Chapter Two: The Peruvian

Remus Lupin was at an impasse.

A hiatus.

On hold.

In a stand-off.

It would have been a Mexican stand-off, but there were only two of them, and he didn't have any Mexicans. Not a one, nada, not any, none, nadir, naught, nil, nothing, zilch, zero, zip. But he did have a thesaurus, a gift from Sirius one Christmas. To this day, he wasn't sure if it was a hint or just a thoughtful gift, but he was grateful nonetheless.

The reason for this stand-off was Mesoamerican, in fact, he was fairly sure it was Peruvian. More specifically, it was a humble member of the llama family, an alpaca.

He was pretty sure it wasn't syphilitic, which was a bonus should the matter come to hand to hand, or even hand to hoof combat.

Given its standoffish nature, this was unlikely to happen any time soon.

They had been like this for some months, on and off, with time allotted for bathroom and food breaks in between their prolonged staring matches. Remus was trying to leave, and the alpaca really wasn't going to stand for it.

The aforementioned alpaca was a dedicated mother and she had plans for her offspring that didn't include pineapple farming for the rest of its natural life. When Remus had agreed to go and work on a pineapple farm to free up a lama, he thought he had been doing a good deed for world peace. He had been deceived (as have many unfortunates who visit Wales) by the cunning double 'l'. Instead of a boost to peace, harmony and wearing orange, a rather mangy looking alpaca had got its travelling visa stamped, and should he leave it would be revoked. Hence the Peruvian stand-off with the mother of the aforementioned mangy looking alpaca.

It simply wasn't funny, and he really should be able to take the thing down, lycanthropy and all, but he just couldn't find it in his heart to do so.

For the longest of times he had been seduced by the unique blend of spikiness and succulent, juicy flesh of the pineapple. He hadn't even thought of leaving. When he finally did, this problem had occurred. He had tried running, skulking, growling, leaping and leading it into a false sense of security – none of these strategies worked. It looked like he might be walking these dusty streets for some time to come.

He reached up to wipe the salty sweat from his eyes and –

– sat up in bed, clutching his face having poked himself in the eye.

When sight returned, he looked around the dismal room and resolved that he really needed to get rid of that stuffed alpaca. His dreams concerning them were growing steadily more frequent and outlandish. Surely everyone knew that the alpacas had no opposable digits.

However one thing was clear; if he was dreaming of an enforced stay in Peru – and did pineapples even grow there? – then it was time to head for sunnier climes. His days on the mean streets of Grimsby were done.

He couldn't honestly say he'd miss the smell of fish.

Yet moving is not as simple as everyone would have it.

First things first, he decided he needed to get a new job somewhere else before selling his house. He headed to the job centre, took a number and sat down in the 'jobs outside of Grimsby' section. He relaxed on what had been a comfy sofa, but was now mostly springs.

He casually opened the magazine in front of him and read the column entitled

'Partially sponsored internships'

This sounded promising, he had always enjoyed learning new things.

'Could you help manage natural resources?'

Asked the advert (not literally, as this was a Muggle journal). Promising indeed.

'Developing ways to manage natural resources sustainably can help people in some of the world's poorest countries to support themselves. That's why we urgently need skilled professionals to fill a range of roles. You'll live and work as a volunteer in the heart of a Peruvian community, helping them harvest pineapples which are then transported to local market towns by a smaller, more genteel relative of the lama family. Two years experience necessary.'

Remus corrected the spelling in the article, and then pinched himself. Hard.

This time, it seemed, he wasn't dreaming. Either that or he was in a coma.

His number was called.

He quickly dropped the August copy of Peruvian Pineapple Pickers and headed towards the desk. He was relieved to see that, Samantha, or so her badge was read, was a witch. Two purple stars adorned her uniform, invisible to all but magical folk. It would have been a little tricky explaining Hogwarts and OWLS and NEWTs to a Muggle.

"I wish to head for sunnier climes" was his opening gambit, "but no pineapples."

Samantha grinned, "How do you feel about sheep?"

Ten minutes later, Remus had secured himself a job tutoring the children of a wealthy Australian on the outskirts of Sydney. The deal had been sweetened by the offer of wolfsbane (potion, not poison) and his pick of the flock on nights of the full moon.

Now all he had to do was explain the rather excessive amount of chains and restraints in his basement to a Muggle estate agent… Oh God, he was going to be run out of town again!

He hadn't reckoned on living in the East Riding. The basement turned out to be quite the selling point, and he tripled his money.

The children he tutored were well-mannered, hard-working and unfailingly polite, teaching them was everything that a job at Hogwarts had promised to be, but failed to live up to. Bindi-Sue was an especially gifted student, even if she did have rather a tendency to leap on passing crocodiles and wrestle them to the ground. However, since their week days were spent in inner city Sydney, this wasn't such a problem.

These were halcyon days for Remus. The sun shone on a future free of persecution and full of opportunities to shape young minds. To his inner geek, this was bliss. Unfortunately, Remus' inner geek had competition in the form of one inner werewolf, who missed his pack; or the remnants of it at least.

He'd ignored it for as long as possible, but there's only so much whining that anyone can put up with.

Tossing back the Frenchman that had become his nightly ritual; he wandered back to his suite of rooms and resolved to invite Sirius to visit sometime, since he was obliged to stay in Australia for at least the rest of the year.

To his delight, when he entered his rooms, he found that the rest of his belongings, carefully boxed up by a helpful house-elf he had borrowed from Hogwarts and sent on the steamer (the boxes, not the elf), had arrived. Feeling a little like Christmas had come early, he chose the largest box to open first, despite the fact that it was balanced precariously on his Dingoes LPs and he was well on his way to being as inebriated as an odorous stripy rodent.

Grappling with the box, trying desperately to figure out how to open it, he slipped on the children's geography essays, "The Highland Jungle of Mesoamerica", and in an attempt to stay upright, pulled the box on top of him.

He awoke, or possibly regained consciousness, the next morning to find he was trapped. On the plus side, his desperate scrabbling had at least torn the box, so he could find out what exactly he owned that was so awkward to move.

He lifted the flap and was flung back into his Peruvian nightmare, back into a face-off with a smaller relative of the llama, albeit stuffed.

"DAMMIT!"

REFERENCES:

Buffy – The Dingoes Ate My Babies is the name of Oz's band

Shanghai Noon

Bindi-Sue is a sprog of the Irwin clan

Pineapples are farmed in Peru, specifically in the Highland Jungle area, but the llamas are used as transportation rather than pickers, as in Remus' dream, in case you were wondering.

The East Riding is the bit of Yorkshire that isn't the West Riding (good bit) or the North Riding (civilised bit). There isn't a South Riding, as we like to call that place Nottinghamshire, where sheep are truly a man's best friend.

VSO – we kid you not, we paraphrased the advert from one of theirs.