Previously in the Darklyverse: Sirius and Alice's feud over purity politics led to Sirius firing a Conjunctivitus Curse during Defense class (CH34). Damocles Belby continued to refine the recipe for the Wolfsbane Potion, finally achieving a version that allowed Remus to remain lucid during the transformation, though still unable to control his actions while in wolf form (CH30). Remus grappled with his romantic feelings for Sirius (CH24). The Order of the Phoenix scoped out a pureblood gala for Death Eater names, but otherwise struggled to come up with a concrete strategy to begin enacting their plan of counterterrorism against the Death Eaters (CH32).
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April 28th, 1977: Remus Lupin
- five -
To Remus's surprise, Madam Pomfrey deems Alice free to go after two potions, three charms, and twenty minutes in the wing. Because it's Alice, whatever their differences these days, and because her jaw is set so firmly that Remus is sure it's taking all her willpower not to start crying again, he keeps her company all through her observation and offers to walk her out after. There's been something off with Alice—her voice has sounded duller, her shoulders always hunched—but he hasn't commented on it, whether for her benefit or for his he doesn't know.
"I'm glad Madam Pomfrey discharged me as quickly as she did," Alice remarks as Remus helps her off her cot and they set off for the Gryffindor common room. "I was worried she would keep me overnight and I'd have to miss the meeting."
"You probably wouldn't have missed much even if she had kept you. I don't think anyone's made much headway with the names we got at the gala—tonight will probably be more organizational, now that we're gaining members."
Alice looks at him sideways as they trudge down the corridor. "You seem tired lately."
"Full moon in five nights," he says curtly.
"Oh." There's a very strained pause, and then she adds, "Well—you always look tired, you know, around then, but never this much. Are you sure you're feeling all right?"
"I've been taking a dose of Belby's potion every night. We think the recipe is just about ready, but he's having me take it for a week beforehand this month instead of just the day of. It started wearing off and I started losing control halfway through the night last time, so he's trying something about tweaking the formula to be extended-release instead of immediate." He cringes on the inside as he hears a thin note of anxiety snaking into his voice.
He drops Alice off at the common room with more than an inkling of relief and, when he trudges up to the dormitory, finds a morose-looking Sirius who's glaring daggers as Remus opens the door. "I don't want to talk about it."
Remus says, "Okay."
Sirius says, "I don't," and Remus says, "I know," and Sirius crumbles.
- four -
They all know the big blowout is coming, but Sirius skives off Potions and puts it off by at least another few hours. In his absence, Marlene partners Alice, leaving Remus on his own to chance glances at Belby while frenetically chopping beetle eyes and sage.
By the end of the period, his cauldron's hissing like a bastard and billowing out steam. "Off your game this week, Lupin?" Belby snarls from behind him as Remus hastily ladles potion into a flask for Slughorn. Once corked, it vibrates around in his palm as shocking violet clouds build up inside it.
"Do we really have to do this here?" Remus sighs.
"It'd be too conspicuous if you're lurking around me outside class," says Belby. "Here," he adds, and he slides a thick stack of parchments onto Remus's desk.
He glances down, skims the title. "You've already drafted a journal article?"
"If it doesn't work this month, it at least gives me a base to work from. I don't want to be starting something of this magnitude the same time as exams."
"But what do you want my opinion for?" says Remus.
Already sidling past Remus's desk and up to Slughorn's, Belby turns around and sneers, "Well, I'd ask Severus, but he's too proud to help anyone but his precious Lily, and I could use a second set of eyes."
Shaking his head, Remus Vanishes what remains in his cauldron—which isn't much, as it's evaporating fast—and hurries up to Slughorn to hand in his flask before its contents vaporize completely.
The document reads… fine, if a little arrogant in tone, but could anyone fault Belby for that, really? In hindsight, Remus is surprised nobody before Belby in how many years thought to test it as a treatment for lycanthropy? But then, with a taboo that strong and a host of nightmarish tales in wizarding Europe's collective memory to go along with it, of course you'd think anyone would be mad to try it. And maybe Remus was mad, too, for drinking it, but how a thing like this could possibly not have driven him to those kinds of lengths…
He can barely remember anymore what it felt like not to live in dread of this thing, this parasite, as a boy—like a silly dream you've forgotten and only still recall by the memory of having told it to others the day after. All of it is dreamlike now, but Remus knows he must have felt shocked as Dumbledore hand-delivered his Hogwarts letter—frightened as he sat very still on the living room sofa with his mother and father as they told him he was different now, and all Remus could do was count the stripes on the wallpaper and wring his hands in his lap and nod and nod—
Yes, Remus must have felt something all those days through all that waiting in that other life he lived before he swallowed Belby's bullets—before he quit. Some lives, though, are better forgotten.
- three -
They have a meeting with their new recruits: Edgar Bones, Benjy Fenwick, Frank Longbottom, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, Elisabeth Clearwater, and Mildred LeProut. Alice invited Dirk Cresswell, too, but apparently he turned her down. Remus is sure there's a story there, but Alice clearly didn't want to talk about it, so he's not pushing it.
Remus doesn't think much is going to be accomplished, besides clueing the newbies into their still-in-the-works strategy and encouraging them to get the word out to anyone who might be sympathetic, but then Dorcas Meadowes drops the bombshell that she's gotten word of a Death Eater gathering slated to happen next Friday night, in six days' time.
"You're lying," says Gideon immediately, crossing his arms and sneering. "She's lying."
"Look," says Meadowes with an air of impatience, "I overheard Regulus Black telling Raleigh Greengrass about it in our common room. We have no other real leads yet. If that isn't good enough for you, that's your problem, but I say we plan an ambush like we've been talking about."
"She can't be trusted! Obviously this is some kind of trap!"
"We know Regulus is in the Death Eaters, so if she isn't lying, the intel is probably legit," says Peter slowly with a frown. "And why would she lie and send us off to some gathering that doesn't exist? Isn't cornering a gang of Death Eaters exactly what we wanted?"
"It's not if she warns them we're coming," Gideon says, scowling. "Who's to say we don't show up there, lose the element of surprise, and get ourselves all blasted to bits?"
"And why the hell would she do that, huh?" says Fabian immediately, rounding on his brother. "Considering the parentage she comes from, Dorcas is considered a bigger blood traitor than any other pureblood in this room, and it doesn't mean shit that just because she's a Slytherin—"
Gideon snaps, "Just because she's a Slytherin means she could get us all killed if her loyalties sway back toward her family and her House!"
But before he can say any more, Lily shouts, "Hey!" and all eyes flick to where she's sitting cross-legged on top of one of the two-seater desks in the empty classroom they've snagged for the meeting. She clears her throat. "Meadowes has never once been seen to say or do anything to suggest that her loyalties are anywhere but with the resistance. I believe her. If you don't, and you want out of this mission before it goes any further, this is your chance to walk away."
Everyone stays where they are, even Gideon, who's scowling even deeper at Fabian and Dorcas.
"For that matter," speaks up James, "anyone who doesn't feel comfortable with making an attack against a Death Eater gathering is welcome to leave as well and only come back for the outreach parts of what we do. This is dangerous stuff. We're talking about making a real, live attack against sworn supporters of Voldemort who will not hesitate to torture and kill you if they get the jump on you. We owe it to you to be up front about what your expectations should be and what the risks are."
Again, no one leaves. Millie LeProut fidgets a little where she's slung over a desk in the corner but doesn't get up.
"Right, then. Meadowes, take it away."
- two -
"I still don't like it," Sirius is saying.
They're sitting on Remus's bed in the otherwise deserted dormitory, Peter downstairs in the common room with Emmeline and James off to sneak onto the Quidditch pitch for some therapeutic practice. Remus sighs and hesitantly links their fingers together. When Sirius allows it, he lets out a tiny breath and feels his face heating up. "We already know from last month that the aconite isn't fatal. Belby changed around the proportions and increased the level of sedatives this time in the hopes that I—"
"Won't have to go through the agony of being trapped in your own mind watching yourself enacting violence against yourself and others?" Remus shrugs. "I haven't forgotten what you went through last month, Moony. You've already risked your life for Belby's pet project; you don't have to risk your sanity again, too."
"But if there's a chance that we're coming up on the end of it…" Remus twists a little so that, instead of sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Sirius against the headboard, he presses his chest against Sirius's arm and rests his head in the crook of Sirius's neck. "You don't know what it's like to become this uncontrollable thing every month."
"I thought it was better when you ran round with me and Prongs and Wormy. I thought it wouldn't be worth it to put yourself through…"
Remus smiles weakly. "But I won't always have you. No, I mean—when we graduate and leave these grounds behind, where would we run on the full moon? If I'm to live in civilization, and not sequester myself away the way most werewolves do, I'll go back to locking myself up every month, waking up each morning after bitten and scratched to hell. I can't—I can't live like that again. It's bad enough in the summer months when my parents chain me up, and that's only three months out of the year. To go through that every month…"
"It doesn't have to be this way," says Sirius earnestly. "I'll come round your house every month as Padfoot to keep you company, even if we stay inside. I'll—"
Smiling into Sirius's neck, Remus interrupts, "I appreciate the gesture, Padfoot. I do. But this is something that I have to do."
Sirius pauses. "I still don't understand," he says quietly.
"I know you don't," says Remus, and he wishes more than anything that he could kiss away the purse to Sirius's lips, but he doesn't. Some things, like Belby's Wolfsbane Potion (as he's calling it now), he can have, and others he can't. Sirius is with Marlene now, for real this time, and both of them are Remus's friends, and—and…
Sirius tilts his head to nuzzle into Remus's a little, and suddenly his reservations fly right out of his head. Sirius is so close and Remus is tilting his head up to press his forehead right against Sirius's, his breathing heavy, shaky. Sirius starts to say, "Remus, wha—?" but Remus shakes his head and squeezes his eyes closed and slants his mouth right up against Sirius's and just holds it there for a long, long second.
For a moment, neither of them moves. Then Remus feels Sirius nip at his lower lip with his teeth, and he squeezes Sirius's hand that he's still holding and starts to kiss him in earnest, moving his lips against Sirius's, no idea what he's doing, and—
Far too soon, Sirius pulls back, his gaze shifting in a frenzy from one of Remus's eyes to the other. "Sorry," Remus whispers, but Sirius doesn't answer. Neither of them says anything at all for a long time.
- one -
Belby meets Remus in the Shrieking Shack like usual with a flagon of potion under his arm and a grim smile on his face. "Ready?" Belby says with no other preamble, and he holds out the flagon.
Remus is. There are no other words that need speaking; after the half-success of last month, conscious to remember but not in control, Remus has a good feeling about this month's adjustments. It has to work. It has to.
He takes the flagon and drinks, and then they wait and wait and wait. Finally, it begins with a horrible cracking of his spine and a growing of his fingernails. The transformation is as painful as ever, Remus's limbs snapping and shrinking into place, but when it's over—it's over. He crouches there, on the ground, pawing at the floorboards and wishing he had the speech to tell Belby Thank you, or Your work is done here, but he'll just have to trust Belby to figure it out.
He inches forward toward Belby, tail wagging through the air behind him, and leans in to lick gratefully at Belby's fingers; Belby gives a sort of pained wince and allows it for a few seconds before he pulls his hand free. Remus chases his tail in a few happy circles, then settles down to try to sleep.