— Chapter Two —
Spy in the Camp
It had been difficult, returning to Grimmauld Place that night. Molly Weasley had shut herself in the study and cried; the rest had sat in the kitchen, staring at the worn tabletop without seeing anything at all. It wasn't until Dumbledore returned in the early hours of the morning that the portrait of Mrs Black was silenced, howling and raging and screaming filth all night long. And through it all, Remus had sat at the foot of the stairs like a child sent out of the room.
And if Grimmauld Place had been hard, it was nothing compared to going home. Where Diagon Alley had once seemed bustling with life, it now felt hollow and empty, his little bookshop some vast cathedral of silence. That was why it had taken him so long to come back—putting off the inevitable moment when he would have to stop and let the world catch up with him again, and pick up the pieces.
The full moon had forced his hand in the end, not trusting himself to stay, even with the Wolfsbane Potion. His awareness of the world had slipped away as the moon inched over the London rooftops, and his last thoughts were of a hope to wake in the morning and find it had just been a dream. But it wasn't to be, and he was woken instead by blinding sunlight from a dream filled with distant, impatient hammering—only the knocking didn't stop when he sat up, confused and rubbing at his bleary, sun-dazzled eyes.
There was somebody at the door, he realised eventually.
The floor beside the fire—where he must have curled up to sleep in the night—was hard and unforgiving; he ached all over, and his body protested every step of the way downstairs, straightening his robes as he went. The knocking was interrupted only by periodic rattling of the door handle and calls in a voice muffled by glass and street noise. He wondered irritably which bit of closed his impatient visitor didn't seem to understand.
"Yes? Oh—it's you," he struggled to open the door past the post that had piled up in his absence. Apparently that was as much of an invitation as was required; Eleanor squeezed through the gap and into the shop before Remus could gather wits enough to stop her.
"Where have you been? The shop's not been open in two weeks—there was a brick through your window last night—have you called the Ministry about that yet?"
"I've been busy," was all he could manage in response, thinking, was it as long as that? He couldn't remember enough about the days he'd spent at Grimmauld Place to be able to count them—and hard as he forced his tired mind to think, the details of appointments and meetings he must have missed were just as illusive.
"Apparently," she didn't sound convinced, looking from the untouched letters heaped behind the door, to the small avalanche of books showered in broken window glass, to Lupin's somewhat dishevelled appearance. Reluctant to explain, he turned away to collect the brick from amid the debris of books and glass. He screwed up the note wrapped round it and dropped it in the fire while she bent down to scoop up the post. As he took the brick away to join the others by the back door, she called out, "Listen, I came by last night but you weren't in—"
"You did what?" He was back in the doorway in an instant.
She frowned at the panic on his face, "Are you in some kind of trouble, Remus?"
"What? No." He wasn't listening; his stomach had turned over at the thought of her stumbling across him on a full moon—of the danger she'd be in, not to mention her reaction when she found out what he was. "You shouldn't come round here unannounced like that."
"Why? Do you walk round the place naked, or something?" she laughed at his seriousness. "Or is it a pet dragon in the basement—?"
Not smiling at all, he nodded, "A dragon—and it's particular about visitors."
"Remus—" she couldn't help laughing at his peculiar mood, shaking her head, then ventured, "Do you want to get lunch?"
"I'm not hungry." He caught himself before adding, I think I ate last night, trying not to think about what it might have been. It was a moment before he realised he'd said the wrong thing, the smile on Eleanor's face not quite covering the hurt at his abrupt refusal. He found himself wishing she would hurry up and leave—he hadn't the heart to keep up with anyone else's feelings right now, he just wanted to be alone.
"What's going on?" she frowned—he hid his own by turning to the mountain of post on the counter. Everything that had happened at the Department of Mysteries seemed too big for words to adequately explain—not that it mattered, he couldn't tell her anyway. But he wasn't about to lie.
"Try mysteries, 812.400 BON to 812.442 WIL."
She scowled. "And the brick through your window?" He directed her to spells for fixing and repairing damage and she hit back with, "Very funny—I didn't come here to talk about books, you know."
"Pretty stupid coming to a bookshop then, wasn't it?" he didn't look up from thumbing through envelopes, tossing some straight into the fire, opening others first, before discarding their contents or setting them aside for later.
"Well listen, since you're being like that," she sounded resigned to his odd mood, "I think I may have tracked down a copy of Norte's Spells and Wizardry—good condition, too."
"Hmm." He wasn't listening, holding a two-week-old copy of the Daily Prophet; unable to read the words—not that he needed to, he'd been there, after all—but unable to tear his eyes away from them either.
"God, Remus—who died and put you in this mood?" her grin vanished as the joke fell flat—a quiet, "Sirius," in answer from Lupin as he turned away, letting the newspaper fall into the fire, watching the flames lick around its curling edges before the pages blackened and were consumed entirely.
"But…" Eleanor struggled to voice her confusion. "He—he murdered your best friends—James and Lily died because of him—and poor Peter Pettigrew." At the mention of Wormtail, Remus looked round sharply, the unfairness of everything that had happened ready to burst out of him—but he couldn't seem to find his voice. She said, "I…I don't understand," and all he could do was shake his head, and offer a miserable, "Sirius was innocent."
Doubt was written across her face, but there was nothing he could say—his mind racing with a thousand explanations, but no words; they didn't seem to be enough anymore.
"I know—you think I'm crazy—I…" But frustration got the better of him, "You know what? I can't deal with this right now—I've got that window to sort out, the museum wants that shipment by—by yesterday," he realised with a shock, reeling at everything he still had to do; he started rescuing books from the avalanche under the widow, "I'm behind—I'm really behind…"
"Deal with what, Remus?" she said sharply. He had a feeling he was expected to say something like, "You, me—us," but didn't; he was too tired to argue, and he couldn't see the point—it hardly seemed worth the effort. At his silence, she challenged, "Were you with someone else last night, is that what this is about?"
"No—!" He bit back what had almost been an admission he wasn't prepared to make—it was enough to telegraph to her that he had stopped short; he had to say something more, but hardly knew where to start. "There are things you don't know about me."
She scowled a resentful, "And you think I wouldn't understand because I'm a squib."
"What? No! It has nothing to do with you being a squib, Eleanor," adding an exasperated, women! in his mind, turning back to the books strewn on the floor at his feet. "I wasn't with anyone last night," he said irritably, half a mind to throw that stupid book of Sirius's at her in explanation, shaking the glittering shards of broken window from it as he picked it up. I've got other things on my mind right now, he thought in his own defence—but knew better than to say as much out loud.
As he turned the book over a scruffy piece of parchment slipped out from the inside cover; he snatched it from of the air as it fell. His stomach lurched—it was a message for the Order. A voice somewhere in the back of his mind protested—it couldn't be, the book wasn't about exotic birds—even as he read the message scrawled in black ink: there's a spy, accompanied by a lop-sided Dark Mark and wobbly phoenix feather.
He had wits enough to palm the note before Eleanor saw it, but that was about his limit—he had a feeling he'd turned more than a little pale. He couldn't believe he'd been so stupid. Someone knew about Snape spying for the Order. His mouth was suddenly very dry, he managed a distracted, "I have to go—you have to go," as he tried to think clearly about what he should do. He was hardly aware of her voluble protest as he herded her out the door and locked it behind her.
Dumbledore—he should tell Dumbledore at once—and Snape…if it wasn't already too late…he felt sick at the thought of the message going unread for two whole weeks—kicking himself for not even opening the cover of the book to be sure, instead of just assuming it was from Sirius—what a fool he'd been!