Disclaimer: The characters and settings, and probably some of the teacups depicted herein are most likely the property of those *delightful* people at Warner Brothers by way of the inimitable J K Rowling. I am not making a penny from using them as the backdrop to a story written for my own amusement and that (hopefully!) of others. So there.

email me at Sarah.Watkins@onyx.net

Obligations

Chapter Two: Godric's Hollow

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James hadn't been in the house in Godric's Hollow all that long, but he'd already made his mark on it. Well, to be more precise, Lily had made her mark on it. Despite the fact they were not due to marry until later the following year, Lily had already taken to visiting and had insisted on decorating.

As he watched her on this particularly crisp morning, he marvelled again at how a girl as pretty and bright as Lily Evans had ever agreed to be his wife. He'd worried for a while, thinking that she was never going to split up with Sirius. The two had been virtually inseparable. Or so he had believed. It had been a ploy on Sirius' part to get Lily closer to James.

So he said.

Another debt owed to Sirius Black. James sighed. The tally was becoming rather unfortunately stacked in Sirius' favour. Something which no doubt his best friend would not hesitate to remind him.

The red-haired young woman currently stripping wallpaper the Muggle way turned at his sigh. "James? What's the matter?"

"Nothing, love. I was just wondering how Sirius and Remus are. Haven't seen either of them for a while." Peter, of course, visited regularly. He hadn't changed at all since they had all graduated. He was still as ingratiating as ever, but James couldn't turn away one of the Marauders.

"I expect they'll turn up soon. They always do," she said, climbing down the ladder and moving to put her arms around his neck. "Usually at the most inopportune moments as I recall…"

She pressed her lips to his in a gentle kiss and he responded eagerly, wrapping his arms a little more tightly around him.

The doorbell rang.

Lily laughed and her green eyes shone with mischief. "There. You see? Guaranteed." Raising her voice, she called, "Come in Sirius."

The front door, always unlocked during the day, swung open and Sirius peered in. "Alright, how did you know it was me?"

"Call it a hunch," she said, moving over to him and standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek gently. "You're looking well, Sirius."

"Not as well as you," he replied, in his normal gallant manner. "Wow, Lily, you look fantastic. Perhaps you might like to reconsider…" Raising her hand to his lips, he kissed it gently, casting a sly glance slantwise at James who was stood looking decidedly annoyed at the interruption.

"Get off my fiancée, Padfoot," said James, mildly. "There's plenty of women out there for you."

"You never were much fun, were you, Prongs?" Sirius clapped his hand in a handshake, then turned and bellowed out the door. "Moony! Get your furry butt inside here!"

"You brought Remus?" Lily couldn't hide the faint hint of uncertainty in her voice. Whilst she was undoubtedly fond of the fourth Marauder, she was also very aware of the animosity he bore towards her for having been the cause of the drifting apart of their boyhood group.

"Not so much brought as dragged," said Sirius, grinning. "He didn't want to come, so I had to haul him by the tail. MOONY!"

Eventually, Sirius had to go back outside to find Remus, who was standing looking somewhat forlorn by Sirius' new motorbike. Folding his arms across his chest, Sirius called to his friend. "You coming in, or what?"

"S'pose." Remus shrugged his slender shoulders. "Is…Lily there?"

"Where else would she be? Come on, Remus. Forget it. She's going to be James' wife and there's nothing any of us can do about it. I know how you feel about that…"

"Forget it." Remus forced a smile on his face and together, he and Sirius entered the house. James pounded him rather too hard on the back and he began coughing painfully. Lily gave him a dutiful kiss on the cheek and asked politely about his health in a voice which, to Remus, had hidden tones of 'what, you're not dead yet?' tucked away under the light tone.

It had been only a few weeks since Sirius had last visited, but Remus kept his trips out of Hogsmeade to something of a minimum. Still afraid to cut the ties with the Shrieking Shack, the young man had rapidly become a virtual recluse. He hadn't seen James for the better part of a year, and James was struck by how the youngest Marauder had changed.

"You don't look so well, Remus," he said, pouring butterbeers for them all and handing Remus. "You been sick again?"

"Only the usual," replied Remus, accepting the drink politely and sipping at it. "Doesn't get any easier, I guess. It helps knowing that Dumbledore is just up the hill…"

"You can't rely on him forever," said Lily, in a light tone and Remus could almost feel the withering scorn she felt at the continuing weakness he displayed. He could not look her in the eye as he replied.

"He is the closest I have to family, you know." Lily's eyes that had been as hard as emeralds for a moment, softened and she put a hand on his arm.

"I know, Remus. I'm sorry."

And she was, oddly.

Sirius, who had already downed three butterbeers and was now on his first glass of pumpkin brandy, interjected. "I'm glad you mentioned that, Remus. Knew there was a reason we'd come over."

Lily removed her hand from Remus', the moment shattered. The young werewolf looked up at her and their glances touched briefly before he nodded. "I've been having nightmares again, James."

James set down his glass and looked at his friend with concern. "The old ones?"

He nodded. James exchanged a look with Sirius. "As bad as they used to be when you were at school?" He remembered all too well the times he, Sirius and Peter had tried to wake the boy who would lie, screaming out his father's name until he grew hoarse. Remus considered.

"Sort of," he replied, eventually, his voice heavy. "But it's different. They come on me during the daytime now, too. I can be in just a light daydream and the dream comes at me from all angles."

"Are you taking any weird potions or anything?" James glanced at Sirius again and the two friends exchanged concerned looks. Remus was delicate, fragile, as sickly as he had always been, yet there exuded from him that odd strength, the physical strength of the lycanthrope tempered by the strength that Remus Lupin the human possessed – the strength that had kept him sane all these years.

Remus shook his head. "I know that work has begun on a new potion they're calling 'Wolfsbane'. I wish they'd hurry up with it. Rumour has it that it will help keep my mind human during Transformation. But just now…there's nothing that helps. I Transform, I rip myself damn near to shreds, I change back."

"And what do you do the rest of the time?"

Remus shrugged. "I…study."

Sirius grinned. "We always did call you 'Professor' Lupin, didn't we? You always were going to be the one who carried on learning after school." Remus glanced at him and managed a wan smile. Sirius' handsome face was slightly red from the alcohol and he was more cocksure and vocal than ever.

"Remus," began Lily. "Do you remember the dream at all? I mean, surely if you tell us what it's about, we might be able to help you interpret it?"

"I remember it vividly, Lily," replied Remus, heavily. "But it does not need interpreting. It isn't so much a dream as a…memory."

"Forgive me, Remus," he whispered, looking down into his son's open eyes, the childish, terrified face. "This is for your own good."

And Remus found himself looking down the barrel of his father's shotgun.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

There was a single gunshot.

"Remus?"

Lily's voice cut through his reverie and he started, spilling his barely-touched butterbeer. He stared wildly around, trying to orient himself, and gradually began to calm down. Lily got to her feet. "I'm going to get in touch with Dumbledore. He needs help, Sirius. Why did you bring him to us?"

Sirius sighed. "He needs James' help. Only James is going to be able to help him with this one."

"Well, I think Dumbledore should be told…"

"Don't, Lily. Sit down."

James' voice was uncharacteristically firm and Lily turned to him, incredulity in her eyes. He spoke a little louder.

"I said, sit DOWN, Lily."

She did, not wishing to see his ire increase any more than it was already. She fell silent as her husband-to-be got to his feet and paced the carpet silently.

"Who did you bite, Remus?"

There was an intake of breath from Lily which Sirius silenced by putting his arm around her shoulders. "Come with me," he said, softly, leading her out of the room.

Remus did not answer.

"Remus – I know you've bitten someone. It's written all over your face. I didn't fall down on the last drop of rain, you know. Sirius always said to me the only reason he'd force you to come visit would be if you bit someone. Now unless you really want to be here…" He raised his hand, forestalling the other man's protest, "…I suggest you tell me what happened so we can sort out the mess."

This was the James Potter who had led the Marauders for all those years. The James Potter that Peter Pettigrew had hero-worshipped in an obvious sort of way, and the James Potter who Remus Lupin had quietly admired. He hung his head, his prematurely greying hair falling into his eyes.

"I don't know," he replied, softly. "I know that I bit…someone. But I don't know who…or why."

"Did you…" James hesitated. "Did you kill them, or just bite them?"

"I think…I think I killed them." Remus' voice was so soft it was barely a whisper, yet seemed to resonate through James' head. I think I killed them…I think I killed them…

He pulled himself together. Remus needed him now. To fall apart in a panic over his friend's ability to murder would do nobody any good whatsoever. He poured another glass of pumpkin brandy and handed it to the werewolf. "Drink," he urged. "It'll help."

Remus took the glass, his hazel eyes dull and lifeless. "I killed someone, James."

"Now come on, we don't know that for sure…"

"I don't WANT to believe I did anything else," said Remus, his voice rising. "I don't want to believe that I've left someone to the same fate as me…I CAN'T believe that. If I have done, it makes me as much a monster as…as him."

"Him…Remus, are we talking about McGlynn here?"

At the name of his sire, Remus' pale skin lost every bit of colour. To Remus Lupin, hearing the name of McGlynn was every bit as horrific as hearing the name Voldemort. He covered his eyes, hiding the tears that threatened, and nodded wordlessly.

"Have you seen him again?"

Remus had, to the best of his knowledge, seen McGlynn only twice. Following his initial attack and once, when Remus had been thirteen years old, the old werewolf had tracked his protégé down to Hogwarts. Dumbledore had seen him off though, and Remus had been fairly certain that it would be the last time he ever saw the man.

But…

The return of the vision…

The craving, the urge, the desperate need to kill, or at the very least to procreate the lycanthropic way.

Had McGlynn returned?

Remus' world began to swirl around him at the thought and before James could reach him, he had dropped the glass of brandy. Consciousness left him in a dead faint.

* * *

"I won't have him in the house, Sirius, I WON'T!"

Lily was pacing the kitchen in something between uncertainty, anger and sheer terror. "He's dangerous! He's fully grown now, not a child."

"Lily, every month when Remus transformed – every month, every year, he never changed. He became an adult wolf, regardless of his human age. He is no more dangerous now than he was then. In fact, if anything, he's less so now."

"How do you figure that?" she said, pausing in her pacing. It was at times like this, Sirius mused, that Lily became more like her older Muggle sister, Petunia. Sirius had met Petunia only twice and both times had entirely failed to impress her. He opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass from the next room.

Lily's eyes rolled momentarily upwards at the sound of the breaking crystalware, but she followed Sirius who had dashed into the dining room. James was kneeling over Remus' prone form, muttering the words of a healing spell. Sirius knelt down beside the two of them and looked from Remus' unconscious face to that of his best friend.

Only one word passed between them and it was enough to chill Sirius' blood to the very marrow. The one word that, following their adventures in the third year he had hoped they would never hear spoken aloud again.

"McGlynn."