A Jail Can Have Many Walls – chapter 5
~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday afternoons, over the last few weeks, had become something of a sanctuary for the Order of the Phoenix, both for those who were staying at Grimmauld Place, and for those who were only visiting. Molly would predictably produce a stunning roast for lunch and then be ushered out of the kitchen as the rest of them got on with the dishes. Even Severus would predictably appear in time to eat before he and Harry would secret themselves away in one of the numerous studies in the Black residence, for their most intensive Occlumency lessons. From what Remus had picked up from the Potion Master's conversations with Dumbledore, Harry was improving quite dramatically. This afternoon there was a relatively small group in the library at the front of the house, with the Headmaster away in meetings with the Ministry all day.
"Check, I believe Mr Weasley." Minerva said, entirely deadpan. She was curled up in one of the chairs by the fire, having challenged Ron to a
rematch after the rather notorious incident in the trios first year. Though Minerva still looked somewhat ashen and was still restricted from exerting herself in any way, shape or form, she had improved dramatically since her arrival at the house; physically in any case.
"Hmph." Was the only response her student gave, as he began looking at the board with the utmost concentration. The rest of the group were somewhat more lethargic. Ginny was curled in the corner of the couch reading a novel. Her father completed a crossword, sat next to his wife who was darning socks. Alistor Moody was absorbed in planning something or other, pieces of paper scattered around the large table he occupied. Remus, on the other hand, was quite happy to observe the game that was going on in front of him. He shifted slightly on his cushion trying to decide what the boy to his left would make as his next move. The fire burning in front of Remus was keeping him nicely warm; in fact he was almost at the stage of deciding that following the game was too much of an effort when Ron spoke up.
"Checkmate!" The triumphant exclamation was followed by a more hesitant question. "Professor?" He looked up from where he was watching the new lay out of pieces on the board, towards Minerva. She wasn't returning their gaze though; her eyes were staring into the flames as they danced in the grate. They were glazed though – it was as if she were looking through to something no one else could see. Remus recognised the vacant stare, the slight tremble and the silent mouthing of the same words over and over again for what they were, and he obviously wasn't the only one to do so.
"Minerva?" Molly's voice was more urgent than her son's and she was out of her seat, knocking the table with the newly abandoned game out of the way as she knelt in front of the other woman. She placed a hand on her arm but didn't try and shake her as she continued to call to her softly. "Minerva? It's ok. I'm here. You're in Grimmauld Place, with the Order." Moody travelled quickly and was putting out the fire before Remus was fully upright.
"Come on Ron, Ginny." Remus said automatically, and he was grateful when they followed him towards the door. Once they were out in the hall, Arthur squeezed past and Remus assumed he was going to contact either Dumbledore or Poppy Pomfrey.
"Right, how about we give them some space and go continue our 'Great Ice Cream Hunt'?" He suggested, referring to their recent quest to find the best flavour of muggle ice cream. They agreed, if a little apprehensively, and he sent them upstairs to remove robes and grab jackets. Just as they were coming back into the hall, Snape and Harry rushed through the door that Arthur had disappeared into.
"Is…" Snape began. Remus nodded and the other man headed into the library.
"Right, Harry – do you have a jacket around here somewhere?"
"Yeah…" He said somewhat distractedly.
"It's ok, I brought it down." Ron said, having fairly obviously just returned to their room to find it. Remus felt more than a little guilty as he ushered the teenagers out of the house and down the road. He didn't tend to approve of the 'don't tell them anything' approach with children or young adults even, but this was different. This was Minerva, his friend, their teacher, and after all that had happened of late he had felt that the least he could do would be to try and allow her some privacy. Even as they walked down the road and the three youngsters who had matured far beyond their years made quiet conversation about nothing at all, he felt drawn back to the Headquarters. It was stupid, he realised; there were plenty people there who were, if anything, far more qualified to help her at this moment in time. He eventually reasoned himself into believing that he was doing what was for the best, and began to put in at least a little effort into conversing with his companions.
When they were seated in the Baskin and Robin's, each with a new and exciting flavour of ice cream to test and compare, a silence fell over them for the first time since they had left the house. Remus was concentrating on his Pooh Bear Crunch ice cream cone when Harry spoke up.
"You're worried about her, aren't you?" He asked, after thoughtfully licking at a stream of melted Blueberry Surprise.
"I worry about everybody I care for." He answered, automatically dodging the question as well as he could.
"And you do care for her don't you?" Ginny spoke up, looking sincere and far too grown up for her years.
"I've known the Professor for a long time. She…" He didn't know what to say that would explain the bond they had with telling them more than they needed to know. "She did far more than she was obligated to do for me when I was at school. In fact, we were her first year as Head of House."
"Really?" Ron asked, looking a little shocked.
"Yes, she had been teaching for a few years and by all accounts had been running Gryffindor already, but we were sorted the first year it became official. And of course there was the Shrieking Shack." He added, assuming they would understand him, but he was met by a series of blank looks and was genuinely surprised by this; he had assumed that they would have put the pieces together by now. "Lets just say that the Marauders weren't the ones to actually come up with the idea about animagi being immune to the werewolf's bite. Then we worked together for several years in the Order, and of course during my stint teaching at Hogwarts." He reeled off. In actuality, he had not seen much of her during that year; in fact he was fairly certain that none of the staff had. She had, as far as he could tell, spent a lot of time that year in the form of her cat alter ego. Sirius had once tried to explain that being able to morph into the animal during his encounters with the dementors had saved his sanity once and having seen the shell of the woman whom Albus had carried out of the prison as he and many of the original members of the Order waited impatiently at St Mungo's, he wished with all his heart that if she had had to live through it, she had been in a fit state to change. That way she would have had a little reprieve at least, but that had not been the case. Even over the years, when they had grown into close friends and confidants of a sort, he had never learned much about her past, but he knew enough to realise that he wouldn't necessarily wish his worst enemy to have to relive it. This afternoon was a classic example of this. Though he had seen her close to that point during the original war, after they had been trapped together, hemmed in and forced to hide in the ruins of a burned out house, she had been able to fight. He had grounded her as best he could as he tried to keep them quiet and she had managed to draw herself back to reality, but there was a haunted look in her eyes that he would never forget.
"So what exactly happened? With the Shrieking Shack?" Ginny asked quietly once again, breaking through Remus' pensive thoughts.
"Hmm? Oh…" He thought back to the time in his life that over the last few months he had been trying to forget. "Well, obviously Professor Dumbledore knew about my Lycanthropy before he agreed to accept me to Hogwarts, but obviously after I was sorted my Head of House had to be informed. In hindsight I hate to think what might have happened that evening if the hat had decided I was better suited to Slytherin, or even either of the other two houses. But in any case, I was ushered into his office after the feast where he and Professor McGonagall were waiting. I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my life.
"So Dumbledore sits us down and plies us both with tea, as is his wont. Then he just comes out with it." He paused and tried to rescue the ice cream that was trying to escape the cone. "Then there was this silence. It felt like it went on for hours but could only have been a few seconds, and then Professor McGonagall just looks at him and says quite plainly, 'He may be a werewolf once every lunar month but he is also a Gryffindor, and therefore under my care every single day he spends here.'"
"Sounds like her." Harry inserted thoughtfully.
"Hmm. Well, the basic pattern for the next 7 years was set the second week after I arrived. I reported to the hospital wing straight after dinner, and was escorted through the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack. I don't really remember much about what went on that night, but I do remember waking up on the floor of one of the rooms upstairs. It seems that Professor McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey had both come to collect me and that they were both somewhat shocked by the damage I had done to myself, moreso than what I had done to the cottage. Two weeks later I was called to the Headmasters office again – I was so sure that he was going to tell me he had changed his mind, that he had decided that the risk was just too great but he didn't. Instead, he and Professor McGonagall told me that they had come up with an idea that could perhaps help to make the transformations slightly more bearable."
"She suggested that an animagus might be immune?" Ginny asked, the concentration on her face tantamount to fascination.
"Pretty much. I didn't realise at the time that they didn't know whether their hypothesis was true at all - it was totally untested. It didn't stay that way for long though." He paused, again taking the time to try and stop the ice cream from running down his cone. "I've never been able to discern what actually went wrong that night, the next full moon, but when I woke up I was alone in the bedroom. Or at least I thought I was. After a few minutes I managed to find the little tabby cat lying on the top of a wardrobe that was barely staying upright. It seemed I'd managed to catch her tail at some stage. It was still attached – but not by much, and she'd lost a lot of blood. Anyway, by the time I'd managed to get her down, Poppy arrived and took over. I don't think I've ever felt so guilty as I did for the next few days. I spent hours up in the library researching animagi, and I discovered that the way animals like cats transformed, I'd basically lopped off the bottom six vertebra of her back. I suspect that if it weren't for the fact that Poppy is as good at her job as she is, the Professor wouldn't have made a recovery nearly so swift or complete as she did. In any case, when I saw her next I was full of apologies, totally convinced that that was the end of the arrangement. In hindsight I suspect that they had realised that she would need to be removed from the school over the next full moon, but I couldn't believe it when she brushed it off as her own fault. She told me it was just a sign that she needed to quicken her reflexes and that she had every intention of being there next time round. And she was, and that was the one and only time I caused her more than a scratch in 5 years." They slipped back into silence, broken only by slurping tongues. Remus had neglected to add a few facts that would have padded out the story, but thought back over them himself. The evenings they had spent waiting for the sun to go down, drinking hot chocolate and talking at great length about things of no great importance. He had often thought that she would make a wonderful mother as she held him in those minutes after sunrise when no one was quite sure it was safe to release them both. But as he had grown, his feelings toward her had changed; he had begun to see her in a different light, as a woman. He had thrown himself into finding out everything he could about this mysterious woman, researching everything from animagi to her own clan, something of a dying breed. He searched through the newspapers and found more than one article on the tragic death of both her parents over the summer between her fourth and fifth years; he found the copy of her years' Leaver's Book and discovered that there had been more to her life than was readily apparent. That she had been Head girl came as no surprise to him at all; there were even references throughout to her long-standing relationship with the Head boy. At the time, ashamed though he was to admit it now, the fact that she had dated a Slytherin had been more than enough to put him off any romantic ideas he had developed and he had stopped his search. It had been a log time after that, that he had discovered just whom this particular Slytherin had become.
The name Tom Marvolo Riddle had meant nothing to him then and even after the rise of Lord Voldemort he had not learned of the connection for some time. Throughout the wizarding world, there seemed little interest in discovering whom You Know Who had been before he came to their attention, and even within the order no one seemed to talk about it. Those who knew didn't bring it up, and so he had only really learned by chance, when he had almost walked in on Dumbledore having a very quiet and meaningful discussion with his deputy. When he returned from his thoughts he noticed that the others had all but finished their treats and he wasn't far behind them. The house was quiet when they got back and he wasn't certain what to make of that. He headed down to the kitchen where he could hear the murmur of voices; his three charges close behind.
"Molly?" He asked, seeing her and Arthur in deep discussion at the far end of the careworn table.
"Oh you're back?" She said with a smile, surreptitiously trying to wipe at her eyes. "I'll put some tea on."
"Is she ok?" Harry asked the question that had been on all their lips.
"She's upstairs and Alistor and Poppy are both with her. She's had a bit of shock, but she'll be fine." Arthur replied, as his wife bustled around finding comfort in familiar actions. The youngsters seemed to be satisfied by this response as they quickly made themselves scarce, allowing Remus to ask the questions that he really wanted to pose.
"How long?" He asked taking a seat and gratefully accepting the mug proffered.
"About five minutes after you were gone. I haven't seen her have a flashback that bad since… well it's been a long time." Molly finished off, looking into the depths of her mug. Her husband placed a comforting arm around her shoulder before continuing.
"Severus went to try and track down Dumbledore, I kept being fobbed off with 'he's in a meeting'." Remus smiled at this.
"In which case I suspect Severus will at least get the message to him." He replied. He got a smile from both of them, even if it was a little watery on Molly's part.
"Well I better get some dinner on then?" She said after a minute, again seeming to be comforted in purpose of activity. "Tonks said she might be by later and I ought to make up another couple of beds cause I suspect Alistor and Albus and probably Severus will want to stay…."
"I'll take care of those." He offered and drained his mug before standing. It was nice to be able to do something useful in any case and maybe when he was done he could grab a word with Poppy.
