Chapter 6

June at 12 Grimauld Place passed languidly. Tollie and Remus spent most of the time in the house trying to keep entertained against the slow passage of time. As not quite ordered by Dumbledore, Snape stayed with them for extended lengths of time, usually long enough for him to engage in a raging argument with one or the other, but always returning later without the slightest acknowledgment of previous quarrels. Occasionally, odd people would show up for Order meetings or just to visit Remus. Tollie often hid up in his room during such occasions when the house was full of Aurors, Spies, and Order members, trying to remain as innocuous as possible. But for the most part, the house lingered in relative quietude. Tollie never left the property alone, although he spent a few hours almost everyday practicing magic tricks in the backyard, gaining a bit of sun and letting Buckbeak have some time out of his own cell.

The wilds of London called the restless teenager nightly. He fought the urge to just escape as he watched the stars glitter against dewy summer sky. He went twice that June with Remus to several of his old haunts- ever lasting parties, bars, music haunts, meeting old, respectable friends who happened to live on the street. Tollie was careful enough to remain inconspicuous, but still able to reclaim a bit of his long lost independence. He loved showing the older man the sights of inner London's beauty. Remus just ended up with raging headaches until they returned to the diner for their early morning dinner ritual. The food grew worse with each visit, they agreed whole-heartedly, but back they went each time without the slight provocation or comment. Over soggy fries and dried out hamburgers, Remus often told the younger man old Marauder tales, carefully omitting those grand adventures featuring Severus as a supporting character.

Back at Grimauld, Tollie and Severus entertained each other by slinging well-honed verbal taunts and insults. Remus intervened once, then quickly realized that the two only got along through their bickering. They fought about anything and everything- any topic was fair game to the two ex-Deatheaters. It finally dawned on Remus that they fought because they shared too close of a past not to do so.

As June finally began to fritter into July, the pace around Black Manor began to pick up. The new school year loomed closer: Severus became busy with preparing class presentations and assignments, and other Order members with children began to spend less and less time at the house, leaving Remus and Tollie alone for even longer periods of time. Where Tollie longed to be outside, Lupin's own internal clock began to buzz loudly. As it had been set to school time since he was five, his unemployment caused him to feel lethargic. Tollie blamed the Crucio curse, which only caused another argument between him and Snape over the cause of Remus's mood.

This entire dysfunctionality of 12 Grimauld climaxed one early July morning when Tollie oozed into the kitchen at the very end of a feast of breakfast. He poured himself a cup of coffee, plopped into a chair, then looked at his two roommates, abruptly realizing that Severus was looking more petulant than usual. "What?"

"We have a new inmate, Andrill."

"Uggg..."

Remus fixed a plate full of food and placed it next to the boy. "He should have been here by now." He went to the window and looked out. Tollie just grabbed a dry muffin out of a bowl as Remus worried the curtain. "One thing about Harry, Tollie, is that he has been rather despondent lately. He was with his relatives for a few weeks then went to the Weasley's for a couple weeks. Now he's staying here until school begins. Just try to be patient with him."

Tollie continued to gnaw on the doughy lump as the flames in the fireplace tinged green. An explosion of fire blazed outward, coalescing back into the form of a sixteen year old boy with green eyes, an empty birdcage in one hand and a suitcase strapped to a broomstick in another. "Hello, Professor Lupin" he said meekly, setting down his things.

Remus smiled at the boy. "Hello, Harry. I'm glad you could make it. Care to eat?"

"Yes, thank you." He sat down at the table next to Tollie, and loaded a plate full with food, overlooking the previously filled plate. "Hedwig will be along shortly. She wanted to fly in. Something about floo fire always singing her wings, I think."

Remus turned back to the quiet boy. "Tollie, this is Harry Potter. Harry- Tollie is a friend of mine, and will be staying here with us."

Harry snuck a quick glance at the sullen Severus, then turned back to the other teenager. "Hello," He said.

"Yo." Tollie threw a small wave.

"Tollie," Remus began, "Harry is Sirius's godson."

With that pronouncement, Tollie's interest in his fellow teenager grew exponentially, his eyes turned from an apathetically brown to a bright green that matched Harry's own eye color. "Remus has told me a lot about your godfather. So you're staying here, huh? Another lost soul for Remus's collection, no doubt." He threw Snape a quick look long enough for the older man to take offense.

Harry, unaccustomed to Tollie's informal style of introduction that didn't involve gushing over his family's past, was left slightly speechless and rather pleased. The mention of Sirius in such an offhanded manner, though, made him a bit hollow inside at the same time. "I'd heard that Professor Lupin had sort of adopted you this summer," he mumbled through a mouthful of pancakes and bacon.

"Where'd you hear that?"

"Mrs. Weasley. She thinks that you've really helped to make him feel better since this spring."

Tollie groaned loudly, embarrassed at the gushing. "Ugh- sounds like her."

"Eh, I like Mrs. Weasley." Harry replied, trying to ignore both Professor Lupin AND Professor Snape's glances at him.

Oh, she's okay." Tollie finished his muffin, and stood up. He nodded at Remus, and ignored Snape. "Well, I gotta go muck out Buckbeak's room. It's disgusting, but it's exercise. Wanna help?"

"Sure!" Harry jumped at the chance to meet his old friend again, and trooped up the stairs behind Tollie, leaving the two adults alone in the kitchen.

The boys entered the now converted corral of a room slowly. The hippogriff was on the ground, asleep under a sun ray slipping in through a window. Its feathers ruffled slightly as a single eye opened at the intruders. Recognizing the duo, it squawked loudly and got up onto its feet, bowing the entire time.

Tollie wrinkled his nose, his freckles flaring at the pungency. "No matter how many times I do this, I just can't get used to the smell." Little driblets of dung that had been ground into straw covered the far corner.

"Harry, go open the window and keep ol' Bucky busy." Tollie ordered. Harry pushed the glass up then nearly leapt at the animal in a shower of petting and hugging. The hippogriff nuzzled back and started purring in a clucking sort of way.

Tollie, meanwhile, fused every bit of dung and straw into small rectangles, smoldering them just long enough to harden them, and whisked them out the window. "They'll dry out for a few days; then the Weasley's'll go till it into their garden. This stuff is two galleons a pound as it's considered to be so powerful for vegetable growing. I think that it only attracts more garden gnomes, but nobody listens to my gardening advice. Of course, it also makes great target practice at-" Tollie stopped mid-sentence once he realized that Harry was staring at him, mouth slightly agape. "What?"

"Your wand."

"And?"

"It's not there."

Tollie sighed, mumbling something about innovation. Pulling up his left shirt sleeve, he revealed the taped-on willow wand. "Just enough give in the wood so as to be unnoticeable. It's just an amplifier at any rate; I'm the one doing most of the work." Tollie explained, watching innocuously as Buckbeak swung his head over hard and nudged Harry's shoulder hard enough to not quite dislocate it. Harry bounded forward several inches before stopping himself from falling over as the beast snorted a bit for more attention.

Tollie just chuckled as Harry went back to petting the animal then left the two in the room. He walked down the hallway, nearly reaching the stairs, when he felt a presence behind him. He turned around quickly, his left arm ready, and saw Severus watching him from beside the darkening window. "Come to spy, Snape? Making sure that I won't do anything Death Eaterish against Potter?"

"I wouldn't waste my time," Snape replied, "Potter can bungle things up well enough without your help."

"I see that he has at least one redeeming quality- the talent to royally piss you off without even being in the same room." Tollie grinned innocently. "So what'd he do? Prove your complete and utter inability to competently teach children two-third's your age like any other normal adult?"

"If only you had the capacity to understand anything remote like the truth, Andrill-"

"You're the last person to be able to talk about the 'truth-'" Tollie interrupted, only to hear Buckbeak's door slip open loudly.

Harry stood right by the doorframe, an odd expression on his face as he saw the two others stare at him. "Hello, I was… just going downstairs for some lunch," he explained dumbly.

Snape just melted into his own room as Tollie for the other teenager to catch up with him by the stairs. "So how often?" he asked, once they were halfway down.

"How often what?" Harry asked back.

"How often do you listen in on private conversations?"

Harry's face grew red. He jumped down another stair before mumbling, "I didn't mean to listen."

Tollie threw the boy a cheeky grin, "you know, Snape is right about one thing- you are a bit of a prat."

"I am not!" Harry spat back.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with it in small doses, but your problem is that you try to turn it into something noble."

"You don't even know me!" Harry stopped dead on the staircase, glaring at the other teenager.

"I know you well enough, Harry. Here's a bit of advice- you get angry way too much. Your emotions will get you every time."

"And what would you know about that?"

"See? Remember- constructive criticism is a good thing, but you take everything to heart. That will be your downfall if you're not careful." Tollie explained, as he continued past the boy.

Harry remained silent as he entered the kitchen behind the older boy. Remus sat by the great table, playing solitary wizard chess on a very old, very cracked board. Harry slid down onto a dining room chair, and began to finger a large scorch mark atop the table. "What's wrong, Harry?" Remus asked, moving a white rook across the board. Its mirrored black counterpart immediately skittered across black tiles, and took a pawn. The brute of a piece raised its broadsword with two hands, and neatly bisected the white squire along its waist. The squire's cracked standard clattered to the tile as the divided pieces collapsed on top of it. Remus winced a bit for his dead pawn, but moved another piece.

"Why is Professor Snape here?" Harry asked, "and where is the rest of Sirius's stuff?"

Remus gazed from Harry to Tollie, who was far too quiet and innocent looking for the man's liking. "We finished cleaning the Manor right before- Tollie moved in. Sirius wanted to get rid of all of the house's contents and buy new furniture, but we ran out of time. A few pieces remained, and I haven't bought anything new. I invited Tollie here, and Professor Snape is… here at Dumbledore's request."

"Oh. So when did Tollie move in?" came the next question. Tollie's eyes turned hazel with flecks of red mixed throughout. He just sat there, not speaking while he was being ignored.

"Tollie moved in about a month ago. He needed some help, you see." The older boy only rolled his eyes. Harry said nothing, but grew sullen. "I know, how about a picnic later?" Remus suggested, "I know that when I was your age, Harry, we were always starving- no matter how much we smuggled out of Hogwart's kitchen." Tollie shrugged his shoulders, while Harry went from sullen to morose. "I'll get it arranged, and we can go eat in the park during in an hour or so. Harry, why don't you to go invite Professor Snape for me, and Tollie can help prepare the food." Harry gaped at the order. He slowly left the room, lingering as much as possible.

When Harry finally managed to leave the room, Remus turned back to his unofficial ward, "Tollie…" he said slowly.

"What?" Tollie said, aghast at Remus's accusation. "All I did was called him a prat after I caught him eavesdropping on me and Snape."

"Tollie!"

"What? I didn't even call him a full prat- just a bit of one." Remus pursed his lips. "It's good for him, Professor. I swear." Tollie defended himself quickly. "All sixteen year olds need to be called a prat at some point," he added faintly.

"Even you?"

"Especially me," Tollie's voice dropped out from under him. "If I had, I probably wouldn't even be here." His patent smirk returned, his eyes turning silvery grey and the freckles returning with a vengeance. "Are we really going on a picnic with Snape?"

"If he accepts."

"No bloody way. I'd pay good money to see that. I bet that he gets attacked by acid ants and everything."

"Don't even think it," Remus warned. The boy only shrugged his shoulders, his freckles dissolving into a pale ivory. "And be nice to Harry: he just lost Sirius."

"So did you," Tollie countered.

"Just… please for my sake."

"All right, I just need to finish readying the dung bricks. Send Harry out when he gets back. I hear he's friends with Fred and George. Mrs. Weasley will never suspect Harry will be their hippogriff dung bomb supplier."

"I cannot believe that I'm here." Snape deadtoned. He was clumped under a large oak tree, dead center on a blanket. His ill-fitting Muggle clothes bunched and pulled, accentuating the fact that they were both too wide and short for his spare frame. Harry, in a t-shirt and shorts, was sprawled out over a patch of grass. He stared at the high orange and blue cumulus clouds overhead, his stomach bulging out from the overly impressive picnic. Laying there, he felt sticky as the mid afternoon sun sagged hotly upon his body; yellowing grass blades prickled his legs and back. Looking upward, he arched his back slightly, and watched the three others on the hill upside down, his glasses flipping up against his eyebrows. He observed as Remus moved a rook, only to lose his other piece via garroting.

Severus almost smiled.

Professor Lupin was still playing on his old chess set. Professor Snape sat forbiddingly on the blanket, Tollie sat against the tree, staring at the park down below. Harry wiped the sweat off his neck then looked back at the three. "I just realized something," he frowned slightly. "You guys are all wearing long shirts, and it's bloody hot out here."

"I don't get 'hot,' Potter," Severus sniped in his black shirt, moving another piece from his own board. "Honestly, Remus. Do you even try to play?"

Lupin only smiled and slid another piece. He did, however, move his shirt sleeves exactly one-fourth the way up his arms.

Tollie just sat there.

"Why don't we head back in?" Remus finally suggested, watching his king being decapitated by nearly 50 blows bequeathed from a bishop dressed as a solemn inquisitor. "Honestly, Severus, must your pieces be so ruthless?"

"Call it," the other teacher answered dryly, "an homage."

Harry clenched his fists.

"Relax, Potter," Tollie called out, "it was just a joke. Enjoy the fact that Snape actually tried to use his decrepit sense of humor. I assumed that it atrophied long ago."

Snape was about to respond when Remus sighed loudly. "Are all three of you going to act like this until school starts again?"

"Yep." Tollie grinned at Harry.

"Well, if that's the case, I'll take my leave. There's a full moon this week, and I have to put a few things in order first." With that, his chess pieces jumped back into order, and he strode back to the house, leaving the three others behind.

"Come along, you two," Severus ordered, watching Remus tromp back to the house in a snit. The picnic wares packed, the teacher set off at a quick pace, following the other man.

Returning to the Manor, the three split up immediately. Tollie fled to the backyard, intent on finishing the work on the dung bricks, while Harry drifted upstairs to visit Buckbeak.

Snape slithered off to wherever he went to during the day Tollie reflected as he worked outside. The smell of drying hippogriff dung was blasphemous, but still being outside made up for the olfactory offense.

He continued to putter around the backyard, not doing much of anything truly significant when Harry was chased out of the house by an irritated Snape. The younger teenager looked at the morass of overgrown grass that carpeted the lawn, then over at Tollie, whom had magically became 'busy with other things.' Harry looked around the yard until he spotted a rusting Muggle lawn mower that had somehow set up residence in the Pureblood garden. Harry grimaced at the contraption, knowing that Professor Snape had purposely put there long ago just for him to find. He managed to yank the mower on, not quite taking off a finger with the rope pull, and began to mow the soon-to-be hay bales as Tollie dried out the sun baked bricks.

Two hours later, the high summer sun beat down upon the two boys. They sat lazily on a large stone that jutted out of the earth. They remained quiet, distant from each other as the last of the adobe dung bricks floated through the air and landed on a small, rust-patched wagon that never seemed to get full.

As the last brick shuttled itself onto the others, Tollie dropped under the shade of the house. Harry soon followed to the shady oasis, his body covered in grass clippings and dust. "I can't wait until I turn 17," he pouted, thumping the lawnmower with his foot.

"Magic is just another form of work," Tollie retorted. "Of course, it does have its perks." With that, he mumbled a word and flexed his arm a bit. Within seconds, a large glass full of chunky ice drifted out with a can of soda in tow. He pointedly ignored the other boy as he cracked open the can and poured its contents over the steamy ice. He chugged hard, carbon dioxide fizzed over his nose, expanding the freckles into great blotches across his nose and face. Finally acknowledging the other boy, he drained the glass then began chomping on the ice as a finale.

Harry just sat there, ignoring the tableau.

Another ice cube crunched loudly; Harry grunted at the noise. He glanced at his fellow teenager, then rolled his short sleeves up under the shirt. Leaning back against the house, he placed his arms behind his back and stretched.

Tollie rolled his eyes, and chewed that much harder. Looking at the boy, he snorted derisively.

"What?" Harry asked.

"You've got a bit of a tan, Potter," Tollie explained.

Harry looked down at his arms, and realized that he was now sporting a hardcore farmer's tan on his arms with his upper arms bearing his normal pale . "It's still bloody hot out here," he complained, laughing at his sunburn. "So, what brings you here, Andrill?"

"Eh, Remus is letting me rent a room here for the summer. He's an old friend of the family."

"How long have you known him?"

"Oh, about a month now."

"'Old friend of the family?'"

"I didn't say that I knew him personally," Tollie retorted. "Any more questions?"

"Well, I have been curious about your eyes."

Tollie sighed at the question. "My grandfather was a full metamorphmagus. I just inherited the eyes and freckles part."

"I have a friend who's a full one. She never said anything about partial ones, though. I just thought that it was just an either or thing."

"Most of us are partial shifters, but we also don't normally advertise our abilities. Full and partial metamorphmagi are generally shunned by the Wizarding community as we're considered to be different- the power to change our looks at will is looked down upon as something inherently devious. Metamorphmaging is just are enough to not be common, but blatant enough to be considered dangerous. Anything that sets apart or changes a wizard or witch is somehow 'scandalous.' Our culture pretends to like differences, but what we truly thrive on are our similarities: Nothing scares a Pureblood like diversity."

I'm considered different."

"Oh, yes. The Boy Who Lived, and all that nonsense. One more hero, one more great epic."

"Well, there is that, yes."

"There's more? I bet that you get tired of people telling you about yourself."

"I'm also a Parseltongue- not very many people outside of Hogwart's knows about it."

"Now that is something, Potter." Tollie stated sincerely. "I'll bet that it scared everyone gutless as well."

"A bit, at first- it's a long story. But everyone got used to it after a while."

"Everyone?"

"Well, not my friends. Everyone else, though. The Slytherins didn't really care one way or another- just another reason to harass me until they got bored with it."

"Know many Slytherins?"

"Well, there's Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle and the Quidditch team and-"

"Okay, outside of the bullies, the illiterate, the inbred, and the jocks, how many Slytherins do you actually know?"

"I don't know- not that many, I guess. But all of the evil wizards have come out of Slytherin."

Tollie sputtered. "Who in the world told you that?"

"Hagrid did… when I was 10."

"The groundskeeper!"

"He's a teacher now- Care of Magical Creatures."

"So you've based an entire House on what Hagrid told you when you were ten years old?"

"What's it to you? You sound like a Slytherin."

"I am a Slytherin," Tollie stated. "Or I was before I left. I hated my House, but it was still my House."

"Oh."

"Once you get past the ambitious, the ruthless, and the amoral sociopaths, we're not a bad lot. You're just still stuck in the middle of the school House system, and don't realize how artificial it is. It's just set up so students have some form of extracurricular entertainment besides wanton destruction. Trust me, two years after you get out of school, nobody will care what House you were in unless they're obsessive freaks- like people who stalk the royalty."

"I guess."

"So what are you going to do when you get out of school?"

"I want to become an auror." Harry asserted, happy to on more familiar ground.

"I see- continue to fight the good fight: 'Onward Christian Soldiers' and all that."

Harry shrugged. "I want to help."

"Right- keep fighting until you destroy Voldemort and every evil Deatheater in the world. And then after that?"

"I just want to be an auror, I guess."

"Those people don't have ANY sort of life, Potter- look at Mad Eye. Aren't you tired of fighting? From what I've heard, you've been doing it most of your life. If you're not careful, you're going to end up like Lupin."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you know of Muggle History?"

"Which part?"

"Post World War One to pre-World War Two. More specifically England and America and most of Europe."

"Not really."

"Lupin has a lot in common with it. 'Lost Generation' and all that- too much death and destruction at too young an age. And then when it was all over, they didn't know what to do with themselves. Millions dead- millions more who only knew how to kill. Lupin's what? 35? But he looks ten years older. Snape does too. And I bet that most of your friends' wizard parents have that same look to them- if you know what to look for. Is that how you want to end up?"

"What do you mean?"

"You think all of this will just end once Voldemort finally kicks it? He's just the latest Megalomaniac to come round the bend. Oh, the Deatheaters will go underground again, but given enough time, they'll start to reform behind a new radical malcontent. You, Potter, are just another chapter in a very long, very secret civil war between the Ministry and the Purebloods. It's all about power and lineages, kid- the two most moronic things in the world." Tollie looked over at the younger teenager. Harry was looking particularly pessimistic on a much too nice of a day. Tollie just grinned. "Well, I'm disgustingly filthy. I'm heading inside, you can stay out here if you want, Potter." With that, Tollie headed back into the mansion, leaving Harry behind. "One last thing," Tollie threw over his shoulder, "just remember- we were witnesses to Snape in the Great Outdoors. This is indeed a banner day."

Tollie found himself tired, cranky, sweaty, and thoroughly annoyed at how his first picnic ever turned out. Ticking off Snape was like doing down an up escalator- far too tempting to ignore and always stuck in the on position. Harry, however, was just too easy. He entered the bathroom, and ran a tub of water. As the water began to rise, he undressed and watched himself in the mirror. His body's freckles goose bumped in the cold until they soothed down to his own skin tone. He laughed at the mirror as made faces at him.

His right arm, barbed and malignant, divulged his past transgression, but he quickly shoved that part of his life aside, and began to experiment on his eye color. Getting them to change to the same color was easy, even when three or more pigments were involved, but getting them to transform independent of one another was his ultimate goal. He had worked on it for years, patiently setting one eye a certain color, then working on the other, but he had only managed to change it to grey and greyer so far. He bound his left eye brown, then tried to reflect a non-brown color- something hazel or even green with the right.

Ten minutes of experimentation left him with crossed eyes and an extreme migraine. He dumped out the old water, refilled it with fresh, and lit a few candles for softer illumination.

He relaxed as water engulfed tired muscles. His eyes slipped into a light tan, his head resting against the cool porcelain. The combination of the warm bath and the cold porcelain tub left him drowsy. He soon started snoring in triplicate due to exceptional acoustics as the sun finally buried itself over the horizon; the tub regulating the water to a perfect blood warm temperature.