1 September 1993
Remus jerked awake as the Hogwarts Express lurched suddenly into motion. Blinking sleepily, he raised his head and rubbed his stiff neck. The view out the window of his compartment was a blur of trees and shrubbery, and outside the compartment, Remus could hear the strikingly familiar sounds of students searching for a free compartment with their friends. The sound filled his heart with aching nostalgia and a haze of scattered memories. He had never thought, in his wildest dreams, that he would make this trip again…
With a tired sigh, Remus rested his head against the window again and closed his eyes. When Professor McGonagall had first written him asking that he take the train to Hogwarts to serve as an extra adult presence on board, Remus had quite forgotten that there was a full moon the night before the first of September. Now, he felt completely drained of any semblance of strength or energy. After he'd first gotten to his compartment, he had briefly considered getting his lesson plans for the first week of school out of his case and reviewing them again—but he'd abandoned the idea almost immediately. It was a miracle, honestly, that he had managed to find his way from Yorkshire to London and on the train at all.
He was just managing to doze off again when the compartment door slammed open, jolting Remus awake once more. But this time, Remus determinedly kept his eyes closed. He was far too tired to make conversation—and perhaps if he feigned sleep, he would make the encounter with a teacher on the train less awkward for the poor students that needed a place to sit.
It appeared to work, for Remus heard the door shut again and a shuffle of footsteps as the students—three or four of them, it sounded like—took their seats in the compartment, as far away from Remus as they could. Remus imagined that they were eyeing him with suspicion; after all, teachers weren't supposed to take the train.
"Who d'you reckon he is?" one of the students, a boy, whispered.
"Professor R.J. Lupin," a girl whispered back almost immediately—and Remus almost opened his eyes in surprise.
"How d'you know that?" the boy asked her, plainly befuddled.
"It's on his case," she responded in an impatient voice. The corner of Remus's lip twitched.
"Wonder what he teaches?" the boy said.
"That's obvious," the girl told him. "There's only one vacancy, isn't there? Defense Against the Dark Arts."
Now, Remus had to try very hard to fight a smile off his face. This girl, who sounded to be around thirteen or fourteen, was reminding Remus vividly of Lily at the same age. His heart gave a painful twinge.
"Well, I hope he's up to it," the boy observed in a skeptical voice. "He looks like one good hex would finish him off, doesn't he?" Remus almost snorted out loud.
"Anyway, what were you going to tell us?" the boy continued, and Remus realized that he wasn't addressing the girl anymore, but a third student in the compartment who hadn't spoken yet.
"Right, yeah," the third student, another boy, began in a quiet voice—and suddenly, inexplicably, Remus found himself hanging onto every word the boy was saying. There was something so utterly familiar about it—about the very rhythm of the words, the soft and unassuming tone…
"Last night, when I went downstairs to get Scabbers's stuff from the bar, I sort of…well, I overheard your parents, Ron. They were arguing about…about Sirius Black."
The boy named Ron breathed in sharply, and Remus stiffened as well, holding his breath in anticipation.
"Your dad told your mum that Black escaped from Azkaban to come after me."
No.
No, no…no, it wasn't possible…it couldn't be. Of all the compartments on the Hogwarts Express to choose from, how in Merlin's name could James and Lily's son have found his way directly to Remus?
Now, Remus didn't have to try to feign sleep. The shock of the moment had left Remus's entire body frozen, paralyzed with disbelief. He found himself unable to breathe as Harry continued to speak.
"Apparently, Fudge has been doing his best to keep the news quiet—including from me—but your dad didn't want me to go to Hogwarts not knowing. That's what he wanted to tell me just now, before we got on the train…"
The boy—who Remus was now sure with every fiber of his being was Harry—trailed off, and silence fell over the compartment as his two friends processed the terrifying news that had just been relayed to them. Remus sat with his heart pounding against his ribcage, unable to reconcile the image in his head of a bubbly, one-year-old baby with this boy sitting a few feet away from him, calmly explaining to his friends that an insane mass-murderer had escaped from top-security prison to find him.
In the end, it was the girl who spoke first, in a hushed, terrified voice. "Sirius Black escaped to come after you? Oh, Harry…you'll have to be really, really careful. Don't go looking for trouble, Harry—"
"I don't go looking for trouble," said Harry, sounding supremely miffed. "Trouble usually finds me."
What did that mean? Remus wondered, his stomach plummeting. Certainly, he had always imagined that there was no way a son of James Potter wouldn't be the sort to get into trouble at school, but from the way Harry and his friend were talking, this did not sound like practical jokes and hexes in the corridors.
"How thick would Harry have to be, to go looking for a nutter who wants to kill him?" Ron asked, sounding shaken. "No one knows how he got out of Azkaban. No one's ever done it before. And he was a top-security prisoner too."
"But they'll catch him, won't they?" the girl asked fervently. "I mean, they've got all the Muggles looking out for him too…"
"What's that noise?" Ron asked suddenly.
Remus frowned to himself—but then, he heard it too: a faint, high-pitched whistle was coming from somewhere above their heads. There was a shuffling sound as the three friends looked around the compartment.
"It's coming from your trunk, Harry," offered Ron, and there was a creak and a scuffle, as Ron stood up and began rummaging through the luggage rack.
"Is that a Sneakoscope?" the girl asked with interest, and there was another creak as she too got to her feet.
"Yeah…mind you, it's a very cheap one," Ron said. "It went haywire just as I was tying it to Errol's leg to send it to Harry."
"Were you doing anything untrustworthy at the time?" the girl asked keenly, and again, Remus had to repress a grin.
"No! Well…I wasn't supposed to be using Errol. You know he's not really up to long journeys…but how else was I supposed to get Harry's present to him?"
"Stick it back in the trunk," Harry cautioned, as the whistling grew shriller, "or it'll wake him up."
Remus could feel Harry's gaze on him, and he remained stock-still in his seat. He was fairly sure that the Sneakoscope was going off because he was listening in on a conversation he ought not to be listening in on, and he certainly didn't want to give himself away.
"We could get it checked in Hogsmeade," said Ron, sitting down again. "They sell that sort of thing in Dervish and Banges, magical instruments and stuff. Fred and George told me."
"Do you know much about Hogsmeade?" asked the girl. "I've read it's the only entirely non-Muggle settlement in Britain—"
"Yeah, I think it is," said Ron, "but that's not why I want to go. I just want to get inside Honeydukes!"
"What's that?" the girl wondered.
"It's this sweetshop," said Ron dreamily, "where they've got everything…Pepper Imps—they make you smoke at the mouth—and great fat Chocoballs full of strawberry mousse and clotted cream, and really excellent sugar quills, which you can suck in class and just look like you're thinking what to write next—"
"But Hogsmeade's a very interesting place, isn't it?" the girl pressed. "In Sites of Historical Sorcery, it says the inn was the headquarters for the 1612 goblin rebellion—and the Shrieking Shack's supposed to be the most severely haunted building in Britain—"
Remus's stomach swooped. The rumors were still going strong, it seemed.
"—and massive sherbet balls that make you levitate a few inches off the ground while you're sucking them," Ron continued, plainly not hearing a word his friend was saying.
The girl huffed impatiently, turning instead to Harry, and Remus presumed this was a common group dynamic. "Won't it be nice to get out of school for a bit and explore Hogsmeade?"
"'Spect it will," said Harry gloomily. "You'll have to tell me when you've found out."
"What d'you mean?" Ron asked, now alert.
"I can't go," Harry said, and his voice was so heavy that Remus's heart ached. "The Dursleys didn't sign my permission form, and Fudge wouldn't either."
"You're not allowed to come?" Ron sounded like Harry had just told him he had three months to live. "But—no way—McGonagall or someone will give you permission—"
Harry gave a short, hollow laugh, and Remus understood that to mean that his old head of house's reputation had not relaxed in the last decade.
"—or we can ask Fred and George, they know every secret passage out of the castle—"
"Ron!" the girl interrupted sharply. "I don't think Harry should be sneaking out of school with Black on the loose—"
"Yeah, I expect that's what McGonagall will say when I ask for permission," said Harry acidly.
"But if we're with him," said Ron enthusiastically, "Black wouldn't dare—"
"Oh, Ron, don't talk rubbish," the girl snapped. "Black's already murdered a whole bunch of people in the middle of a crowded street. Do you really think he's going to worry about attacking Harry just because we're there?"
Her words stung Remus, but he refrained from flinching. Although it felt traitorous to Harry to admit it, Remus agreed with her. He hoped Harry would heed her advice, but if Harry's response to logic in the face of emotion was anything like his father's, it seemed unlikely.
Just then— "Don't let that thing out!" Ron said loudly, and there was a light thump as some sort of animal—the girl's pet, Remus reasoned—sprang in Ron's direction. "Get out of here!"
"Ron, don't!" the girl shouted.
Quickly realizing that a row of some sort was forthcoming, Remus let out a grunt and pretended to stir in his sleep. Immediately, the compartment was quiet, and Remus could practically hear their heads turn toward him. He turned his head the other way to hide his smirk and pretended to sleep on.
For the next hour or so, the conversation drifted to lighter topics—classes, Quidditch, summer vacations. Remus reduced himself to listening to the way Harry talked. His Estuary English accent was so different from both James's posh drawl and Lily's Midlands lilt, and yet, Remus heard them both so clearly in their son—in his excitement about the upcoming Quidditch season, in his dry wit and quiet laugh.
Remus had thought about Harry a lot over the past twelve years—usually around Halloween, when bitter memories tended to resurface. He had wondered about what he looked like, about his personality—whether he was uproarious and untidy like James or quietly dazzling and immaculate like Lily. He had thought on and off about dropping in on him at his aunt and uncle's, but he had been too scared at what he might find. For if it had turned out that Harry was unhappy there, as a niggling part of Remus's mind had always suspected, given what he'd heard about Petunia from Lily and James, what could Remus have done about it? Remus had no means of supporting a young boy, not especially one whose parents had been murdered. No, it had been important to keep a little distance there. Besides, the look of fury and disgust on Petunia's face on the one occasion he had stopped by Privet Drive to inquire about James and Lily's funeral had scared him from even sending Harry a letter.
So, at thirteen, Harry had no clue who Remus was and what role he was supposed to play in his life. He had no idea that Remus had seen him the very morning he was born, had heard him say his first word, had helped his parents put protective wards over their home when they'd first decided to go into hiding. He had no idea that Remus had lost sleep thinking about him, thinking about his parents, and the happiness and opportunities that one man's unforgivable actions had cost them all…
The Hogwarts Express picked up pace as it moved northward to Scotland, and Remus dozed in and out of consciousness as the chatter of Harry and his friends ebbed and flowed. It wasn't until the compartment door opened and the sweet, plump trolley witch asked if anyone wanted snacks that Remus found himself at the center of attention again.
"D'you think we should wake him up?" Ron asked hesitantly. "He looks like he could do with some food."
"Er—Professor?" the girl asked tentatively. "Excuse me—Professor?"
Remus didn't—couldn't—move. As starving as he was, he didn't think he had it in himself to open his eyes and face Harry just yet. What on Earth could he even say? Hi Harry, I'm one of your parents' best mates from school. I changed your nappies and read you bedtime stories, but I never had the guts to introduce myself to you until this moment.
"Don't worry, dear," said the trolley witch kindly, as she passed snacks to the rest. "If he's hungry when he wakes, I'll be up front with the driver."
"I suppose he is asleep?" asked Ron under his breath as the compartment door slid shut again. "I mean—he hasn't died, has he?"
"No, no, he's breathing," the girl whispered back.
The three friends were quiet for another moment, and Remus felt a small pang of shame. Then, slowly, they returned to their conversation, and Remus closed his eyes tighter, willing himself to fall asleep and not overhear anything else he really ought not to.
Scarcely a few hours later, however, he was awoken sharply from his half-slumber by a cold, drawling voice that certainly didn't belong to Harry or either of his friends.
"Well, look who it is. Potty and the Weasel."
Remus had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Whoever this boy was, his sense of humor certainly left a lot to be desired.
"I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley," the drawling voice continued. "Did your mother die of shock?"
Weasley—this malicious new boy must be addressing Ron, Remus realized. He remembered hearing about the larger-than-life Weasley family from Gideon and Fabian when he was in the Order—all those red-haired, freckled boys…Remus felt a jolt of indignation on Ron's behalf…
There was a clatter and a thud as, presumably, Ron leaped to his feet in anger. Sensing danger again, Remus let out a soft snort in his sleep.
"Who's that?" the new boy asked sharply, his voice immediately becoming less drawling and more tense. Remus almost laughed.
"New teacher," said Harry smartly. "What were you saying, Malfoy?"
So, this was Lucius Malfoy's son. Remus should have guessed. He wondered how many other children of former Death Eaters he would be teaching this year.
"C'mon," Malfoy mumbled resentfully—to his posse, Remus assumed—and the compartment door closed for a second time.
"I'm not going to take any crap from Malfoy this year," Ron snapped, sitting down angrily. "I mean it. If he makes one more crack about my family, I'm going to get hold of his head and—"
"Ron," hissed the girl. "Be careful…"
It took Remus a moment to realize that her warning was because of him. He smiled to himself. He really was a teacher now.
As the train raced further north, rain began pounding against the compartment window, and Remus figured that it must be nearly six or seven. It wouldn't be long until the train cranked into the station, meaning that Remus would—at last—have to open his eyes and face the compartment.
"We must be nearly there," said Ron, mirroring Remus's thoughts.
No sooner had the words left Ron's mouth that the train began screeching, slowly, to a stop.
"Great," said Ron, getting up and edging past Remus to try and see through the window. "I'm starving. I want to get to the feast…"
"We can't be there yet," the girl said, sounding bewildered.
"So why're we stopping?" Ron wondered.
There was no question about it, now. The train was getting slower and slower.
Then, without warning, the train came to a sharp halt, and Remus heard the distant thuds and bangs of trunks and cages falling out of luggage racks down the train. And just as suddenly as the train had stopped, all of the lights went out with a whoosh, and the compartment was plunged in darkness. Remus opened his eyes.
"What's going on?" Ron asked from somewhere to Remus's right.
"Ouch!" the girl gasped in pain. "Ron, that was my foot!"
"D'you think we've broken down?" Harry asked, and Remus could vaguely see his blurry outline muddling its way back to a seat.
"Dunno…" Ron mumbled, sitting up in his seat and wiping a patch clean on the window. Remus saw the dim black outline of his face peering outside. "There's something moving out there. I think people are coming aboard…"
Remus frowned, shifting imperceptibly in his seat to get a better view of the window. Ron was right, there was something dark and shadowy moving past the window—
"Sorry—d'you know what's going on? Ouch—sorry—"
Remus jumped. The compartment door had just slammed open, admitting a new figure who tripped and stumbled inside.
"Hello, Neville," said Harry. Neville. Frank and Alice's son was named Neville. Remus remembered hearing about his birth at an Order meeting—just around the same time as Harry's, in fact…
Remus saw Harry attempt to pull Neville into the seat next to his.
"Harry? Is that you? What's happening?"
"No idea—sit down—"
"I'm going to go and ask the driver what's going on," said the girl in the compartment, standing and walking to the compartment door.
Remus heard the door slide open again—followed by a loud thud and two loud squeals of pain.
"Who's that?" the girl yelped.
"Who's that?" came a second girl's voice.
"Ginny?" Remus heard the first girl—Harry's friend—exclaim.
"Hermione?" the second girl gasped.
"What are you doing?"
"I was looking for Ron—"
"Come in and sit down—"
"Not here!" said Harry hastily. "I'm here!"
"Ouch!" squeaked Neville.
But Remus wasn't listening to the children's conversation anymore. A terrible, familiarly chilling feeling was settling over him, filling his insides with dread…
"Quiet!" Remus shouted hoarsely—and almost at once, everyone in the compartment stopped talking. Raising his hand, Remus thought, Incendio—and with a faint crackle, orange-red flames shivered to life in his palm.
Suddenly, every face in the room was thrown into sharp relief against the darkness of the compartment around them. He could see them all clearly for the first time. The tall red-haired boy that Remus knew had to be Ron was sitting next to a red-haired, freckled girl who was undoubtedly his sister, Ginny. Standing next to Ginny was the other girl, Hermione, whose pale, terrified face was framed by a mane of bushy brown hair. And sprawled on the floor in front of her was a blond, round-faced boy that Remus knew in his heart was Neville; he looked precisely like his mother.
And then, Remus's eyes fell on Harry, who had paused mid-attempt to hoist Neville into the seat next to him. It was like staring into the past—small, wiry, black hair sticking up in every imaginable direction. He was James in miniature, down to the very lift of his cheekbones and the point of his nose. But his eyes—wide, guarded, and bright green—were all Lily.
"Stay where you are," Remus told them, dragging his eyes away from Harry and climbing to his feet with the flames still hissing in his palm.
But he had barely taken a step toward the compartment door when the door itself slid open. Remus's breath caught in his throat, his worst fears confirmed—it was a Dementor, tall, dark, hooded, and cloaked in rippling black. The hand protruding from the cloak was greyed and decayed looking, like a decomposing corpse.
The Dementor glided forward, drawing a slow, rattling breath—and immediately, Remus was overwhelmed by a crushing, paralyzing sense of despair. He was fifteen again, listening to his father sob about Fenrir Greyback in his study. He was twenty-one, learning from a newspaper clipping after several days underground that three of his best friends had been murdered because of the fourth. He was drowning, suffocating in these age-old, unchangeable memories—and he had to stop.
With every ounce of effort he could muster, Remus dragged himself out of his momentary stupor, facing the Dementor. "None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go," he said coldly.
A sudden scuffle from somewhere in front of Remus caught his attention. He looked around—and his stomach lurched unpleasantly. Harry had collapsed onto the floor of the compartment, his eyes rolled back and his body shaking.
Without thinking, without hesitation, Remus drew his wand and stepped over Harry. He didn't have to search hard for a happy memory—his first sight of Harry in nearly twelve years pushed its way to the front of his mind, and with a flick of his wand, the Dementor was forced to retreat in a whoosh of silver.
"Harry!"
Remus swiveled around. Ron and Hermione, both white-faced and anxious, were on their knees next to Harry, trying to revive him. Resisting the urge to join them, Remus looked around at the other two in the compartment. Neville was slumped in the window seat, looking pale and clammy. And Ginny, curled up in the corner opposite him, was shaking uncontrollably.
Remus swallowed, walking swiftly to the luggage rack to fetch his briefcase. It was lucky that he had thought to bring a bar of chocolate for the train. But then, with a jolt of anger, he remembered that it certainly wasn't ill luck that had brought Dementors aboard the Hogwarts Express. The Ministry had allowed—perhaps even directed—them to do this…
"Harry! Harry! Are you all right?" Ron was slapping Harry's face now.
"W-what?"
Remus glanced over his shoulder. Harry's eyes had fluttered open; he looked ill and sweaty, but otherwise unharmed. Together, Ron and Hermione hauled him back into his seat.
"Are you okay?" Ron asked nervously.
"Yeah," muttered Harry, turning toward the door. "What happened? Where's that—that thing? Who screamed?"
Remus paused in the act of unwrapping his Honeydukes chocolate bar, looking at Harry. What in Merlin's name had he just relived?
"No one screamed," Ron said slowly, sounding unnerved.
"But I heard screaming—"
Deciding to spare Harry the need to muddle through what he had just experienced out loud, Remus took the opportunity to loudly break the chocolate bar into pieces. All five in the compartment jumped, turning around to look at him.
"Here," Remus handed Harry the first slab of chocolate. "Eat it. It'll help."
Harry took the chocolate, but he still looked wary. "What was that thing?" he asked Remus.
"A Dementor," Remus said, passing pieces of chocolate to Neville and Hermione. "One of the Dementors of Azkaban."
The five students stared at Remus in horror. Remus handed Ginny the last slab of chocolate, then crumpled up the empty wrapper and shoved it in his pocket.
"Eat," he repeated, addressing all of them. "It'll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me…"
Shoving his briefcase back onto the luggage rack, Remus sidled out of the compartment and shut the door behind him. He did want to have a word with the conductor to find out why on Earth those loathsome creatures had been permitted on board, but he also wanted to allow Harry and his classmates time to process and reflect without the intimidating presence of a teacher.
As it turned out, the driver had nothing of use to relay. He and the trolley witch both looked just as rattled as any of the students Remus had passed on his way to the front of the train. Apparently, the Dementors—six of them, it seemed—had looked like people standing on the tracks. By the time the conductor had realized what they were, it was too late: They were already drifting onto the train.
Remus left the conductor's compartment feeling frustrated and anxious. He wondered if any other students on the train had been just as affected by the Dementor as Harry, even Ginny. He decided to send Professor McGonagall a patronus, warning her to keep an eye out.
When he reopened the door to the compartment, it was far more subdued than when he had left it. Harry was staring out the window, jaw clenched, and Ron and Neville were both watching him uneasily. Hermione, meanwhile, had joined a still-shaken Ginny by the window. None of the students had touched their chocolate. He couldn't resist a smile, impressed by their vigilance.
"I haven't poisoned that chocolate, you know," he said softly. Harry met his gaze briefly, then took a small nibble.
"We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes," Remus told them. He glanced at Harry, his heart twisting into a knot. "Are you all right, Harry?"
Harry didn't meet his eyes. "Fine," he mumbled, sounding embarrassed.
Remus felt a twinge of sadness. Considering all the trauma Harry had experienced, it was no wonder at all that Dementors had the effect on him that they did. He wished he could tell Harry this, but he didn't have a relationship with the boy—and the sudden reminder made Remus's heart ache. After all of the months Remus had spent with Harry as a baby, dreaming, fantasizing—about teaching him to read his first book, about taking him out for ice cream during the holidays, about secretly showing him some good hexes before he started Hogwarts—the fact that the thirteen-year-old boy in front of him had no inkling of who he was hurt Remus more than anything else could.
Swallowing the familiar flicker of anger that arose every time he thought about Siri—Black, and everything that he had lost because of him, Remus turned to stare out the window.
It was only the first day of school.
Author's Note:
Trying really hard for those consistent updates! Love y'all, and missed y'all :') thanks for the lovely reviews for the last chapter!
Ari
