Disclaimer: not mine.
A/N: i'd like to thank everyone who's been pacient enough to read this story (especially to those who reviewed). i had originally intended this to be the last chapter, with an epilogue afterward, but sirius is my love and i couldn't stand to kill him just yet - i know that when i write that chapter i'll most likely have a huge emotional breakdown, and now just isn't a good time for that. this chapter is a bit different from the others, but i'm in no way trying to change the focus of this story, just to explore it a bit more. bear with me.
Chapter Nine
Setting: the dingy corner of some pub with the name on its sign obscured by grime, Knockturn Alley, London, England, The World. Two mugs whose contents you didn't care to guess at sat on the table, though neither you nor your acquaintance had touched them. Someone had carved a rough Dark Mark in the wood of your chair, the kind that in another life came dangerously close to appearing on your arm. The lighting was dim, the space crowded with a wary bubble of emptiness between your table and the rest of the room.
You fit in with all this, your graying hair and patched clothing to match the mottled scene, slouching aberrantly with both elbows on the table while across from you, a monster sometimes mistaken for a man lounged in his chair – when you'd called him Greyback, he had chortled but made no direct reply.
"It's always such a touching moment, when a parent and child meet," he had been saying, licking his lips in that way of his, as though you were a piece of meat. Into your mind flashed the words: "Luke, I am your father," quickly pushed away because it was not the time for mugglisms.
"But I am not touched by your presence here, Remus Lupin," Greyback concluded with a suspicious leer, spiking up the front of his coarse, dandruff-dusted hair with bony fingers. "I suppose you think I know nothing of your history, child. Mixed up with humans and Dumbledore's nonsense for years."
This is not a time to argue your case; he is, essentially, the leader of a human wolf pack, and this is your time to bow before the alpha.
"Let me see…" He scratches at the stubble on his chin as though checking for fleas, head tilted slightly to the side but still meeting your eyes with his own bloodshot ones. "Original Order member. Think I didn't know that? It's what parents are for, though I suppose yours were quick enough to forget you."
Too proud to agree and too wary to argue, you picked at the splintering edge of the table. "I was under the impression that my loyalty was in question, not my past."
He ignored this. "After our Ally's… departure, you disappeared for twelve years. Hidden by Dumbledore, no doubt."
"From him." No lie.
"From the old fool? This is unexpected." Greyback glowered, mistrusting the first words of truth you have spoken in days.
"There had been a… disagreement." you remember shouting and swearing, overdue immaturity that you had missed out on for all your teenage years became the thing that beat your pulse, crashing through you in waves. November third, was it? Second, fourth? 1981, you thought, although the years have since smeared together. Nonetheless, not long enough after the full moon to stand and scream in emptiness without supporting yourself on nearby furniture, panting for breath.
Dumbledore, always the damage control, had said, "I understand." Old fool, indeed. Shining sliver and gold instruments of obscure uses and worth more than his every last possession had shattered against ancient walls.
And later, in a Muggle hotel room just a mile away from the forbidden child whose third word had been moo'y, you kept nothing to your name but a few photographs you couldn't bear to see, and a rolled up newspaper of sometime that week that proved your world hand ended. You made paper bars for the window, curled up like a sleeping dog against the wall and imagined a prison cell.
Dropping like flies, you thought to yourself, when you could think at all. Identical flies that hit you from all sides on their way down, like bludgers in a Dopplebeater defense.
As you remembered all this, running your finger over the carved Dark Mark on your chair, your pseudo-parent watched closely, calculatingly; he was there while it all clicked in your eyes, while you realized where you wanted to be. You took a sip of whatever was in that mug, tried not to choke as it burned you. Made your excuses and hoped he bought them, left without looking back.
