III

Down the Drain

Soon after the verdict, the trial disbanded. A few went home. Hagird left—he couldn't apparate, I knew, so I couldn't think where he was going. Dedalus Diggle and Fabian Prewett were staying in rooms near mine. I was feeling strange, and I had a headache, so I went to bed. I didn't want to stay up until dawn talking of war as everyone else was apparently planning to do.

I slowly clumped up the two tight spiral staircases, feeling lonely. I came to my room and flopped onto the bed. Ned yowled at me, so I sat up promptly. My head spun, and I held onto my ears. I saw a mirror, leaning against the wall. It was so dusty I could see nothing in it. This was probably why I hadn't noticed it before. I cleaned it with a spell. Some dust still clung around the edge of the glass near the frame, but it was cleaner at least. The man I saw in it rather disturbed me.

He was short, and slender to the point of being skinny. All the Marauders were small except Sirius, and Peter was fat but very short. The man in the mirror wore cheap, shabby robes of faded blue cloth. Most robes were made of cloth that didn't wear or tear, but these had gone beyond the manufacturing pale—they had been handed down from my father, as had most of my robes, and I had not bothered to add to my wardrobe. The man in the mirror had skin the same brown tint as the eggs the golden chickens in the orchard laid, and hair that was a darker shade of the same color, but flecked generously with grey. His face was hard and, I scarcely believed it, handsome, and it was a map of scars and wrinkles. The man had crow's feet in the corners of his eyes, sad lines at the corners of his mouth, and creases in his forehead. There was a fourfold scar down the left side of his face, arcing almost gracefully from his hairline to his jaw, and cutting a chunk out of his eyebrow. There was another jagged scar near his right ear. This man had been through every mill there was far too many times.

And I knew him.

I shoved Ned off the bed, flopped beck, and went to sleep.

The next morning, everyone seemed happier than usual. I assumed it was because of the weather at first (it had rained during the night, and now everything was as bright and clean and sparkly as a Mrs. Skower's commercial), but then I realized that it was because of me. Nobody went so far as to congratulate me. I realized, of course, that being in the Order of the Phoenix was a dubious honor at best. But I had reason to believe that everyone thought that I would be a good thing.

Everyone seemed happier except, apparently, Lizzie. She sat in the bright, clean, sparkly orchard and sulked, occasionally talking to the chickens or the peacock, occasionally throwing unripened fruit at them. In the afternoon, Emmy and I went out to pick the raspberries and blackberries that grew wild in the orchard, and I slipped away from her and talked to Lizzie.

I picked my way over to where she was sprawled on the branch of an apple tree. A chicken was perched near her, and she was talking to it about trolls. I put down the basket and climbed into the tree. I sat across the trunk from her.

"What's up?" I asked her.

"Well, we are," she said, suddenly flapping a hand at the chicken. It squawked and flew away. A feather landed on her baggy jeans and twitched in the breeze.

"I meant with you. What's your problem?" A gave her a handful of berries. Her hands were as red and purple as mine, and I realized that she probably didn't need the berries. But she took them.

Lizzie put a berry in her mouth and savored it slowly, apparently sucking its juice out before swallowing it, like a spider does with a bug. "Well….You've just been given a really great opportunity, you know. You could write your own name in the history books." She sucked a blackberry dry. "I'm a fugitive. When my brother blabbed, I lost everything, even what I had started with. I was never a big player in the good against evil chess match, Remus. I started out a pawn, and I never traded myself in for anything better. I'll die, most likely at Voldemort's hands, and nobody will even notice. I disappeared without a trace. Nobody outside the Order knows I'm still alive. I think," she swallowed a berry whole, "I think that you will be a big player. You'll be remembered, but I won't."

"You're jealous of me?" I was stunned. Was the man in the mirror last night just a dream, brought on by the mind games I had been subject to?

"No, not as such…yes, I suppose. But you have to promise me, Remus. Promise me that you won't throw it away, that you'll do something with it, something great—as great as you can possibly do." Her eyes burned into mine with a wild mix of hope, despair, and frustration.

I looked away. "Lizzie…." I felt like I was talking to Lia.Lizzie was like her, somehow. I found myself wondering what Lizzie had been like before her brother blabbed on her. "I'll do my best, but…."

She shushed me. "That's all I ask." She tossed the rest of her berries in her mouth and rolled out of the tree, landing heavily on all fours. I climbed down a bit more carefully. She shook out her wrist, biting her lip. "It's fine, just a bit bothered. I'm going to get food." She stalked back inside, apparently trusting the chickens to get out of her way on their own.

I looked suspiciously after her. What was up with her?

"Strange, isn't she?" said a voice.

I jumped. I had completely forgotten about Emmy. "Strange…?"

"She's insane. She always was, and it's only gotten worse since she came here for good." I said nothing, and she took this as a question. We began picking again as she answered the nonexistent question. "She grew up on the moors. Whenever she talks about them she gets all misty and starts talking about birds, little wooden houses with little drafty windows, gorse bushes, big horizons, her horse named Bruce, and such romantic, wild things. But she actually did live that way. She grew up with space. She hated Hogwarts because there were so many people all in one place, and there wasn't anywhere that you could really run. She skived off classes to run around the lake, and ran away at night to go in the forest—it's beyond me how she got the N.E.W.T.'s she needed, but she did. She never moved to London after she got the job because she hated cities. Besides, most of the training she did was up near where she lived, she only went south for the legal stuff. But then she had to come here. She feels the same about here as she did about Hogwarts, but she doesn't have anywhere to run to. She thinks the orchard is too small. And it is…." Emmy looked toward the low wall of unmortared stone that encircled the estate. It was grey, and had a lot of cracks in it—it looked like somewhere that snakes would breed. "She sulks out here rather often. Some days she goes and talks to her Runsepoor."

"She has a Runespoor?"

"Yes. She's named Sana. Has two heads and lives in Lizzie's bedroom. I think Lizzie's had Sana since she was sixteen—she's twenty-seven, now."

Twenty seven…she looked younger. "She talks to it? How?"

"She taught herself Parseltongue. She said it took her so long that it really isn't worth trying—it took her eight years." There was a silence. The endless wild symphony of the village outside York filled it. "We don't think she'll last the year. She's tried to kill herself once already. Made Sana bite her. We got there in time, though, and we pulled Sana's teeth out." Emmy grimaced. "Neither of them appreciated it—Sana or Lizzie." There was a silence. "What were you two talking about?"

"She's jealous of me. She wants to have another chance at…writing her own name in the history books."

"Oh…."

When we went back inside, I went straight upstairs. I wanted to avoid having to talk to Lizzie again. There was something about her that set my teeth on edge. I shut the door to my room, put Ned out, and began writing a letter. It was to James. It was not long. I said a few vague words about staying with a friend of Dumbledore's, and that there were a lot of important people that came and went. I carefully thought out a few choice phrases to get James thinking in an Orderly direction. He, I thought, was a good starting point for my task because he was impulsive, and good at persuading Sirius to do things—I wasn't good at that. If Sirius was in, I was certain Peter would follow. Over the last year, he had become much attached to Sirius, a bit like a younger brother. Then I wrote shorter letters to the other two Marauders, borrowed Emmy's owl, and sent them off. I promised myself that I would have an owl before the week was out. I was sick of having to borrow other people's owls, because I had never had my own.

I went downstairs around four o'clock. Leenie had gotten back from the broom shop in York where she worked, but none of the three aurors had come back. Frank had become an auror. I wondered if James had known—it seems like he might have mentioned it, because he knew I wanted to be one. I would have to ask Frank about it when he got here.

Dinner was in the makings. Emmy and Leenie were in the kitchen, dancing gracefully around eachother, neither getting in the other's way. Lizzie sat at the little kitchen table with a glass of something green, making glum small talk with the other two. I stood in the doorway of the kitchen, watching the three of them with unfocused eyes and thinking about the last year, the worst of my life, even looking from where I stand now.

The chitchat slowly sputtered to a stop, and all three of them were staring at me. They snapped back into focus.

"Um…." Leenie said.

"Sorry," I muttered. "Just drifting…." There was an awkward pause. "Can…can I help with something?"

"Sure. Make a berry crisp." Leenie threw a crumpled recipe at me, and I began putting it together. Oats, chopped pecans, brown and white sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon zest….I drifted back into my lonesome reverie.

"You look like you know what you're doing," Lizzie commented.

"Oh. I've raided the school kitchens more often than I can count."

Lizzie smirked. It occurred to me that I had never seen her smile. "Sounds like someone I know. What was the worst trouble you ever got in for?"

"Ooh, that's a tough one." I smiled, remembering all the trouble we had gotten in. "Sixth year. We all invaded Slugworth's supply cabinet for ingredients for two love potions. We got caught, and Slugworth—this is a true story—made us make the love potions. He gave them to four Slytherin girls. And we got a hundred points off. But we went back the next week and stole them again. That time, we didn't get caught."

All of them were laughing. I caught it, too. "Who're 'we all'?" Lizzie asked.

"Oh, Liz, Dumbledore told you," Leenie said. "Remember, the school's new troublemakers? James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus? How he tried to make Remus control them—"

"And failed dismally," I grumbled.

"He might've mentioned them…" she said disdainfully. Lizzie and I got into a debate over who had gotten in more trouble at Hogwarts. It was the Marauders every time, but Lizzie wouldn't give up.

When we were eating dinner, I asked Frank about being an auror.

"Well." Frank swallowed his mouthful. "You have to go through three more years of school, then pass the exam. The school is free, though, because there aren't enough people who want to apply to filter poor people out. After that, you are an auror. You have to go to the Ministry to get hired, but I've never heard of them turning someone down….But—"

"I'd say not," Moody grated. "It's a twenty-four-seven job. They can call you in whenever they like—that includes full moons." My eyes stung with frustration. "I happen to know your N.E.W.T. scores. Dumbledore was impressed enough to tell me what they were. You won't be short of work, Remus. At least, not as things stand now…."

I didn't ask what my scores were. I glared at my plate. My dream had gone down the drain.