And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair –
(They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!")
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin –
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
~ T.S. Eliot, "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," 1915
.
.
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
~Oscar Wilde, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," 1897
.
.
September 1st, 1996
He was here.
Remus stood upon the brushed cement porch of number four Privet Drive, shoulders hunched into a jacket he supposed had never seen better days, having been something he'd traded for a day's work back when he was friendless and hungry and desperate. It did nothing to ward the morning's light downpour, which slipped through hairline fractures in the expanse of a sky blurred with chill. Black tar streets glistened under the misty polish of rain. The day was quiet, a calm broken only by the careful plodding of easy rain around houses identical to the last letterbox. Privet Drive was perhaps the least magical place Remus could think of, and yet he stood shivering on the doorstep, still weak with the horror three words had induced within him in the early hours of the morn.
Because of Dumbledore's surprisingly dubious task, Remus hadn't been in London since the middle of July, and in the United Isles since the fifth of August, returning to Hogwarts disheartened and still limping from his last transformation. Debriefing Dumbledore would have been a less embarrassing affair had a Holier-Than-Thou Snape not been present. There had been little information to collect on his journey abroad, and even littler coin. Clothes that normally fit him fine, though in varying stages of shabbiness, now drooped despondently from his shoulders, wrist cuffs stopped by thumb joints as opposed to comfortably covering the worst of the scars streaking his arms. Hunger had been his constant companion—an irritating, jabbering kid of a thing—and shelter often an inaccessible friend. When he'd finally returned home, he'd been pleasantly surprised to see Harry's sharp hand on the outside of starched Muggle envelopes, but it soon slipped into a nauseating horror as each sequential letter grew exponentially more worrisome, ending with an angry question Remus couldn't help but repeat to himself with tired abandon. What had Harry been thinking? Why hadn't he alerted someone else once it was clear that Remus wasn't responding? Didn't the boy realize that his life was more important than—?
Of course he didn't; Harry had watched Sirius die, partly at the fault of misunderstanding and misinformation. He probably believed that some secrets, such as the prophecy, were worth dying for. And Harry was all too willing to follow Sirius through the veil—
—tendrils of nothing gathering him into Death's embrace, eyes wide and still as his last laugh ghosted across his lips, and he was pulled towards the seductive whispers just beyond as he, too, faded into nothing, and no, no, no, Remus had just gotten him back, had just gotten back a piece of the happiness he'd believed long gone and whatever happened to the just you and me now, Moony And Harry Yes, and Harry and Remus remembered staying up all night listening to the doubts of his best friend as he questioned if Harry even needed him anymore; he wasn't a child, that much was clear even when the boy was thirteen years old and Moony, why'd they choose me I was always the most reckless and dangerous and damaged of us all it should have been you But you would never fear to show the boy your love—
—And Remus pressed his fingers to his eyes, dulling the ache, and everything washed away with an ocean wave of calm, the lingering sting of regret scrubbing open wounds until that faded as well. Harry's distrust wasn't unfounded. The boy witnessed the paranoia of the Order firsthand. He was not blind to shifting eyes and guarded scrolls, was victim of the dark himself when Dumbledore refused to let light's relief slip through his oh-so-careful fingers. Harry correctly assumed that the imposter wasn't a widely traded secret throughout the Order, and impressed Remus by his progress with coded messages. He and Tonks had trained him well.
But Harry's choice not to write to Dumbledore was troubling. Did he no longer trust the Headmaster, after what happened to Sirius? Did he not think Dumbledore wouldn't know about the imposter? Or, perhaps, did the boy believe Dumbledore couldn't be bothered by Harry's concerns?
"You look like somebody died," Moody growled from beside him.
Remus stared. An English breeze brushed through his hair. After a moment, Remus returned his attention to the door, neck stiff and fingers bloodless with cold and pressure. "A comment born of bad taste, Alastor," he said lightly, feeling anything but.
"Don't be a bottomless cauldron, Lupin. You know what I meant." Although Moody's inflection was dismissive, the words were gruff, scraping at a larynx ruined by magic and rage. In the next moment, a scowl sutured over his rare empathy. "What the fuck is taking Potter so long? Doesn't he understand that we have a tight schedule? Because once Jones sets the flare we're leaving; I don't care if the boy is naked."
If James had heard that, he would have insisted. Sirius wouldn't have needed Moody's sardonic irritation to prompt him; he would have thought of the idea all on his own. Not for the first time, Remus was glad Harry had more sense than both his father and his godfather together.
"Don't be so hard on him," Remus said quietly as Moody attempted to ram his fist through the door for a second time. The sound clattered out on the street like dropped plates. Had the weather been fair, Remus would have feared detection; as it was, neighboring houses had their blinds drawn against the gloom, refusing the admittance of summer's leave. But denial was only a temporary bandage to life's harsh strikes. Remus knew this well.
Apparently, so did the Dursleys. Shuffling pricked at the threshold of Remus' hearing, as well as an enraged "Boy, get the door!" that stirred his blood with the strength of a muted moon. Remus tilted his chin up. There was a reason Remus could never take Potter Watch the year before.
Coward, Sirius whispered in his ear. James whispered a much crueler truth in the other.
The lock shifted in place with a click, and the door opened to reveal the chronic bedhead that was the Potter curse. Remus couldn't help but feel fondness. Harry was turned away from the dreary morning, still facing the geometric hallway, the fine muscles in his jaw working against either emotion or words. His thin chest rose and fell beneath a faded, dark red shirt.
"Potter!" Moody barked, and Harry started violently, dropping the pair of rolled black socks he'd been holding as he whipped around to face the ex-Auror. Green eyes widened behind round glasses, which only added to his expression of surprise. "If I had been a Death Eater, you'd be worm shit! Don't turn your back to the enemy!" And as if he hadn't heard Remus earlier, Moody nearly shunted Harry into the wall as he thumped his way into the house, brown trench coat fluttering about his peg as he inspected the walls, electric blue eye whizzing from underneath the shadowy brim of a particularly sorry-looking bowler hat.
As Moody's declarative limping became more pronounced, Harry's large uncle waddled out the kitchen door, giving them a glimpse of a shining breakfast scene: table laden with foodstuffs and a somewhat wilting bouquet of lilies. Petunia, epitomizing the fifties housewife in a mid-calf dress, was recognizable by her pale-eyed disgust, an expression that brought him nearly twenty years back to Lily and James' wedding. A lump of a boy—the same one that had taken sanctuary on the staircase behind Harry that late July night—sat next to her, undesirably fearful as he took in the scene before the door closed. Dursley guarded the door, buttons practically leaping from his shirt as he shouted his displeasure to the ceiling, which throbbed as if struggling to contain his outrage. Family pictures cowered against the wall. Even the padlocked door to the cupboard shuddered against the staircase.
Moody tilted his hat up with the tip of his gnarled wand, and Dursley staggered back, rage curdling into something mottled and white.
"Y-you!" Dursley managed to make it into a nasty swear word.
"Yes. Me." Moody gave an unsettling smile. "We're here to pick up your beloved nephew. I hope you made good on your promise . . ."
Though pale, Dursley swelled with ire-inflated blood cells. "Now, see here! You lot can't just barge into my house and expect special deferment because of that boy . . ."
"I must be dreaming," Harry said faintly, bewilderment a slap upon his features.
"Unfortunately not," Remus said. The morning's chill had wound itself around Remus' joints, and his fingers in particular were stiff as he uncurled them from within his jacket pockets. After a moment Remus cleared his throat. "May I come inside?"
Harry started again, and hastened to open the door wider. "Yeah, uh, sorry—" The rouge of embarrassment brushed across Harry's cheeks, and his gaze flickered to the floor and back up again. This nervousness toward situations of polite society was neither of James nor Lily, but something that was pure Harry. It was something Remus always found charming, and nostalgic; in this way, Harry reminded Remus of a younger self.
"Please, come in Professor. Er, you don't have to take off your coat or anything, just, uh—" Harry closed the door hurriedly behind Remus, and the cold released its iron grasp on Remus' joints, melting away as warmth seeped through clothes thinned by age. Residual ache in his leg returned. The wolf had mangled it quite horribly a few days back.
Number four Privet Drive was the same as Remus had left it over a month ago: distasteful striped wallpaper peeling away from the boredom of its design, upheld by smug photographs and the occasional print of a flower; the gradient of the staircase leading to a landing concealed by shadows; Vernon Dursley still arguing the indecency of wizards, something that made Remus uncomfortable and Harry sag a little, until Moody drew his wand and thrust the point into one of Dursley's many chins.
"You forget who you're talking to, you bigoted hog," Moody grunted, voice grounded and sharp as his vocal cords eroded away. "One thought—just one—and I could have you skinned and squealing before my feet. If you would close your trough for a few minutes, it would soon be like we'd never come at all."
Dursley didn't speak, didn't move, feet cushioned by house slippers stuck fast to the floor. Had the man been in Hogwarts, Remus could have mistaken him for one of the many strange statues that guarded secret passageways.
"Better." Moody nodded. "Now, be a good love and enjoy the rest of your meal, yeah?"
He gestured to the door with a lazy flick of his wand. Dursley became stone reanimated, all but tripping over himself to escape Moody's sight (an impossible feat, but Dursley might sleep better at night without the knowledge of what a magical glass eye could do), stealing to the kitchen without another word. The door swung shut. They waited. There wasn't even the clink of silverware touching upon plates. Satisfied, Moody turned, wooden leg scraping the floor with a raw scream.
"How was that for metaphors, Lupin?" Moody growled, concealing his wand somewhere undisclosed even to Remus' sharp eyes. "Did it meet your quota, you Grammar Nazi?"
"Nicely done," Remus allowed, ignoring Harry's owl impersonation. "Although you could have done without the threats, I think. Generally, Muggle baiting is frowned upon."
"He had it coming," Moody said dismissively, then zeroed in on Harry, who seemed caught in a dream. "Potter!" the ex-Auror barked. "You look like shit!"
Harry stared, green eyes hard but wide with the astonishment also evident in the slackening cavern of his mouth. Pale fingers like spider legs curled inward. "Thanks, Mad-Eye," he said, irritation tempering the spasm just under Harry's ear. The loss of the formality the boy usually afforded his teachers, both current and former, was telling. He then rounded on Remus, who quickly schooled his expression as he would a boy before Professor McGonagall, almost caught for one thing or another. It was this expression that often relinquished him from the same punishment that awaited Sirius and James. Unlike Professor McGonagall, however, Harry was rather immune to bullshit, especially from those he knew. "Are you going to tell me now I've no chance of making the cover of Witch Weekly? Because then I'd have to say I'll be rather disappointed."
"It's good to see you, Harry," Remus said, traces of bullshit erased through the clean and genuine renewal of a smile. But now that Harry faced him, Remus conceded, however reluctantly, to Moody's point: Harry did not look well. He had grown, up to Remus' nose, now, but could be compared to bed sheets: translucent white in the sun and stretched thin when knotted into tools of escape. Restless nights painted shadows under his green eyes, rimming lids in pink. Though the boy had always been pale—a feat that usually made his inky hair all the more a shock—Remus couldn't help, in this instance, comparing him to James (something Remus took care not to do), who'd always returned to Hogwarts sunkissed, smiling, and a little stronger each year.
It had occurred to Remus that Harry could have very well taken after his mother, who under a cold sun burned crispier than Sirius Black's still-to-this-day unspoken attempt to cook, but it didn't explain the way he huddled into himself, the wiry muscle that seemed to run off angle to the defined line of his arm bones, the way he occasionally shook as though withstanding the steady burial of a Scottish winter. And it was almost unbearably hot in number four.
Concern welled within him, but Remus didn't dare clap a hand on the boy's shoulder. Or his forehead. He wasn't the boy's godfather. "Say, Harry, have you caught a virus? It so happens I've Pepper-Up in my pocket—?"
"Where the hell have you been?" Harry snapped. Moody raised what was left of his right eyebrow.
Taken aback, Remus withdrew into himself, pressing everything into the blank slate of his expression. "Russia," he said simply, divulging a partial truth. To explain himself fully would take more time than they had. And, he found, the best way to deal with an angry Harry was not to get angry himself, to remain calm and provide enough information to satiate the boy's rather large thirst for the truth. A shame, really, the boy wasn't similarly driven towards academics.
And it worked better than any charm. Aggression seeped from Harry's shoulders to uncurl his fingers and relax his stance until it was recognizably more Harry and less battle-hardened warrior. "Oh," he said. He looked away.
"Yes," Remus said curtly. "Oh."
Silence was a ticking clock and the creak of old floorboards. Breath gave life to the dull house, filling the picturesque setting with a meaning worth more than photographs, waiting on words that threatened to never come. Harry's mood, which had risen and fallen as the pull of the moon phases, quieted from its lashing out into a docility Remus both appreciated and despised. It meant much to Remus that Harry at least respected him enough to listen, to trust, but such a thing often came at the costly price of spirit and instinct. And Harry had instinct enough to challenge the wolf.
"This is taking too long," Moody growled, thumping unevenly passed a glass table holding up numerous frames containing a large blonde boy posed in happiness. "While you pansies wallow in self-pity and some shit the Dark Lord rallies his forces to stupid numbers, preparing to wipe out Muggles more innocent than these assholes." Half the Cheshire slash splitting his face lifted into a sneer, small eye hard on Remus as the modified one rolled unpleasantly to stare in the back of his head at a contrite Harry. "Potter needs to finish up here, make touching goodbyes, kiss his aunt, see you all at Christmas."
"I never come back for Christmas," Harry mumbled, mouth shifting sideways in disgust.
Moody ignored him. "We have minutes until Jones' signal. I don't want to use magic, but I will if it means you move your ass."
Harry's eyes flashed, agitation lighting an emerald flame that was equally doused in disbelief. Remus wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose; this was getting them nowhere.
"Alastor," Remus said, and his voice was firm. "I'll help Harry. Why don't you guard the front door and look out for potential threats?"
Moody visibly paused, and Remus waited for him to get mean, to become something reserved for strangers. And indeed, Remus could see its beginnings slipping through the fissures of Moody's usually closed expression. As though turned to stone himself, Remus hardened against the inevitable earthquake that was Alastor Moody's rage; the man never responded well to authority, and especially to those who had no claim to such respect. Remus prepared himself to be put back in his place. Not a man, but a beast.
But Remus had miscalculated: Moody's expression completed itself, molding from his usually difficult state of organized chaos into a twitch of approval Remus would have missed if he had been looking the other way.
"Since when do I take orders from civilians?" Moody grumbled. Somehow, Remus had impressed the old wizard. For what, Remus didn't know, nor was he ever likely to; Alastor Moody had always been something of a mystery when it came to motive.
"There's always a first time for everything," Remus said mildly, wondering the same thing himself.
Moody limped heavily past Remus and Harry, gnarled fingers emerging from the shadows of his trench coat to cinch around the brass knob of the front door. His broad back was to them both, but when he looked over his shoulder mischief pulled tough sutures from pockets in his cheeks, one eyebrow raised.
"I have the same philosophy for you, dry well," he said, and with a short cough he yanked the door open, stepped into the sweep of mist and gray, and slammed it behind him. Chill pressed against Remus' elbows and down his legs until it was drowned in the warmth of number four.
Harry looked to Remus expectantly, confusion present in the arch of his eyebrows, but his young friend hardly needed to know Moody's mad theories about the road less traveled. Instead, Remus cleared the discomfort from his throat. "Upstairs?"
Dark eyebrows disappeared into Harry's fringe, but he nodded and led the way to the second floor landing, steps silent upon wood that creaked under Remus' normally light tred. Harry didn't touch the banister as he walked. His shoulder blades were definable underneath the dark red shirt, tense and hunched up to his ears, two parallel lines lifting the fabric away from the scoop of his back. Remus hoped Harry would let Moody's words fade into the shadows, but like Sirius the boy was known to hold onto hurt and hide it away, quick to anger and act impulsively. But there were reasons, the accumulative sort, that Sirius was the way he was. To think that Harry may be the result of a similar history—
"Moody doesn't know?" Harry asked as they reached the landing. A narrow hallway carpeted in pale blue fibers stretched to their left, and dust motes lit by the dreary day floated leisurely in and out of shadows, halted by three doors closed to general observation. Harry, however, led them to the right, past a small bathroom and to a door Remus had once dismissed as storage.
"No," Remus said. Dumbledore had been oddly secretive of late. If he were honest with himself, Remus probably wouldn't have known, either, had he not been present when Dumbledore had received the letter from Bathilda Bagshot.
Harry nodded as Remus answered, opening a door that smelled of fresh paint to a small bedroom that was the perfect depiction of Nymphadora Tonks: as though it had sprawled to its stomach and didn't feel much like standing afterwards. Clothes lay in abject distress on the floor, hanging over the top of a mirror and the open (and rather empty) armoire, on a bed and partially hiding under a navy duvet. A floorboard reached out towards them from under a bed. Harry's trunk and broomstick leaned against the bed, and the small desk, littered with crumpled balls of notebook paper, held up an empty owl cage lined with yesterday's Daily Prophet, if the picture of a long-since impeached Cornelius Fudge shaking his fist was anything to go by.
"He was here a little after you left," Harry said, stepping over a trembling Monster Book of Monsters as he headed toward the opposite corner of the room, "and he put it in the middle of the room, facing the door so I couldn't help but see it . . ."
Remus made to follow Harry, but a glimmer in the corner of his eye made him pause at the threshold, and take a step back. He inhaled sharply. Seven locks glared at him from the doorframe, accusation a chilled line of cold metal meant to imprison, not save. His fingertips touched at its spine, and retracted as if burned. He couldn't stomach its bareness, like a beaten child facing the corner. Childhood memories drifted upwards until his vision fogged with its distance, recalling the room beneath his parents' home that housed a monster, contained by Muggle locks and Pa's dwindling magic and the young denial of his reality. Of a room he had once believed that if ignored he would never become that hated thing. A room that hid dangerous secrets. He looked to Harry, who still spoke, who was very thin and looked very tired and shook with the burden Remus had often witnessed in a young Sirius Black who would board the Hogwarts Express after summer holidays pale and hungry and pissed off. Something fractured within him, and he became numb as though trapped within one of the locks itself. The imposter no longer seemed very important.
"Apparently," Harry was saying, as if nothing had changed, "Aunt Petunia took that nutter inside, had him finish my chores—and I was blamed for his shoddy job, by the way, so I really must thank him for that—" He threw a sheet over his shoulder and dragged something large into the shattering of light tossed through the window pane. Once it was in the middle of the room Harry exhaled and sat back on his heels, jerking his hands away to wipe on his thighs. "He wasn't here when I came back, though."
When Remus didn't say anything, Harry looked up and opened his mouth, but his brow, which had been furrowed with thought, cleared into open concern. "What's wrong?"
Dumbledore promised Remus the boy would be safe. The son of Lily and James Potter would be better off without him. He was well cared for.
Sympathy walked across Harry's expression. "It was my mother's," he whispered, almost to himself.
Harry misunderstood. Locks kept the monster inside. Locks kept everyone else safe. But inside the monster would tear himself up, in pain and alone.
Why hadn't they ever checked?
Harry stood. "Are you alright?"
Remus shook himself. They couldn't do this now. "Yes," he croaked, and cleared his throat. Harry would be fine; he was leaving for Hogwarts now, and he wouldn't be back until next summer. There was plenty of time. Until then . . . "Yes, thank you, Harry."
He then caught the object haloed by the gloom outside: a school trunk. A very familiar trunk engraved with a very familiar name. He moved to crouched before it, tracing the swirling patterns on the trunk with his sight. Lily had carved those herself second year. Had asked Remus for the spell. Had Remus show her how to make flowers, because she was hopeless with still life but brilliant with patterns. Sirius had called him a girl, for both knowing how to draw flowers and being nice enough to show someone how. James had been mad with jealousy for a week and Remus hadn't a clue until Peter made an innocent observation that embarrassed the both of them back to normality.
Remus held everything at bay; he hadn't realized anything had survived the destruction of the Potter home that fateful October, but it made sense that Lily's sister, or Harry, would have priority over her things.
"I haven't opened it," Harry said.
It looked innocent enough, but, then again, so did Remus. "Very smart, Harry," Remus instructed. "The worst of dark magic traps often take forms we know best."
"I didn't even know Aunt Petunia had this."
A stated fact. Some surprise. As if his aunt had presented him with an antique camera rather than kept his mother's personal effects from his knowledge.
Did Harry believe he deserved to be locked up? Did he believe he was a monster?
Remus stood. "We can't do anything here," he said. He didn't know if he was talking about the locks on the door or Lily's old school trunk. He inhaled carefully. Something undefinable and hot crawled up his throat, but he swallowed it back before it had a chance to prick at his sight, stuffing anything resembling emotion into a ramshackle box he had to put back together after the wolf tore it to pieces every month. Soon, it was as if the truth had never been uncovered. He patted his pockets, and something small and hard knocked against his side. "Testing cursed objects is unsafe even in as controlled environment as the Department of Mysteries. To do so now, in a bedroom above Muggles, would not reflect good judgment on our part."
"Right." Harry ruffled the hair at the back of his head. "What do we do?"
Moody's signal—three knocks on the front door, loud and punctual—echoed his impatience below them. Remus lifted his arm, where his watch ticked from underneath his old jacket. Ten o'clock exactly. They had five minutes.
"Send it to Headquarters." Remus withdrew his other hand, fingers peeling back like flower petals to reveal a handsome phoenix figurine. It hummed a tuneless song against his palm.
Harry leaned closer for a better look. "Is that—?"
"A portkey," Remus confirmed, placing it atop the trunk with care. It stood on its own, wings extended outwards and beak upturned as though preparing for flight. Remus tapped the figurine with the tip of his wand, intent pure and clear. Magic tugged almost absently at Remus as the figurine, once blood red under overcast skies, became burnished in gold, siphoning from his very being until both the phoenix and the trunk vanished, imploding into the glow of the portkey. And then it was done. Remus' magic snapped back at a dizzying pace, shifting within him briefly before it settled.
He pocketed his wand. Foreign fear swiveled tantalizingly around his spine and away to sleep dormantly in his veins. Remus did not like this. They were lucky, this time. The Order had strong reason to believe that Voldemort wouldn't target Harry until he'd had time to recover, to plan. Until then, he was busy doing other things. They didn't need a twenty-four hour watch on Privet Drive. A letter every three days would do. Was Snape's information wrong? Were they idiots to trust a man so entangled in Voldemort's strings? Had the trap been less passive, waiting for Harry's move, they would have lost Harry and they wouldn't have known any different until it was too late.
"That's it?" Harry breathed into the sudden hush.
Remus nodded, looked to the door, and lowered his gaze when he remembered the locks. He gestured to the trunk lumbering crookedly against the bed. "You've finished packing?"
"Er—" Harry swept the room with his gaze, green eyes stopping in specific places: the dresser, the open armoire, the desk, the floorboard half-absconded by shadows, the latter of which Harry dove under his bed to correct. Remus looked on bemusedly as Harry's sneakers twitched, and then struggled backwards until he could stand once more, stuffing a still sneak-o-scope into his pocket. He grinned sheepishly up at Remus, as though thinking Remus was not used to witnessing the more awkward aspects of being young. "Yeah, let's go."
Remus couldn't help but smile. "Come on, then," he said, and despite the twinge in his step—a coil of pain pulling tight around and above his left knee—Remus bent to grasp the handle of Harry's trunk, preparing to drag it down the stairs and to the front door; while the portkey was necessary, to do magic where Muggles could potentially see would be more of a headache than it was worth.
Before Remus could stagger upwards, however, Harry had lightened the burden by taking up the other side; wiry muscle drew taut lines under pale skin, but his expression spelled nothing of a struggle. The owl cage was tucked into the other arm, broomstick safely in hand. Remus nodded, stood, and piloted them into the hallway and down the stairs. Shining motes popped up between them. Dreary bands of light highlighted smooth lines of relief on Harry's forehead.
The Dursleys weren't visible when they ambled onto the first floor, something for which Remus was thankful; with what he knew now, keeping civilized was a challenge even without their presence, and they didn't have the time to indulge in his simultaneous urges to either sob or punish. Remus tensed his shoulders, prematurely huddling into his jacket in preparation for the chill that awaited them, and pulled the door towards himself. September's damp palms swiped at Remus' forehead, and he blinked into the overcast sky.
"Finally," Moody growled, his voice grinding into fine powder. "Jones set off the flare four and a half minutes ago." He frowned at the trunk between Remus and Harry. "Hasn't that good for nothing old man taught you anything? Use a spell, for fuck's sake."
Harry, who was calling out an unreciprocated farewell into the house, didn't seem to have heard. Although, should Harry be anything like the Marauders he wouldn't take offense to Moody's less than civil mouth.
"Alastor," Remus scolded. The door shut with a heavy suction. "We're surrounded by Muggles."
"At least make it lighter," Moody shot back, and reached in to grab the trunk from Remus' fingers. The motion was so fast, so unexpected, Harry lost his grip as well, and his end of the trunk crashed to the porch. Books tumbled from inside it. "You have less than thirty seconds until Jones resets the Anti-Apparition wards."
Moody disappeared, the crack of disapparition tumbling out onto the wet street and up the steps of neighboring houses. The curtains of number seven fluttered and a young face peeped out, featureless at this distance, before becoming concealed by the fabric once more.
"There's Anti-Apparition wards around Privet Drive?" Harry sounded astonished as he shifted the owl cage under his armpit.
"The entirety of Little Whinging, actually," Remus said hurriedly, "and I apologize but I'll have to explain later. You've never been Side-Along, have you, Harry?"
The boy shook his head.
"Right. Hold onto my arm firmly. It will be a little uncomfortable."
Remus turned on the spot, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters clear in his memory, and they both twisted into nonexistence, squeezed into a void so slim not even breath nor rain could slip in after them.
They landed hard, as though Harry had been lifted by the top of his head and dropped from the roof of Big Ben, falling at such a speed and distance his stomach swooped, only to land on his feet. Gravity was a horrible weight that crept up his knees. Dragged his fingers downward. Harry buckled, held up only by a hand at his elbow. Dark spots crowded his vision like tourists trying to get a better look before losing interest, filtering away to reveal Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
At this time the Platform was strangely empty, dotted with a few families huddling into themselves, pulling cloaks and Muggle jackets smug about their figures to battle the sliver of autumn that had prematurely slipped into summer's place. The Hogwarts Express waited, anxiously chuffing black smoke that curled up and faded into the day. Nostalgia teased forth the awe of his first ride to Hogwarts—the bewildering warmth of a large happy crowd too thick to maneuver, the confusing acceptance of his first friend his age, the excitement of buying something of his own to share—and the surrealism of it all lingered with his present nausea as he remembered himself.
"That," he gasped, "was apparition?"
Lupin's hand skittered from Harry's elbow. "It does take some getting used to."
Harry recalled the discomfiting sensation not unlike being squeezed into a very small tube. "No offense, Professor," he said, "but I think I'd prefer the Knight Bus, next time."
Amusement tugged Lupin's features to the left, light brown eyes following in a side glance. "You still call me Professor," he remarked.
"I still think you should have kept the job," Harry returned without pause, setting his owl cage on the ground next to his trunk. Moody was limping around the perimeter, one arm thrown waylaid as it compensated for his heavy limp, pausing every once in a while to scowl up and down at Aurors lining the Platform. They stood straight as Palace Guards, save for a few. Dawlish, the hard-faced Auror who'd almost arrested Dumbledore the year before, paced the Platform as a lion at the edge of his territory. Kingsley stepped onto the train into the conductor's compartment. Harry thought he recognized Tonks amongst their number, but distance made it difficult to determine her identity. It didn't help her hair was black and pin-straight today, pulled behind her head with a band.
"On your five, Lupin. Lucius Malfoy."
Moody's voice crashed over them as he limped closer, drowning Harry's near inquiry to the security of Little Whinging in something far too vindictive to be genuine pleasure, stranding both Harry and Lupin in a tense gulf from which the beginning to a pleasant goodbye could not be recovered. The ex-Auror now stood at Harry's shoulder, glass eye spinning slowly counterclockwise, rolling from left to right before disappearing into the back of his head. For "three-sixty visibility," he'd once told Harry. Harry questioned whether it made the ex-Auror as sick as Harry felt watching it.
Lupin frowned, but turned to look over his shoulder anyway.
"Well, I'll be." His voice was soft, but looked troubled when he turned back to face Harry and Moody. Harry stood on his toes to peer in the same direction, and astonishment sent little shocks along the ridge of his spine.
Just a few yards from them stood Draco and Lucius Malfoy, both of whom with Harry'd had nothing but bad experiences since his entrance into the magical world six years prior. Lucius Malfoy, however, was not the suave, intimidating man Harry had once accused of attempted murder, the Death Eater he had battled in the Department of Mysteries. Velvet robes of silk and dragonhide draped his thinness in concealed hardship. He leaned heavily on a silver, skull-capped cane. Stringy hair that had lost its metallic sheen escaped a loose clasp at the base of his neck, doing nothing to disguise a well-publicized pointed face, shame lingering in the downturned corner of his mouth. He spoke quietly to his son, who was missing the superior patrician tilt of his head known to his posture.
"Wasn't he arrested?" Harry asked. The man should have been in Azkaban.
"Released, on account of falsified evidence. Never mind he was there, in Death Eater robes, mask up his sleeve. 'He was on our side.'" The last bit Moody quoted in a high-pitched plead that was more of a growl, then spat on the ground, narrowly missing Harry's trunk. "Scum."
Harry somewhat doubted this sentence; he'd witnessed Malfoy exchange money with the previous Minister for Magic last year. The government probably rolled in the Galleons of the Malfoy family.
Moody cackled—a dry, hacking cough of a sound. "Look a bit scared, don't they?"
"Surrounded by the enemy, bad blood all around . . ." Lupin was grim as he trailed off. "But that's not quite right, is it?"
"I don't give a damn why they're scared." Moody erupted, irritation stitching along the lines of his scars. "I want to know why Lucius fucking Malfoy thought it was a good idea to show his ugly mug about a family venue. Perhaps he wouldn't mind a little chat. Maybe I can take his cane to 'inspect' on account of reasonable suspicion."
"Don't cause an international incident, Alastor," Lupin said mildly as the ex-Auror stalked towards the Malfoys, both of whom now looked a little panicked.
"Up yours, dry well."
Harry couldn't take it any longer: "Why does he keep calling you that?"
"Alastor thinks he's being funny," Lupin said quickly, dismissing the topic with a shift of his eyes. "But that doesn't matter." He focused intently on Harry's face, determination highlighting gaunt cheeks and pinching sharp corners of his jaw.
"You need to be careful this year," Lupin continued. "You need keep vigilant, but you also need to keep your nose clean. I know—" (here, Lupin held up a hand to halt whatever Harry's defense may have been) "I know," he said, more tiredly, "that it's not always easy—you forget who I went to school with—but you need to try. Voldemort is back. Times are dangerous. It might not seem that way while at Hogwarts, but this is the truth of the matter." The intensity of his gaze lessened, and he looked briefly away. Dismal warning creased Lupin's mouth. "I don't know this year's Defense professor, and that worries me. Remember those who've held the position before: none were what they seemed to be."
Harry stared. "Are you saying that Death Eaters have infiltrated Hogwarts?"
Lupin's face was very blank, eyes unreadable.
"I'm saying that anything is possible," he said after a long moment.
Harry licked his lips. His grip tightened around his Firebolt, but his palms were sweaty. The clock above them, intricate iron fleurs rough with soot and erosion, ticked towards the half hour. Black smoke continued to twist into the air, puffing continuously through the train's crooked chimney. A few more students appeared through the wall connected to King's Cross, heading straight for the cars.
"Who is the professor this year, anyway?" Harry wondered.
"A Thierry Dupont." Lupin watched him closely. "Does he sound familiar to you?"
Harry shook his head.
"I didn't think so." Lupin let out a small breath. "Dumbledore says he's from out of country, but I also wasn't a werewolf when you met me."
The man gave a secret smile, and Harry laughed.
At this point, Moody was stumbling back towards them, still caneless, patchwork face set in stone. "Something's got Malfoy spooked, and it's not me," he growled, voice rumbling below the steady rise of conversation on the Platform.
"You're not thinking a raid, are you?" Despite the blank calculation that was normally Lupin's expression, worry clawed his voice hoarse.
"That's exactly what I'm thinking," Moody said, eye spinning more quickly. "And it has to be before the train leaves or Malfoy wouldn't be putting his kid on it."
Harry stared at Moody, eyebrow raised, until a platinum sheen bright enough to blind him caught the corner of Harry's attention. Behind Moody, Lucius Malfoy was helping his son board the humming Hogwarts Express, his wand directing a sleek, black trunk with silver clasps through the door of a car.
"I saw Crabbe and Goyle earlier, and they didn't look frightened in the least," Lupin said.
Moody snorted. "Crabbe and Goyle don't give two shits for their sons."
"Do you think Voldemort would dare, with all these Aurors at the station?"
"What would be more public than a station full of children?" Moody countered. "And to double the fun, it would be a direct hit to Dumbledore, who goes soft in the face whenever one of those defenseless screeches blows a snot bubble."
Bile splashed upwards from Harry's stomach to burn his throat with sudden fear. "What should we do?"
"Stay close to us," Lupin said, "and do exactly as we say."
"Wand out, Laddie." Moody's face now resembled a great helm more than patchwork quilt; blank, cold, hiding calculation and fury with just enough holes for seeing and breathing.
Harry hadn't needed to be told. Feeling shuttered within him, and for a moment he could only detect hints of base needs: September harvesting his warmth by sprinkling dots of rain upon exposed and numb skin, sirens ringing loud enough inside him to become a hum of anticipation, breathing heavy and slow to counter the frantic beating of his nervous heart.
Both fists clenched, tension forcing blood upwards, leaving his fingers numb to the creaking ache of abused joints. He stood on an obtuse angle to Lupin, vision flitting from man to woman to child and back again, searching, fearing, waiting. More families clotted the Platform now, each clustered tight around their own, separate from others. His glasses slipped down his nose. Gooseflesh paced the length of his bare arms as the morning mist slinked through his sleeves, scratching at his abdomen and back. Yet he felt quite warm, quite unbothered by his physical needs, as he searched the slowly growing crowd for unwelcome faces. He could only see one: Lucius Malfoy, glancing behind him as though expecting to be followed, fleeing through the barrier to King's Cross Station.
"There isn't any positioning, Alastor," Lupin said quietly, eyes saccadic upon the scene.
"Nothing across the barrier. No free wands. No familiar faces in the crowd . . ." Moody's low grumble trailed off, and he straightened. "Just paranoia, then."
Though Lupin relaxed as well, Harry wasn't convinced. "Wouldn't it happen closer to eleven?" Harry asked, heart in his throat.
"And risk no student casualties as the train chugged away?" Moody snorted. His wand vanished from his hand. "The Dark Lord wouldn't be so careless to attack a nearly empty station."
Harry released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.
"That's good news." Lupin took the words from Harry's smile. "My leg's not up for dueling just yet."
"What's wrong with your leg?" Harry asked.
Lupin surveyed the Platform with a careful eye. "Wolfsbane's hard to come by, especially with the new anti-werewolf legislation our mutual friend Dolores Umbridge has managed to pass."
Astonishment jerked Harry's jaw down. "That toad still works at the Ministry?"
The description tore a cough from Lupin's throat, but he settled it as Moody said, "Scrimgeour's been firing Ministry workers left and right for even something as small and stupid as the past use of the toe-nail growing hex. Unfortunately, Umbridge has a record more blank than Gilderoy Lockhart's brain, and they're understaffed." Unexpectedly, a smirk pulled his scars into a Gein-esque portrait. "He tried to rehire me, but until a capable Minister comes around, I'll stay in retirement."
Though Moody could be unsettling at times, Harry always thought the man had good judgment.
"Now this is interesting," Moody continued.
Harry, who had almost expressed his hatred for Dolores Umbridge more in depth, exchanged the formation of his vowels so he could ask: "What is?"
"You've got a twin," the ex-Auror stated. "Or a really devoted fan."
The change in Lupin was instantaneous: he stilled completely, his almost-smile thinning as good humor faded from his eyes. His jaw, sharpened by hunger, worked slightly, as though tasting something too sour for expression. It took Harry a moment to realize Lupin was angry.
"He's here? Now?" Harry said. There was a swooping sensation in Harry's stomach he usually associated with steep dives on his Firebolt.
Lupin, attention unwavering from Moody, gripped Harry's shoulder tightly. "Where?"
Moody had sobered in the face of their collective anxiety. "Black hooded cloak," he said quickly. The pupil of his glass eye shrunk, fixed on a point between Harry and Lupin. "He was watching us, near the Floo escape. I caught his eye, and now he's moving toward the barrier, so he knows who we are. Lupin, he's armed with a wand and a knife."
Lupin nodded.
"Seven-thirty, Lupin."
"Yes, I see him." His voice was skull-like, monotonous and dull with a grim sense of duty as he watched a cloaked figure blow through the crowd as a leaf in the wind.
"Professor—"
"Harry, get on the train." Lupin gave him a little push, releasing his shoulder and withdrawing his wand.
"What's going on? Why is he here?"
"Do as I say!"
Harry wasn't going to let the man fight the imposter alone. Harry took out his wand as well, face mirroring Lupin's grit, but was stopped by a gnarled hand, warm and rough, circling his bicep.
"I've got the lad," Moody growled. "Get that son of a bitch."
It was all Lupin needed. He quickly paced through the crowd as though parting show curtains, and soon his patched jacket was masked by families giving their final farewells. The cloaked figure turned his head, and, noticing he was being pursued, shot off at a run towards the barrier to King's Cross, shouldering his way through a gaggle of seventh year Hufflepuffs Harry knew only by appearance, parting the invisible line between two redheads, and knocking over a toddling little girl who couldn't have been more than five. Lupin matched his pace instantly, and with more consideration to bystanders. The cloaked figure vanished through the barrier, and Lupin's voice erupted over the hum of conversation: "GET THAT MAN!"
Frustration leaked through Harry's pores. "We can't just leave him be!" he said fiercely, attempting to yank his arm back. Moody's grip might as well have been enhanced with a Permanent Sticking Charm.
"Lupin's a big boy; he can handle himself," Moody snarled. "You, on the other hand, have got a train to catch."
Harry glared at the hairy knuckles coiled around his arm. "Let me go."
"Sure. On the train to Hoggy-Warty Hogwarts." Moody's grip became bruising, and Harry gasped as the ex-Auror forced him to turn. He flicked his wand upwards and Harry's school trunk, owl cage now atop, hefted effortlessly into the air behind them.
"He's going to get himself killed!" Harry struggled to turn back to the barrier, but Moody jerked him closer with a mature strength Harry knew he could never top.
"You've a lot of confidence in the man who's taught you anything useful in the defense against the Dark Arts. A man you still call professor—an acknowledgement of his superior skill, as I understand it." The words, like shoes on gravel, skidded over Harry's ear with an unbearable warmth that crumbled against Harry's damp neck. Harry squirmed, leaning away from the invading pressure of Moody's angry presence, but all it did was further expose his neck. "I don't know what the deal is with the duplicate, Potter, but we're supposed to be protecting you. Not the other way around."
"You can't even walk," Harry retorted. His arm hurt. "Let go of me."
"I might not be able to follow you on foot, but a curse will travel faster than you can run," Moody said, and drew him roughly to the side. People were watching them now; side-glances his way from students he didn't know well, from the curious and the frightened, from those with wide eyes or devious smiles. Someone snickered to Harry's right.
His anger withered into embarrassment, which he battled to keep from warming his cheeks.
"I'm not about to run off," Harry said.
Moody raised his uneven eyebrows. "And you expect me to believe that, given compelling evidence that tells me otherwise?"
Harry knew the man was referencing the Department of Mysteries, and Harry hated him for it.
"I'm going to tell you what I used to say to all my rookies back in the day," Moody said as they reached the back of Hogwarts Express. Painted black and streaked with red, the train idled, huffing impatiently as students boarded a few cars ahead.
"Don't rip your charge's arm off?"
"Funny." Moody's eye spun slowly. "Not every fight is your fight, Potter." He nodded at the open gap of the train. "Now, up you get. Run off to your friends. Learn shit. Eat Horace Slughorn's weight in chocolate frogs because you're a fucking scarecrow."
Harry blinked. "Who's Horace Slughorn?"
A Cheshire smile tore through deep ridges in the ex-Auror's face, but it was hardly reassuring. Harry's gaze shifted to focus elsewhere, and Moody blurred to the periphery as familiar faces in the crowd sharpened. Plaited red hair a rope down her back, Susan Bones lifted to her toes as she hugged her severe-faced aunt. A surprisingly contrite Daphne Greengrass—reportedly nasty, though they've never spoken—pressed through the barrier, her dark-haired sister following right after. Anxiety kneaded Harry's shoulder into knots. What if Lupin had needed help? There was only so much one man was able to accomplish on his own. Would the Order find Lupin bleeding in an alley in Muggle London? Cursed like Boderick Bode and doomed to a bedridden life in St. Mungo's? Would he even be found at all?
Moody tapped the crater disfiguring his nose. "You're not leaving this train until you get to Hogwarts, Laddie," he said. "We'll be watching."
Irritation spilled through his nostrils. Moody smirked. The female Auror waved to him from her position on the perimeter, and Harry knew she was Tonks at once. Kingsley must still be on the train. He had nearly forgotten there were other Order members at the station. And Aurors not working for the Order would no doubt stop him as well, acting on the word of the Ministry: protect the 'Chosen One.'
Dejected, Harry waved back at Tonks before slumping to lug up his trunk, doing his best to retain his grip on his Firebolt. Once boarded, elevated from the tracks, Harry was comforted despite himself by the purring of the train beneath his feet.
"Here you are, Laddie," Moody said as he handed over the empty owl cage.
"Thanks," Harry mumbled.
Moody's slash of a smile turned wry. "Most kids your age are happy to let adults handle everything."
The barrier was still. There was no sign of Lupin.
"But you're not most kids, are you?"
Harry had nothing to say to that.