I don't ever think I noticed the consistent shabbiness of Lupin's robes. Even his dressiest had the tell-tale signs, though miniscule, of age and long wear. The cuffs were slightly rougher than they might have been, and the style was years older than what was considered 'in' but it still held the relative class and panache the designer had stitched originally. I had the sudden wish that I hadn't worn one of my better pairs of robes, I had wanted to make a good impression, and now I felt a vague sense of embarrassment. Though I couldn't say if it were for myself, or the host who invited us.
And then again.. this was only the second time I'd spoken with him face-to-face.
The others at the table robes of good taste and visible freshness, perhaps on the more casual side, but I still felt over-dressed.
To my complete surprise, Rupert was one of the guests of the small assembly, looking as charming as ever. The others however had vaguely familiar names that I've heard now and again, but past the introductions, I couldn't match their faces. I made special care to avoid asking questions because of that. One of the men however was a 'big-wig' at St. Mungo's, and I could hardly guess how Remus knew him. I was careful not to make eye contact with him; I had the fear that he might recognize me from my monthly visits to the hospital. Lupin introduced us and I looked at the man, startled, when he exclaimed, "You're one of the donators the hospital sends holiday cards to."
It was true, and I bit the inside of my cheek hoping my reasons behind donating didn't come out. Relief flooded me when his interest in me floundered; past hazily mentioning my income, his interest in me shrunk considerably.
"Did you hear, someone leaked from the Ministry that muggles spotted a stray hippogriff two weeks ago. Of course, they didn't know what it was, but as soon as the Ministry heard they sent out their best aurors to comb the area. There wasn't a trace of Black at all. They aren't sure if it's a false alarm or not. After all, Black did slip under Dumbledore's nose." Next the St. Mungo's man, a woman in her forties spoke delicately, and I felt a grimace rising. I don't think I was the only one to hear the subtle slur.
"It'd take more the Dumbledore to capture that animal. You know, that Peter Pettigrew was never a bright child. I remember him from my years at Hogwarts," Rupert leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and the candle light caught the silver that had long ago begun to dominate. He always managed to look wiser, older and far more sophisticated than he truly was, and I had a suspicious feeling he was using it to his advantage. I half expected him to give me a little wink. "I was a fifth year when he entered Hogwarts. Can't believe he tried to go after Black."
"Ah well," Remus began, "everybody gets angry. I would've.. if I had the chance to get to him I might've tried the same thing."
"You all were friends, weren't you? Lupin isn't a completely common name."
They say that werewolves have heightened senses, even out of transformation, and I'm told it's completely normal. Most werewolves don't even need glasses, they say. I could almost smell the hesitation coming from Lupin, and I leaned forward in my chair, feeling uncomfortable suddenly.
"We were." And that was the end of it. The subject was diverted, and Lupin wasn't asked any more difficult questions. He almost seemed to be making up answers as Madam who-is-she asked about how Black freed a hippogriff by himself, what Dumbledore's reaction was, and could Black even be captured if the Headmaster himself couldn't do it.
"But," I said suddenly, looking from the woman to the St. Mungo's man, completely confused, "how would you know any of this Mr Lupin? Are you good friends with the headmaster?"
"Do you live in a box, Abernathy," Rupert said cheerfully, finally giving me the wink I'd been expecting. "Remus here worked at Hogwarts last year. Dark Arts defence, right? The details are still a little hazy, but I'd expect they'd be kept quiet. Black, being one of Lupin's childhood friends, waited for Lupin to transform, and used it against the school. Nearly got a bunch of kids bitten. Nearly got caught too, but you know how it goes after that. Clean getaway. Another narrow escape for Harry Potter they say."
"Right," Remus responded promptly, picking up his drink.
"What- what do you mean transform?" I asked, looking dumb-founded from Lupin to Rupert. Everyone at this table knew he was a werewolf? Rupert smiled and took a sip of his own. "Like, potions, or something?"
"Children like to talk. Many of them sent owls home about Sirius Black escaping and how their Defence professor is a werewolf." I think I had been gaping up until that point, but, pursing my lips, I looked away from both men and rest a hand under my chin. I hadn't meant to act the innocent; I just hadn't realized. It hadn't been in the paper of anything.
"Oh." It was the only proper thing to say, and I was hoping nobody noticed the sudden flush I could feel crawl up my back of my neck.
"She doesn't get out much," Rupert said jokingly, giving the others a smile that could have charmed Mr Lockhart himself. "She's gets a little simple. Sometimes I'm not sure she's really as grown-up as she looks." The two other guests chuckled at my expense. Alarmed, I frowned, but he didn't catch it.
"I don't talk to anyone with children," I said tartly, though more to myself than any of the others, but Rupert caught it anyways and laughed. "And mine don't exist?" he asked.
"You know what I meant. We hardly talk, and when we do it's about politics. We've never talked about your children. Now, leave me alone. We were talking about how Sirius Black escaped." He should have taken the hint. For such a smart man, he should have noticed I didn't want to talk anymore about myself.
"Well we could talk about all kinds of things if you weren't always at home with your house elf. Your house is always spotless so I don't know why you worry about it. You know the saying, 'the cauldron doesn't boil if you watch it.'" Had I been sitting across from him, I might have stooped low enough to kick him, but unfortunately, I was sitting across from the St Mungo's man, who was listening to a story the woman was telling him about her kids. At least they hadn't been listening.
"That's no ones business, Rupert, least of all this table's," I said angrily, lowering my voice so I didn't catch their attention. I looked away from him finally, after he didn't respond, and found Lupin looking at me. I don't think I've ever wanted more to die on the spot than just then. He looked sympathetic, and really, I didn't need that. I folded the napkin I'd been holding and stood up.
"I have to use the restroom, would you excuse me?"
Crossing my arms, I made my way as quickly as possible to the woman's powder room. I needed to splash some water on my face, to refresh myself. Something about today's lunch was mentally draining, and I wasn't sure whether it was Madam Whoever's snobbery, or Rupert's teasing, friendly as though he might have thought it. Merlin, we hadn't even finished our lunch yet. The owner was still bringing out the seconds Rupert and the St. Mungo's man had ordered.
Stepping finally out of the room, I jumped back as Rupert tapped me on the shoulder. "My God, do you have to be so sneaky?" I asked, stepping back to fix my robes. I expected him to roll his eyes, but he didn't look chummy; he looked concerned.
"Is something wrong, Abernathy? I thought you knew he was a werewolf."
"Yes I did. I just needed a little fresh air."
"Well," he started, looking a little less serious, "fresh air in a perfume room is irony. What's bothering you? I was just teasing you, if that's the case."
"You know I hate being teased Rupert." I responded. I put my hands in my pockets, and frowned when he smiled in amusement. "And I already told you this, so don't say I didn't."
"You hate being teased because you were teased as a little girl. That's what you said. Evil words make a person stronger. That's what my mother said at least."
"And my mother told me that a little pixie would give me a galleon for each lost tooth. Grow up a little. I'm not a little girl anymore, but you act like one of those little bullies that liked to point at my hands. Teasing me wasn't very polite, nor mature. Did you even think for a second that I might not want someone to wonder why I live alone?" Rupert snorted, and looked down at me like I had missed something important again.
"I have to grow up? You're telling me I have to play fairly, and you're not going by the same rules?"
"You were being rude. Not only to me, but to Remus. How do you know whether or not he wanted that little incident brought up? If I were in his position, I wouldn't. It's like you forget that you aren't a.. a you-know-what, and think its some big joke. It isn't a joke. And my life isn't a joke, so don't treat it like that." Rupert's attempt at remaining jovial vanished and he scowled at me.
"I'm not the one pretending about anything Cadley, you are. You are in his position, if you haven't noticed. You are a werewolf, and you know absolutely nothing about it. I'm not the one that needs to grow up. You act like this is getting picked last for a game of Quidditch. It's not that simple, it's not going to end just like that. You act like 'its' just this temporary thing." Rupert's expression was stormy, and I felt my anger rise. He never snapped at someone who didn't deserve it. And I most certainly didn't.
"Excuse me," I replied taking a step back from him. "But I think I do know a few things about being the thing that I am after all."
"Remus has learned to handle it. It's a sore spot for everyone. You aren't the only bloody person whose been bitten, swept from the bliss of childhood by a monster who didn't know you from a shoe! Stop playing the victim for heaven's sake and take a look around you. None of those people would even bother looking at you if they knew what you were. A few of them would cry for an auror in fact. We're evil in public opinion!" He kept his voice down, but his tone suggested he could have shouted it at me. "Hell, they don't even need to know; if you were like most werewolves, just a glance at your robes and they'd guess, but you've never had to experience that side of society!"
"Excuse me, is everything all ri-" A housekeeper hovered in the background, her brown eyes large behind her thin glasses.
"We're fine," I said heavily, watching Rupert throw up his hands and turn away from me in an undignified huff. I crossed my arms and glowered at him in turn.
He ran his hands through his hair and frowned all the more angrily when he failed to present a calm face. We were not walking away from here until he apologized. "We're not through here, Rupert, don't think I'm going to just let you push me away from my meal, get yelled at and then return without a batted lash." He couldn't treat me like a bratty child! I continued on before he could interrupt.
"I know nothing of being a werewolf? You know nothing! You don't suffer the damned loneliness. You've got your children, your set of staff, and your business. I've got a bloody house elf for heaven's sake!"
"That's more than every other damned werewolf has Cadley! That's what I'm saying! I never claimed to be the normal werewolf here. God forbid there be such a thing. I'm not typical; I managed to keep my head above water. And just barely at that!
"But hell, here you are, you walk into a room and expect people to notice there's something wrong about you but not to ask questions! You don't think of the questions your 'forsaken' attitude might bring, the speculation. Oh no, no one knows what you are, but they can guess by the way you act. This isn't a game, so stop treating it that way! It's not going to ever go away!" Rupert's face had turned red in his seethe, his eyes slightly glassy.
"They only ask questions when you bring up the stupid subject, Rupert." I might have continued, but both Rupert and I noticed a third presense approach and shut up quickly. I pursed my lips and took another step away from Rupert. Fighting like a married couple, if only my mother knew.
"I think its time we all left." An all too familiar voice caught up with us, and I turned to see a grim looking Remus standing there with his hands in his pockets. Rupert left first, without saying anything else to me. He thanked Lupin and disappeared from sight.
"Let's go for a walk. The others have already left, and the bill's been paid." Remus beckoned me to leave the empty hall, and without any reason to protest, I sighed and followed.
I tried to give him a perky sort of, Rupert-didn't-bother-me smile, but it didn't quite come off.
We left the pub, a few of the patrons cast glances in our direction and towards the hallway from which Rupert had stormed but nobody asked questions. Least of all Lupin. He wasn't the kind to pry into a stranger's affairs, and that was what we were. Strangers who happened to have lunch together. We knew nothing of one another, and although I was furious beyond a doubt at Rupert for his vulgar disciplinarian act, I couldn't help but realize that his words did hold a kernel of truth. The state of Remus's robes had come to my attention earlier but past my own discomfort, I hadn't given his finances a second thought. The well-to-do company he had invited had, I suppose, disillusioned me just a little. Or I could be making excuses.
I cleared my throat as we stepped out into Diagon Alley. I suddenly felt as weary as Lupin looked, and was quite ready to go home. "Mr Lupin,"
"I think at this point you can just call me by my first name. If anything, its only because there's a hoard of strangers around who wouldn't know the difference between strangers and good friends. So, no need for formalities, really." He said quickly, looking from one shop window to another, as if we were merely sight-seeing.
"Remus. I'm sorry if I ruined your meal. If we ruined your meal, I should say. We should have never gotten into that fight. Least of all in the middle of a restaurant. I am really sorry." And I was, I hadn't expected Rupert's little bit of teasing to start an argument. Although, something told me I was more at fault than I chose to believe.
'No,' I thought crossly, 'no, it wasn't my fault. Rupert started the entire thing and I just, I let him get the better of me. No, I didn't do anything wrong. He had absolutely no..' Remus had stopped in his tracks, and I had to crane to see what he was looking at. The day's light breeze was pulling a woman's cloak in my way, and I settled back on my heels slightly dismayed.
A man, taller than I was by a head, exited the shop we were stopped in front of, and the woman with the fluttering cloaks handed him the packages she'd been carrying. Wrapped in plain brown packaging paper, the man, the young man nodded to some question, carrying his parcels under one arm. I could have snorted, him almost dropping his packages. The boy's attention faltered from who I assumed was his mother and he looked at Remus in surprise, a mistake that got him jostled by passersby.
"Professor!" He shoved his packages into his mother's arms faster than I could say Hogwarts, and the shorter woman staggered. Well, at least I knew now why Remus had been window-watching. He'd recognized the boy. Sharp eyes Lupin had.
"Hello Mr Wi-"
"Mum, look, this is that professor I was talking to you about, the one who quit! This is Professor Lupin. He was the greatest! How are you Professor?" Remus's eyes crinkled in a smile, though he didn't bother to reply. I had a feeling he knew he wouldn't have had the time. "Professor Lupin, you've got to come back, Hogwarts won't be the same without you. Everybody says so! Well except for Professor Snape, but there's no accounting for hi- I don't mean any disrespect, of course Professor. Not if you're friends or anything. But you were the best teacher we've had for 'Defense Against the Dark Arts.'"
"Well, I'm glad to hear you think that, Mr Wimbledon. But I'm sure whomever Professor Dumbledore hires this year will do a fantastic job; better than anything I could."
His former student looked unconvinced, but neither of them could push their points farther. Wimbledon's mother, whose pallor had gone from white to ashy red within moments, interrupted, looking up her thin nose and looking clearly frightened. I got the impression of a volcano about to erupt. The son looked at her surprised as she jerked him away, his expression matching the one I wore myself.
"You, you're that.. you're the werewolf? You're that werewolf that Dumbledore hired?" She asked, looking flustered and confused, stepping back from Remus when he started to speak, trying to keep her tall son behind her, out of Lupin's line of sight.
"I no longer work there Madam." Remus replied quietly, clearing his throat, trying to lighten the sudden thickening air that settled upon their quartet.
"But you're the- the man that could have killed those students that had been out on the grounds! What if there had been more, you could have gotten others! Fine thing to have a man whose supposed to be teaching self-preservation who doesn't even take the time to protect his students from his own danger!" Her voice climbed higher, and I cringed as her trembling voice played havoc on my inner ear. Uncomfortable now, I leaned away from her slightly.
"I agree, that's why I quit." She threw a glance at me, giving me a look that could peel paint. How could I find myself in such company she wanted to know.
"You shouldn't have been hired in the first place! Had I known what you were, I would have sent my son to Beauxbatons for the year! Dumbledore must be getting loony! No, no! You lied to him, didn't you? You didn't tell him what you were! You- you put all the students- my son – in danger just so you could have yourself a nice cushy job!
"And now you walk down Diagon Alley like there isn't anything wrong with you. You're a freak! A monster! How dare you speak to my son, you aren't safe to be around!
"Monster! Creature! Stay away, get away from us! Beast!" The woman's shriek had reached a pitch that would have caused me to cover my ears had I not been completely appalled. The woman backed up away from us, pushing her son along with her. Too stunned, or too disciplined to respond, he stumbled along in the direction she had him going. "Now, you listen to me you werewolf! You get out of here. No one in their right mind would want you here! And you take that woman with you. If she likes to get about with things like you, she oughtn't be here either. Merlin knows she's one too! Go away!" The woman reared like a dragon over her brood and it was Remus's turn to back away.
The woman brandished her wand in a flurry, looking half frightened that he'd eat her, and her son's eyes bulged as he tried to calm her. But I couldn't hear him over her screeching. A glance at Remus told me that whilst I was shocked, horrified that a woman would act that way in public, he was merely embarrassed, a shade of red creeping up into his face. I couldn't believe my ears, the woman cutting down her son's mentor in public. It was shameful.
"But Mum, he was a good te-"
"He taught you how to be a dark follower like himself, he did! You do your best to forget everything that- that monster taught you. Rich hussy! Filth, vermin, the lot of you! Get out of here, you aren't wanted!"
"Madam, I can assure you I'm no Dark wizard," he began. The young man's mother turned purple in the face, insulted by being addressed by a 'monster.' She flung her wand about in a sort of fashion meant to frighten back wild animals.
Sorrow took place of the amusement he had shown only a moment ago, and without another word, he steered us away from the gathering crowd and Mrs Wimbledon's accusations. He said something quietly, almost inaudibly and I tilted my head to catch it. A mother of four jostled her brood away from us as we passed.
"I don't think I can tell you how sorry I am about that," he said gravely. "He was one of my former students. Well, obviously. I knew the students had told their parents, but I wasn't thinking. After such a friendly greeting from Jeffrey, I hadn't figured she'd react in the normal way." Our pace quickened slightly, an elderly man shaking his furrowed brow at us as he went back to hiding behind his paper.
There was no hiding for us. The woman still shrieked, telling someone loudly that monsters stalked Diagon Alley.
"Jeffrey? That's his first name?" I didn't want to go down that path; what was normal, and what wasn't. My ideas at being able to hide were slowly shattering, and I knew it. No matter the amount of 'pretty' in my pockets could hide it.
"Yes. Jeffrey Wimbledon, about to enter his seventh year after this summer."
I couldn't answer him without sounding uncaring.
"I had told them, after the incident she spoke about, that their parents wouldn't want me there. I had almost hoped that.." he paused, pressing his lips together in thought before shaking his head. "Never mind. I've come to find out that hope is a lonely man's continuous mistake, as we both saw." That was the last thing he said to me, really, beyond the mutual 'good evenings' as we parted later on. The bleakness of his expression had left a lasting impression in my mind's eye, and when I returned home I sat down in my bedroom to have a good cry undisturbed.
The donation request from St. Mungo's had fallen to the floor.
I'm not sure whether or not Rupert's accusations had gotten to me, before or after the woman's hysterics at Diagon Alley, but after rereading the letter, I felt thoroughly depressed.
I crumpled it up, plucking at a tissue to wipe my nose, before throwing both away at the trash bin by my side. Why bother anymore, I thought. Rupert was right. I wasn't going to just wake up one morning, after a horrible night at St. Mungo's and find that I was no longer 'the monster.'
I worried at my thumbnail. Golby hadn't come upstairs since I'd come home; I could hear him down stairs, bustling around, and I took another tissue to clean up my face. It made me feel slightly better, him letting me alone for a bit, but it did nothing to relieve the anxiety I was feeling. Growing up in the matter of two hours is never an easy thing.
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Author's Note: I am really sorry about the delay (four months) between this chapter and the last one. Things got in my way: moving, school, sheer laziness. There isn't any real excuse, but I hope you forgive me.
On a happier note, we're almost complete! There will be ten chapters even in this story, and information about a more 'normal' Harry Potter fanfic sequel. It'll actually include characters we know.
A few things about the Sequel:
- Harry's sixth year, of course
- The encounter with Lucius will be mentioned (it wasn't completely useless)
- Rupert returns!
I hope you all read it. I'll post more about it at the end of chapter ten!