In Fire Lies Redemption
By Marz
Chapter 16: Deals and Meals
Gray sunlight poured through the window. Remus groaned and blinked. He went to rub his eyes and was jerked more fully awake as his arm caught on something. He leaned forward and saw that a thin metal band was chaining his right wrist to a bar on the side of the seat. A moment later it sunk in that he was alone in the car. He looked for the woman, but she was gone. The mask she had worn lay on the empty driver's seat, with a note resting on top of it.
Stay put Sweetie,
I'll be back in a minute.
It was not signed. Remus sighed and yawned. He went to cover his mouth and his arm caught up again. He looked out the windows, and saw only rows and rows of empty cars on either side. His head was starting to pound and his right leg was throbbing and sore.
The woman had insisted on pouring some burning stinging liquid over the gash in his leg, and then wrapping it up in bandages before she let him sit in the car. She also made him swallow a handful of pills, which she identified as Vicodin, Erythromycin, and another long name he could not recall. The pain in his leg had faded away; unfortunately so had consciousness.
And so here he was. It was a bad morning he supposed, but at least it was better then yesterday. He tugged at the chain again, and it bit into his skin. He tried to open the glove box in the dashboard but it was locked. He tried pushing the little buttons and pulling the levers on the inside of the door, but they did not do anything. The last time he had ridden in a muggle car, there was a handle for rolling down the windows, but he could not find one here. He leaned forward, and with his left hand felt around under the seat. He grew dizzy and nauseous, but his fingers closed over something before he was forced to sit up. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The headache was growing worse, but after a few seconds his vision stopped spinning and he inspected his prize. It was a small book, with the cheap paper cover and glue binding that muggles seemed fond of.
Conversational Russian
At first glance it did not provide any valuable clue to the identity of his captor. He flipped through the book and skimmed the dog-eared pages. On second glance it was not so useful either.
The driver's side door swung open.
"Good to see you're up and about, Love," said the woman as she settled into the driver's seat, a paper bag in one hand and a cardboard tray with two paper cups in the other.
She had changed out of the heavy vest into a shirt that declared her a member of the Kiss Army, and had wrapped a scarf around her head, covering hair and ears. A large square set of sunglasses hid her eyes. Remus recognized her then. She'd made no effort to hide the scar running up the left side of her neck.
"You were at the train station," he said.
"What train station would that be?"
"King's Cross, September 1st, you were there."
"It's possible," she said, handing him one of the cups from the tray.
"What's in it?" Remus asked, taking it with his free left hand.
"Old family recipe: a teabag and water."
Remus looked down at the surface of the liquid. It looked like tea, and smelled like it, but that didn't mean there weren't three drops of Veritaserum in it as well. Then again he'd taken a hand full of pills she'd given him and he hadn't come to any harm. The woman snorted and snatched the cup. She took a long sip, before handing it back.
"See Sweetheart, perfectly safe."
She drank from her own cup which, from the smell, contained coffee. Remus sighed and drank the tea. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was until then. He tipped back the cup to get the last of it and the wet teabag slapped him on the nose. She reached into the paper bag and handed him a plastic bottle full of water, then she started the engine.
They were on the road for several hours before speaking again. For the most part the woman seemed content to let him doze in the passenger's seat. He knew he should probably be planning an escape of some sort, but he was feeling too much like gum on the bottom of a shoe. If she offered him another handful of pills, he wouldn't say "No thanks." He finally broke the silence.
"Who are you?" Remus asked.
"Do you want a name or are we getting complicated and existential?"
"A name would be helpful."
"I'm Lim. Like an arm, but without a 'b'."
He tried to remember if he had ever heard that name before. He was fairly certain it was atypical, but muggles called themselves some pretty strange things.
"Aren't you going to ask me my name?" he asked a bit confused by her apparent lack of interest in conversation.
"I already know your name dear," said Lim.
He wanted to say "oh yeah, then what is it?" but that would be far too juvenile. Instead he asked "Where are we going?"
"I suppose here is far enough."
The car turned off the road into the gravel parking lot of a very rundown restaurant. The grayish paint was peeling and the tarpaper roof was patched with a tarp weighed down at the corners with rocks. The name above the door was too faded to read, but a cardboard sign in the window said "OPEN." Remus saw a pale rubbery faced old man peeping out the window at them as the car crunched to a halt.
Lim pulled back on her trench coat and then leaned over and unlocked the chain around his wrist. She came around to his side of the car and helped him out. He saw she had picked up a tattered black briefcase in the two seconds she'd been out of sight. She half carried him to the door.
The smell of mildew was almost overwhelming, and Remus was completely incapacitated by sneezes for a full minute. When his eyes stopped watering enough for him to look about, he was less then impressed. The proprietor, who'd seen them coming, now stood behind the bar. He wiped the warped wooden counter with a filthy gray rag and glared at them with sunken suspicious eyes.
"The bathroom's for pay' in customers only," he declared warily in a slow wobbly voice.
"What's the soup of the day Sweetheart?" Lim asked, smiling in a not so friendly way.
The man bent down and fished two dusty cans from beneath the counter, and gave them a quick scrub with the rag. "Chicken noodle or split pea."
She looked at Remus, who shrugged.
"Split pea and a couple a' pints then. Bathroom's this way?" She nodded towards a dank and forbidding hall.
The rubbery faced man inclined his head.
Much to Remus' relief Lim did not attempt to follow him in, but she lurked in front of the door and caught his arm the second he came out. She dragged him to a booth in the far corner of the restaurant, even though there were no other customers and many empty tables between here and there. She set him down on the cracked vinyl seat, and dragged over another chair so he could prop up his leg. She slouched down across from him and dropped the tattered briefcase on the table. She snapped open the latches and took out a pile of muggle photographs, which she began to lay out, face down.
"See Sweetheart, this is my problem; I think we are more or less on the same side of this ongoing unpleasantness."
She began to slide the photos around until they were in three piles.
"More or less," she said again.
Remus reached out for the nearest pile of photos. His hand hovered over them. He looked at Lim, but her face was blank. He turned one over.
It was taken from a high angle, maybe from a roof top, but he couldn't be sure. Eight men in black robes and white masks encircled a terrified young couple in evening wear. He glanced back at Lim, but her face was still impassive. He turned another photo.
It was less dramatic. A Death Eater in full costume stood by a parked car. Another photo; Lucius Malfoy, undisguised, stood in an alley looking up at the camera. One after another candid shots of Death Eaters were revealed. A few shots of the Ministry of Magic's obliviation squad were mixed into the pile as well. As Remus turned over the last photo, his breath caught. His eyes darted to Lim's face, and he knew she'd noticed his slip in composure. He looked back at the photo.
A limp arm was posed before the camera by gloved hands. Though Voldemort's mark made his stomach turn, another mark held more of his attention. On the wrist, right below the thumb was an old burn scar. The mark of James Potter, Remus though darkly. He remembered that day in fifth year potions class very clearly. James had "accidentally" splashed Manticore bile onto Severus Snape's arm.
Lupin was about to speak, but was interrupted by the arrival of flat beer and watery pea soup. The rubbery faced man glared down at the pictures as he set down their order. Lim gave him another smile, showing off far too many teeth to be nice.
"Can I get a couple a' coffees Love?"
"You pay' in with cash or credit?" the man demanded.
"Cash of course."
Apparently satisfied, he turned and waddled off. Lim pushed both bowls over to Remus. He didn't have any appetite but began spooning the green liquid into his mouth anyway. He tried to remember what he was going to say, but couldn't recall. Lim gathered up the photos Remus had inspected, shuffling them together like playing cards.
"We call them Reapers," she said. "Because of the Grim Reaper outfits, no Scythe though, just a mean green light."
She looked at him, as if waiting for his input. He knew the best course of action was to keep his mouth firmly shut and play dumb, but if he could get her talking, maybe he could find out what happened to Snape, or at least where she go the picture. He took a quick swallow of beer.
"They call themselves Death Eaters," he volunteered, trying to sound conversational.
"Not very friendly are they."
"Not very."
Lim gave him a look that made him take another gulp from his pint. "We've linked them to over four thousand unexplained disappearances in the past eight months."
Lupin choked, and beer dribbled out his nose. "Four thousand?" he said, trying and failing to pull a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table.
"That's just in England and Ireland. London is disproportionately afflicted, seventeen hundred of the total count, as of last Tuesday that is." She fished out a napkin for him. "There are thousands more if you go back farther and it gets into the millions when you look globally. Not all "Death Eater" related of course."
"Seems like a dangerous thing to get involved in," Remus said carefully.
She shrugged. "Vested interest."
They watched each other until the rubbery faced man returned with the coffee. Lim took a sip, made a sour face, and then took another. Remus drank from his pint, finishing off the last of the less then pleasant brew.
Lim started turning over photographs from a second pile. One after another, random wizards and witches were revealed. Some were in robes, others were attempting to blend in with muggle clothes. She picked out one photo of a balding red haired man in golf pants and a football jersey, attempting to work a coin operated soda machine. There was a look of delighted bafflement on his face. Though the picture was taken from very close by, Arthur Weasley was completely unaware of his stalker.
"The problem I have with these people is I'm not sure which of them puts on the robes and masks at night for a bit of torture and terror in my city. It would be easy enough to get rid of them. Close enough for a picture is close enough for a bullet, but I've never been a fan of random shootings. Why don't you help me sort these Love?"
Absentmindedly Remus started on the second pint. "I don't know all these people."
"Best guess then."
She set Arthur's picture down and picked up another. Remus didn't know the woman, though judging from the nose she was probably a member of the Bones family.
"I'm not going to tell you to shoot any of these people!" he said, frustrated.
She set the woman's photo down next to Arthur's. The next one was of Bill Weasley, standing in a vacant lot. She raised an eyebrow.
"What about him, Love? It is a fetching hair style, but he looks a bit dangerous to me."
"The no shooting pile," Remus finally said.
He sent nearly all of the photos to the "no shooting" pile, but when a blurry picture of Undersecretary Umbridge came up, he sorted her under maybe. His head was pounding terribly as she put the second pile back in the briefcase.
"Do you have anymore of those tablets?" he asked, rubbing as his temples.
She fished a plastic bottle out of her coat pocket and shook two red pills into his hand. He swallowed them down with a bit more of the not so wonderful beer. She raised an eyebrow and seemed about to say something, but changed her mind.
The last pile sat between them. Remus felt equal parts curiosity and trepidation. His fingers touched the back of the top photo, and he found it disturbingly cold, as if it had been on ice during their entire discussion. He flipped it over.
The photo showed a street corner on a sunny afternoon. There was nothing particularly interesting about the photo except for a mysterious black smudge hovering by a dormant lamppost. He turned the next photo. Two men were running towards the camera, a large group of black smudges a few yards behind.
"Order is important here," Lim commented, laying out the next three photos side by side.
A woman cowered in an alley next to a dumpster. Black smudges surrounded her. In the next picture the smudges blocked her from sight. A third photo showed the woman, supported by two men. She held her own head up, but her eyes were blank and staring.
"We can't really see them," Lim said watching him, "But they do show up on old fashion photographs."
"Dementors," Remus said.
He reached out to turn over more pictures and nearly knocked his mug off the table. On the second try he got to them. Twenty pictures in all. Dark smears floated through a crowded market. Dark smears chased people up and down the sidewalk. And army of dark smears hovered on the wooded edge of a town.
"What exactly are Dementors?" Lim asked leaning forward a bit.
Remus put his hand to his head. The room seemed to be slowly tilting up on its left side.
"They're foul…evil…they feed off of happiness and they…suck all the good out of everything they come near."
His mouth felt cottony and he finished off the second pint.
"They take your soul if they…when they kiss you…"
"Must be some kiss," Lim commented.
Remus started to nod, but after tilting his chin down, he couldn't quite muster the effort to lift it back up again. He folded his arms on the table and put his head down.
All the torches were dormant, though thin lines of smoke still trickled up from their tips, ready to burst into flame once more if one of the living needed light. They did not burn for the thing in the antler chair, but she did not need them to. She sat in the darkness and listened to the living as they bumbled about in the towers above and the dungeons below. She sat, lost in the sounds of the world she was no longer a part of. She spent most of her time like that, perpetually separate and waiting. She'd been given purpose again, but it was not nearly enough.
"Professor Greypond?" called a teenage boy through the sealed doors.
She wiggled her fingers and the left door swung inward. Tentatively a head with messy black hair leaned in; Harry Potter again. The torches came to life and he jumped a bit. The boy seemed startled by his own shadow, though being marked for death could make a person jumpy, all things considered.
"Come in."
The false voice echoed off the walls and the boy stepped in. He jumped again as the door shut behind him. His hair was wet, and the mind sealant had been washed from his forehead. She'd have to make another batch soon. She still had half a cauldron full, but at the rate he was using it…It made her rather nostalgic for the days when people only bathed at Easter and Christmas. She floated up from her chair and waved the boy into it. As he sat down, the chair changed its pattern of rocking and the tiny bells strung between the antlers changed their tune. All things welcome the living.
She held out her hand and a bowl of the red paste flew to her from the back of the room.
"Still sleep walking?" she asked.
The boy nodded. "A couple of times, but I always wake up when I run into the door."
She pushed back his bangs and looked at his scar. She ran a thumb over it and the boy leaned further back in his seat, trying to pull away from her touch. The skin was no longer an angry blood red, though the paste wasn't doing his acne any good. She pried back the lid of his left eye and peered in.
"Any other side effects?" she asked. "And quit squirming," she added.
"I'm not…" he cut himself off. She new he was still afraid of her and trying very hard not to show it. "I get head aches sometimes, but they're not nearly as bad as when my scar burned before, so I guess it balances out."
She could tell he wanted to say something else, so she waited, with her desiccated hand resting on top of his head.
"I feel weird some times."
"How so?"
He looked around as if he suspected someone was spying on him. Someone was but that was a little beside the point. "It's like I'm not really awake."
She could feel the anxiety turning and rolling about in his mind. Without the sealant she knew how uncertain he was, and how badly he wanted direction. He wanted someone to tell him what to do, how to make things right.
Would any one ever know? she mused. If I just moved into the back of his head, who would look for me there?
With a mind damaged as his was, it wouldn't be difficult to possess him. It would benefit them both she told herself. She could provide him with knowledge, and protect him from other intrusions. The dark wizard pursuing him couldn't possibly know the arts as she did. Sensation was not too high a price to pay for that protection; to eat and drink and walk barefoot across a lawn. Was it so wrong to want to be part of something living again?
The boy started up at her. She knew he was wondering what was taking her so long to answer, fearing that the more she had to think about it, the worse it would be. His stomach was roiling. Envy rose up in her. To feel even that again…
He doesn't need another parasite!, she told herself finally.
The boy continued to watch her. She pushed the thoughts from her mind, pulling up all she could on the topic he'd requested.
"That's not so surprising," she said, carefully slathering the paste over the scar. "You're used to being a little beside yourself."
"What?"
"Remember what I said about your mind being like a house that was missing a wall? Sealing that space up does more then just keep dark wizards out. It also keeps you in."
"I don't understand," he said.
"With the hole in you mind sealed, you're less aware of the little oddities that are out of most people's range of perception."
"I still don't understand."
"Go look at one of the ghosts if you get a chance, see if anything's different. My guess is your view of the world's never been quite normal. You'll get used to it. The same thing happens to Mediums sometimes."
"Mediums?"
"People who are conduits for supernatural forces or wills. Don't they teach you anything in Divinations?"
"The teacher just predicted my death until I flunked out of the class." The boy cringed as the paste began to run down beside his eyes.
"Do you really want me to explain it?" Greypond asked.
In all honesty she wanted temptation to depart, but the boy seemed determined to test her. He nodded.
"Do you have another class you should be going to right now?" she asked.
"Nope."
She paused, thinking of the best way to present the information. She sent the leftover paste back to the cauldron.
"Is a Medium like a Seer?" he asked.
"No, they're almost opposites. A Seer can divine information from the world. They actively study and understand the fabric of reality. When certain forces intersect they can find patterns and 'see' what is coming in the future. They're rather rare."
"On the other hand a Medium is passive. A Medium is like a sponge. If you put them near something interesting they'll absorb it and sometimes you can ring it back out of them. They can be possessed by spirits. They hear voices and echoes of the dead, and they're aware of powerful things, but they can't do much about it. Mediums are more common since they can be made as well as born. If a near death experience or a really good spell can punch enough holes in someone's mind they'll probably end up a Medium."
"So I'm a Medium?"
"You might qualify, but with all the other odd stuff in your life, I doubt that one category is enough."
The boy sat thoughtfully in the chair. His hands rested on the curved antlers. Absentmindedly he ran his fingers across the polished surface. It probably feels cool, she thought as she watched him.
"Why don't you find a book on it in the library?" She interrupted her own thoughts, hoping he would take he hint and go.
He looked up at her, startled, and then nodded and got to his feet. She didn't watch him go, but did listen to his foot steps. She settled back in her chair, and the rocking change. The bells grew more quiet. She closed her stone eyes, and imagined she could feel the heat that a warm body left behind.
He woke in the car again. The sun had gone down and rain pounded on the hood. His head ached and he groaned. He felt as if he was spinning in a circle, but a bleary look out the window showed him they were parked. Brick buildings towered on either side of them. Lim sat in the driver's seat, watching him.
"What did you do?" Remus mumbled rubbing his eyes.
"Me?" she asked innocently. "You're the one who mixed painkillers and alcohol."
"What?"
"Never mind Love. We've got business to finish and you're running late."
"What do you want then?" he asked. He realized she hadn't chained him to the seat again.
"It's not just what I want, Love, it's what I can give you. I know you're interested in the photos. You're wondering how I got them maybe?"
He nodded for her to continue.
"I get my information by being everywhere, and being invisible. I've got contacts all over this country and if somebody sees something strange, the who, where, and when always filters down to me. The why and how are another story. That's where you come in. You're part of a group with goals parallel to my own. The Order, is it? No need to answer. Here's the proposition dearest. I want to trade for information. What I showed you is the tip of a very nasty iceberg."
"If you know so much what do you need from me?"
"That's the heart of the matter Sweets. You have power, magic, the force, or whatever, and I don't. I can take out a Reaper or two when their guards down, but they'll notice sooner or later that I exist. When it happens I'll go down fighting, blood, guts, and glory, but that's really not the end I want. I can't compete with most of Reapers if they see me coming. But, bring up King's Cross again, I've seen that you can; under the proper full armed circumstances that is."
The window on her side of the car was down and her hand stretched out through it, palm up, collecting rain drops.
"So you give us the reconnaissance, and we," Remus paused trying to come up with the correct muggle phrase. "Take them out?"
"That's nearly it, except I don't exist. I'll send information along to you. Nobody else knows about me."
"So how do I explain where the information came from?"
She snorted. "I don' know. Magic maybe?"
"I have to tell superior at least."
"Doesn't work that way, Love. I've got contacts to protect. I should've just turned you over for interrogation, but you'd end up a babbling vegetable or with your brain splattered across the wall of an alley, and I think I'd regret having to do that. We know about the memory alterations and the truth serum. Nobody in this mess as deep as I am is captured alive. Honestly, contact with you is an unacceptable risk, but then again you have a weakness that's easily exploitable."
"What do you mean?" Remus said, his eyes narrowing.
"You seem to care quite a bit about," she paused appraising his reaction, "civilian casualties."
He stiffened.
"Those people in the "no shooting" pile, if I can't trust you to keep your mouth shut, how can I trust your judgment regarding them? This isn't to force a "yes" out of you. If you say "no", you'll be free to carry on, business as usual, no threats or reprisals and whatnot. People only get hurt if you go blabbing about running into me and living to tell the tale."
She started the engine of the car and they rolled slowly onto the main street. Remus glared at her. His head ached, and he didn't know what he should say. They turned the block and Lim double parked in front of a familiar record shop. She got out amid blasting car horns, and came around to his side. She helped him out of the car, into the rain. He glared at her and was a bit surprised when she shrugged off her trench coat and settled it on his rapidly soaking shoulders.
"No need to decide this instant. I left a card in one of the pockets. It's got a time, date, and location on it. If you decide yes, show up alone. If you decide no, don't come. If you others after me there'll be hell to pay."
Remus looked up the block. He could see the worn sign in front of the Leaky Cauldron. If only a member of the Order would choose that moment to walk out of it…
"Don't get ideas," she said, following his glance. "I'll be long gone before you reach the door."
He looked back at her. The scarf around her head was rapidly soaking through. She'd taken her sunglasses off and he cold see the skin around her eyes was badly scared by burns. She didn't have any eyebrows.
"Well don't just stare at me. You've got more sense then to stand out in the rain."
Slowly he hobbled toward the door of the Leaky Cauldron, never quite turning his back to her. She returned to her car, completely unhurried. His hand was just touching the door knob when the engine roared. The car vanished around the end of the block before he could turn it.
Harry sat on the window sill looking out at the dark grounds of Hogwarts. The rain was back, and very distantly he could hear thunder. The Marauder's map lay unfolded across his knees. Every few hours a member of the Order would appear just outside the grounds and scramble to the castle. Mr. Weasley and Bill had come and gone just after sunset. A man he didn't know named Alvin Sebranek came up at a little past eleven. No one had come to get him, to tell him if they'd found anything. Even if they did find Professor Lupin, they probably wouldn't tell him. Harry sighed and was about to fold up the map when a dot appeared on the road from Hogsmead.
Harry rubbed his eyes, afraid he was imagining things, but the label didn't waver.
Remus J. Lupin
Harry let out an ecstatic laugh and ran from the dorm. Ron called after him, and halfway out of the tower Harry realized he'd forgotten his shoes. He didn't care. He pushed open the main doors of the castle and went slipping and sliding across the rain soaked lawn. Lightening flashed nearby, but didn't disturb him. In the brief burst of light he saw Lupin hobbling through the front gates.
The exhausted man was looking down at his own feet as he trudged along and nearly fell over as Harry skidded to a halt in front of him.
"You shouldn't …be outside," Lupin mumbled.
"Neither should you!" Harry said, feeling stupidly happy.
He wrapped the former professor's arm around his shoulder and sped him along. Lupin was in muggle clothes and he didn't have any shoes either. He had a trench coat wrapped around him and his wet hair was plastered to his head. Harry wanted to pepper him with questions, but it was obvious even to him that Lupin wasn't feeling up to it. They made it into the castle and through the front hall without incident.
Harry pulled open the door of the hospital wing.
"Madam Pomfrey! Wake up! Hello!"
He was helping Lupin to the nearest bed when he noticed the figure lurking in shadows at the far end of the main room. Harry realized his wand was still on the night stand by his bed in Gryffindor tower. He tackled Lupin to the floor as a jet of red blasted the bed in front of them into a cloud of wood chips and feathers. Lupin struggled to move with Harry sprawled across his chest. They both looked up to see Professor Snape striding silently towards them. His wand was raised and the end burned with green light.