Note: This chapter was supposed to be a lot longer. It was also supposed to have a killer cliffhanger...but...!
This chapter is dedicated to kickarora, who was kind enough to leave me a review last chapter!
Anyway, I hope somebody enjoys reading it! Thank you so much to anybody ho is kind enough to leave me a review – you really do put a smile on my face! :-)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
15: A Dark Day
"Merlin," Imogen Lupin muttered for the fifth time that afternoon, "I'm going to be in so much trouble when I get back to London!"
For the fifth time that afternoon, Valbona Luga ignored her.
They were stood in a street of tall terraced houses, staring at the door to Number Fourteen, and when it became apparent to Imogen that Valbona seemed reluctant to move, the young witch suggested:
"Well I should go and knock on the door, if I were you."
Imogen had had plenty of practice at knocking on doors so far since she had arrived in the town of Bensfield some hour earlier, since once she and Valbona had located Lord's Road, it had become apparent that Valbona did not know which house her niece lived in. Imogen had been knocking on doors ever since, and had been growing very tired of the whole business when the old lady in the last house had informed her that Rovena lived next door.
When Valbona merely shifted her feet uncomfortably, Imogen asked:
"Shall I do it, then?"
She wasn't really sure why Valbona was so keen to seek Rovena out in the first place. Pandora said Rovena was a right cow, Imogen recalled with a frown, and Nana Dora had refereed to her on several occasions as a silly little girl...
Indeed, Rovena Luga sounded like precisely the sort of relation Imogen would want to avoid like the plague.
But as Imogen's grandfather had often commented when eying old family photographs in which his wife's hair went from one extreme colour to another: sometimes in life there was no accounting for taste!
"I just...not sure what I say to her!" Valbona confessed gravely, and Imogen very nearly sighed.
"Well," she said, reaching to push the hair from her eyes, gazing up at the house in consideration. "I'm sure you'll know when you see her! When I'm nervous about talking to somebody...sometimes...sometimes I just open my mouth and everything just...just comes out perfect! Just like that!"
"Not for me. Not with my Rovena."
"Why not? Nana Dora says you love your niece!"
"Yes."
"Well what's the worry? You'll know what to say when it comes down to it. That's the way it is, with family you love. If you really want to say something, you'll say it!"
Valbona looked genuinely bolstered by this encouragement, and Imogen wondered quite where it had come from. She often wanted to talk frankly to her family about her life and yet she frequently found herself at a complete loss for words.
But be that as it may, the notion seemed to have done the trick, for Valbona drew in a deep breath and strode up to the front door, raising an enormous hand to knock upon the wood. Glancing round at the girl behind her, the Auror instructed:
"Come."
"I could just wait out here, if you like..." Imogen began rather hopefully, for really her own family provided her with enough drama to be getting on with, without being dragged into Valbona's family friction too. But Valbona merely insisted:
"No, you come."
Imogen gave a quiet yet entirely resigned sigh and shuffled after her, just in time for the front door of the house to be pulled open.
Rovena Luga, glossy dark hair adorned with curlers and face freshly powdered, took one look at the pair stood upon her doorstep before wordlessly reaching to slam the door shut again.
Valbona's boulder-sized foot shot forward to wedge itself between the door, and Imogen winced as the door collided painfully with the Auror's boot. The half-giant did not so much as flinch.
"We talk, yes?" she told her wide-eyed niece, who immediately glanced out into the street as if to check they were not being watched.
"I don't want to talk to you!" the dark haired witch hissed, face instantly reddening, but Valbona merely reached to grasp hold of the door, pushing it open until Rovena was forced to stumble backwards.
"Are you alone?" the Auror inquired, ignoring the scowl that she was offered. "Where is your mother?"
"Out!" Rovena snapped, and Imogen wasn't sure whether this was an answer to Valbona's question or a demand that they leave. Valbona chose to reach the former conclusion, for she proceeded to stomp over the threshold, muttering:
"Good. We talk."
"Who do you think you are?!" Rovena cried as Imogen paused rather uncertainly in the doorway, only for Valbona to reach an arm backwards to usher her inside. "Bursting in here uninvited!"
"I am your aunt. I not need invitation, Rovena."
"You're not my aunt! You're a...an overgrown freak who's lived in another country for most of my life! If my mother knew you were here she'd be...she'd be livid! Disgusted, even! Nobody would ever invite you here! I don't even know how...who told you...?!"
"I ask your grandmother where to find you." Valbona explained, cracks already beginning to show in her resolve at Rovena's clear revulsion of her. "I come to talk to you...to help you..."
"Oh!" Rovena exclaimed furiously, throwing her carefully-manicured hands up into the air in emphasis. "You're here to help me again, are you?! Well I've told you already, haven't I?! I don't want help from you! What could you possibly help me with?! What do you know about anything?! You're just some uncultured brutish nobody! You don't know anything about me or my life or even what a normal life is meant to be like! All you know about is trampling around the countryside threatening and hexing people left right and centre!"
When Valbona became utterly tongue-tied by this attack upon her character, Imogen felt compelled to step in.
"What in Merlin's name do you know about her life or who she is?" she asked Rovena, reaching to fold her arms firmly across her chest. "If you go around believing every little thing Mummy and Grandma tell you, that's a bit naïve of you, isn't it? Aren't you old enough to form your own thoughts and opinions?"
Rovena's expression grew utterly poisonous as she turned her fuming gaze upon Imogen, demanding to know:
"And who precisely do you think you are, then?!"
"Oh I know precisely who I am." Imogen told her with a smile. "I think the real issue here is that you clearly have no idea who you really are or where you come from, because you'll believe anything your family tells you..."
"This is Imogen Lupin." Valbona interrupted as Valbona's expression grew yet more furious. "She show me where I find Bensfield."
Rovena huffed irritably, before insisting:
"Look, whatever it is you've come here to say, I'm not interested! I want you to leave."
"We might leave a bit sooner if you stopped telling us to leave and just shut up and listened instead." Imogen suggested wearily, because quite frankly she was just as keen for herself to leave as Rovena was, though Rovena didn't appear to appreciate the advice.
Valbona shot Imogen a pointed look before suggesting:
"We sit down and talk a little, yes? Then I go."
Rovena huffed again but consented to leading the way down the narrow hallway into modest sitting room, whereupon she took a seat in an armchair and watched, wincing as Valbona lowered herself down onto the sofa opposite the fireplace, making the piece of furniture groan in protest. Imogen perched upon the chair at Valbona's side, finding the chair now uncomfortably slanted, and she again wished that they could simply leave.
"You have a boy, yes?" Valbona said once the three of them were settled, Rovena tapping an impatient foot upon the floorboards. "Jeffrey Fawley, yes?"
Rovena's eyes instantly narrowed.
"Is that what this is all about?!" she said, sounding riled. "Did the Deputy Head of Aurors send you to interrogate me or something?!"
"I have nothing to do with British Aurors. Dora Lupin does not know I come talk to you."
"Well you brought her...her...what are you?!" Rovena asked, gesturing wildly at Imogen, who consented to muttering:
"I'm her granddaughter."
"Exactly! Of course she knows you're here! You brought her granddaughter with you!"
Imogen sniggered.
"What's me being related to her got to do with anything? My family don't know what I'm doing every hour of every day! Yours don't know what you spend all your time doing either, do they? I bet they don't know you're shagging Jeff Fawley!"
"I'm not going to sit here and be treated like some sort of suspect!" Rovena snapped, sitting straighter in her chair.
"But they come for you, Rovena." Valbona insisted gravely. "Dora knows Jeffrey Fawley was your boy, Pandora tell her all about you and she see you together! You will be summoned to Ministry for questioning about him!"
Rovena merely gazed haughtily at the half-giant, apparently entirely unconcerned. Nevertheless, Valbona pressed:
"I not want you to get in trouble, Rovena. I want you kept safe, that is why I am here. You tell me what you know about Jeff Fawley and maybe I help you. Maybe we...we make Aurors keep quiet about you, stop the newspapers sticking their noses in, yes? I do not want you to...to get caught up in any bad things!"
Again, Rovena was silent. Imogen fidgeted in her seat as Valbona reached to rake a somewhat frustrated hand through her short cropped hair.
"I know it must be hard for you," the Auror tried, leaning forward towards her niece a little, making the chair beneath her groan in the process. "I am sure you thought he was a good boy, you must love him very much!"
Rovena gave a snort of amusement, waving a dismissive hand as she exclaimed:
"Love him?! Oh, please!" The raven-haired witch's nose wrinkled in distaste. "I don't love him, for Merlin's sake! He's a penniless Squib! Give me some credit, won't you?! I can do better than that!"
At the questioning look both Valbona and Imogen fixed her with, Rovena sighed heavily, slumping back in her chair.
"Look," she told them, gaze drifting up towards the ceiling, "Jeff and I made a...what shall we call it? An arrangement! It doesn't mean anything!"
"What arrangement?" Valbona asked darkly, eyes narrowing.
Rovena frowned up at the ceiling in consideration for a long moment before attempting to explain herself.
"There's no love between the two of us." she explained, sounding rather amused as if any notion otherwise was quite laughable. "It's just being together it's...well, you know!"
"I do not."
"It's convenient for both of us! Mother wants me to marry some rich pure blooded British wizard! Of course I never meet any, do I?! We don't really mix with anyone, Grandmother says we're to keep our heads down, what with the Ministry poking their noses into our business all the time! And what's a girl to do?! I'm bored! It's lonely being here in this house all the time on my own! Alright, I don't love Jeff and he's just a Squib and he's got no money, he's not marriage material! But he's good for a bit of fun! He's got a handsome face, good looking, all the other girls fancy the pants off of him, he lets me do whatever I want and he'll come running every time I snap my fingers! He couldn't keep his eyes off me when I met him the first time and he's barely kept his hands off me since! Men like a girl with money, you know! Toss him a few galleons here and there and he's mine for a night!"
"It's just money and sex, then?" Imogen summarised, causing Valbona's face to contort at the idea, and Rovena shrugged and asked:
"Exactly! It's an arrangement we have, what's so wrong about that?!"
Valbona seemed too disgusted to speak, so Imogen shrugged.
"Nothing really," she said, "just as long as it's not hurting anyone! Except of course Jeff is hurting people, isn't he? You can't still be giving him money, can you? Merlin only knows what he'd use it for, you could get in trouble with the Ministry for aiding his activities, you know!"
"She not give him anything now!" Valbona exclaimed, sounding quite convinced, and Imogen waited for Rovena to agree with her, after all Jeff's name was emblazoned across newspaper headlines so often these days. Surely nobody in their right mind who knew him would do anything except sever all ties with him instantly...
"I've not seen him for a while." Rovena confessed evasively, and it seemed to Imogen that Valbona did not take this as a plea of innocence in the slightest.
"You keep it that way!" the Auror insisted fiercely. "You keep away from him! He very, very bad news!"
Rovena rolled her eyes, rather as if she thought this were all some sort of exaggeration. Imogen thought of Pandora's utter revulsion of her connection to Jeff, of her shame, and wondered how Rovena could seem so unconcerned by the whole business...
It wasn't normal, the blank look upon Rovena's face, it wasn't natural...
It was false.
Imogen leaned forward in her chair.
"Is that it?" she asked, gazing at the dark haired witch in consideration. "Is that all there is to it? To you and Jeff, I mean?"
Rovena's cheeks grew pink, and in response Valbona paled.
"You see him, yes?" she observed quietly as her niece shifted awkwardly in her seat. "You lie to me! You do see him...even after what he has done!"
"I can hardly not see him!" Rovena exclaimed, slumping back in her chair in frustration at having been found out.
"Why not?!" Valbona cried, utterly appalled. "He mean nothing to you! Where you see him?! When?! How often..."
"I don't know! He shows up now and again! All over the place! One time a few weeks back I bumped into him in the street in the centre of town! The other time he sent an owl and we met at some club in Brighton!"
Imogen sucked in a deep breath before letting out a low whistle.
"My Nana is so going to arrest you!"
"Quiet!" Valbona snapped, shooting Imogen a scowl as Rovena's eyed widened at the notion. "Nobody arrest her! I not allow it!"
"I know you and Nana are good friends and I know she'd probably be dead if it weren't for you," Imogen said with a frown. "But that doesn't change the law, you know! Who the Aurors do and don't arrest isn't based on what you do or don't want to allow! It's barely even based on what Nana does or doesn't want to allow! She's just following the rules, she doesn't make them!"
Valbona was not listening.
"There no reason why you cannot distance yourself from him, Rovena." she told her niece as Imogen slumped back in her chair with a sigh. "You...you will not be in trouble! You stop this, yes? You stop seeing him and you...you go to Ministry of Magic before they summon you! I can go with you if you like or...or you go without me, it up to you. Ask to speak to the Deputy Head of Aurors. If she not there ask for Ted Lupin. You tell them everything you know about Jeff Fawley! You must do this, Rovena. Do not wait for them to send for you, it look far worse!"
"It's not as simple as that!" Rovena complained, hands grasping at the hem of her blouse in frustration. "Nothing's ever that simple, is it?!"
"Why not?" Valbona asked, and Rovena reached to bury her face in her hands with a heavy sigh. There was a long silence before she finally consented to looking back up at her aunt.
"They've not caught Jeff yet, have they? He's doing a pretty good job at evading capture, you have to give him that! He's good at hiding, in keeping out of the way of the authorities! And I could use a man like that, don't you think? After all, Mother and Grandmother might tell me to keep my head down, but they're no good at it themselves! They're going to get all three of us deported, there's no doubt about it! And I'm not going back to Albania! I'm not! I'm staying here, Jeff says he'll help me!"
"You need no help from him, Rovena." Valbona insisted, shaking her head vigorously. "He is nothing, Aurors catch him soon! Then what will you do? Do not rely on the likes of Jeff Fawley. Rely on me, my darling girl. I help you! I help my Rovena!"
"I already told you! I don't want to go back to Albania!" Rovena insisted shrilly, eyes widening furiously. "Especially not with you! I don't know you!"
"Your father knew me. We were very, very close. He would want me to help you, Rovena, and he would want you to let me help you. If you...if you not want to return to Albania with me then...then that makes me very sad! But I help you stay in Britain if...if that is what you want. Maybe we...we stay in Britain together...maybe I find job. They let me join British Aurors, maybe, or I...I find other work...I...I can find other work..." Valbona trailed off into silence at the thought that she had no idea what other work there might possibly be, for she had never tried her hand at anything else, and at the blank look Rovena offered her, Imogen suggested:
"Just think about what we've said. You will get called in for questioning, there's no doubt about that. It's up to you how things are when you go into that situation, that's all we're saying."
Rovena remained mute, and so Imogen rose to her feet.
"Come on," she told Valbona, who was still staring at her niece imploringly. "Let's leave her to it."
Valbona gazed at Rovena for another long moment before slowly rising to her feet.
"You send for me if you need me." she said quietly, straightening her robes. "I stay in Leaky Cauldron."
At the mention of her place of work, Imogen winced as she led the way back to the front door.
She really was going to be in an awful lot of trouble when she got back...
It seemed to Pandora Lupin that in the short twenty minutes since her grandfather had re-emerged from the Floo Network that the area surrounding her grandparents' cottage had become something akin to a military base. Peering through a window, the teenager had spied countless Aurors swarming around the house, orders being bellowed left right and centre as Head of Aurors Harry Potter stalked up and down outside the front door, directing witches and wizards this way and that. Harry had stepped inside only briefly to speak to Remus and asked Pandora a series of rapid questions that she had barely a moment to answer before disappearing back outside.
Though seemingly chaotic, soon enough the Aurors were stood clustered in carefully divided groups and Harry was just sweeping one last critical eye over the proceedings when a soft popping noise at the garden gate announced his Deputy's arrival.
Pandora watched her grandmother reach to push the gate open before striding slowly through the gathered Aurors, slipping past a witch who was busy adjusting the straps of the wand holster upon her leg. Dora paused to mutter something or other to a middle-aged wizard with a ponytail who nodded somewhat grimly at her observations, before she carried on past the others until she came to stand at Harry's side. The pair regarded their troops for a brief moment before turning their backs upon them, speech a rapid whisper.
Nose pressed firmly against the window pane, breath leaving a mist upon the glass, Pandora strained to make out what the two were saying, but she only caught a word when Harry and Dora both turned back round to look at the assembled Aurors and Harry called:
"Ted!"
Pandora was just watching her father step forward when a voice from behind her called:
"Come and sit down, Pan, the tea's ready."
Pandora reluctantly dragged her gaze away from the window, where outside a lot of frowning and pursing of lips was going on, before turning to find her grandfather busy setting down an enormous steaming teapot upon the little round table across the room.
"Nana's here." Pandora told him as she shuffled over to collect a mug, and from where she sat on the sofa, Carrie told her:
"The tea's just in time, then!"
Pandora watched her grandfather pour tea into the cluster of mugs upon the table, and no sooner had the girl reached to take a cup for herself, the front door was flung open to reveal Dora, who paused to call over her shoulder:
"Xander, you're with me!"
"I want it absolutely fool-proof!" Harry was calling after her as Teddy returned to his place amongst the other Aurors and Xander stepped past him to follow Dora inside. "I mean it, Tonks! I want it completely rock solid!"
"We know what we're doing!" Dora assured him as Xander came to stand behind her. "You know, Remus was doing this sort of thing since before you were born, and we've been living here perfectly long enough to figure it all out!" And with that, the Deputy Head of Aurors turned to step inside, Xander stepping in after her. As the door swung shut behind them, Dora made a beeline for a chest set beside the fireplace.
"Wotcher, Remus love." she called as Xander hovered somewhat awkwardly by the door.
"You're home well in time for dinner, darling." Remus observed as his wife murmured greetings to both Carrie and Pandora. "Good first day, is it?"
"Oh, Sweetheart!" Dora exclaimed, voice dripping with sarcasm as she reached to push open the chest to reveal a mass of parchment and envelopes. "It's bloody marvellous, I can tell you!" Squinting down at the chest for a moment, the witch then glanced over her shoulder at Xander to instruct: "Sit down, Xander! Nobody stands around to attention round here, you know!"
Xander set about wiping his boots carefully upon the doormat before heading towards the table.
"Clear the table, won't you love?" Dora added as she set about rummaging around in the chest. "We've work to do, the three of us."
"The three of us?" Remus echoed, fishing the wand out of his pocket in order that he could levitate the tray of tea over onto the coffee table instead, and as Xander side-stepped the floating collection of china, the Auror explained:
"Harry wishes to make good use of your local knowledge, Mr. Lupin."
"I was to drag Teddy in to help, only Xander's shoulder's playing up, so I thought us two cripples could do the paperwork together." Dora explained, frowning deeply as she tossed a stack of parchment out onto the floor. "But of course Xander has no idea about the local area like Ted does! But as I told Harry, I've got you here, Remus, the two of us ought figure things out quickly enough!"
"We're to identify as many of Fawley's escape routes as possible." Xander explained as Dora at last extracted a large roll of parchment from the bottom of the chest. "That way, if he slips away from us in the woods we've a chance of capturing him further afield, or perhaps hazard a guess as to where he'll go next."
Pandora watched her grandmother shuffle over to the table, whereupon she unrolled the parchment to reveal a large and detailed map.
"It's been some while since I took a stroll in these woods." Remus confessed, and with that he and the two Aurors each retrieved a cup of tea and sat down around the table.
"Come on, Pan love." Carrie instructed, heading for the kitchen. "Let's finish tidying up, shall we? Leave them to work."
Half a cup of tea later and Dora had sent Xander off to scout the local muggle train station, leaving herself and Remus to continue to contemplate the map upon the table alone for anything they had missed.
As Remus squinted down at the winding country roads, attempting to recall whether one or the other constituted the main road or simply a dirt track, Dora found herself watching him, a small smile tugging at her lips.
"Do you remember," she said, leaning back in her chair a little and pausing to stifle a yawn into her sleeve, "planning the route to move Harry from Privet Drive?"
"Mm." Remus murmured, without look up, leaning closer until his nose was almost pressed to the parchment.
"You were sat staring at a map just like you are now. Do you remember?"
"I do. Your contribution to that evening was unnerving, darling."
"Oh?" Dora sniggered, and at last Remus looked up to offer her a raised eyebrow.
"Yes," the werewolf confessed as she reached to rest a hand upon his knee under the table. "You had me positively spooked."
"I couldn't help it." Dora confessed, ducking her head a little at the memory. "I couldn't help staring at you."
"It was disturbing."
"Why? Can't a girl be forgiven for staring at a bloke she fancies when he's looking rather wonderfully dishevelled?"
"Not the night after a full moon she can't, no. It's a sure way to make him paranoid. Especially when you only met him for the first time a couple of weeks earlier."
Dora sniggered, leaning back in her chair as he went back to gazing down at the map.
"And how about now, love?" she asked, fixing the side of his head with an unblinking stare, and her husband took a absentminded sip of his tea and murmured:
"At our age? Knock yourself out, my love."
And though she sniggered, Dora found herself staring at him all the same.
Out of laziness, perhaps. Or sheer weariness.
Because she felt too tired to bother to help him in his intent study. It was easier to simply sit back and watch him.
She had tried to help him, all those years ago back at Grimmauld Place. She had tried to drag her eyes away from him in order to do something constructive, tried to stop listening to the hoarse yet soft tone of his voice and start listening to the actual words coming out of his mouth. She had even tried to persuade herself to turn her back on him and leap into conversation with Sirius, attempt to fend off his increasingly wild and irritable observations about everything Remus suggested, because they had made Remus frown deeply, which whilst somewhat fascinating to stare at, had also been accompanied by Moody's furious ranting about Sirius' apparent immaturity.
But instead, Dora recalled with a small smile, she had sat in silence and let Mad-Eye and Sirius get into such a furious row that Remus had confessed that the subsequent din had given him a headache. Nor had Dora managed to make a single helpful suggestion that evening about the Order's plans regarding Harry.
She had been too busy watching his careful long fingers tapping pensively upon the table, the thoughtful frown upon his brow, the worn lines around his mouth that seemed unfathomably characterful as he pursed his lips together, but disappeared when he smiled. His hair had been somewhat fine in texture, pale brown turned spun caramel and silver in candlelight, hastily combed yet stubbornly wayward about his temple, she had felt an almost uncontrollable urge to reach out and stroke it...
His hair was spread very thinly across his head, these days, Dora found herself musing fondly as she gazed at him, reaching to brush her fingers against the silvery strands. His long and nimble fingers were now blighted by swollen joints that flared up dreadfully after the full moon along with a whole host of other ageing ailments, and his face was covered by a thin layer of crumpled parchment-like skin, creased and lined so heavily that his gentle smile no longer smoothed the lines away.
Yet every inch of him was so gloriously familiar, every gradual change that time left upon him, she knew them all. Every single one. And to know him so completely was without a doubt simply beautiful. To look upon him and know all their long years together, inch by inch of skin...
Dora found herself smiling.
I'm too old, she'd recalled him protesting to her all those years ago, I'm much too old for you!
You will be by the time I'm finished with you, Remus Lupin! she had informed him stubbornly. I mean to grow old with you, mark my words!
And now here they were. Grown old.
Dora grinned.
Her husband was quick to wipe the look from her face, bringing her back to Earth with a bump.
"How are you feeling truthfully, my darling?"
Dora reached to retrieve the quill upon the table, running the soft feather between her fingers absentmindedly before confessing:
"I thought I might have a good cry in Isaac's kitchen, just now."
Remus reached instinctively to press a hand to her arm, yet he frowned and wondered:
"You've been to Isaac's?"
Dora leant back in her chair with a heavy sigh.
"It's a long story, love." she confessed, and at the expectant silence that followed she summarised: "It's been a bloody awful day, Remus. I tripped over in the Deputy's office..."
"Tripped?!"
"Yes, which has left me sore as anything, I can tell you! And of course I went and had a row with Jasmine within seconds of her setting eyes upon me..."
"Dear me..."
"It was bound to happen, she's out of her bloody mind, she really is! And everything in that office is a mess, Remus! Everything! One minute there's an Auror cadet in hysterical tears in my cubicle, the next thing I know I've somehow managed to ruin Jasmine's entire life by sending the cadet home for the afternoon! She was utterly wild, put her bloody hands on me and everything! I thought one of us was going to have to resort to hexes if she didn't shut up! And then of course she did settle down a bit, but only because I managed to start a row with Harry too and massively piss him off! Then before I know it, I'm in Harry's office apologising and he's well and truly snapped and says he's going to sack Jasmine!"
"Merlin..."
"And of course I wasn't about to just sit back and let that happen! I told him I'd walk out if he did it! But half the bloody office heard! Me and my big mouth! How in Merlin's name we managed to sit and have a rational discussion about the whole thing is beyond me, but we did! And now...now...! Sweet Merlin, Remus, you're not going to believe what's happened now!"
"You'd be surprised what I can believe about the Auror Department, darling." Remus murmured dryly, only for his eyes to widen when his wife informed him:
"I'm the sole Deputy Head of Aurors, Jasmine's been demoted and sent home for the day."
Remus simply gaped.
"And I took her home," Dora went on, though the werewolf was no longer entirely listening to her. "and I thought that'd be the end of it, but no! No, Isaac's manipulative snob of a sister had to be there, didn't she?! She had to pick on Jasmine again, didn't she?! And I had to throw her out of the bloody house...!"
"You can't be the Deputy Head of Aurors, Dora."
"As if the day couldn't get any bloody wor...what?"
Remus' gaze upon the witch had grown abruptly stern.
"You can't be the Deputy Head of Aurors." he informed her firmly. "Not on your own. I don't know what in Merlin's name Harry is thinking..."
"Why not?" Dora interrupted, sounding vaguely offended, despite her apparent annoyance at her new responsibilities. "I know what I'm doing, love! I've done this before, in case you hadn't noticed...!"
"This isn't the same as before." Remus pointed out, reaching to gather up the notes they had been taking, just as Carrie and Pandora reappeared in the room. "You've just been discharged from hospital, you're in no state to be working at all, let alone taking on a responsibility like that..."
"Oh come on, love..."
"It's not even remotely sensible, Dora. You need regular bed rest, and yes, I had noticed you've done this before, and in all those years bed rest was never part of your job description..."
"Are you going to be awkward about all of this, then?" Dora asked wearily, face contorting into a scowl. "Because quite frankly, Sweetheart, I've had it up to here with arguing with people today..."
"I'm not arguing with you, Dora." Remus insisted stubbornly. "I'm simply pointing out the blindingly obvious. I'll point it out to Harry too, mark my words..."
"Oh, come on...!"
"I know you had to go back and help, Dora. I understand that, I truly do. But you can't be running around all over the place, that was supposed to be Jasmine's job. If you don't rest and let your legs heal properly, you'll be in those braces for the rest of your life..."
"I know that!" Dora snapped, eyes widening in frustration, "But Harry and I made a deal! If I didn't take it, Jasmine would be gone for good! What do you want me to do?! Get Harry to promote somebody else over her?!"
"That would be sensible."
"She'd be even more devastated than she is already!"
"She can be as devastated as she likes, darling. I'm very fond of Jasmine, you know that. But I'm not about to condone anybody choosing her happiness over your health. You're my wife..."
"I'll be fine! I don't need Jasmine's help or anybody else's! I can do this on my own!"
Over by the fireplace, Carrie muttered darkly under her breath, and Dora was about to turn to shoot her a scowl when Remus' grip upon her arm tightened.
"Last time you persisted with an attitude like that, Dora, you landed yourself in St. Mungo's, insisted on discharging yourself far too early and proceeded to collapse in a dead faint in an arena packed full of thousands of spectators." the werewolf reminded her soberly. "So help me, I swear we are not, and I mean not, going through the likes of that ever again!"
BANG!
The four Lupins all jumped at the sudden sound from outside, all eyes instantly snapping to look towards the front window. After a sizeable pause, their hearts beginning to thump in their chests, Pandora whispered:
"Wh...what was that?"
Remus and Dora turned slowly to look at one another, the werewolf's hand sliding carefully down his wife's arm until they could grasp their hands together. When it became apparent that neither of them would speak, Carrie swallowed the large lump that had formed in her throat to whisper:
"That was a...a..."
"Was it a gun?" Pandora asked, rather as if she already knew the answer, and at the mention of guns Dora released Remus' hand and carefully pushed herself up from her chair, the chair legs scraping against the floorboards, making Pandora jump.
Remus watched his wife wordlessly reach to draw the wand from her pocket, before slowly making her way across the room towards the front door.
"Take Pandora home, Carrie." the Auror instructed firmly as she slowly passed the sofa, only for Carrie to clamp a hand to her mouth as Pandora observed:
"Dad's out there, isn't he?"
Carrie sucked in a deep, panicked breath, and as Dora paused by the front door, Remus went to usher the muggle and squib towards the fireplace.
"Listen to me, Carrie." Dora heard the werewolf murmur as Carrie consented to stumbling forward a few steps. "Listen...look at me. That's it, look at me. I'm sure it's nothing, but you need to take Pandora home. I want you to both go home and I shall make sure Ted owls you as soon as he is back, alright? It's nothing, I'm sure of it."
Carrie gave a stiff nod, hand falling back down to her side. The muggle gave herself a resolute little shake before reaching for the pot of floo powder.
"I'm sure you're right." she agreed, reaching to put an arm around her daughter. "Do make sure he owls, won't you? He's dreadfully forgetful, sometimes...you'll remind him, won't you Dora?"
Carrie, Pandora and Remus all turned to look at Dora, only to find that she appeared not to be listening. Wand gripped carefully in one hand, the Auror reached forward slowly to grasp hold of the door handle...
Her fingers had barely brushed against the cool metal when she was forced to stumble backwards as the front door of the cottage was flung open to reveal a red-faced Auror who, in his dazed rush, tripped over the threshold and fell to his knees at Dora's feet.
"Deputy Lupin!" the young wizard gasped, eyes wide as he scrambled to look up at her. "I...I saw it, I saw...I..."
"Calm down, Finn! What is it?!" Dora asked, reaching to grasp hold of him by the shoulder, and Carrie's grip upon Pandora tightened as Finn Grover babbled:
"He got him! He got him, I...I saw!"
"He got who, Finn?" Dora pressed, giving him a small shake, her expression causing him to suck in a deep, calming breath, only to continue to sound agitated as he exclaimed:
"He got Harry! He's...he's shot Harry!"
A deafening silence descended upon the room, punctured by Finn's gasping breaths as he struggled to catch his breath. Dora's hand slipped from her shoulder as she stared down at him, and over by the fireplace, Remus reached to grasp a steadying hand to the mantlepiece.
It was as if she had just been thrown into icy water, Dora found, as if she were being sucked under and down into the numb and empty depths below, as if she had been clinging onto a rope and weathering a storm, only for somebody to cut her adrift with a single pull of a trigger...
Her mind was swimming and she was drowning and somehow she felt too numb to panic. Panic required frantic thoughts, after all, and Dora couldn't even think enough to blink...
"Ron's apparating him to Mungo's." Finn explained after a long pause, hauling himself back onto his feet. "That makes...that makes you Acting Head of Aurors, Bertie says. That's...that's right, isn't it?"
Dora simply stared at him.
Acting Head of Aurors.
Her.
Now.
Like this.
Tired. Crippled. Drained. Unprepared. Panicked. Anxious. Uncertain.
Lost...
"What should we do now?" Finn asked her urgently, reaching to brush the mud from his robes. "What are your orders?"
Dora opened her mouth to speak, only to promptly close it again.
"How did he seem to you?" Remus called, causing Finn to glance past Dora to look at him. "Harry, when you saw him?"
Harry.
Dora thought she might stop breathing.
Was he alright? Was he even alive?! She didn't know much about guns or gunshot wounds, she'd never heard of anyone being shot before, what would Ginny and the rest of the family think?! What would they do?! What in Merlin's name was she going to do, left to pick up all the pieces...
"He was in dreadful pain, Mr. Lupin." Finn was telling Remus gravely.
"And where was he shot?"
"His stomach, Mr. Lupin."
Remus visibly paled as Finn's gaze darted hurriedly back to Dora, who was still struggling to order her thoughts.
"What are your orders?" Finn asked her again, but Dora wasn't sure she could even hear him. He might have asked her again, twice, three times perhaps...
"Please, Mrs. Lupin!" he pressed, finally resorting to raising his voice as he rocked back on his heels impatiently. "Your orders?!"
And Dora found herself muttering the first thing that came to mind:
"Regroup." she mumbled, only to give herself a small shake and clear her throat purposefully. "Everybody must regroup for further instructions. Immediately."
"Yes, Boss." Finn Grover said, sounding relieved that she had finally spoken, and with that he turned and dashed back outside, snatching the wand from his pocket before launching a bombardment of red sparks up into the air.
Nymphadora Lupin had always wanted to be the Head of Aurors, she mused as she turned to gage the distinctly grey expression upon her husband's face.
But not like this.
She stared helplessly at Remus, willing for some sort of guidance, her brain simply overwhelmed by the barrage of events in recent weeks. She silently pleaded with him to say something, anything...
The werewolf reached to fold his arms firmly across his chest, gazing back at her for a long moment, before he sighed heavily and, despite their earlier disagreement, told her:
"Do it."
And so she did.
Pandora watched through watery eyes as her grandmother promptly turned back to stride somewhat stiffly outside, a flourished flick of her wand sending a burst of red sparks up into the air, and a split second later her magically amplified voice was booming amongst the trees:
"MAN DOWN! AURORS TO ME!"
Within moments Aurors were apparating amongst the trees, rushing to gather in careful formation just beyond the garden gate. With another flick of Dora's want, the notes Remus had carefully set down upon the table went flying across the room and out of the door, caught haphazardly in Dora's hand, leaving them somewhat crumpled. As the last few stragglers lined up at the back of the assembled Aurors, Dora set about shuffling the papers, glancing down at them in consideration for a moment before she looked up.
"Harry has been shot and injured and is being rushed to St. Mungo's as we speak!" she announced, causing one or two of the Aurors to shift uncomfortably. One or two of them began to whisper to one another, only for Dora to snap: "Quiet! As such, I will be taking charge of the department as Acting Head of Aurors until further notice! Now, I am sure Ron will send us news from the hospital as soon as possible, but for the time being we have a lot of work to do! We must do our upmost to cut off Fawley's escape from this area. We must all remain steadfast and focused upon the task at hand, Harry would expect nothing less of us, is that clear?!"
"Yes, Boss!" the Aurors chorused, causing Dora to very nearly flinch at the address they usually reserved for Harry. She squared her shoulders a little before continuing.
"I have here a list of key places Fawley is likely to pass through should he attempt to leave these woods. You shall stand watch in pairs and take as many defensive measures as possibly, for the love of Merlin do not let that man pass you! I don't care if he's got a gun! I don't care if he's got an invisibility cloak! He will not get the better of us! Ted and Finn! You'll head straight for the village store and buy as much salt, flour, rice or anything similar as you can! Each pair will take a supply of this with them and will spread it around the area they are guarding. Watch for footprints in the flour, scuffs in the salt, anything to indicate that it has been disturbed! I want muggle detection spells! I want locked gates! I want blocked bridges! Do not let him pass! Am I making myself crystal clear?!"
"Yes, Boss!"
"Good! Let's go get that bastard, then! Pair up!"
If Dora's first day back at work was a particularly poor one, Imogen's day was, quite possibly, infinitely worse.
The eldest Lupin daughter arrived home that evening feeling so unbearably low that she stood upon the front doorstep for five minutes, willing herself to go inside.
Willing herself to face her mother and father.
Willing herself to look them both in the eye and confess what had come to pass upon her return to the Leaky Cauldron earlier that afternoon.
To tell them that absconding from the pub that day to escape facing her ex-boyfriend and run off to Norfolk with Valbona, had been the final straw.
No indeed, Imogen couldn't bear the thought of confessing to her parents that she had been sacked.
It seemed, however, when she did finally pluck up the courage to open the door and shuffle into the hallway, that as per usual the rest of her family were much too preoccupied with other people to give much thought to Imogen. She had barely set about shrugging off her jacket when Pandora came rushing down the hallway, reaching to shove a copy of that evening's Evening Prophet under her nose.
"Have you seen this?!" the younger sister demanded to know, giving the paper a good shake just in case Imogen had missed it. "Where have you been all day?! Mum did owl you, you know! We wanted to tell you before it got splashed all over the front page!"
Imogen reached to snatch the newspaper from Pandora's hands, unfolding it to reveal the headline that made her stomach turn over.
HEAD OF AURORS SHOT AS FAWLEY EVADES CAPTURE IN KENT!
Head of Aurors, Harry Potter has been rushed to hospital by colleagues after being shot with a muggle gun in an attempt to capture notorious fugitive Jeffrey Fawley.
The Auror Department were alerted to Fawley's whereabouts after he was spotted in the woods by Pandora Lupin, a fellow Squib who attended Fawley's Society and is familiar with him. Pandora, daughter of Auror Theodore Lupin and granddaughter of newly re-instated Deputy Head of Aurors, Nymphadora Lupin, is rumoured to have inspired the name 'Pan's Army', the militant group of which Fawley is the leader. Ministry sources claim that Pandora ran back to her grandparents' cottage, whereupon her grandfather raised the alarm. Fawley is reported to have been wounded in a previous incident that day, and is in possession of an invisibility cloak and muggle gun, with which he shot Mr. Potter during an operation to apprehend him. His current whereabouts are unknown, but sources told our reporters that every effort is being made by the Auror Department to cut off Fawley's escape from the local area.
Speaking outside of the Ministry of Magic this evening, Acting Head of Aurors, Nymphadora Lupin said that Mr. Potter was in 'safe hands', and that his wife and family were at his bedside. Mrs. Lupin, who was discharged from St. Mungo's herself yesterday afternoon after being caught in the Diagon Alley blast for which Fawley takes credit, was reinstated to her post as Deputy only this morning, and takes over as temporary Head of Aurors despite her own poor health. Despite this, the former British Duelling Champion stressed that she would not allow Mr. Potter's absence from the department to hinder the investigation.
"There will be no hesitations," Mrs. Lupin told Evening Prophet reporters, "no mistakes and no setbacks as a result of what has happened. We have a risky job and incidents like this are always possible. As a department we will deal with this unfortunate incident in the professional manner in which we approach all of our work. I will not tolerate Mr. Potter's absence as an excuse for mistakes in this critical stage of our investigation. Everything will go on as usual, and I will oversee the running of the department until Mr. Potter is fit enough to return to us."
Mr. Potter's absence will no doubt raise concerns amongst the public, and reporters were surprised to see Mrs. Lupin appear alone outside the Ministry this evening without the support of Miss Jasmine Wickes, with whom Mrs. Lupin is sharing the Deputy position.
"Jasmine is away on leave today." Mrs. Lupin reported when asked about her colleague's absence. "She is perfectly aware of the situation at hand and I have no doubt that she will endeavour to keep the department running smoothly and help us all to remain focused on our goals upon her return. Be that as it may, her absence is not in the least bit noteworthy. We have been known to take a rare day off, you know! I have everything in order here. There is no reason for people to panic or for Jasmine to come rushing back. It's unhealthy to work such long hours without the odd day off, we are all only human after all. That's why I'm here. To give Jasmine and Harry a break."
Mrs. Lupin went on to speak of the agonising few hours after the shooting, whilst awaiting news of Mr. Potter's condition from St. Mungo's hospital.
"Obviously it is very difficult to remain focused and professional at a time like this." she confessed when asked about the time in question. "I have known Harry since he was fifteen years old. I've spent the vast majority of my life watching his back in one way or another, and my husband and I care deeply for him. We fought a war together, have worked together for many years since then, we are godparents to one another's children, we spend holidays and weekends together...we really do consider Harry to be part of our family. My husband and I were very concerned to hear that he had been injured and were anxious to hear news of him. We are all very relieved to be told that his condition has stabilized for the time being. To be frank, however, I know all about carrying on regardless. I've lost numerous friends and relatives over the years, often in difficult or downright traumatic incidents similar to this one. And I have not and will not ever just stop or give in. That's simply not in my nature."
The Acting Head of Aurors refused to discuss her granddaughter's part in the day's events, and also declined requests to speak in detail regarding the Auror Department's current investigation, telling reporters to 'let us worry about the details. You lot can concentrate on minding your own bloody business!', although she did cryptically suggest people should look out for Ministry public announcement posters due to be released onto the streets first thing tomorrow morning.
"I wrote them myself." the former member of the Order of the Phoenix announced as she made to head home for the evening. "So listen up, Wizarding Britain!"
"Bloody hell..." Imogen muttered as Pandora rocked impatiently back and forward upon her heels. "Are you alright? How's Harry now? Is Dad home?"
Despite the drastic news that Pandora proceeded to babble about as Imogen pulled off her shoes and reached to hang up her bag, the elder sister was finding it all a bit difficult to take in or even concentrate on.
The world seemed dull and muffled, she felt so bogged down by her own day's events to give any decent consideration to anybody else's...
Dinner that evening was a brief affair, owing to Teddy's upcoming late evening shift guarding a road into town some short distance from his parents' cottage, and Imogen was glad to be given an early opportunity to disappear upstairs into her room.
And yet in her room, lying upon her bed and staring blankly up at the ceiling, listening to the muffled sounds of movement back down in the kitchen as Carrie and Pandora set about the washing up, Imogen felt infinitely worse. Because in the silence of her room, it was much too easy to think.
She had yet to confess to her parents that she was now unemployed, nor had they seemed to notice that she was out of sorts. Imogen rather wished that they had done. She wished for a confession to be squeezed out of her, for somebody to say something, anything to make her feel slightly less wretched...
But her parents wouldn't do, she supposed after some dull consideration, hugging a pillow to her chest with a frown. Because no matter what they said, she knew deep down that they would be disappointed in her.
Next, Imogen considered her grandparents.
Grandparents. The givers of limitless and, apparently, unconditional love. That was a fact. A rule.
It seemed somewhat selfish to burden a grandparent with such disappointing news when they were no doubt obliged to react in a favourable manner.
Even if Nana Dora's version of unconditional love had a habit of being a little on the tough side for her granddaughters' own good.
And besides, Imogen could scarcely imagine how hectic her grandmother's life was at this particular moment in time, nor quite what either grandparent would have to say to have the family thrown into yet more chaos. Pandora had done quite a spectacular job of all that on her own already.
Thinking of Pandora made Imogen feel yet more wretched. Losing her job seemed downright insignificant as a problem compared to Pandora managing to fall pregnant. Kicking up a fuss about this would, Imogen supposed, be rather like throwing a tantrum over stepping in a wad of chewing gum.
It still didn't seem real to Imogen, her little sister being pregnant. Pandora had spent so much time over at their grandparents' house since dropping the bombshell that the whole series of unfortunate events that had landed her in this dreadful situation seemed unreal. This was aided by the fact that the younger Lupin sister had yet to truly look pregnant, though Imogen had caught her gazing at her reflection in the mirror on a few occasions, smoothing down her t-shirt over her stomach and squinting at herself in a distinctly paranoid fashion. And each time Imogen caught sight of her, it felt as if somebody was punching her in the stomach. She had rather expected the two of them to sit down at some point and talk about it all, perhaps think about what Pandora might do next, just as they often had before when one of them had a problem. But it seemed that pregnancy was not a subject for sisters, but one for parents and grandparents alone. Imogen supposed she ought be glad, for she couldn't imagine what she would say if Pandora did ask for her advice, and yet somehow the silence between them was painful to her.
Everything seemed painful, these days. The situation with Pandora, the sudden stress upon the rest of the family, Nana Dora's health, and now Imogen being jobless. Hopeless.
Even losing Jamie was still painful. Imogen had thought she was beginning to get over the whole sorry situation, it had been a while since they had split after all, and yet the day's events had only proved that she couldn't have been more wrong.
Despite everything that he had done, Imogen found that she missed him now, as she lay alone in her bedroom, struggling with wave after wave of emotion.
Both Teddy and Nana Dora had labelled Jamie as something of an airhead, a dreamer with his head stuck in the clouds. Imogen supposed now that they had been right. Overall this had rendered him something of a waste of space, but right now Imogen wished she still had him there to dream the evening away with. He had always been good at cheering her up when life was getting her down, with his wild fantasies, daft plans and idealistic notions that Imogen would soon find herself caught up in. Even back then she had probably known what he was saying was downright silly, but it didn't matter. Somehow the world looked better dressed in a clown's costume or a comical false moustache, prancing around a make-believe reality and hiding from the truth. He had always made her laugh and smile and feel on top of the world, as if the two of them together could survive anything and keep on smiling no matter what life threw at them.
But here she was. On her own. Unwanted. Unsuccessful. Unhopeful.
And before long, Imogen found herself with an irrepressible desire to simply forget. To forget herself and all that had happened and all that was happening now...
So she stumbled off into the bathroom to drench herself under the shower. She washed away any semblance of despair before drying herself off and returning to her bedroom, whereupon she sat before her dressing table mirror and decided upon her mask. She dusted cheerful colour into her cheeks, blotted out the weariness beneath her eyes, dusted emerald glitter upon her eyelids as if she were carefree enough to be concerned by glamour, and finished off the deception with a shiny lipstick smile. She slipped a slinky copper coloured dress from her wardrobe, eying the party-esque spray of sequins upon the garment approvingly for a long moment, before stepping into it. After giving her short hair the once over with a comb and artfully ruffling it a little at the sides, Imogen stepped into a pair of boots and stood before the mirror, staring at herself.
She looked as if she were about to go for a night out on the town with her friends, she thought, squinting at her lipstick in consideration. She looked perfectly normal.
Since splitting up with Jamie and quitting her job at the Quidditch stadium, Imogen's circle of friends had shrunk considerably, however she still had a good number of school friends who she saw on a regular basis. One of Imogen's best friends at Hogwarts had been Ravenclaw Anna Goldstein, who Imogen had met in her first year Potions class. Both gifted Potions students, their friendship had spawned from good-natured competition in the classroom as the pair battled to be top of the class. Within their first year the had become near on inseparable outside of their respective common rooms, despite Anna's complete lack of interest in Imogen's obsession with Quidditch and Imogen being too restless to share Anna's love of constantly burying her nose in a book. A year and a half after they had left Hogwarts, however, Anna had left England for America to work for a major manufacturer of cauldrons and the pair saw one another rarely, communicating by owl every fortnight or so. Back in England, Imogen had remained friends with a number of her fellow members of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and the odd other student from her year. They were, as a group, quite keen on a good night out with a few drinks and dancing, though it had been some time since Imogen had bothered to join in with their exploits. Imogen felt as if this ought to all change now, that she ought attempt to get back to normality before she went quite mad...
There was little time to contact any friends and ask them to join her for a night out on the town, however, and quite frankly Imogen wasn't feeling terribly social.
So she went alone.
She bumped into her mother on the stairs as Carrie carried a pile of laundry up to the bedrooms. The muggle eyed her eldest child with a raised eyebrow.
"Where are you going, then?" she asked, sounding quite bemused that anybody would have the energy to leave the house on a night like this, and Imogen merely mumbled:
"Out."
"Anywhere nice?"
"Maybe...I don't know."
"What time are you coming home?"
"No idea."
Carrie turned to lean against the wall, still clutching hold of the washing as she watched the young witch head for the front door.
"Well I'm glad we had this enlightening conversation, Im." she told the back of her daughter's head as Imogen snatched up a coat from a hook beside the door. "Be careful out on your own, won't you love? Try not to stay out too late, either. I've enough to be worrying about without adding you to the list!"
Imogen muttered something distinctly sulky under her breath as she yanked her arms into the coat sleeves, but Carrie ignored her.
"Dad'll be back at about one this morning. I'll have him check on you, make sure you're all tucked up in bed..."
At long last Imogen managed to utter a full sentence, glancing round to shoot a scowl up the staircase.
"Mum," she said, snatching up her bag from where she had abandoned it earlier. "I'm twenty bloody one years old..."
"Precisely, Im."
"What's that supposed to mean? Nana Dora was arresting Dark Wizards and hurling them into prison cells by the time she was twenty one..."
"I know that." Carrie sighed, reaching awkwardly with one hand to rub a weary hand at her temple, narrowly avoiding spilling clothes all down the stairs. "But...but you're not your grandmother, are you love? And more importantly she isn't my daughter. If I had been Nana Dora's mother when she was twenty one, I probably would have gone grey by the time she turned twenty two! It's a mum thing, you know. We're all the same, we can't help it, you just have to humour us..."
"I bet Great Grandma Andromeda didn't go grey early." Imogen grumbled, digging a booted toe into the carpet. "I bet she trusted her adult daughter...!"
Carrie gave a disbelieving titter as she turned and continued on up the stairs.
"Don't be ridiculous, Sweetheart." she called to her daughter over her shoulder. "No sane mother trusts any daughter who brings a werewolf home for tea and announces that she intends to marry him! I expect that alone is enough to make a mother grey on the spot, you mark my words! I expect Andromeda spent every waking moment fretting Nana might do something absurd or foolish...like getting pregnant in the middle of a war! Can you imagine what such a thing might lead to?! Just think!"
And despite her mood, Imogen found herself sniggering as she reached to pull open the door, very nearly smiling to hear her mother call:
"Have a nice time then, love! Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"
Somehow Imogen suspected she might well do...
As he stood just inside the doorway, wiping his heavy boots upon the doormat, Teddy Lupin gazed across the room at the witch hunched over the little round table, scrawling notes upon parchment as if her very life depended upon it. The room was peacefully quiet, punctuated by the soft snores of his father dosing in the chair before the empty fireplace, only for the frantic scratching of quill on parchment to disturb the atmosphere somewhat.
"Checking up on me, are you?" the Acting Head of Aurors murmured with barely a glance up at her son as he took a few careful steps further into the room. "You'll be late, you know!"
"I'll be perfectly early, actually." Teddy told her, and the witch glanced over at the clock upon the wall as he added: "And I'm checking up on the pair of you."
"Well Dad's a bit worn out." Dora murmured, cocking her head in her husband's direction, and as Teddy shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his robes he crept carefully across the room in an attempt not to disturb his father.
"And you?" he whispered, once he had come to a halt at his mother's side. "Aren't you a bit worn out too, Mum?"
"The Head of Aurors doesn't have time to be worn out, love." Dora mumbled, only to yawn widely, and Teddy shrugged and told her:
"I don't know, Harry seems to be managing it!"
The two of them lapsed into a sober silence for a long moment before Teddy asked:
"Have you been to see him? Either of you?"
"Dad went briefly this afternoon, says it was pandemonium." Dora recalled darkly. "Ginny and the children were in a right state and of course the family's grown so much now, could hardly fit into the corridor outside, let alone around the bed! All the children were running amok and Lily and the others were too preoccupied to stop them...sounded like madness! Dad only spent a few minutes with Harry before the healers started throwing people out. I wish I'd gone with him, but I've not had a moment spare!"
"How was he? Harry?"
"Drugged up to his eyeballs and barely staying conscious. But he's still with us, so that's a relief!"
"He'll be alright?"
"The healers are confident. Hopefully they'll be quick about it, those pain potions are bloody awful, make you go all funny in the head...Dad says Harry kept calling him 'Professor'!" Dora trailed off with an almost-snigger as if she were too tired to manage it.
Teddy gazed down at the parchment-strewn table as his mother reached for a clean sheet of parchment, stamped with the Ministry logo in deep purple ink at it's head. As she dipped her quill carefully into the pot of black ink at her elbow, Teddy asked:
"What're you doing now?"
"Writing summons." Dora murmured distractedly as she carefully began to address the paper with: Miss R Luga, 14 Lord's Road.
"Right," Teddy said, eying the scrawled list of names she had left to one side. He pursed his lips together for a long moment at the sight of his daughter's name written in full, as if Dora had no connection to her whatsoever, before wondering: "Couldn't you wait until morning, though?"
"No, love." Dora murmured, pausing to yawn again, narrowly avoiding dripping ink all over the letter she was composing. "They're to be sent first thing in time for interviews in the afternoon."
"Right..."
"I must remember to owl Jasmine."
"Oh?"
"Yes. I want her to take charge of the cadets for the foreseeable future."
"Are...are you sure that's wise, Mum?"
"No, as it happens I think it's a stupid idea, Ted. That's why I'm doing it."
Teddy's eyes drifted towards his boots with a frown at the sarcasm as his mother gave an irritable huff.
"I want her out of the way until she can pull herself together. And I don't want her tiptoeing awkwardly around the office whilst the rest of you whisper and gossip about her demotion! It's hard enough for her as it is without all of that nonsense...I know what Aurors are like!"
"Do you really think the cadets will be any better to her? It's not easy standing up there in front of them every day and persuading them to respect you..."
"The cadets will be as good to her as I tell them to be." Dora insisted stubbornly. "If they can't show her the respect she deserves, they can kiss goodbye any dreams of qualifying and sod off out of my department!"
Teddy sniggered, stepping round to stand behind her, his hands coming to rest upon her shoulders.
"Merlin, we've missed you at work." he said as Dora eyed her penmanship critically for a moment before beginning a new line. His grip upon her shoulders tightened as she admitted: "I've missed you at work. More than I thought I would, I mean. I knew I'd miss seeing you every day and having someone's office to hide away in at lunchtime, and I knew I'd miss having you around to...to rant and rave at the older ones and hand out tissues to the cadets and so on! But in a way I was looking forward to you retiring...to being the only Lupin in the department and not have being your son be a big deal to anyone anymore. But you know, that's never really changed. You're a giant in that office, Mum. Even when you weren't there anymore it was still like having this label plastered to my forehead! He's her son! Let's see if he's another giant or if he doesn't live up to his name at all! And I realised after a while...all of that got worse when you were gone. Because when you're there it's like...well you can't have more than one giant in an office, can you? There's just not enough room! But as soon as you leave they look at me as if I should fill your shoes..."
"You stick to your own shoes, Sweetheart." Dora told him, setting down her quill so that she could reach to press a hand atop of his upon her shoulder. "I used to get the same whenever people mentioned Mad-Eye had me singled out ever since Auror training. They think that makes me special...think it makes me the same as him. But it doesn't. I've still got both eyes and I might be crippled but I do have both legs still attached! People get too caught up by the sound of a name, you know. What's a name really got to do with the thing itself? Like you say, it's just a label to some people. To the more sensible amongst us, it's more of a statement of hope. Mad-Eye fought my corner and put his name on my qualification documents because he hoped I would grow to be a great Auror. In the same vein, I named you for the two kindest and most decent men in my life; your grandfather and your father. And I did that in the hope that you might grow up to be the same sort of man that they both were. But ultimately you are your own man, Ted. You are an individual. And if you had grown to be a carbon copy of your father I would have been bitterly disappointed. Don't you try and make all the same decisions and mistakes as I did during my career just because a bunch of people can't recognise the pointlessness of names. You make your own way and however it turns out I'll be proud of you."
Teddy's chin came to rest upon his mother's head as she yawned yet again.
"I bet you wouldn't ever say such a thing to Imogen." he whispered as Dora eyed the paperwork before her in despair, and the witch allowed her eyes to drift closed for a moment before insisted:
"Of course I would!"
"But...?" Teddy probed with a grin as over by the fireplace Remus stirred in his sleep.
Dora failed to suppress a snigger before she muttered:
"But she better bloody well get her act together first!"
"She and the rest of us." Teddy laughed, shaking his head as he straightened up. "We're still not set on what to do about Pandora."
"Give it time, love." Dora mumbled sleepily, and Teddy told her:
"You should give yourself time, Mum. Get some rest, like the hospital told you."
Dora gave a hollow chuckle, stubbornly retrieving her quill.
"I think I'm past being tired, Ted." she confessed as she set about printing a loopy signature at the bottom of the letter. "I feel as if I might as well keep going until I fall asleep at the table because I've not the energy to get up and go to bed."
Teddy watched her carefully complete the letter with: Nymphadora Lupin, Acting Head of Aurors, before he reached to pluck the quill from her hand.
"You can borrow my arm, then." he insisted, making a show of offering her the limb in question, and Dora eyed her incomplete work for a long moment before sighing heavily and consenting to take his arm. He eased her carefully up out of the chair and she grimaced at the stiffness in her limbs as they set about a slow walk towards the bedroom, she leaning more heavily upon him as they neared the door. He helped ease her down onto the bed and as he rearranged the pillows at her back she found herself musing:
"This is an odd role reversal, don't you think? It used to be me tucking you up in bed before I disappeared off on night shift."
"Do you remember what you used to tell me?" Teddy asked as she slumped back against the pillows with a yawn. "When I was small?"
"Oh love, I told you all sorts of nonsense!"
Teddy went to draw the curtains firmly across the curtains.
"Mummy's off on a big adventure, Teddy love!" he mimicked with a grin. "So you be a good boy, get to sleep and dream all about it, then we'll compare notes about it in the morning!"
Dora managed a vague chuckle as he even leant down to press a kiss to her forehead, and as he straightened up she confessed:
"There are no dreams about where I'm heading, Ted. It's been nothing but a nightmare right from the beginning!"
At that precise moment there came the sound of tapping upon the bedroom window. Teddy went to push back the curtain to spot a large tawny owl perched upon the window ledge.
"You've got post." he informed his mother as he reached to pull the window open, and the owl fluttered inside, swooping across the room to land upon the bed, sticking out a wobbly leg so that Dora could reach to untie the small envelope that was attached to it's talons.
"It's from the Ministry." the witch observed dully as she caught sight of the purple wax sealing the letter shut.
"Kingsley?" Teddy suggested as Dora glanced at the handwriting upon the front of the envelope.
"No..."
"Have you spoken to him yet?"
"Oh yes. I went and saw him this afternoon when things had quietened down around here. Thought we ought talk before I gave a statement to the press."
As Dora reached almost reluctantly to break the wax seal open, Teddy gave a snigger.
"Did he have to remind you to be polite to them?"
"He didn't remind me to do anything." Dora recalled as she pulled the letter out of the envelope and set about unfolding it. "He might've begged me to be polite to them, mind you..." she trailed off as she set about skim reading the letter in her hands and despite the dim light of the room, Teddy thought her face grew pale.
"What date is it today, Teddy?" Dora whispered after a long moment of staring down at the letter in her hands, and Teddy gave a shrug.
"The seventh, I think? Why?"
"Because it's a dark day, love. It's a black day, mark my words."
Teddy found himself rocking apprehensively back upon his heels as he watched the witch throw the letter into her lap with a look of grim disgust.
"What is it?" Teddy whispered as his mother reached to rake a ink-splattered hand through her snowy white hair.
"Fetch me a quill, parchment and ink and something to lean on." the Acting Head of Aurors instructed quietly. "Then go straight to your post and relieve Auror Spinnet of her watch. Business as usual please, Auror Lupin!"
"But what is it?" Teddy pressed, edging only slightly back towards the bedroom door, and as she rearranged the envelope and letter in her lap in a distinctly purposeful manner, Dora told him:
"There's been a murder, Ted. Now go on, straight to your post!"
Teddy opened and closed his mouth a few times before managing to utter:
"Who...?"
"Later, Teddy! You know the rules under my watch, don't you? Any Auror late for guard duty will be put on immediate disciplinary measures! So go on!"
"But are you alright?" Teddy pressed, shoving his hands worriedly in his pockets. "I mean...it's not...not somebody we know, is it?!"
"I doubt you ever met her, no."
"But you...?"
"I knew of her...we've spoken, I suppose." Dora slumped back against the pillows, her eyes screwed shut for a moment as she recalled: "I passed her in the corridor outside Kingsley's office this afternoon. We wished one another a good afternoon...! Merlin...what a thought!"
"Who was she? What was her name?!"
Dora sighed heavily before slowly dragging her eyes back open.
"Morwenna Maddox. She's held a seat on the Wizengamot since time immemorial." the Acting Head of Aurors murmured grimly. "You won't forget her name in a hurry, mark my words! It'll be all over the front pages of the Prophet and blaring out over the WWN before you can utter the phrase: letter bomb."
"Letter bomb?!" Teddy echoed, eyes widening at the notion, only for his mother to snap:
"For the last time, Theodore! Get to your bloody post! Else I swear to Merlin I'll make it a double shift!"
"Who d'you think would send a letter bomb to..."
"I don't bloody know! Now go!"
"Yes, Boss!" Teddy muttered as he turned to sweep out of the room, and as Dora listened to him gather up the parchment and ink upon the table in the next room for her, the witch's eyes drifted wearily shut again as she confessed to the empty room:
"I don't know who, but I bet I could have a bloody good guess..."