Title: Entre Chien et Loup (At Dusk)
Part: 1: Chercher midi à quatorze heures
Author: Ryuu-ACey
Archive: Azkaban's Lair, wherever (if you ask, I'll probably say yes)
Summary: Albus Dumbledore revives the Triwizard Tournament in the time of Voldemort's first rising, and sparks fly when werewolf Remus Lupin finds himself snout-to-snout with illegal Animagus Sirius Black, his best friend, and the Tournament itself.
Spoilers: Er...Through GoF, I think, although there might be bits of OotP.
Rating: R (language)
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine. Technically, one of the girls isn't mine. About the only thing in here that's mine are one-and-a-half characters, and the plot. The characters and world belong to JK and Scholastic and...Warner Brothers? I really don't know, but hope they'll be cool about me taking the kids out to play.
Originally posted: Fanfiction dot net.
Notes: This started simpler than even the prologue turned out to be. I was thinking about how I've seen fics where Remus is portrayed as French, for some unfathomable reason, and I thought--so what if he went to Beauxbatons? The next thing I know, I've got Sirius making friends with a shy, trying-to-be-uncaring but really adorable 11-year-old Severus Snape, Remus becoming and Animagus, and, for a reason I still don't quite understand, elves (it's not exactly a glaring thing, I hope; they just snuck in there, because, frankly, elves rock. Even Pratchett's elves, which are freaky). So this is an AU. This is a twist-the-world-on-its-edge AU. I hope. And I hope you enjoy.
About the Title: It's a terrible French pun, because, of course, it literally means "between dog and wolf", but it's an idiom, and I found it irresistible.
Warnings: Er...language. Definitely. Also, brazen talk about sex.
Dedications: samvimes, because Stealing Harry made me love the fandom again, and made me want to do something big again.
Feedback: Always appreciated.
"Cub, you've got mail!" In the forest surrounding a small village of wizards and witches, there was a house set apart from the rest, the home of a part-time writer and her husband, a first-generation wizard born into a family of trappers, Raoul Dautry dit Lupin. The writer, a plump, stern-looking woman of about 40, stood at the back door to her house, watching to woods for her son. She was all for boys spending time outside, but he seemed to have been taking the idea too far. She had more than enough grey hairs for a woman her age, and Remus running about in the forest all the time wasn't going to help things.
"Coming, maman!" The shout was not too far away, which made the woman, Diandra, wonder for a moment about what her son had been up to. Perhaps with some girl--but she shook her head, discounting the notion. The rest of the village had lived through the uproar when Remus had been bitten, and certainly any girl would have been warned against spending too much time with him.
Besides, her son had never really showed much interest in girls, besides 'Sola' and Yvonne, his two best friends at school. And she was certain that while there might have been interest from one or both of the girls, her son didn't think of them as more than friends, or, at best, family.
She smiled at the thought. The boy had been lucky to find such true friends. He had let slip that they knew of his condition, and afterwards had revealed the many little things they did to help him: Yvonne helped him get rare meat from the kitchens near the full moon, and Solange, who was an expert at Potions, kept a supply of medicines and restoratives in case he had a particularly draining transformation. And both girls kept notes for him when he missed classes, and helped him with his schoolwork (his only real difficulty was Astronomy). One or both had occasionally visited over the summer, with Diandra's blessing.
Thinking of that, she glanced at the letter she'd received. It smelled faintly of raspberries, and was written in an awkward, boxy hand, as if of a person clumsy with small things, or, more likely, someone unused to writing. She sniffed it again, frowning. She knew her son was growing up; he was practically an adult. But that didn't lessen the tight worry that she felt imagining her son starting to date. She was at least justified being worried that the girl didn't know about his lycanthropy, or that she did, or that she thought it was something that could be fixed...
But maybe she should just trust her son. He was responsible, knew what he was doing...and knew a caring, loving girl who would probably happily put a crossbow bolt through the skull of anyone who broke his heart.
Remus appeared from the edge of the forest, jogging towards the house. He waved to his mother, and sped up to reach her side. "Hello, maman." He paused, looking at her expectantly, but Diandra didn't speak at once, taking a moment to reflect on how her son had changed in six years.
His lycanthropy had once been a drain on his body's resources; every full moon left him weak and bed-ridden. However, as he had aged, the Lupins had watched their son blossom, gaining not only muscle mass and endurance, but also a set of reflexes that had won him a position on Beauxbatons' Quidditch team. Collette Molyneux, Remus' caseworker from the French Ministry of Magic, was pleased with transformation. Apparently, about one in a thousand werewolves, over the course of five to ten years from their original infection, began to integrate their lupine qualities into their everyday lives. This not only made transformations easier, but granted the werewolf, in addition to the night-vision, hearing, and sense of smell all werewolves gained, improved stamina and strength, as the body began to take on more qualities of a pure wolf.
Remus, balanced on the balls of his feet, but when his mother seemed unlikely to simply hand him his mail, he darted forward, first feinting and then snatching the piece of paper from her hands. He backed off, eyes apologetic while at the same time glittering with the gold color they'd gained as he'd entered puberty and the edge of adulthood. Diandra had read that real wolves were born with blue eyes, and when they grew up, they took on their real color. She wondered if Remus had always been meant to be like this, and the blue-eyed angel she'd once known had simply matured into this strong, healthy, gold-eyed creature.
Remus laughed, and pulled the letter open, eyes scanning it thoroughly, but not quickly. She suspected he was a little nearsighted, and while he read fine, it seemed that Remus always needed a little extra time to really see the words.
Diandra didn't want to be nosy; she really didn't. But she really wanted to know what girl was sending her son scented letters. "Cub, who sent that to you? Is there a girl you're not telling your maman about?"
Remus looked up at her suddenly, looking a little startled. Then he grinned again. "It's nothing like that, maman. This is a letter from Madam Maxime. She says that she, Albus Dumbledore, and Sasha Koldunev have agreed to revive the...Triwizard Tournament. She says the seventh-year students are going to Hogwarts, where we're going to compete."
Diandra grabbed the letter from her son, scanning the same lines he had just summarized. Indeed, it said exactly what he'd announced. The Triwizard Tournament? This was ridiculous; students had nearly died before it had finally been cancelled. "I won't have you participating in this. It's too dangerous! It's too..." She'd trailed off at the hopeful look in her son's eyes, and knew she wouldn't be able to argue with him. The best she'd be able to manage would be getting Raoul to make him promise to be careful, and even that wouldn't do much. Under the influence of Solange, Remus had a tendency to forget promises to stay out of trouble, or be back by nine on the dot. But she thought it would be important to make sure he wouldn't have a chance of having his hopes crushed.
"I won't say you can't try to be a part of this Remus, but I want you to remember that only one student from each participating school may be a Champion, and the chances of you being that student is quite low. There are, after all, quite a number of capable students in your class."
But Remus had hugged her, thanked her profusely, and told his maman that he would be the Beauxbatons Champion, and Diandra almost thought he might be right. With that sort of drive, he could accomplish anything, she thought to herself.
Sirius Black didn't understand how silence could be so loud. Even when Severus was annoyed at him (which he was, almost constantly) and was trying to ignore Sirius in favor of doing homework (Sirius had tried, with little success, to drive away his best friend's unhealthy pallor over the past six years; the boy insisted on spending the nicest days indoors with books, and only got outside when Sirius dragged him or when Slytherin had a Quidditch game), it was a companionable silence. Sirius suspected it was because Severus hadn't the practice to generate the intense, empty silence of a woman who disapproved of her son and was waiting for him to see the light and turn his life around. His mother, Ara Black (Sirius suspected her father had only married her because her name fit with the family; it was either that or her unnatural constitution, that bore her two healthy sons), sat at the head of the dining room table. Sirius, of course, sat three seats down.
This was because his "saintly" father, though dead, deserved the best place, and Regulus sat at the next seat down. If Sirius had more siblings, or if his grandparents were still alive, or if Ara could justify placing her cousin higher at the table than her progeny, she would have. Ara was a master of the subtleties of insult, and while she couldn't manage to infuriate her son, he got the message.
"Sirius, it's your last year at Hogwarts."
Sirius nodded, taking a sip of his soup--an ungodly concoction he suspected Kreacher had mixed with dishwater. It was best to pretend to be paying attention to Ara up until you actually knew where she was going. That way, you at least knew how long you would be in her foul graces.
She didn't have the scouring candle, so she wasn't immediately considering wiping his name off of the family tapestry. She hadn't threatened to do that since he'd defended Andromeda's choice to marry a "foul, clumsy oaf of a Mudblood".
"You'll finally be a fully qualified wizard. Finally be able to make your own choices in life."
Sirius sucked in a breath, and almost inhaled a spoonful of soup. So it was going to be that lecture.
"Your father was a Black, Sirius. Toujours pur. 'Always pure'. Our family has alone stood at the border between Wizard and Muggle, keeping the two separate, as they were intended by God. For did he not speak to the Muggles, 'You shall not allow a witch to live'? And did he not speak unto us, 'By the wand or the rod or the staff or the word, guide and protect, but let not them see your hand'?"
Sirius bent lower, trying to hide the burning fury in his eyes. He'd listened to his mother's interpretations of the Prospero Bible too many times to feel any love for her god, and felt envy for his classmates who thought God was kind, loving, or, Heaven help them, forgiving.
Frankly, if she was guaranteed a spot in Heaven, he would be happier in Hell, thank you very much. Besides, he'd already promised to keep Severus company; between being an agnostic and harboring 'unnatural lusts', they were both certain he was going to get at least an eon down there.
"Now, I of course find no fault in your choice of allies. Severus Snape is of an old and respected family. Certainly, there are rumors about some of his ancestors, but it is strong blood in him. And there is no shame in seeking to make an ally of the Potters. However--" Sirius winced. How could she manage to make that word sound so vile? "I have heard rumors about the boy. That he's taken leave of his senses and gotten mixed up with a filthy little vixen of a Mudblood. But I'm sure you'd have sorted him out if that sort of thing was going on."
'Yes; I told him to stop bloody well acting like an arse and show Lily he was worth dating so we could all stop hearing about it,' Sirius thought, knowing that speaking the words would only enrage his mother. If she were getting her information from Regulus, as he thought she was, she knew about it anyway, and was just pushing his buttons. He toyed again with the idea of leaving, but he wouldn't dream of imposing on Severus, who had a hard enough time with his father's passing without Sirius around making trouble. And he really didn't have anywhere else to go.
"And that brings me to my point, Sirius. You are coming to the time when a choice must be made. When you must make a decision about not only your future, but the future of the entire Wizarding world, as well. Perhaps even more than that." She didn't say more about what, specifically. It was the careful language that certain parents had started to use, speaking about associates and opportunities, and duty, yes, always duty, as if they weren't talking about murder and terror and the same bullshit they had gone through forty fucking years ago! Lily had shown him a Muggle book on genetics, last spring, and Sirius found himself often wondering if it was inbreeding that made the Old Purebloods so fucking stupid. Muggles, at least, had the excuse that in forty years, most of a generation could die off. However, he knew for a fact that his mother had been a debutante in the years leading up to Grindewald, who, frankly, had been a lot better than his Muggle ally, because at least Grindewald encouraged his followers to really hate people, instead of this 'cleansing' bullshit.
Maybe the Wizarding world was just catching up to the Muggle one, finally getting their own Adolph Hitler. And then he realized Ara Black had been talking and he hadn't been listening.
"--into the realm of Necromancy, and I know you're fascinated with the Dark Arts, Sirius."
"Yes, Mother. Defense Against the Dark Arts," Sirius said between gritted teeth.
"Oh, of course that's what you study, Sirius, because that blasted school won't teach you anything useful, but I told your father to let me pull the strings to get you into Durmstrang. And then the bastard died and it was in his will, and how was I supposed to go against his last wishes? But every Black in history has studied Defense, and it's a perfectly respectable field of study, but certainly not the sort of thing that can change the world."
'No, just not the way you want it,' Sirius thought bitterly, glad that he'd taken the time to determine his mother had never learned Legilimency. It was bad enough to have a woman that knew you well enough to have found most of your secret stashes without her actually being able to read your mind.
He sent out a sympathetic thought for any child whose mother was a Legilimens, knowing the poor sod could use all the help he could get.
But his mother's tone was shifting, and Sirius recognized the warning signs. He resisted the urge to roll on his back in front of her. First, the canine gesture would raise questions Sirius didn't want to answer. And second, he wasn't entirely certain exposing his 'soft underbelly' to Ara Black would be a good idea. She had been a Beater at Durmstrang, and he didn't doubt she could still wield a bat with lethal accuracy.
"I don't understand why you've been fighting me over this, Sirius. You're a Slytherin. You're expected to be interested in the Dark Arts and respect purity of blood. You're expected to be willing to do anything to get what you want. How can you sit there and tell me you'd pass up this opportunity?"
"Because I'm not a fucking sheep, mother," Sirius hissed. "There was only one thing Salazar Slytherin respected, and that was ambition. I have it in my ambition to be the best bloody Auror in the entire bloody Ministry of Magic, and that means I'm going to be the best fucking Auror in the entire fucking world, and nothing you, or Kreacher, or Regulus, say will change that."
His mother stared at him for an interminable, tense minute, before she spat at him. The spittle landed on the table, near his fork, but the intent was clear. "You want to be an Auror? Spending your pitifully short life protecting Mudbloods and blood traitors against those of us with real magic in our veins? Let me tell you something, Sirius: Voldemort will win this war. He will trample over anyone who stands in his way, and he will cleanse this world of the filth that stains it. And I will warn you now: if you turn your back on him now, you will not get another opportunity. Your cousin has already made her choice, and your brother understands what is best for our family. If you insist on this foolishness, expect no mercy from the Dark Lord. And...if you would insist on pursuing this path, you will be a traitor to your own blood. Toujours pur, Sirius."
Sirius knocked his chair aside, shooting to his feet. "I'm sick and tired of hearing that crap! Pure? Let me tell you something, you hateful old bitch! There is nothing pure about you or this family. Do you know who the first Black was? He was a Roman soldier, and his motto came from his purity of purpose, to protect the citizens of the Empire--Wizard and Muggle. And I've realized that the only people worth a damn in this family are those that have been burned off of the Tapestry." At his mother's wrathful gaze, Sirius gave a cocky grin, displaying a courage he didn't feel. "Don't get up; I'll do it myself, Mrs. Black, ma'am." Before the startled woman could rise, Sirius stormed into the library, where the Tapestry hung. He snapped the first curse that came to mind, Reducto, and blasted a hole the size of a dinner plate in the fabric. Along with Sirius, Ara Black, Regulus Black, Reginald Black, and Bellatrix Lestrange (nee Black) were blasted from the family tapestry.
Sirius heard a horrified gasp from behind him. He began giggling, a mad, terrified sound that only heightened his awareness of his mother's slow, menacing steps towards him. He did not hear the sound of her wand being removed from its silk pocket, but he knew his mother needed no wand to inflict pain on others.
She stopped, only a foot from him. "I've called the Law Enforcement Squad, sir. If you leave this place immediately, I may decide not to ask them to pursue you. If I ever see your face again, however, I assure you that you will rot in Azkaban until even the Dementors forget you!" With that, Ara Black, widowed mother of one, whirled on her heel and stalked from the library.
James Potter looked at the figure standing at his front door. The tall boy was soaked, water dripping from his black hair, his ponytail looking nothing except a black snake draped across his shoulder. He wasn't grinning; instead, he had a strange, sullen expression on his face, and his eyes held little of their normal sparkle. James' father, who worked for the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, had his hand rested on Sirius' other shoulder.
"Dad? What's--?"
"No time for that," the elder Potter said jovially. "Come on, Jamie, you know better than to stand in the door blocking the way when we've got a soaked guest waiting to come in."
"Guest?" James squeaked. "But--"
"No complaints, boy. Now Sirius, take your things upstairs; I'm afraid we haven't much room, so you'll be sharing James' room, unless you mind, of course, Jamie."
James mutely shook his head, trying to figure out exactly what was going on as Sirius trudged upstairs, leaving a trail of water along the carpet. Sirius' trunk was overflowing and looked as if it had packed in a hurry. Sirius himself looked as if he'd been in the rain for hours, and had forgotten a water-repelling charm. When the thumping of Sirius' trunk hitting the stairs died away, and the teenager had vanished into Sirius' room, presumably to get dry clothes and maybe nip into the bathroom for a shower, James' father nodded at his son and led him into the sitting room. Mrs. Potter glanced up from a book on Complex Transfigurations, and smiled at her husband and son.
"Good to see you're finally home, Roman. I was worried when you were late. It wasn't...You-Know-Who, was it?"
The black-haired man shook his head. "No, nothing of the sort, Mary; I've just spent the last hour tracking down Sirius Black." Mary Potter's eyes widened, and she lifted a hand to her mouth.
"You were called to track down a child?" she demanded. "What in God's name did he do?"
Roman gave a slight smile, even though his eyes showed he was trying not to cry. "He blasted Ara's name off of the Black Family Tapestry, taking himself, his brother, and that vile Lestrange woman with it. When we got there, she was trying to enchant his last name off of his birth certificate, and Sirius was nowhere to be found. We stopped her from hurting herself trying to magic something from the Department of Records and I left Frank to take down most of the story while I tracked down the boy. I found him in Diagon Alley, drenched to the bone, and looking like a lost dog, so I offered to let him stay with us."
"The poor darling!" Mary exclaimed, dropping her book and rising to her feet, probably intent on hugging Sirius to death and then making him a dinner that could feed the entire Aurors division of the Ministry. "I always worried what that family would do to a nice boy like him; I can't help but think he's better off here, horrible as that sounds. James, run out to the garden and get us some potatoes; I'll--"
She froze, staring at the arch to the main hall, where Sirius was standing. He was still wet and still looked miserable, and was holding a crumpled piece of paper in his hand.
"Can I use your owl?" he asked, after a moment of silence.
"Whatever for? You're soaking wet and need to get out of those clothes before you catch a cold!"
"But..." Sirius held up the piece of paper helplessly, shrugged, and dropped it, wandering back upstairs. Mary nudged James after him, hoping a familiar presence would at least help the boy find enough direction to get warm and dry. Then she bent down to pick up the paper; it was a letter, addressed to 'Severus Snape', in shaky handwriting. Shaking her head, she took the letter to Fama, their owl, who gave Mary a reproachful look before taking off in the steady rain that had been coming down all day.
Then she sat down to allow herself the mental space to get used to the fact that now she had two children, at least until Sirius was able to stand on his own.