Chapter 14 – A Different Set of Chains

3rd April 1980

The house was nice. It was in a small, objectively nice village and had a tall oak tree in the back garden that reminded James of his parents' house and the times he and Sirius had climbed the tree by the back door.

It was quiet.

Well, other than Sirius, who was flitting to and fro, carrying boxes and talking too loudly. Peter was here too, walking around the perimeter of the garden, peering over the fences. He seemed on edge. James regretted having to place the weight of being their secret keeper upon his shoulders.

It was a familiar scene, his friends in his home, Lily's hand in his, but it felt like looking at a photograph that had been dropped in the rain. The image was distorted and nothing was quite the way it should be. Sirius' laughter was edged with the worry that James knew he had been trying hard not to show, Remus was off on another mission for Dumbledore unaware that today was the day he and Lily were moving, unaware that Godrick's Hollow was the location of their new home. Lily's hand in his was sweaty, and when she smiled at him she looked down at the now large baby bump protruding from her stomach. "This is for the best," she told him firmly. "We'll be safe here."

James felt as though the whole thing was a lie. Lying to Remus, lying to themselves that a chocolate box house in a quiet village would block out what was happening in the rest of the world.

He wished it didn't feel like a lie. He wished his parents were here.

"I should go."

Peter was suddenly by his side; James hadn't even noticed him.

"Come on Pete, there's still stuff to move!" Sirius argued from the doorway. He was holding the cat carrier which housed a very unimpressed Peanut, who was growling lowly at Sirius as he gestured to Peter.

"Sorry," Peter said, "I'm not feeling well." He hesitated for a moment, stood beside James, shielding his eyes from the early spring sun as he looked up at him, "I hope you're happy here," he said.

"Thanks Pete."

"I'll see you later."

He left.

Lily made tea. It seemed like the thing to do.

They sat on the familiar sofa, in the unfamiliar room, with Peanut sniffing around their feet, exploring her new territory.

"Hey kitty," Sirius said, reaching down to stroke the cat, who promptly hissed at him. She jumped up onto Lily's lap, gazing suspiciously at Sirius from the other end of the sofa.

"That animal has never liked me," Sirius frowned.

"You're a dog," James pointed out. "She can sense it."

"She hasn't even seen me transform!" Sirius argued, "and don't cats have bad memories anyway?"

James just shrugged.

"Well watch this, cat!" Sirius demanded, standing up. He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating, and the next thing James knew, Padfoot's head was nudging the side of his leg, his tail wagging furiously.

"Really, Sirius?" Lily sighed, though she was smiling. Peanut looked horrified.

"Woof," said Sirius.

The cat fled, leaping from Lily's knee and onto the coffee table, before jumping down and darting around the pile of boxes labelled 'bathroom stuff.'

Sirius yapped happily, charging after her rather less gracefully. He collided with one of the boxes, knocking it over, before skidding on the wooden floor and losing his footing.

Peanut, who had jumped to the safety on the windowsill, looked down on him with disdain.

"Ah yes," James said, laughing at his friend, "as graceful as ever. How you ever made the quidditch team is beyond me."

"Bribed the Captain didn't I," Sirius grinned as he transformed back into himself.

"Get up you lout," Lily said, kicking Sirius lightly with her foot, "your tea's getting cold."

Sirius did as he was told, squeezing back onto the sofa beside James just as Lily stood up.

"Well I think I'm going to try out the new bath," she declared. "My back is killing me." She glanced down at her stomach, placing a hand over the bump there. "Thanks for that, by the way," she smiled.

"He doesn't mean it." James said. "Do you need any help?"

"Surprisingly James, I think I'll manage," she shook her head at her husband, fondly ruffling his hair, "I'll be back soon."

She left, leaving James and Sirius alone. It had always been easy before, but for some reason James felt at a loss of what to say. Thankfully, Sirius didn't have the same problem.

"I've been meaning to tell you about something," he said almost immediately. "I had a visit from my mother the other day."

"What?" James said, surprised Walburga even knew where Sirius lived. "What did she want?"

"She was looking for Reg, he's missing."

"Missing?" James repeated, "for how long?"

"I don't know, a few months."

"Shit."

"Yeah," Sirius sighed.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I don't think it can be anything good."

"It might not mean – maybe he just-"

"You don't have to do that," Sirius interrupted. "Pretend."

James was silent. Sirius and Regulus had been estranged for years, and James, who had always been close with his family, wasn't sure how it would feel to not know his own brother.

"I'm not going to let it happen to you," Sirius said firmly. "I know it's quiet here, but it's the safest place to be."

James nodded. "Okay."

"I haven't told Remus."

"That we're in Godrick's Hollow? I know, but you should. He should visit, and Dumbledore's just cautious…"

"About Reg either. I don't know why, I just get so angry about everything."

"Remus is our friend," James said simply. "I know you two have, you know, a different relationship than the rest of us but he's still your friend. You can talk to him."

"Yeah," Sirius said, "I guess you're right."

Remus would never quite get used to Knockturn Alley. As a teenager, it had been tempting only because it was forbidden, but as an adult it was disturbing. Though there were some normal shops, like the Beard Trimming barber shop and Mr Mulpepper's Apothecary, the shrunken heads and human remains found in other shop windows were hard to ignore. As he walked past Markus Scarrs Indelible Tattoos and up the steps to the White Wyvern pub, he pulled the hood of his cloak further over his face. This was not a good place for him to be seen.

The pub was as dark and dingy as the rest of Knockturn Alley, the blinds drawn and the only light coming from a flickering lantern set on each table. As always, it was quiet, every conversation hushed. Most people had their hoods up like Remus, and he received a few suspicious looks when he walked in the door: if you were at the White Wyvern, you were a dealer in secrecy and mistrust.

In the darkest corner, nine people were gathered at a circular table, and Remus pulled up the chair to make a group of ten. This was not the first time he had met with these people, but he still knew very few of their names. Werewolves were not in the business of making their lycanthropy well known. As he settled in his seat, a woman next to him nodded to him and muttered "John" as a greeting. Remus had not been particularly subtle in his invention of a code name, but his middle name was common enough that it couldn't be tied back to him.

The only person whose full name they all knew was their self-appointed leader, the one who had found them all – muggles and wizards alike. Remus suspected that the only reason he had been able to find them all was because he was the one who turned them, but none of the others knew that. None except Remus, who had to suppress a shudder every time he saw his attacker, who felt his heartbeat racing at the memory of the day he was turned.

Fenrir Greyback didn't know who Remus was, didn't recognise the boy whom he had bitten when he was only a child. But Remus knew him. He was probably the only person in the world that Remus hated more than Voldemort. And Remus was here to stop him from destroying the lives of these werewolves even more than he already had.

"We're all here," Greyback said, with a terrible smile that scared Remus more than any spell. His voice was low. "And we're all here for the same reason. Wizards look down on us, always have. They think we're soulless scum who deserve to be culled."

Remus remembered the words his own father had said about werewolves just days before Remus was bitten: "soulless, evil, deserving of nothing but death".

"It's time for that to change," Greyback continued. "It's time for us to be respected. To be feared."

"Why would we want to be feared?" asked the woman sitting beside Remus, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "Isn't that the problem, why people hate us? I just want to have a normal life."

"You can't," Greyback said viciously, seeming to take pleasure in the hurt on the woman's face. "None of us will ever be normal. We need to embrace that we're different – we're stronger, we're faster. And I have a way for us to show the wizarding world that they're no better than we are."

He paused, relishing their attention, their desperate hope that he could somehow make it possible for their lycanthropy to be a good thing. Remus knew full well that Greyback didn't want to help any of them live better lives. He just wanted to cause more pain, get more power. Remus couldn't let that happen.

"How?" a middle-aged man asked. "I've been a werewolf for as long as I've been a wizard, and no one has ever respected me. I couldn't go to Hogwarts, couldn't work anywhere near wizards, couldn't belong in the wizarding world. I still can't."

"What we need is the one thing we've been denied all this time." Greyback smiled again, his sharp teeth glinting in the lantern's flickering flame. "Power. The Dark Lord is going to turn this world upside down, overthrow the Ministry, destroy those who've hated us for so long. He's going to put his followers on top, and we'll be right there with him."

Most of the werewolves there were muggles, or they were wizards and witches who had been ostracised from the wizarding community. Where the mention of Voldemort struck fear into the hearts of wizards and witches, his name meant little to Greyback's followers.

"But doesn't You Know Who hate muggles and muggleborns?" Remus asked, feigning ignorance. "If he's oppressing them, killing them, isn't that just as bad as the way we're treated?"

Greyback gave him an assessing look. This was not the first time Remus had stood up to him, and Greyback wasn't a man who liked his authority to be threatened.

"Who cares what else he's doing or why he's doing it," he said. "The Dark Lord can give us power like we've never had before."

"But he just wants to use us," Remus replied, some of his anger starting to show. He struggled to keep his voice low. "He just sees us as weapons."

"We are weapons." Greyback lifted a filthy hand, his nails long and pointed and crusted with dirt and blood. "He uses us, we use him. The Dark Lord is a means to an end."

"But-" Remus began, but Greyback cut him off.

"Do you want to things to stay the way they are?" he asked, his voice close to a snarl. "Hiding what you are, being on the Ministry's register, chaining yourself up every full moon?"

There were a few nods in response to his words. Remus had to bite his tongue to stop himself from arguing back. He was playing a long game, and forfeiting Greyback's trust this soon wasn't going to help anyone.

Another member of the group, a girl who looked barely sixteen and whose face was torn apart by scars, said in a quiet voice, "Don't you want things to change, John? Don't you want to be free?"

"Working for You Know Who isn't freedom," Remus replied. "It's just a different set of chains."

Sirius got home late. He was used to Remus being home even later, but as he approached the flat, he was glad to see that there was the soft glow of light filtering through the curtains.

Remus was in the living room. He was wearing a green jumper that was too big for him and his hair was wet and tussled from the shower he'd obviously just taken. He was reading a book, and didn't even seem to have heard Sirius come in.

"Hey," he said softly, careful not to startle Remus. He did anyway, because Remus jumped slightly before spotting Sirius and smiling.

"Evening," he said.

"You look nice."

Remus looked down at himself like he always did when Sirius payed him that kind of compliment, as though he was trying to work out what Sirius was seeing that he couldn't.

"I literally just found this at the bottom of the wardrobe, but thanks."

Sirius leant down and kissed him.

"You're in a good mood."

"I don't want us to be fighting," Sirius said.

"Me neither."

"I need to tell you something."

"Okay…" Remus closed his book and put it on the coffee table, gesturing for Sirius to sit down beside him.

The two of them turned to face one another, Sirius feeling unusually vulnerable under Remus' gaze.

"Okay so," he began, "you know James and Lily have to move, but I didn't tell you they were moving today, which they did. That's where I was, helping them move – Peter too. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, and you should come next time, I chased the cat and how she hates me, which she did anyway."

"Oh," Remus said, "Okay, I'm glad you told me."

"Also, my mother came over last week when you weren't here. Regulus has been missing for three months and I think he's probably dead."

Sirius said this very quickly, not meeting Remus' eyes. He was starting to get upset and he didn't know why. He'd thought he'd gotten used to the fact that Regulus was gone.

"Sirius," Remus gasped.

Remus' hand was on the side of his face, and Sirius looked up at him, face full of concern.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't here."

Sirius stared at him. "What?"

"I'm sorry I wasn't here for you."

Sirius had expected him to be sorry that his brother was a stupid dead idiot, not that he'd been alone to deal with it. Somehow, it was better this way.

"It's okay."

"It's not," Remus said. He looked mad. "These last few weeks have been shit with us barely talking and never being here at the same time. I wish I didn't have to go and deal with other werewolves all the time."

"The highlights of being the only werewolf on the team," Sirius smiled.

"Yeah…" Remus sighed. He took Sirius' hands, linking their fingers together. "Are you going to be okay?"

"I'll live," Sirius shrugged.

"Are we going to be okay?" he asked then, an uncertainly to his voice that made Sirius' heart ache.

"We'll be fine, Remus," he promised. "We're good."