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Chapter 5: Curiosity and Questions

Remus couldn't get the story of the hidden room out of his head, try as he might. He knew it was ridiculous and yet… castles had secrets. It was a common fact of the magical world. For Merlin's sake, he had spent the better part of three years mapping out the secrets of Hogwarts, and still he would not presume to say he knew them all. While the Marauders had seen a bit more, he doubted most of the students who had passed through Hogwarts in the last thousand years had so much as thought about more than a tenth of the secrets it contained. Why should the library-castle be any different? Yes, it was smaller. Yes, it could not possibly house the amount of secrets Hogwarts did. But why could it not have just one? And why should he not be among those to search for it? He was good at searching for hidden things within a castle; he had learned from the best.

The logical part of Remus told him that this rationalizing was the result of his desire to return to his boyhood. He wanted to go back to the days of Hogwarts; while he could not call them carefree, he could call them happy. He wanted those days back again so much it hurt almost physically. He would gladly endure once again the daily jeers of the Slytherins if it meant that his evenings could be spent penning the Marauder's map rather than washing dishes or editing notes. So on a conscious level Remus did know that his persisting thoughts about the legendary hidden room were only an attempt to keep his friends' memories alive. It was only a way to pretend that things could be as they were when the Marauders were whole. And yet… if he found it, this hidden room could have a tremendous impact on his study. He could discover previously unknown Defense against the Dark Arts methods, if this Cleary's experiments had any merit to them. He need not take much time out of his studying to search, and Dumbledore had told him he was entitled to a social life. A voice at the back of his head told Remus that solitarily searching for a hidden room was not what Dumbledore had meant, but he ignored it. So… why not?

It was this much stronger mental argument that won out over Remus' logical side. He began to use one hour a week to search for the hidden room. He did his research first. He got Lyra to tell him everything she knew about the legend, and consulted the friendly witch behind the library desk, Irene. Irene was talkative on the subject, telling him all about the different places previous searches had found most likely. She said that if he wished, she would ask the Head Librarian to give him permission to go down to the basement, which he eagerly agreed to. Despite how frequently Remus was in the library, he had yet to meet the Head Librarian. He gathered from Irene that it was a largely ceremonial position, given to the eldest son of the Healy clan in thanks for the donation of the castle and collection. The current Librarian was young, just in his twenties, and cared more for the high life of Dublin than the quiet, secluded Wicklow. He only came for brief visits every so often, fulfilling most of his scant duties from the city.

Remus did his searching every Monday, in the first hour of library-opening, when it was emptiest. The work was slow, for he was meticulous in examining every possible surface for hidden doors or springs or spells. He mapped as he went, drawing the boundaries of the rooms with the same carefulness for which he had earned himself the task at Hogwarts. He recalled easily but not without sadness the charms he, Sirius, and James had looked up in their fifth year to enchant the Marauder's map. James had mastered the technique to password-protect it first, but Sirius had been the one to figure out how to get it to insult others who tried to read it as it if were their 15-year-old selves. They were always the first to master anything, although Remus was never far behind. Slowly, his new map began to take shape.

Remus came to consciousness slowly and lay still, gasping for breath in the pale September dawn. In the half-second before he was fully aware, there was still a part of him that expected careful hands to be tending him. Then he was awake and he allowed himself a few moments to master his pain, both physical and emotional, before dragging himself over to the strongbox to pull out his potions and bandages. While not used to it— he doubted he would ever be used to it— Remus had become more adept at tending his own wounds post-transformation. He deftly wrapped bandages around his deepest cuts before he picked himself up off the basement floor and stumbled up the stairs to his bed, where the pain disappeared in sleep once more.

"Speak of the devil! There's our scholar!" Lyra cried the next afternoon when Remus came into work.

"Your ears must have been ringing, dear," Maddie smiled. "We were just talking about you. How did your meeting go?"
The lie Remus had come up with for missing two days this month (full moon had fallen on a Friday) was that Dumbledore wanted him back for a report of his studies. He smiled back. "Perfectly well, thank you. Professor Dumbledore is pleased with my progress thus far."

"You didn't tell me you were going to be gone half the weekend," Lyra said accusatorily, glaring at him. She made a pouty face.

"I told your father, as he is my boss," Remus' eyes twinkled. "Why, did you miss me?"

"Not at all," she replied haughtily, and flounced away to return to the main room with her head in the air.

Remus burst out laughing as soon as she was gone. Lyra could brighten his mood even now, when he was still stiff and achy all over. Maddie shook her head after her daughter, and looked at her employee. "She likes you, you know. You're from outside Wicklow, so she pretty much thinks you're a god."

Remus hung his cloak up and pulled his wand out to start on the waiting pile of dishes, saying lightly, "I like her, too. She's a very spirited young woman."

"And you're a very bright young man," she pressed.

Remus flushed, but shook his head as if he thought it were funny. "Is this a match-making attempt?"

It was Maddie's turn to flush red. She snatched up a tray of food with her wand and hurried toward the front of the tavern, objecting, "Of course not. Would I do such a thing?"

Remus knew that Maddie would. She loved matchmaking, and was constantly gossiping about who was or was not together in the town. As Wicklow was such a small town, however, there was not a lot of relationship-meddling to be done. Maddie hadn't had a chance to set anyone up since Valentine's day, when she got the son of the postmaster and the daughter of the tailor, both fresh out of Hogwarts, together. She was itching for new relationships to arrange, and all the better if her own daughter could be one of the participants. Remus had often heard Maddie bewail her daughter's constant single status. But even if he were ready to date someone, he couldn't risk it. It was not safe to let anyone get that close to him. Besides, he wasn't interested in Lyra that way. Yes, she was cheerful and vivacious and optimistic. He liked talking with her, and she made him laugh, which was something he had nearly forgotten how to do. She was pretty enough, even though she had too many freckles spreading across her nose. But he wasn't interested in her, as Sirius would put it, that way. Of course, Sirius had only rarely said that about girls; he was nearly always interested. Remus finished his work and sat down to wait for more, wondering how he had managed to yet again pull his once-friend into an inner monologue that had nothing to do with him.

The evening seemed to drag on. The workload was light for all, except around the dinner rush, and even that wasn't heavy. Sunday family dinner was a tradition that was still alive and well in Wicklow, and that meant most people stayed in, although occasionally families would come to the tavern and often people would drift in for an after-dinner drink or a nightcap. But on the whole, Sunday was always one of the Goblet's slower days. For this Remus was grateful; it was everything he could do to conceal his exhaustion as it was. He was halfway through his break, savoring Maddie's hot potato soup, when Lyra dropped into the seat next to him with a dramatic sigh.

"I hate Sundays."

"What do you mean?" Remus asked, surprised, "Sundays are easy. A far smaller crowd than the rest of the weekend."

"Yeah, but everyone brings their families, which makes the trays of food heavier. My arms are killing me." Lyra slumped back into her seat, letting her arms hang at her sides as if to prove her point.

Remus' first thought was that she did not know anything about real pain, and his second was that he hoped she never would. But the comment gave him an opportunity to question her on something he'd noticed and been wondering about for a while. Smiling to give the question a lighthearted air, he said, "You do have a wand, you know."

He saw something in Lyra's face flicker slightly before she shrugged cheerfully. "Yeah, but I've always liked good old-fashioned hard work. There's just something about using your hands that magic can't satisfy, you know?"

The question was rhetorical, so Remus left it unanswered, but the truth was that he didn't know. He liked his maps, yes, but the joy in the that for him lay in the discovery process, not in the drawing of lines. He had never been as strong physically as his friends, except once a month— and that was a strength he neither remembered nor wanted. Lycanthropy tended to wear on the sufferer's human body, both from the injuries inflicted every month and the inherently draining nature of the condition. That was not even weighing in the psychological tolls. At the moment, however, Lyra's response intrigued him in what it said about her far more than in what it said about him. And so he asked the other question that had been bouncing around in his head the last few weeks. "How old are you?"

"Remus!" Lyra said, shoving him playfully. The corners of his mouth tightened in pain, but she was too busy scolding him to notice, thankfully. "Haven't you learned by now that there are three things you never ask a woman about: her age, her weight, and her virginity?"

The last comment caught Remus off-guard; he had not expected innocent Lyra to make a sexual joke. But he recovered and cajoled, "Come on, humor me. If you don't, I'll have to guess, and I'll make it really high…"

Laughing, she gave in. "All right, all right. As you're the only one in town who doesn't already know anyway, I suppose I can tell you without sacrificing my dignity. I'm 21; I'll be 22 in January."

A year younger than himself. "So you were just a year below me at Hogwarts? I don't remember you…"

This time Lyra looked away. "I didn't go to Hogwarts."

"Oh, Beauxbatons then? That would explain it; I'm just used to most Irish going to Hogwarts instead of over to the Continent. Do you have relatives in France?"

"I didn't go there, either. I didn't go to magic school."

This silenced Remus for several moments. He knew what it was like to grow up thinking you weren't going to be able to go to school. He very nearly hadn't himself, until Dumbledore became Headmaster. But Lyra was perfectly normal and healthy. "But then, who—?"

"My parents," she replied before he finished his question, "My parents taught me, mostly, although I had a few tutors here and there, in the subjects they weren't confident in. Neighbors, usually. Mum and Dad preferred it that way. They didn't like the idea of having me away most of the year."

Remus still couldn't understand what kind of parents wouldn't want their child to go to Hogwarts. He could see that Ian and Maddie were both very skilled, and undoubtedly had the ability to teach their daughter well, but why deny her the best magical education in Europe? It couldn't have been a matter of money; Remus knew for a fact that there was a fund to help families who needed it with tuition and things. That must be why Lyra tended not to use magic when she could avoid it; she was not confident that she was as good as those who had been properly schooled. A voice in the back of his head told Remus that he had pressed enough for today, but for once curiosity won out over caution.

"Do you ever wish you had gone to school?"
Lyra stood very quickly. "Honestly, Remus! Not everyone has to do things the normal way. Being homeschooled worked for me; I passed all my OWLS just like you did, only in a private session. I wouldn't change my childhood for anything. There's no need to be so condescending! Having gone to Hogwarts doesn't make you better!" She stalked out of the room.

Remus stared after her. He had never meant to imply that he thought he was better than her… he would never presume to think he was better than anyone. Except Voldemort and his Death Eaters, but they hardly counted. He suspected Lyra wasn't being quite truthful with him, because it was unlike her to lose her temper. In fact, he couldn't recall ever seeing her angry before tonight. He wanted to know more about why she had been homeschooled, but asking Maddie or Ian was out of the question. He could not risk his employers reacting in a similar way to their daughter. Remus mentally berated himself for letting his curiosity get the better of him. He had forgotten the cardinal rule for a werewolf trying to blend in with society: do not give people a reason to be on their guard around you. The best thing for a werewolf to do was live as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, not attracting attention to himself. After years of living among friends that already knew about his condition, he had stopped being as careful as he should. They're not here anymore, he told himself harshly, Get used to it and start remembering your place in this world. He would not draw attention to himself again. No more questions. Just polite small talk, work, and diligent study. That was his place.

Maddie came in, guiding a stack of dishes to the sink, flashing a smile at Remus. He stood, expression not betraying the twinge it caused his stiff muscles, and smiled back as he got back to washing.

A/N: Apologies for the long wait. The last couple weeks of term were simply insane. I hope this chapter makes up for it. To my American readers: Happy Thanksgiving! As always, reviews are always encouraged and responded to.