Disclaimer: see previous chapters

Author's note This up date sure took forever, well anyway, hope it meets everyone's expectations. Please review.

In Fire Lies Redemption

By Marz

Chapter 15

Maybe I Should Have Walked

Bill watched the hands of the family clock, which told the wellbeing and whereabouts of all the Weasleys. Ron and Ginny were at school. Fred and George were at work. Percy, where ever he was, was running late. His mother was at home, which he knew of course, because he had seen her on his way in, and his father's hand was slowly working its way over from work to join her. As it traveled, it passed Charlie whose hand pointed to "mortal peril." It had for the past three days. He tore his eyes away from it as he heard the fireplace flare.

"Bill?" called Arthur Weasley.

He supposed his face had given away that something was wrong. "Hi Dad," he said, trying to sound casual.

"What's happened?" Arthur asked.

Before Bill could answer he found himself enveloped in a very unexpected hug. His father released him a moment later and there was an awkward pause. They settled into the worn armchairs that faced the fire. The war is really getting to him, Bill thought as he cleared his throat.

"Dumbledore has an assignment for us tonight if you're feeling up to it, after dark."

Arthur nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"It's a search. They've got a few others coming, but the headmaster doesn't expect to find anything." Bill paused, listening for his mother's footsteps.

"Who are we searching for?" his father asked, leaning forward and praying very desperately that the next word would not be the name of one of his children.

"Remus Lupin."

Arthur turned unintentionally to the door way. It was empty. "I take it you didn't tell your mother."

Bill shook his head. "Death Eaters raided the safe house where Remus was locked up for the full moon. We found Tonks about an hour ago, she'll be alright, but…"

"Oh lord," Arthur said quietly. "The Disposal department brought something in this morning."

Bill nodded. They sat in silence for a few minutes as rain spattered the windows. He hated to be the bearer of bad news, but he rarely had time to speak to his father, and he did not know when another opportunity would arise.

"I've got something else to talk to you about as well," Bill said. "About Ron."

His father leaned forward.

"Do you remember that day at King's Cross," Bill paused to shake his head. "Sorry, of course you do. What I mean is did you see the curses Ron was using? He…"

"I saw, Bill."

"I've tried to write to him about it but he doesn't answer. Maybe if you talked to him…"

"What do you want me to say, Bill?"

Bill blanched. "What do I want? Dad, did you see him? He was laughing!"

His father only stared at him.

Bill tried to start again. "He's my brother, and I don't know what to say to him any more. I can't figure out what's going on in his mind. He spent most of the summer in his room, studying. He used to hang about for hours talking about Quidditch and now, now he's changed. We have to do something. He isn't himself."

"What do think I should say Bill?"

He had no answer.

"You see your brother four or five times a year at most. The last time you two had a serious conversation he was nine years old and in complete awe of his eldest brother, on his way to Egypt. He is himself, Bill, you just don't know him that well. He's grown up."

"Grown up into what?"

He had not meant to sound accusatory, but he knew from his father's oddly neutral expression that he had taken it that way. The following silence was filled with tension. When the sun set, and they left for Hogsmead, the feeling remained.

He was always doing people favors. Elmore Meyer regretted being such a push over, but really when you work in the morgue how many people want you at their dinner parties. Not that he was complaining. He nodded to the Auror on duty, another new security measure, and then stepped into the elevator. His office was one of the few that actually rested below the Department of Mysteries, which meant after the elevator there were three more flights of stairs. He pulled out his wand and unlocked the door. A flock of memos sped around the ceiling of his office like moths. More people asking for favors. After a bit of shuffling and a stiff drink, he changed into his work robes, and stepped into the morgue proper. The new arrival lay on the table in the center of the room.

Someone had taken the pelt. Meyer swallowed hard, and slipped on his gloves. There were strict laws concerning the disposal of part-humans captured by the Department for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, but very few people bothered to obey them, and monitoring was a joke.

Werewolf pelts were worth quite a bit in the right market. Not only were they banned by international wizarding law, but they were also difficult to preserve. If you wanted the pelt, you had to get it off before the moon went down and the poor bastard reverted to human form. In the rush, the culprit had left most of the hide on the legs and arms.

Meyer carefully rolled the body onto its back. Thin, Caucasian male, eyes too damaged to determine color. The left arm was badly burned. A curse had crippled the creature and a silver blade through the heart had finished the job. Meyer lifted the arm carefully. Lupin reportedly had scars on his forearms, from the werewolf that had attacked him as a child. He was supposed to have scars on his neck as well, but there wasn't enough skin there to tell.

There was a clear bite mark on the left arm, but it was still fresh. Meyer's eyes were drawn to the burned area. He took out his wand, casting a careful cleaning charm. Ash and dried blood faded away. He dropped the arm and stepped back. As the Dark Mark stared up at him, he grinned. Maybe some do get what's coming to them. Meyers threw his gloves in the waste bin and strode out of the morgue. He had to make a fire-call to Hogwarts.

He could just let go and slide back into the water at the bottom of the irrigation ditch. He had been considering it for the past few minutes as he tried to scramble up the slippery decomposing bank. His right leg wouldn't move at all. He thought the tendon behind his knee might have been cut. That leg was the only part of him not yet numb with cold.

He had awakened in a very similar ditch that morning, with blood in his mouth and a huge gash in his leg, and things had gotten progressively worse. I may even have gone in a circle, he thought, blinking as more muddy water splashed into his eyes. At least the rain would make it harder for them to find him. Remus looked up at the sky again.

They had been tracking him all day. He did not know what sort of tracking spell they were using, but they seemed unable to pinpoint his exact location. Every few minutes a Death Eater would pass overhead. Fortunately I am well camouflaged, he thought miserably, scrubbing at the mud that coated his entire body. The Death Eaters were firing curses into clumps of bushes nearby, trying to flush him out.

He wondered again how he had ended up in this seemingly endless stretch of farmland. Something must have gone wrong at the house. He repeated a silent prayer that Tonks had gotten away unharmed, by him especially. All he remembered were smells: blood, fear, and for some reason, pepper.

With a desperate effort he scrambled high enough to grab a clump of weeds hanging over the edge of the ditch. For a moment he thought they would pull out of the muddy ground, but they held and he crawled on his hands and knees into an orchard.

The leaves were yellow and all the fruit had been picked. He dug through the leaf litter anyway hoping to find a missed apple. All he found were a few large beetles, and he was not quite hungry enough to try eating them. If he dug out a little burrow under the leaves he could warm up and sleep for a bit, but he feared he would not wake up. And waiting for rescue did not seem a good option either, as he had not had even a hint that the Order was looking for him the entire day. He had to keep going.

"We'll draw straws then," Harry said.

"We don't have any straws," Hermione said. "I did most of the work on the potion, so I'll take it first."

"You will not!" said Ron.

Hermione glared at him, but before they could start arguing Ginny interrupted. "Rock, Paper, Scissors."

"What's that?" asked Neville.

"It's an ancient muggle form of divination," Ginny said.

Hermione laughed nervously.

"How does it work?" asked Ron.

Ginny and Hermione explained the hand gestures and rules.

"…so rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock. Understood?" Ginny asked.

Ron and Neville nodded solemnly. Harry smirked.

"On three then," said Ginny. "One…Two…Three!"

Ginny and Ron both picked rock, and beat the other three who had chosen scissors. The siblings faced off. Ron was sweating a lot. Harry wanted to laugh, but he was feeling too depressed. They had to take the potion now though, or all that work would be for nothing. They had to take the potion, or they might not be ready next time.

"Ready?" Hermione asked. "One…Two…Three!"

Ron's rock lost to Ginny's paper. She picked up her goblet and scooped out a cup of the now cherry-red Verto potion.

"Wait!" Ron said. They all turned to look at him. "How does paper beat a rock?"

"Those are the rules," Ginny said, raising the cup to her lips.

"No! Watch." Ron said. He held out his hands towards Ginny making the rock and paper signs. "See, if rock beats scissors…" he said leaning closer.

Ginny looked at him, waiting for him to continue. "Well then, you see…" Halfway through his own sentence he snatched the goblet out of her hands and drained it in a single long gulp. Ginny made a fist, ready to punch him in the arm. His face went pale. They all jumped to their feet as Ron gagged, his hands going to his throat.

"Madam Pomfrey!" shouted Neville rushing for the door. Harry caught his arm.

"Forty seven seconds remember?" Harry said.

Ron's hands shook as he moved them away from his neck.

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked.

He nodded. "I feel strange…"

Suddenly a bright blue spot of light appeared in the center of his forehead. He looked up at it, cross-eyed. The light spread out and other spots appeared on his arms. A few moments later all his exposed skin was a glowing, iridescent blue.

"Forty three…forty four…forty five…forty six…"

Before Harry reached the final number the light blinked out and Ron was standing in front of them, his normal overly tall self.

"Alright?" Harry asked.

Ron nodded. Ginny punched him in the arm.

"Guess it's our turn then," Harry said. The rest of them filled their goblets.

Seamus was getting rather annoyed. For the past two weeks, Harry, Ron and Neville had been having secret meetings up in the sixth year boy's dormitory. Seamus did not object to secret meetings in general, but he did object to those that were held in his room, by his roommates, to which he was not invited. He would have declined an invitation to participate, as Potter's secret meetings usually involved someone getting gravely injured, but they did not even ask.

Seamus checked his watch again. It was nearly time for fifth period class. That's it. I'm going in, ready or not! He stormed up the stairs, pushed open the door, and immediately regretted doing it.

Harry was on the floor convulsing.

His friends were crouched around him. Ron and his sister, Ginny, were trying to hold him still. Hermione Granger was crying and trying to cast a spell. Neville was mopping up the contents of an overturned cauldron.

Seamus sprinted to the hospital wing.

The sun had set, changing the wet gray sky into a wet black sky. There was a faint bright spot among the clouds that may have been the moon, but it did nothing to illuminate the muddy ground below. Every few minutes a sprinkle of icy rain would issue forth from the sky, but the storm was nearly spent.

Remus was no longer shivering and he knew that was a bad sign. As he crawled on through yet another fallow field he wondered desperately where everyone had gone. He'd been moving slowly westward all day and had yet to come across any building or road with even a hint of recent occupation. Lupin was not truly lonely of course. Every few minutes a shadow would pass across the sky, reminding him the Death Eaters were still out and about.

He lay down for a moment to rest, and squeezed his eyes shut against another spatter of rain. He could not fight off the hopelessness that washed over him. He didn't expect to see the end of the second war, but he had expected to die fighting it. For the end to come while he was naked and barley able to stand, to simply be murdered, was more then he could bear. I'm going to die on Halloween, just like Lily and James. He ground his knuckles into his eyes. Pull yourself together. Damn it, pull it together. It won't be much longer, just keep it together. His muddled thoughts were interrupted by a flash of glaring light.

He sat up, trying to see and at the same time keep his head from sticking up above the surrounding weeds. A triangle of light was cutting its way across the far side of the field, and Remus realized it was a muggle car. Its progress was slow and he got the strangest feeling that the driver was searching for something.

If he scrambled for the far corner of the field he could reach the road before the car passed by. But would any one stop for a naked man, covered in filth, who just popped out of the bushes in the middle of the night? And even if they did stop, the Death Eaters could see that light just as well as he could. If the car stopped he would doom them both. Even as he thought of all the consequences, he found himself moving.

Remus scrambled along, bent double. His right leg refused to bear his weight and his breath came in wheezing gasps. The car rolled on undisturbed. He was halfway across the field when the ground in front of him exploded in a flash of green light. The reflected force of the curse knocked him flat on his back and he could not catch his breath. The weeds caught fire, painting everything in flickering orange. Remus knew he had nowhere to hide. With tremendous effort he managed to sit up again. He could see the Death Eater flying towards him across the field. Only the man's white skull mask was truly visible, the rest of him was a blurred black outline against the dark sky. Whatever model of broom he was using was a good one. Remus knew he had three seconds at most to act, but his mind remained empty of all thoughts but one. I'm going to die.

CRACK!

For an instant Remus thought someone had apparated nearby. He whirled towards the sound only to turn back a second later.

THUMP!

His eyes darted wildly about, but the Death Eater was gone. As he searched for his would be assassin, he realized the car's headlights were gone as well. He scrambled past the crater and the dying fire that impeded his path, to the edge of the field. He was not sure what exactly he hoped to find there, but he had nowhere better to go.

He came to the edge of the road and knelt down, straining to hear the rumble of an engine, but there was nothing. He had missed it. The car had passed. Maybe he had only dreamed it up in the first place. He slumped and put his face in his hands again. He just wanted it to be over.

"Need a tissue, sweetheart?" whispered a low female voice.

He was almost certain he was hallucinating at that point. He looked up and saw a figure crouching among the shrubs on the other side of the road. When he didn't answer the figure slunk forward, low to the ground, and crossed to his side. He could see her more clearly then. A black cloth mask covered her entire head, except for two round eyeholes. Her gray trench coat dragged through the mud as she approached him. She had a pistol in her hand and a rifle slung across her back.

"You seem to be in a spot of trouble," she said creeping towards him.

"I noticed." His voice was so raspy it barely sounded human.

"Observant, that's good quality," she said.

As she came closer he smelled her as well. He got the idea that some time in the past few hours, she had gone swimming in coffee. Her eyes darted about, inspecting the road, the sky, and the surrounding fields. As they settled on him they continued to jiggle around. Despite her wired appearance, her voice was calm.

"This might sound a bit cliché," she said, "But there's an easy way and a hard way to go about things from here on, and before you get all puffed up and macho on me, hear me out, because you are not in any condition to go the hard way, are you following me?"

Remus nodded.

"Excellent. The hard way starts out with me knocking you unconscious, tying you up, tossing you in the boot of my car, and then passing you on to some fellows with talent for extracting information. Most people go that way and I never hear good things about it."

She crouched in front of him, barely a foot away. He swallowed, and looked down at his unresponsive leg. He wasn't going to outrun this particular lunatic. That was certain. She looked nearly as large as him, and in much better health. He didn't think tackling was a viable option, either.

"Now, the easy way, and you're going to want to pay special attention here, love." Her gloved hand caught his jaw. He started as she pulled his face back towards her.

"It involves you behaving like a civilized person. You sit in the passenger seat. We take a little trip. You answer a few questions, and I'll see if I can't do something about that nasty little cut on your leg. Of course with the easy way I expect a bit of discretion. I can't have nasty little wizards following me about everywhere trying to erase my memory. I'm running out of places to bury them."

Remus watched her for a moment longer, unsure of how to respond. Maybe if I ignore her, she'll go away.

"You need to make a choice soon, dear," she said, her hand dropping away. "We don't quite know when the next Reaper is going to fly by on a broom, do we?" She was leaning in as she spoke, and he had suspicions that she was going to hit him over the head if he declined to go quietly.

"I suppose the easy way sounds good," he rasped finally.

"Smashing!" she declared.

She paused for a moment to readjust the rifle across her back, then took off her coat. She went through the pockets, and then tossed it to him. Under it she was wearing a thick vest. Her heavily tattooed upper arms were exposed. He couldn't quite make out the markings in the faint light; one of the blurry figures might have been a bird.

It occurred to him as he pulled the coat over his shaking shoulders that he should be a lot more embarrassed by the situation, but he really didn't have the energy. When he had finished doing up the buttons she spoke again.

"Now dear, as you've agreed to go the easy way I don't want any funny stuff, right? No trying to jump out of the car, or knock me over the head, and definitely no grabbing at my guns, understood?"

He nodded. She stood up, and scanned the skies overhead. Apparently satisfied, she grabbed him under the arms and pulled him to his feet. He tried to put weight on his right leg, and would have fallen had she not caught him around the waist.

"Put an arm on my shoulder sweets. It's a bit of a hike to the car."

By the time they got to the car Remus was more then ready to pass out. With each jarring, hopping step his back twinged in agony. His vision was tunneling in and even with the woman carrying more then half of his weight he felt exhausted.

He did not know very much about muggle cars, but this one looked rather fast to him, as it only had two doors, and seemed to be mostly engine. Had there been enough light to see, he thought it would be red. The woman pulled a keychain from her pants pocket. She leaned Remus up against the hood of the car and went around to the boot. He heard her rattling about and there was an ominous clanking that sounded an awful lot like chains to him. She slammed the lid and came back around, carrying a beat up gym bag. She tossed it on the hood next to him, and began to rummage through it, eventually producing a tee shirt with a logo for Byron's Athletic center and a blood stain on the front, and a pair of black sweatpants with a hole in the knee. Lupin took them carefully. He stared at her for a moment, hoping she would take the hint and give him a bit of privacy. She apparently followed his train of thought, but wasn't inclined to oblige.

"Sorry love, I don't trust you that far," she said. "And I doubt you've anything I didn't see fifteen minutes ago."

"I cannot believe you would do something so foolish!" raged McGonagall.

Harry stared up at her passively from his hospital bed. "I haven't done anything," he replied coolly.

"Mr. Finnegan tells a different story. He says you were taking illegal potions, and that you forced your friends to dispose of the evidence."

"I don't recall doing anything like that."

"Your friends are being interviewed right now in separate rooms. They will tell us what you have done."

"They won't, because I haven't done anything."

The Head of Gryffindor House took a deep hissing breath through her teeth.

Harry tried to look more honest before continuing. "Professor, I don't know what Seamus said he saw. The five of us were just practicing deflecting curses, and I got his with a Tarantallegra. My legs went out of control and I fell down. I accidentally kicked over a project of Neville's which I don't think was illegal. Hermione was laughing at me, and then Seamus burst in and ran back out. That's all that happened."

"I know you are lying," McGonagall said. Her rage seemed to be fading into rampant disappointment. "What am I to do with you?"

Harry shifted in the bed. His feet and hands felt ice cold, but even buried under a huge pile of blankets he could not warm them.

"Maybe you should stop trying to do things with me. I'm starting to think I'm a lost cause."

McGonagall stood glaring at him, and he found he didn't care. That worried him a bit. He knew he usually cared a great deal about what McGonagall thought about him, but at that moment all he felt was cold.