by Greyback, all suddenly became clear to Harry; it had not been Sirius that Tonks had fallen in love with after all.
"And I've told you a million times," said Lupin, refusing to meet her eyes, staring at the floor, "that I am too old for you, too poor . . . too dangerous. . . ."
"I've said all along you're taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus," said Mrs. Weasley over Fleur's shoulder as she patted her on the back.
"I am not being ridiculous," said Lupin steadily. "Tonks deserves somebody young and whole."
"But she wants you," said Mr. Weasley, with a small smile. "And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so." He gestured sadly at his son, lying between them.
"This is . . . not the moment to discuss it," said Lupin, avoiding everybody's eyes as he looked around distractedly.
Congratulations could be heard through out the hall as the meaning of the earlier words came. but, before the two in question could actually talk another projection came on this time it was in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place with Lupin and the Golden Trio.
"You don't understand," said Lupin at last.
"Explain, then," said Harry. Lupin swallowed. "I — I made a grave mistake in marrying Tonks. I did it against my better judgment and I have regretted it very much ever since."
"I see," said Harry, "so you're just going to dump her and the kid and run off with us?" Lupin sprang to his feet: His chair toppled over backward, and he glared at them so fiercely that Harry saw, for the first time ever, the shadow of the wolf upon his human face.
"Don't you understand what I've done to my wife and my unborn child? I should never have married her, I've made her an outcast!" Lupin kicked aside the chair he had overturned. "You have only ever seen me amongst the Order, or under Dumbledore's protection at Hogwarts! You don't know how most of the Wizarding world sees creatures like me! When they know of my affliction, they can barely talk to me! Don't you see what I've done? Even her own family is disgusted by our marriage, what parents want their only daughter to marry a werewolf? And the child — the child —" Lupin actually seized handfuls of his own hair; he looked quite deranged.
"My kind don't usually breed! It will be like me, I am convinced of it — how can I forgive myself, when I knowingly risked passing on my own condition to an innocent child? And if, by some miracle, it is not like me, then it will be better off, a hundred times so, without a father of whom it must always be ashamed!"
"Remus!" whispered Hermione, tears in her eyes. "Don't say that — how could any child be ashamed of you?"
"Oh, I don't know, Hermione," said Harry. "I'd be pretty ashamed of him." Harry did not know where his rage was coming from, but it had propelled him to his feet too. Lupin looked as though Harry had hit him.
"If the new regime thinks Muggle-borns are bad," Harry said, "what will they do to a half-werewolf whose father's in the Order? My father died trying to protect my mother and me, and you reckon he'd tell you to abandon your kid to go on an adventure with us?"
"How — how dare you?" said Lupin. "This is not about a desire for — for danger or personal glory — how dare you suggest such a —"
"I think you're feeling a bit of a daredevil," Harry said. "You fancy stepping into Sirius's shoes —"
"Harry, no!" Hermione begged him, but he continued to glare into Lupin's livid face. "I'd never have believed this," Harry said. "The man who taught me to fight dementors — a coward." Lupin drew his wand so fast that Harry had barely reached for his own; there was a loud bang and he felt himself flying backward as if punched; as he slammed into the kitchen wall and slid to the floor, he glimpsed the tail of Lupin's cloak disappearing around the door.
The hall was silent. Then suddenly.
"YOU COMPLETE IDIOT!" Tonks yelled startling everyone out of the silence.
"Dora..."
"DON'T YOU DORA ME REMUS LUPIN!"
"Can you really yell at me for something that happens in the future?"
"I DAMN WELL CAN SINCE WE BOTH KNOW THAT YOU ARE STILL THINKING THE SAME THINGS RIGHT NOW!'
"Wha...how...wha...you don't know that."
"Yes we do." Nearly every person in the Order replied to the werewolf before Tonks could yell at him again. Before any one can reply another projection started. This time they were in some house no one but the Weasley's recognized.
"Who is it?" Bill called.
"It is I, Remus John Lupin!" called a voice over the howling wind. Harry experienced a thrill of fear; what had happened? "I am a werewolf, married to Nymphadora Tonks, and you, the Secret Keeper of Shell Cottage, told me the address and bade me come in an emergency!"
"Lupin," muttered Bill, and he ran to the door and wrenched it open. Lupin fell over the threshold. He was white-faced, wrapped in a traveling cloak, his graying hair windswept. He straightened up, looked around the room, making sure of who was there, then cried aloud,
"It's a boy! We've named him Ted, after Dora's father!" Hermione shrieked.
"Wha — ? Tonks — Tonks has had the baby?"
"Yes, yes, she's had the baby!" shouted Lupin. All around the table came cries of delight, sighs of relief: Hermione and Fleur both squealed,
"Congratulations!" and Ron said, "Blimey, a baby!" as if he had never heard of such a thing before.
"Yes — yes — a boy," said Lupin again, who seemed dazed by his own happiness. He strode around the table and hugged Harry; the scene in the basement of Grimmauld Place might never have happened.
You'll be godfather?" he said as he released Harry.
"M-me?" stammered Harry "You, yes, of course — Dora quite agrees, no one better —" "I — yeah — blimey —" Harry felt overwhelmed, astonished, delighted; now Bill was hurrying to fetch wine, and Fleur was persuading Lupin to join them for a drink.
"I can't stay long, I must get back," said Lupin, beaming around at them all: He looked years younger than Harry had ever seen him. "Thank you, thank you, Bill."
"Looks like you changed your mind about it Remus" Mrs. Weasley smiled as she pointed out the flaw in his thinking.
"It doesn't matter I still stand by what I previously said,"
"YOU ARE IMPOSIABLE! YOU CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO FATHOM THAT SOMEONE COULD LOVE YOU! OR THAT YOU DESVER TO EVEN BE LOVED!"
"Don't try to tell me what I feel Dora."
"Why you seem to want to tell me what I feel." It was then that everyone realized that some of this was happening today and maybe not that far out. Before anyone can comment another projection started, this time it was the Forbidden Forest. Harry seemed to be surrounded by four people.
"And he will want it to be quick. He wants it over," said Lupin.
"I didn't want you to die," Harry said. These words came without his volition. "Any of you. I'm sorry —" He addressed Lupin more than any of them, beseeching him. "— right after you'd had your son . . . Remus, I'm sorry —"
"I am sorry too," said Lupin. "Sorry I will never know him . . . but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."
No one knew what to make of what they just saw. How was Harry talking to Lupin if he was dead? Right as some one was going to ask, there was another flash and another sheet of paper appeared.
"In Remembrance of..."
A/N OMG that took me waaaaaaaay too long. As I previously stated I meant to update this back before Christmas, then in February and then over spring break but I didn't so...opps.
But leave a review down below letting me know what you think and who you would like to read next.
THANKS
- Moonlight