A/N: My uncle gave me this secondhand clunky laptop for my birthday in June. One would think that this would speed up my writing, but for this story it certainly didn't. Though it was good for those late-night binges of writing. (See The Parlor, The Great Social Equalizer, and The Next Great Adventure.)
I spent most of the summer with the real Dalen Butler...trying to catch a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Yeah, let's go with that. Apologies for the wait. Oh, and how could I forget my old friend:
Disclaimer: Even with my newly-caught Crumple-Horned Snorkack I haven't a claim to Harry Potter, nor to his lovely universe, nor to his even lovelier future DADA teacher.
Chapter 10
Culpability
When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Remus was sitting cross-legged on his cot, staring into the face of Dolores Umbridge.
"The thing about Madam Umbridge," he was saying to her smug form, which sat with it's stubby legs crossed on a chair opposite him, "is that she really didn't terrify me as much as irk me powerfully." Remus looked around at what the scene had changed into, no longer his dank and stuffy cell but the Wizengamot court he had seen the Werewolf Protection Act passed last fall. "The same goes with this whole courtroom setup. So unless you which to annoy my soul out of me..."
A wide grin stretched over the toad-like face. "Fair point," said the Speaker, and let out a girlish laugh. "Though these things are rather entertaining to do once in awhile."
Lupin nodded seriously. "Yes, I suppose they are. My friend has a cousin whose a Metamorphamagus, goodness knows she had fun with it at every possible opportunity." Lupin stopped for a moment to marvel that he was attempting a conversation with Dolores Umbridge. (Even if it was only a phantasm of her, it still seemed tactless and he chastised himself for it.) "Anyway, is there a point to all this?"
More grinning. "Most likely not. Would you like me to stop?"
Remus shook his head. "Doesn't matter." He thought some more. "Is it really necessary, though? To do this? All the coaxing and...and coddling?"
Dolores Umbridge shrugged, and as she did so the room changed back to stone and the hated Ministry employee to an old man. "Perhaps you should ask Bridget."
"Bridget? What's she going to tell me other than how's she been led to the fountain of youth by a strange old man who's kept her in a cage for fifty years?"
The old man looked surprised, but only faintly so. "I would've thought you would want to hear that. But if you'd like to hear something that might make things go along faster here, I suggest you ask her about Tam Lin."
And the Speaker left.
"You're very strange," she said.
"No, I'm very ordinary," said Arthur, "but some very strange things have happened to me. You could say I'm more differed from than differing.
-Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
"All right, all right, fine. I'll tell you, but promise you'll read it tomorrow?" asked Bridget, setting the tray of steak-and-kidney pie on the floor and handing him a plate.
"What, your diary?"
"Yes."
"All-all right." Remus looked surprised, but didn't let it shake him. "So go on. Tam Lin. Old English ballad."
"Is that all you know?"
"That's about it," said Remus, making a very big effort to sound amiable.
"Don't really delve into Old English ballads in magic schools, do they?"
"No. I'll write the headmaster a strongly worded letter requesting a change in curriculum on the subject if you like." His efforts to sound amiable, he discovered, were quite terrible.
"It's all right. So what do you want to know?"
Remus thought. "What is it? Besides a ballad, I mean. What's it about?"
She grabbed the pillow she often sat on (because the floor got cold after awhile). "Tam Lin," she said, "is a true story that ended up in a Muggle fairy tale about a man who was kidnapped--"
"I sympathize."
She frowned. "Is there a word," she inquired airily, but not masking her annoyance, "for men who interrupt too much?"
"I probably could make one up for you."
"No, I think the word is just rude." She glared a little bit, and Remus tried act full of repent. "Do stop interrupting. It doesn't make things go any quicker..."
"A thousand apologies. Go on. So, poor old Tam Lin gets kidnapped by...let me guess, a scary old man."
She still appeared faintly annoyed, though at this her mouth twitched a tad bit. "Well, I suppose there could've been one or two creepy old men, there are in every community... because that's what it was, you see. A community or magical people living separate from the Muggles, but every so often they would take one of the Muggles for...well, I think you rather know what."
Remus considered this for a second (something he had decided he was doing far too much of, as all this considering didn't seem to be getting him anywhere), then hastily tried to change the subject. "Right...where was this?" His voice shook slightly, so he made a business of clearing his throat. "I mean, was it here? Just a very long time ago?"
"On the Hill? No, and you'll see why in a minute. But this was in a wood, though. That's where all the wizard in the area lived. Well, it was. They all had to leave."
"Why?"
"Because Tam Lin got away. He didn't buy the farm, he escaped." She paused, glad of the rather perplexed look on his face. "I think today you call it, er, anti-Muggle security."
He appeared to understand. "Oh. So they liked to kill the Muggles but they didn't want
any of them to come calling the rest of the time."
"That's about it. They all left because the Muggles found out, all because Tam Lin broke out of his trance before they could do him in."
His frown lines deepened. "Trance?"
"That's what they put the Muggles in so they could--so they would do the deed. I suppose that's a bad way to put it."
"That's a horrid way put it," said Remus quietly.
"I know."
They were quiet.
There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.
-John Fowles
By the light of a candle, Remus wrote.
"Rather perplexing day, but I suppose that's rather useless to say at this point. Perhaps I will go off on a tangent.
"I wonder, did Sirius continue his memoirs? Even in Azkaban? I never asked him after that night in the dormitory because...well, I'm not sure why I didn't. Now that I think of it, how many things did I ask him back then? Shouldn't I have asked more?
"Anyway, wouldn't it be rather funny if, right at this moment, Sirius and I were both sitting in cages, scribbling away on pieces of paper? (Or I suppose, in his case, parchment, as I doubt such Muggle products like legal pads are available where he is. Actually, it's these Muggle relics I'm using right now that make me suspect that they, like the food, are being pilfered from the village at the base of the Hill. Since it's my understanding that Bridget has not left the Hill in many years and because the Speaker doesn't really strike me as a real frequent grocery shopper, I believe they're being stolen by magic somehow. Except, of course, for the beef casserole, which must come from Heaven, as it's equal with the ambrosia and nectar eaten by the residents of that particular location. I don't think Bridget believed me when I told her this (in much less flowery language, of course) but she looked pleased all the same.)
"But off the subject of my wonderful cook of a Jailer, I see no reason why the dementors wouldn't allow Sirius to have a quill and parchment. I mean, it's not as if he could try to gouge their eyes out with it, is it? I don't think dementors have eyes...
"The above passage is probably one of the many reasons these memoirs would look tremendously stupid were anyone else to read them. I should be hurrying to put down in writing what Bridget has just told me while we ate supper, and instead I'm imagining my convicted murderer of a former friend trying to gouge out a dementor's nonexistent eyes with a quill. Pitiful.
"In any case, Bridget did tell me about Tam Lin, though she suggested I read her diary first. I refused to, however, saying that I'd already been deferred to other sources and that I didn't plan to be deferred anymore. (Her diary, by the way, still sits under my cot next to the pell-mell pile of papers that is my writing here. She left it in here the other day after that first rather. . .tiring situation. I was under the impression she'd just forgotten about it, but now I think she left it in here on purpose.) She held out for a little while longer, but fortunately gave in before I was forced to resort to another compliment of the your-beef-casserole-is-equatable-to-nectar-and-ambrosia variety.
"Did I just use the word equatable? That's not a word. Sweet Merlin, I must be unraveling. I mean, equatable?"
First sign of insanity, isn't it? Making up words?
-Alan Callard
"The most interesting thing is," said the old man when he returned sometime the next day, "is that now even if the door was wide open I don't think you'd leave."
A heavily exhausted Remus Lupin looked up at the Speaker, who had gray eyes and gray hair and looked, all in all, like he'd been crafted out of a cloudy day, or something else equally gray and depressing. (He made a note to write that down later.) But that, Lupin supposed, was a side effect of living in a cave for an extraordinarily long amount of time. It was likely he was starting to look the same way, for all he knew. There was a dearth of mirrors on the Hill.
At first Lupin blinked slowly, considering a rather scathing reply, then decided to just answer candidly. It was all right to try and poke fun at Bridget, to try and make her annoyed or even slightly peeved, but this was decidedly different. "How do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean that you knew if you left right now you'd feel obligated in a strange way."
"To whom?" he asked, rather knowing the answer.
"Her. You'd feel somewhat obligated to help her, but you couldn't."
"I couldn't," echoed Lupin.
"And if you left her here it would only add more guilt to an already fairly guilty soul."
"Please don't mention souls."
"Mr. Lupin," said the old man patiently, "please do not try and be funny--"
"Yeah, well, that's us werewolves. We don't have much of a sense of humor but Merlin knows we try."
"--because it's not making things go faster."
"You keep saying that," said Remus quietly. "Yet I really don't care how fast anything goes. I'm in no rush." His thoughts landed on something Bridget had said once. "Time...doesn't matter much here, does it?"
The Speaker did not answer.
"Anyway," said Lupin, only vaguely aware that he might've stumbled on something important and was now letting it slip away, "you think I would feel culpable if I left Bridget here, all alone with you?"
"Yes. Yes I do."
Lupin frowned. "Am I that easy to read?"
"More or less, yes."
"Yes, that figures." And curiously enough, he didn't try to argue this point at all when the Speaker left and several hours, for the chat had awakened in his mind the issue of culpability.
Did I do anything wrong today or has the world always been like this and I've been too wrapped up in myself to notice?
-Arthur Dent
"Look, there's no point in leaving for this village now, it's too late. If this town is as small as I think it is we'll need Muggle money," said the older man to a group of about a dozen people, and Dalen Butler watched in a bit of a daze, not speaking unless spoken to.
"Fine," said a grumpy-looking woman with red hair. "All right, but first thing in the morning?"
"We'll probably have to wait until afternoon to get a train," observed another man with longish-hair wearing a T-shirt and beat-up jeans.
"Train?" asked the first woman. "Trains are very slow, you know."
"But it's the only way all of us could get up there," piped up a girl with long dark hair sitting towards the back, "because Muggles aren't allowed on the Floo, are they? And obviously me, Alex, and Jamie can't Apparate, and you guys could never get permission for a Portkey., could you?"
The red-haired woman looked a bit surprised. "How d'you know all that?"
"Magical modes of transportation seemed like an interesting thing to ask about at the time," said the dark-haired woman seriously.
There was a pause. "Then what about the Knight Bus?" asked the first woman half-heartedly.
"I don't much fancy going on something I can't see."
"Oh, come on--"
"Perhaps the train would be the best thing," said the older man suddenly. "Something non-magic, she probably wouldn't expect."
"Right," said a man who looked a lot like the first woman. "She'd expect us all to come bursting up there without a care, we're she expecting anything at all. Perhaps it's best if we tread, er, lightly."
"But what are we supposed to do with him?" asked a sour-looking small woman with a notebook who was sitting right next to Dalen's chair.
The woman who had spoken up first gave the bound Butler a venomous look. "I read," she pronounced finally, "about a Castration Curse once--hey now, no one's becoming a eunuch, I'm only joking! Calm down, Marie, don't look so scandalized. Simon, you're right, nobody cantake a joke around here."
The younger man she had addressed this to shrugged. "Wouldn't the best thing to do be to just Oblivate him and send him on his merry way?"
There was a general nod of agreement and shortly after that Dalen didn't remember how he spent his evening.
The thing she hated about trains, Aurelia thought to herself as she sat wedged in one and tried to focus on the green rushing by outside the window, was that she always seemed to be seated next to a man who enjoyed splaying his legs out wide, fell asleep promptly, and was apparently comfortably unaware that about seven percent of his body was in contact with about 25 percent of hers.
"All right up there?"
Simon was sitting right behind her and seemed to have noticed her predicament, though he didn't seemed overly concerned about it. He was smirking.
"Oh, great," she said through gritted teeth. "Peachy." She twisted her body around in the seat.
Orion was sitting next to him. "We're almost there," he said, though he was deeply immersed in a pamphlet he'd found at one of the train stations and didn't look up to see her looking so discomfited.
Alex was sitting next to Aurelia. He turned around, saw what Orion was reading, and snorted. "Can't believe they have travel brochures for this place. Come watch cows grazing in our idyllic fields and the paint dry on our equally idyllic houses."
"You should write for them," suggested Nema on Alex's other side, leaning over to join in the conversation.
"Yes, I can see it now on my business card, Alexander Gold, part-time werewolf, part-time writer for travel brochures." He laughed. Unfortunately, all this was loud enough to carry to the rest of the passengers. They all had looked up with questioning stares at the mention of werewolves.
Nema grinned at them and said in a voice a little too loud and carrying to be entirely plausible, "Werewolves? Yes, good song, 'Werewolves of London,' Lon Chaney, all that."
That seemed to satisfy any curious onlookers, but not Aurelia. She leaned over Alex now. "What was that all about? Werewolves and who?"
Nema shook her head. "It's just a song by a Muggle musician."
"Really?" Aurelia asked, looking intrigued. "How does it go?"
"Er...I don't remember, I haven't heard it for awhile."
"But what was it called?"
" 'Werewolves of London.' "
"Hmm, well I've got to have a look at that, haven't I?"
"Well, maybe..."
"I can probably get you some sheet music for it when we get home," Alex told Aurelia.
"Really?" she asked eagerly.
"Yes, as long as you get your head out my face."
"Oh, right. Sorry." Aurelia sank back into her seat, where the Muggle had now started snoring. She shifted uncomfortably for a few seconds. "Would you like to switch seats?" she asked Alex finally when the man's head had lolled onto her shoulder, not a little piteously.
"That's all right, I quite fine where I am. I've no ambitions to become the Human Pillow, thanks."
"Oh sure, sit there in your nice seat completely non-squished and leave me here to suffer, some friend you are..."
Alex was saved the necessity of replying to this by Orion, who was addressing him and Nema now.
"Either of you ever been hiking?" Orion asked.
"I did a few times," said Nema. "Though usually not in January," she added, who had grown up in Cairo and didn't care for English winters so much.
"The only time I ever went hiking was in the woods once," Alex mused, "and it climaxed in an event I think we can mutually agree was very unpleasant."
"Wh--oh, right. Well, apparently there's a company that leads hikes," Orion explained, indicating the travel brochure, "up this Hill."
"I don't reckon captured werewolves would make the tour," Alex observed sagely.
"Nor do I," replied Orion apparently not noticing Nema and Aurelia snorting, "but it'd be an easy way to get a good look at the area. And I thought maybe you two and Jamie could chat up the people who lead the hikes. See if they've seen anything funny up there."
"Why us?" Nema asked quickly.
"Wizards are limited in their abilities to chat up Muggles," Alex explained to her.
"That's not a very nice thing to say," Nema told him severely, thinking of Remus.
"No, it's true," said Aurelia, who was in an infinitely better mood because her monstrous seatmate had gotten off at last. "Wizards are socially inept. Werewolves doubly so."
"Oh, come on..."
But Nema really didn't feel like arguing. She suspected Aurelia did it to relieve stress, but she, Nema, found it tiresome. So tiresome, in fact, that she fell asleep. When she awoke she discovered that they had entered Little Hangleton.
A/N: Next chapter shall be up soon. I promise on my honor. Or something.
Don't forget to review!
