Resolutions
By Neurotica
Seven
The tense atmosphere that had filled the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black after the full moon began to dissipate the next morning. Neither Remus nor Emmeline told any of the others about the wizard thinking about leaving; after hours of talking, they'd reached an agreement that they were in this together, and whatever the future would bring, they'd work together to come up with a solution instead of just running away.
Remus had pulled Harry aside before breakfast and apologized profusely for what happened on the full moon. To his immense surprise, the boy had laughed, saying it was Moony's payback for all the grief Harry had caused his guardians over the last twelve years. Remus stared at him for a moment before smiling and pulling him into a fierce hug, saying Harry was too much like his father for anyone's good. Remus promised Harry a party for his birthday on the weekend, whomever he wanted to invite, as much food as he wanted, anything he wanted to do. Harry, still smiling, rolled his eyes and said he still just wanted his friends and family over for dinner.
"Alright, then," Remus said, nodding. "Does tomorrow night work for you?"
"Well, I'll have to check my schedule, but I think I'm free." Harry grinned. Remus chuckled, ruffled the boy's hair, and went back to the kitchen where Sirius was reading the morning paper. Naomi sat beside him, staring in disgust at the plate of breakfast sitting in front of her husband.
Any day now, Remus thought, we'll be at the hospital waiting for the baby to finally come.
"Anything interesting in the Prophet, Sirius?" Harry asked, sitting between his godfather and Emmeline, who didn't seem anymore thrilled with breakfast than Naomi did.
Sirius shook his head and flipped to the back of the newspaper for the crossword. "Nothing," he said. "And I don't know whether to be happy or worried about that."
"Well, if you were worried," Emmeline said, "you'd only be one of the very few who are. It seems the whole world has forgotten we're at war."
"Did the Prophet get word of the Dark Mark from the other night?" Remus asked.
"Page three," the Auror responded with a shake of his head. "And it's not even a full article—just a snippet about the kids who were caught."
Remus sighed. "As much as I hate to admit it, the world will be in for a very rude awakening when something happens again."
"Maybe nothing will happen," Harry said hopefully, pouring an obscene amount of sugar over his cornflakes. "I mean, it's been, what, six months almost? Maybe Voldemort has given up... Or he just died."
Sirius snorted. "Yes, I could just see Voldemort choking on his morning crumpet and tea. The war isn't over. Voldemort doesn't just give up. He's waiting until everyone thinks we're safe so he can get the maximum reaction. People were afraid when their friends and family were dying everyday, but it's nothing short of chaos when something horrible happens after months of thinking we're safe. Remember St. Mungo's a few years back?"
Harry nodded and sighed. "Wishful thinking, I guess," he muttered.
"We're all wishing for it, Harry," Emmeline said, patting his arm. "And one day, it will happen."
Harry didn't reply to this; Sirius and Remus exchanged a glance, wondering if he was thinking the same thing they were—that Voldemort wouldn't stop until he was killed, and Harry was the one who had to do the killing. But Remus decided not to dwell on those thoughts. After breakfast, he, Emmeline, and Sirius went to get ready for work, all of them vaguely wondering what the day would bring.
Sirius found out quite quickly—too quickly—what waited for him that day. He'd barely walked through the doors of Auror Headquarters when Tonks ran to meet him, looking highly distraught and a little disturbed. Before he could even ask what was wrong, she stuffed a slip of parchment into his hand and told him to meet her there. The Head Auror raised an eyebrow as his cousin rushed out of Headquarters, and looked around at his other Aurors who were going on about their own business, oblivious to Tonks' odd behavior.
Sighing, he read the crumpled slip—it was a residential area in Kent, a good fifty miles or so from where the cottage once stood. Without even going to his office, he turned back to the large oak doors of Headquarters and went down the hall to the DMLE Apparition chamber. He muttered the password to activate it—"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good"—and entered the metal door that materialized in the wall. Wondering vaguely why Tonks hadn't waited to Disapparate with him—it would have been quicker than taking the lifts all the way to the Atrium, where he was sure she'd gone—he glanced again at his destination, thought hard about it, and Disapparated.
He reappeared on the wooden porch of a large house with tall white doors and several glass panes in them. His finger was half an inch from the doorbell when the door was wrenched open and Tonks yanked him over the threshold by his arm. The thing that registered in his mind immediately about the house was the terrible stench coming from somewhere down the hall. It nearly had Sirius gagging as he took a whiff of the air.
"What the hell is that?" he coughed, his eyes watering as he followed the redheaded witch down the hall. She didn't answer.
They reached another pair of closed double doors and instead of opening them right away, Tonks finally turned to her cousin. "There was an attack on the full moon," she said quietly. "Five victims, all dead—husband and wife, two girls and a boy, all three under the age of twelve. We think the... attackers... came through the Floo—the doors weren't forced open, and there aren't any Apparition or Disapparition tracks around the time we think they were killed."
"Emmeline's files," Sirius said quietly, sighing heavily and nodding. "I guess they didn't take the warning seriously." He sighed again. "Killing Curse?"
Tonks shook her head, biting her lip. "Worse," she said a bit hoarsely. She opened her mouth to explain, but changed her mind at the last minute. She turned back to the door, glancing at Sirius over her shoulder briefly, and pushed them open. The stench in this room was far worse than anything Sirius had ever experienced. He finally registered the smell to be blood, and loads of it.
In the center of a wooden floor of what looked to be a large office, five bodies lay side-by-side with their throats ripped out, their stomachs torn open. "Oh my god," was the first thing Sirius managed to choke out. It had been years since he'd seen such a gruesome scene involving children, but this was far more disturbing.
He knew what had caused this family's deaths—werewolves had been here... Sirius turned away from the bodies and found bloody paw prints all around them. How many were there? he wondered idly.
Once he'd gotten a good look around, he turned to find Tonks leaning against the door, looking sick. "Are you the only one here?" he asked quietly.
She shook her head. "Proudfoot and Johnson are upstairs looking around. We weren't going to call you until later, but Proudfoot found something you might be interested in..." She hesitated before reaching into her robes and pulling out a gold pocket watch caked in blood, and said, "We think the werewolves took the family hostage before the moon rose. Proudfoot was looking for clues and moved one of the bodies, and found this..."
Sirius hadn't taken his eyes off the watch since Tonks had withdrawn it. It looked painfully familiar, but how had it gotten here? Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, making him think the watch was what he thought it was. Just to confirm his thoughts, he took the watch from Tonks, his hands shaking, and pushed the button at the top, opening it. He closed his eyes tightly when he recognized the small faces of himself, Harry, and Emmeline on the watch's hands. "Remus' watch..." he whispered tightly. "How'd it get here?"
"He didn't leave Number Twelve the other night, did he?" Tonks asked cautiously.
"Of course not," Sirius said sharply. "Nobody leaves that house on the full moon—" He stopped suddenly, remembering with a sinking heart the events that took place inside the Order's Headquarters two nights ago. Snape hadn't made Remus' potion—no one had heard from him in weeks, so Dumbledore had asked Slughorn to prepare it. Had the Hogwarts Potions master ruined the Wolfsbane purposefully and knowingly? Sirius felt the color drain from his face and tasted bile rising in his throat at the thought. Had Remus' loss of control in his transformation been planned?
Without realizing it, Sirius had left the room, left the house, Apparated back to the Ministry, and walked to Remus' department in a complete daze, the bloody pocket watch still held painfully tight in his right hand. When he reached his best friend's office, he and Emmeline were talking quietly on the office sofa that had been repaired after the office had been broken in to. Sirius finally figured out what had been taken.
"Hey, Sirius," Emmeline said when she and her husband finally noticed him. The smiles they had for him disappeared almost instantly when they saw the look on his face. "What's wrong?"
Sirius swallowed hard. "Em, could I talk to Remus alone for a minute, please?" he croaked.
Emmeline furrowed her brow and looked at Remus before nodding. "Of course," she said quietly. "I'll see you two later, then. Love you." She kissed Remus quickly before leaving. Sirius stared at his feet until he heard the door click shut.
"Sirius?" Remus said, standing. "What's happened? Did something happen to Harry or Naomi?"
Sirius shook his head, still feeling very ill. He finally looked up to Remus, dreading what he was about to tell his best friend. "There was an attack on the full moon," he started hoarsely. Remus face faded into the blank mask he'd mastered in his younger years when he didn't want anyone to know what he was thinking or feeling. "A whole family was killed by werewolves. Tonks and Proudfoot think they transformed in the house and killed them after the moon rose." He chewed on his bottom lip a little, watching Remus for any sort of reaction—there was none—before telling him the second part. "My Aurors found something under one of the bodies..." He raised his hand and opened his fist, showing Remus the pocket watch Emmeline had given him for their first Christmas together, just before they officially became a couple.
Remus stared at the watch silently for long minutes—it seemed like hours to Sirius—and with a shaking hand, he reached out to pick it up. "My watch," he said weakly. "I've been looking for this everywhere." He turned it over in his hand and tried to wipe the dried blood off the back so he could read the inscription Emmeline had it engraved with for his last birthday: 'Now you can know where we are whenever you're worried. Love you always, Emmeline.'
"You found it where?"
"Under a body," Sirius answered. "It was obviously planted there, and I assume whoever broke into your office had something to do with the attacks." Remus had backed up into his desk, his face still completely empty as he used his robes to wipe the blood from his watch. "They used Emmeline's Floo files to get into the house, I think."
"Who else knows about this?" Remus asked heavily.
"Tonks, Proudfoot, and Johnson," Sirius replied. "This won't get out, Remus. And even if it does, there's no way anyone can say you had something to do with this—Harry and I can honestly testify that you didn't leave Number Twelve all night—"
"And how do you plan on doing that?" Remus asked sharply. "Are you going to tell people you were in a room with a werewolf all night? You can't tell them that the two of you are Animagi—you're both illegal."
"Yes, but we can still say we know you couldn't have left—there're charms all around the house to keep you from getting out... Remus, you're not getting framed for this. We both know with complete certainty that you had nothing to do with this."
"No, but I could have been responsible for four other deaths that night," Remus said so quietly that Sirius thought he'd imagined it.
"So for something that didn't happen, you're willing to take the rap for something worse?"
Remus ran a hand through his hair. "No," he said honestly. "But that doesn't mean people won't say I did if this gets out. No matter my reputation around the Ministry—no matter how good it is—I'm still a dark creature, Sirius."
"It won't get out," Sirius said firmly. "Nothing will happen to you. You've got my word on that. I'll go wipe my Auror's memories if I have to, but there is no way in hell you will get any heat from this, Remus."
Remus felt much better to have Sirius on his side, not that it would have been any other way; but to have his best friend's unwavering loyalty and word, that he would be protected meant everything to him. "Who would do this?" Remus whispered. "It's obviously someone who knows me, even just in passing... They know about my watch; unless it's just coincidence that they found the one thing that could be undoubtedly connected to me..."
Sirius sighed. "I'm going to take care of this," he promised again. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it, understand?"
Remus nodded pensively and shoved the watch into his robe pocket. "Do you think it was Greyback?"
"Possibly." The Auror shrugged. "But he would have had to get into the Ministry twice—once for the files in Emmeline's office, once for your watch—without getting caught. And that's almost impossible; everybody is looking for him—he couldn't have just walked in here and back out once, let alone twice."
"No, but somebody who works in the Ministry could also be working for him and Voldemort or could be under Imperius."
"We'll figure it out," Sirius said. "Until then, I wouldn't recommend telling too many people about this; even though we know you had nothing to do with it, and your close friends will know too, others might try and say you did it."
Remus looked at him. "Didn't I just say that?"
"Yes, but it sounds more official coming from me." Sirius achieved his goal in making Remus smile, even if it was just a little. "I should get back to work. See you at lunch."
"See you," Remus muttered. "And thank you."
Sirius inclined his head. "Don't mention it, mate."
Harry's birthday celebration succeeded in getting the werewolf attacks off the minds of both Sirius and Remus momentarily. Neither had it in him to tell their wives what had happened or what had been found at the crime scene—"they don't need that kind of stress..." the Auror had said.
The other Aurors that had been investigating the scene were told not to let it leak that Remus Lupin's watch had been discovered beneath a body. All three of them swore on their badges to their boss that they wouldn't, and Sirius trusted them—that was good enough for Remus. He trusted Sirius with his life, after all.
But both Sirius and Remus had undergone noticeable changes in mood, and nobody missed it. When she'd come through the fire from the Burrow, Molly thought they'd both come down sick, while their wives watched them with narrowed, suspicious eyes, thinking they'd played some prank the others in the house were yet to be aware of. Even Ron, who rarely realized when somebody was in a foul mood until it was too late, caught that the two Marauders weren't themselves during the party. Harry didn't know what had happened that day, so he just assumed the pair was still stressed from the full moon. He told his friends that the Dark Mark, though it'd been a false alarm, had them both working overtime at the Ministry. It wasn't true of course, but Harry couldn't tell them what else happened during the full moon.
Nothing really noteworthy happened that evening. Harry opened all his gifts (varying from sweets to clothes to books to a new practice snitch to a box of samples of things Fred and George had created—the exploration of this box broke Sirius out of his foul mood for about an hour or so.) Molly made them all dinner and afterwards spent hours talking to Naomi and Emmeline about the joys of raising children. After hearing most of the stories about the Weasley twins from the woman who'd given birth to them, Emmeline was starting to wonder what she'd gotten herself into.
"With Sirius and Remus around, my boys will end up troublemakers before they will be able to walk," Emmeline said, smiling over at Remus, who took no notice in the conversation as he talked quietly with Arthur. "Those two are a big enough handful as it is."
"Remus doesn't cause that much trouble, though, does he?" Molly asked disbelievingly.
Emmeline raised amused eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Naomi, whose lips were twitching uncontrollably. "Remus is not as innocent as he looks, Molly," she said. "He just isn't as obvious as Sirius is with his troublemaking. But believe me, Remus has his moments of glory just like the rest of them."
"Like he's always said," Naomi grinned, "he's a Marauder first and foremost."
Molly smiled. After a minute or so, she said, "How much more time do you have, Naomi?"
"Another month, according to the Healers," the mother-to-be said, smiling and rubbing her large belly. "But I've got a feeling she's not going to be waiting that long. She's becoming a lot more active—I can't even sleep at night a lot of the time."
Molly nodded. "Yes, that tends to happen towards the end. And your body will know long before when its time; though you yourself won't realize it until your water has broken. She is in control, dear, not you."
"Yes, I've realized this," Naomi said with a chuckle. "I can't believe all the odd things I've digested in the past eight months. I've grossed Sirius out too many times to count at meal times."
"And yet, you seem to enjoy it more every time," said the Head Auror coming to sit between his wife and Molly. "Personally, I'll be happy when this baby comes, if only for the simple fact that I won't have to watch you eat that rubbish anymore."
"No one says you've got to watch me eat, Sirius," Naomi said. "You're quite free to turn away from me."
"Yes, but if I did that, I would be denying myself the chance to look at the most beautiful sight in the world," he responded smoothly.
Naomi rolled her eyes. "Me stuffing my face is the most beautiful sight in the world? And I thought I was delusional."
Sirius only chuckled huskily and leaned over to kiss her passionately, leaving her in no doubt that he indeed thought she was the most beautiful sight in the world. She had a very dazed look on her face when he pulled away and it took her a minute to realize he'd stopped kissing her. Not long after, the couple disappeared from the kitchen, and didn't return for some time. When they finally did return, both looked very pleased.
The Weasleys and Hermione left just past one a.m.—Harry and Ginny thoroughly kissed good night behind the others' backs. Once the visitors had gone, Sirius tried not to grin at Harry's face. "I have to keep reminding myself how old he is and that he's a lot older than I was when I started dating," Sirius told Emmeline after Harry had gone to bed. "It's just hard to admit he's growing up and doing the sort of things that grown-ups do."
Emmeline smiled and patted his arm fondly. "Just wait until your daughter reaches his age and starts dating."
Sirius snorted. "But with any luck, she'll be dating one of your boys. If it's anyone else, I won't allow it."
"Are you trying to arrange a marriage for our children, Padfoot?" Remus asked amusedly, sitting next to Emmeline and putting an arm around her.
"No," Sirius answered. "I'm just saying it would be preferable for my daughter to date a boy from a family I trust. And I trust you two to raise honorable, honest boys who won't take advantage of my little girl."
"We can try," Remus said doubtfully. "But if they spend enough time with you, I wouldn't count on it." He grinned and Sirius stuck his middle finger up at his best friend. "But don't you think it will be rather odd for your daughter and one of my sons to date if they're raised as closely as I'm sure they will be?"
Sirius shrugged. "Not really. Sometimes the best love you can have is someone you've known practically all your life. Look at Naomi and me: we've known each other since we were five."
"But you didn't spend every waking moment with her when we were kids. This would be like Naomi dating James."
"Ew..." Naomi said. "I loved James to death, but he was like my brother, and that would have been incest—I never would have dated him."
"Exactly," Remus said.
"Why are we even discussing this now? The babies aren't even born yet," Emmeline said, smiling at the conversation.
"It's never too early to plan," Sirius said.
The next morning, Sirius and Remus entered the kitchen together and received something of a surprise. Emmeline and Harry were standing over Naomi's shoulder, reading the newspaper she held. This in itself was slightly odd, but when Harry noticed his guardians' arrival and reached to close and hide said newspaper, the two wizards became very suspicious. Both witches looked quite close to tears, Emmeline a bit fearful, and Harry had gone rather pale.
"What's going on?" Remus asked, his heart pounding somewhere in his ears.
Nobody answered right away, and the other three exchanged startled glances. "Accio newspaper," Sirius said when he lost his patience. Harry tried his best to hold onto the paper, but lost his grip as it soared into his godfather's hands.
With a glance at the three of them, who looked increasingly nervous, Sirius unfolded the paper and held it so both he and Remus could read the large headline:
Conspiracy in the Ministry!
Head Auror weds Death Eater; two other department heads responsible for brutal murders.
"Please tell me that doesn't say what I think it says," Sirius begged Remus.
The other wizard could only stare at the words. He read most of the long article, (written by Rita Skeeter, of course) only skimming through parts, and discovered many things. For one, someone had found out about Sirius and Naomi's marriage, and Naomi's pregnancy. Next, apparently Remus and Emmeline had worked together in stealing the Floo files from the witch's office (according to the article, there was a surveillance hologram of Remus breaking into his wife's office). And on the full moon, the couple used the stolen information to murder a family by way of a werewolf attack. The news about Remus' watch being found at the scene had been somehow been discovered.
"How?" Remus croaked, thinking of what would happen when he, Sirius, and Emmeline entered the Ministry that day. If they weren't arrested on sight, they'd spend the day receiving looks of suspicion and disgust. Remus would be lucky not to be chased out of the Ministry with flamed-torches and pitchforks.
But while Remus worried about that, his best friend looked to be getting angrier by the second. He cursed quite colorfully, looking ready to kill. "One of them talked," he growled.
The other four weren't brave enough to ask him what part of the article he was most angry about, not when he looked like that... He crumpled the paper up and threw it as hard as he could into the fireplace before turning on his heel sharply and leaving the house so he could Apparate. Remus was left to answer questions of what the paper meant by "Lupin's watch was found on the crime scene." He did, and his wife looked quite hurt that she hadn't been told before this, that she'd had to find out from a newspaper. He apologized profusely, glancing at Naomi. The witch was staring at the floor, tears pouring down her face. Remus figured she was thinking about what would happen to Sirius if he was thought to have married a Death Eater, one of the enemies. It was a felony to fraternize with one of Voldemort's followers, punishable by five years in Azkaban.
"I need to find Sirius before he kills someone," Remus said hoarsely. And he followed his best friend's footsteps out of the house.
Not long after Remus left, Dumbledore Flooed to Number Twelve to ask them something completely unrelated to that day's headline. He was quite shocked by what he was told was in the newspaper. Harry assumed he just hadn't read it, but the Headmaster told them that today's Daily Prophet headline had nothing to do with Sirius, Remus, Naomi, or Emmeline—that day's headline had announced the opening of a new shop in Diagon Alley.
"Do you think he's just gone senile?" Harry asked worriedly, after Dumbledore's head disappeared from the fireplace.
Emmeline shook her head uncertainly. "There's one way to find out." And she fire-called Molly Weasley, asking as calmly as possible what the wizarding newspaper's front page contained that day. Molly looked at her oddly as though wondering about her sanity, but told them the same thing Dumbledore had.
Feeling both panicky and faint, Emmeline sent a message to her husband by way of patronus, telling him that, somehow, they'd received a fake newspaper—someone must have intercepted their paper before it'd arrived. Remus replied fifteen minutes later, telling her that he knew—he'd run into Arthur in the Ministry Atrium—but there was a slight problem: he couldn't find Sirius anywhere and no one had seen him all morning.
