DISCLAIMER: Not mine.
A/N: A few references are made to my one-shot "Interrogation" in this chapter. You could either read that, or just take it for granted that Remus was hauled in for a rather violent interrogation after James and Lily were murdered (after all, he was obviously a suspect. His best friends suspected him).
RESPONSES TO REVIEWERS:
Severinus: Thanks for mentioning that! I was concerned that people might see it as too harsh coming from "Padfoot," but after all, Harry could have died if he'd left Hogwarts.
Oya: You'll find out presently! Thanks for the review!
Phinea Rouge, MorotheWolfGod, LinZE, chickens, Alynna, lilyqueen777: Thank you!
-------
A tense silence, punctuated by Severus's clipped steps to the door filled his sitting room. My right hand lightly rested against the handle of my wand, and I noted with a satisfied smile that Remus's had fallen against his pocket as well. Before I had much time to allow my imagination to float over the possible implications of our visitor, Severus spoke from the hallway.
"Good evening, Madam Umbridge." His voice, slightly louder than usual, floated back to us.
I heard Remus whisper an obscenity but did not bother reprimanding him. He seldom uses profanity, and if I did, I would likely have said the same thing. His hand fell to rest on the head of the large dog suddenly beside him. Of course this was the worst possible turn of events; no one in the room could claim to have anything passing for decent (let alone good) luck. She hated everyone Fudge told her to hate. Death Eaters, Sirius Black, werewolves... At some point, I do believe that freethinkers made the list, though I did not receive the owl. I had faced four armed Aurors the day before. I could easily face this thing. My students could as well, and I knew it. Nodding my encouragement as best I could, I turned to the door where Dolores Umbridge followed Severus inside. That woman closely resembled a diseased toad; I almost wanted to ask Severus to give her a potion for that.
Remus rose. Already, he was removing a sheaf of papers from the inner pockets of his tattered jeans. His fingers were shaking so badly that he almost dropped them, and when her gaze fell on him, she demanded, "What are you doing here?"
"Visiting an old classmate," Severus said smoothly from behind her.
"I was unaware that you had run in the same circles, Severus."
"One is drawn to one's intellectual peers, especially in a school where anyone with enough money to pay the tuition and enough power to perform the Levitation Charm is admitted. More tea, Remus?"
"N-no, thank you, Severus," he whispered.
"You seem nervous, Mr. Lupin," she said in that saccharine voice that made me long for even Sybil Trelawney's spacey slurring. "Perhaps you would like to tell me why."
"Your... your rings, Madam." Remus whispered. At first, I thought that age had dulled his reflex to lie to authority, but then she automatically brought her hands up before her face to examine the rings on her cotton-candy fingers. They glinted silver in the suddenly cold firelight. Behind Remus, a look suspiciously like sympathy flew across Severus's face before he could hide it. I looked away from Remus, from his barely controlled terror, before I could fall upon that sorry excuse for a witch.
She looked smugly satisfied that her rings had incurred such a reaction. I supposed that she might wear them only to keep werewolves away. Merlin knows that her magic is not powerful enough to keep one at bay. Even in his human forms, Remus's reaction was far from mild.
"Yes. They're quite lovely, aren't they?" Umbridge said. Like an obese penguin, she waddled across the room and glowered up at Remus, who was stuck between her and the chair. His breaths had begun to stumble in ragged little gasps. "Let's see your registration papers, Mr. Lupin."
He handed them to her, his fingers pinched carefully around the corner. When her fingers purposefully brushed his, he recoiled with a strangely wolfish whimper. Sirius snarled. Walking around the chair, Severus kicked him sharply. My heart seized for a moment. The notorious Black temper would not take that insult well, but it seemed that perhaps the dog was a bit more temperate than the man, for the dog snapped his jaws once before retiring to Remus's side.
"These are all in order," Umbridge said, and I swear that she sounded utterly disappointed. She moved to cross the room, keeping her eyes on me as she walked and spoke. "Apparently Dumbledore does appreciate the necessity of select laws. Or perhaps he just enjoys keeping a leash on his pet werewolf."
"Yes, ma'am," Remus whispered.
I could no longer restrain myself, and though I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that I would regret the words later, I said, "Dolores, you are the only person in this room who requires a leash."
She pretended not to have heard me and, in a distinctly forced tone, she said, "It occurs to me that perhaps you have been in communication with some people to whom I would very much like to speak, Mr. Lupin."
"Is that so?" Remus replied, cradling his trembling hand close to his chest.
"You have, perhaps, heard from Sirius Black?"
"Madam Umbridge, the moon is waxing," Severus said, a tactful reminder that Remus was not in his best mental or physical health and likely would react poorly to the stress from such a line of questioning.
"Have you heard from Black?" She demanded.
"No, of course not," Remus whispered, and his eyes had swelled slightly. If I had not known better, I would have believed him. "I've been hiding from him for the past two years."
"You honestly expect me to believe that?"
"Believe what you will. That's the truth." The words, not the tone, were impertinent.
Quirking a caterpillar-like eyebrow, she said, "How dare you speak to me like that? I would not be out of bounds to arrest you right now for endangering the children in this school."
"I-I wouldn't hurt a child." He seldom stammered. The hesitance in his usually confident voice suggested that she had already succeeded in unnerving him. Mentioning Sirius, who was standing only a few inches away, was enough to make even the usually composed men fidget in their places.
"Then why is it that you resigned from your position here?" She demanded in a saccharine drawl.
Across the room, Severus sighed.
"I don't... I don't..." Remus dropped his gaze into his lap.
"Dolores, you are treating this man unjustly," I snapped. My voice sounded hoarse even in my own ears, not at all intimidating as I had intended. "Any fool could see that he is unwell."
Umbridge continued her attack on Remus, whose fingers had begun to flutter on the top of Sirius's head. "If I recall, you did not complete a rotation of Wolfsbane and nearly attacked a group of students and a professor... Professor Snape, I do believe."
"Sirius Black was in the castle. I had to warn Harry... Things got out of hand. I meant to take the potion. Headmaster Dumbledore cleared up all the legal issues ages ago, when he sent me to—into hiding."
"Mr. Lupin, I believe that you are hiding something from me."
"I have nothing to hide."
The dog was growling fiercely in the back of his throat, and across the room, Severus was struggling to look disinterested, thumbing ever more rapidly through one a thick text that had obviously not been off its shelf in ages. My fingers had tightened on my wand. In my throat and stomach, my blood pounded wildly, and my mind kept screaming, she knows, she knows.
"You know that the laws for questioning your kind by Ministry officials. If you tell me what you know of Black, you needn't return to Azkaban... where you belong..." So that was her game. She wanted to capture Sirius Black.
"Yes." Resentful and terse, tight and frightened. I remembered his interrogations after Lily and James died. He looked worse than some of You-Know-Who's victims.
"Do you remember your time with us, Mr. Lupin?"
"Not very well, no."
"Perhaps you require a reminder. I do need to loosen your tongue." She rose, withdrawing her wand, and said, "Crucio."
A slick lump of ice formed in my stomach, and I stunned the charging black dog before he could transform. The guestroom door banged open, and the students ran into the room, rushing toward Remus.
Before they could reach him, Severus had jumped between him and Umbridge, wand extended. "Propugnator," Severus exclaimed, pointing his wand at Remus. The spells met, and the light from Dolores's wand fizzled beneath the pure glow from Severus's. He turned on Umbridge and growled, "Capere!"
Her wand clattered to the floor as her arms were snapped to her sides. There were several long moments of silence punctuated by ragged breathing after which Severus said, "Why, Madam Umbridge, do you have any idea what is done to people who perform that curse?"
"The public will hardly blame me for attacking that thing!"
"If you had used any other curse, perhaps they would have done," Severus replied. He picked her wand from the ground and handed it to Remus. With his infamous calculating gaze fixed on Umbridge, he came to lean on the edge of the sofa, just above my head. "I believe that we can work something out, don't you, Minerva?"
I smiled up at him. Sometimes, I wish that I could have been in Slytherin. There is certainly something admirable about that house, a quiet cunning, that Gryffindor lacks. "I'm sure something can be arranged."
"Arranged?" She asked in a panic.
"You performed and Unforgivable, Professor Umbridge," Harry Potter whispered, and his voice was an odd mixture of elation and terror. He was helping Remus back to the chair as Hermione prepared a cup of tea for the poor boy. "There are witnesses. You're bound for Azkaban."
"No... No, I can't go there! I would die!"
"I don't think you're that lucky," Remus said softly. His voice was shaking, his eyes huge and fixed on the statue of his friend beside his chair. He fell back with ragged breaths. "Thank you, Hermione."
"Would you like anything else, sir?" Hermione asked, and I had the distinct impression that the quiet respect with which she spoke was just to irritate Umbridge.
"I'm fine." He pressed her hand, tender, paternal comfort that earned a timorous smile.
"Minerva, I believe it is your place to stipulate the conditions," Severus said. Our eyes locked, and I saw just the slightest twinge of amusement beneath the serious tone.
"Remus?"
"As you wish," he said softly.
I had been waiting for this moment since Albus told me that this awful woman was coming to Hogwarts, daydreaming of it every time she set foot in my path. "Get out of my school."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I told you. Undo what you have done. Leave my school, and no one will ever hear of this."
She had no choice. I will not say that I was proud of having to resort to blackmail to defeat the Ministry, but when one allies oneself with Slytherins, it is the best that can be expected. From the amused glint in Remus's exhausted eyes as we watched her (each leaning heavily on Severus for support—he did not seem pleased) hobble away from the Apparation wards weighted down with her own disgusting belongings, I cannot believe that I have made the wrong decision.
