The potted cactus portkey takes them to a bright city with sidewalks made of patterned tiles and crowds of people speaking a language Remus initially mistakes for Spanish. He blinks fiercely against the intense midday sun.
"Where are we?" he asks hoarsely.
"Lisbon," says his rescuer/kidnapper. "I've always wanted to visit Portugal. Bit warmer here than Switzerland, yeah?"
"I wouldn't know," he says drily. "Didn't spend much time outside in Geneva."
"Yes, of course. Silly me."
Remus stops walking. The woman strides ahead another few steps before she realizes he's no longer following. "What's wrong?"
Remus raises his eyebrows. "Quite a lot, actually. You're not going to tell me your name? Or take off the glamour?"
She laughs. Whatever spell she's cast on her voice makes the sound feel robotic. "Good questions! You can call me Eve. And no, the glamour stays on; it's in my best interest to be discreet."
"Do you have my wand?"
"Of course—I've got your earring, too. I'll give it all back once we've had a chat."
She leads him into a bustling café and takes a seat by the window. Before Remus can sit across from her, she pulls a neat bundle of clothes from her dragon-leather knapsack and hands them over.
"Go put these on in the bathroom," she says, "and toss whatever sad hospital garb you're wearing. Loony bin couture isn't a good look on you."
"Thanks," says Remus.
By the time he gets back, now wearing a proper button-up and trousers, "Eve" has ordered a plate of custard pastries and a pot of coffee. Remus tentatively takes his seat and waits for her to talk.
"Here's my dilemma," says Eve, taking a generous bite from her pastry. "There are certain things that I need, and the demands of my personal life are preventing me from acquiring them."
"What things?"
She waves her hand. "A little of this, a little of that. We'll cover it all. Help yourself to the pastel de nata—you need some meat on your bones."
Remus takes the one closest to him and picks at the crust.
"Why do you want to do this in the first place?" he asks.
Though the glamour blurs her expression, Remus can tell the question excites her.
"Mages know that ghosts exist," she says, "so we accept it as fact that the human soul endures in some form or another after death. Beyond that, however, we know nothing. My proposed creation would allow the Department of Mysteries to observe and study this realm—in a limited capacity, of course." She riles through her knapsack again and withdraws a stack of blueprints. "I've got the design down, so now it's just a matter of…everything else."
Remus flips through the papers. Each one depicts a slightly different version of the same sketch—a stone archway set on a dais, covered by a long, transparent shroud.
Eve stirs milk into her coffee. "Are you familiar with the Tale of the Three Brothers, Remus?"
A vague memory stirs—a picture book, a roaring fireplace, rain on the thatched roof—but nothing specific comes to mind. He shakes his head.
"Well, the long and short of it is that there are three magical objects gifted to humanity by Death. One of them is the Resurrection Stone, which has the power to call back departed souls, neither as ghosts nor as flesh, but something in between. The Stone's power has a pitfall, however—because the souls do not belong here, they become restless and uncomfortable, and they can never truly rejoin the living." She picks up another pastry. "My archway mitigates the problem of displacement. We wouldn't be taking anything that belonged to the other side; we'd just be peeking in."
Remus frowns. "But why an archway and not a door?"
"An archway is always open," Eve says simply. "We'd need a constant flow of energy between the two realms to manifest the barrier in a physical form."
Remus thinks back to his Ancient Runes classes. "There's something about the symbology, too, isn't there? A permanently open structure would be…more self-sufficient. Less easy to control. It would channel more power than one that could be—turned off, I suppose."
"Very good!" Eve pats his hand encouragingly. "I knew you'd be a quick study. Yes, the idea of the archway is that it embraces the other side. Once it's erected, we can't just choose to close it. If we don't cede some of our control to the great unknown, the magic wouldn't be able to move organically."
Remus considers this. "Do you have a pack of smokes on you?" he asks.
"Oh, sure." Eve digs into the knapsack and pulls out a plastic bag of blunts. "I'm not much for tobacco, if that's what you were after, but I grow my own pot. They're all strains I've engineered myself—this one is lavender-mint, this one is honey-cinnamon…oh, this one is my husband's favorite—lemon-ginger-salmon."
"Salmon?"
"It's better than it sounds."
"I'll take the lavender-mint."
She hands him one, and he conjures a small flame in the palm of his hand to light up. It was a convenient bit of wandless magic he'd learned back at Hogwarts—it made him quite popular at parties.
"What's on your mind?" asks Eve once he's taken a few calming puffs.
"I mean, it's an intriguing concept, to say the least," says Remus. "But the—the Resurrection Stone isn't real, is it? You said so yourself. What makes you think something of this scale could be done?"
Eve looks a bit miffed. "I didn't say it wasn't real. Proof of its existence has popped up every few centuries, though nobody knows where it is now."
Remus has his doubts, but he's not inclined to argue with the woman who's keeping his wand hostage.
"Okay," he says. "So, let's assume the Stone is real, then. That has a fairly large risk factor associated with it, but what you're proposing is astronomically riskier. You intend to use the archway as a window, I know, but people are going to want to…to go in. And explore. But life is a state of impermanence, and death is a state of permanence—if anyone walks through, it's a one-way trip."
"It is."
"How do you account for the potential casualties?"
Eve rolls her eyes. "It'll be housed in the Department of Mysteries for a reason—Unspeakables are trained to resist the…pull…that powerful objects often emit. And if they end up going in anyway, that's just an occupational hazard."
Remus files that unsettling response away for later and presses on. "What about the other side? If souls can move freely to the living world, what's to stop a tsunami of spirits flooding through? That's not what you want, is it?"
Eve shakes her head. "Won't happen. Unless they've chosen to stay behind as ghosts, spirits can't return to our world unless they're summoned, and as far as I know, the Resurrection Stone is the only thing capable of doing that. Their side of the archway is, as you've pointed out, mostly symbolic."
Remus takes a contemplative hit from his blunt. He wishes it was just a plain cigarette, but it scratches the itch well enough. He closes his eyes for a moment and pretends that nothing bad has ever happened, and that he knows nothing about anything.
"So, what exactly is my job description?" he asks. "If I say yes, of course."
She dabs at the crumbs on her mouth with a napkin. "If you say yes, your position would entail collecting the materials to construct the archway and veil, and then helping me assemble it and figure out the activation rites—I suspect it'll take a fair bit of digging to create the spell. But as for your actual title, that's up to you. Research Assistant, Private Consultant, Co-conspirator; doesn't matter to me."
"And what do I get?"
She laughs and pours a fresh cup of coffee. "Well, for starters, I won't dump your sorry arse back in the hospital. Plus, I'll throw in a flat rate of three hundred Galleons. You'll also get first dibs on using the veil once it's done—for whatever you like."
Remus freezes. "What?"
"It's no secret that you're in a bad way," she says plainly. "If you help me with this, you can use the veil to chat with your friends and maybe get some closure, or, if you want, you can go join them. Whatever you choose, I won't stand in your way."
Remus is stunned. How does this woman understand what his father and Albus and all the Healers in Geneva couldn't comprehend?
"Any questions so far?" asks Eve, smiling over the rim of her cup.
He hesitates. "Do I know you?"
Her smile widens. "If I took off the glamour, you'd probably recognize me. But we don't know each other very well at all. That's why this will work so perfectly."
Veil Supplies:
Norn Spider silk (Iceland)
Water from the Well of Styx (Greece)
Magnetized stones from Earth's 7 magical cores (Japan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, New Zealand—research the rest; sources conflict on the last 3)
Eve has brought a magically binding contract with her, and once Remus signs it, she hands him his wand and earring back and says that it's time for them to keep moving. Remus finally finds out what they're doing in Lisbon—Eve is picking up a rare grimoire from a bookstore carved into a hill. She chats with the cashier in broken Portuguese and slides him the payment in a sealed envelope. The cashier doesn't open it, but weighs it in his open hand for a moment before nodding and sliding the book across the counter.
"This is for you," says Eve, dumping the heavy text into Remus's arms. "You'll have to do a translation spell, but I've been told it'll point you in the right direction about where to gather the stones."
"If you say so." Remus readjusts the position of the book and ends up hugging it against his chest. "Is that what I should start with, you think? The stones?"
Eve shakes her head. "Get the materials in the order they're listed. But in the meantime, read up about the magical cores. You can multitask, can't you?"
He nods stiffly, and Eve claps her hands together and smiles.
"Excellent," she says. "Now then, I'm going to give you a two-way notebook—I've got the connecting one, obviously. Once you've got the Norn Spider silk, write in here and let me know, and I'll come meet you to collect it. That'll be our process for everything. Understand?"
He nods again, and she presses the little hardcover journal into his free hand.
"And as for your payment…" she fishes once more through her knapsack, withdrawing a leather pouch. Remus does a quick inventory and ascertains that the money is all there. He feels sweat beading on his forehead; it really is quite hot out.
"What month is it?" he asks.
"July. We're about halfway through."
Remus's first thought is that Harry's birthday is coming up. He'll be two years old on the 31st. Last Remus saw him, he was just starting to toddle. He was always a happy baby—talkative and inquisitive, full of smiles and nonsensical babble. Remus wonders if Harry misses Lily and James at all; even if he can't remember them anymore, does some part of him know that the people who loved him most were there one moment and then suddenly, not? Had he accepted Petunia and her husband as his new parents? Remus clamps down on that train of thought. Harry doesn't need someone like Remus meddling in his life, upsetting his new status quo after the abrupt upheaval on Halloween. No contact with the magical world until Hogwarts, Albus had said.
And if Harry is lucky, he'll never have any contact with Remus at all.
"I've got to get home," says Eve, "so I'll leave you to it. I'd suggest you get to Iceland the Muggle way—their Ministry is a bit finicky about tourists, and they tax you like mad if you try to portkey there. Criminal, really, if you ask me."
"Right," says Remus.
Eve sticks out her hand, and Remus gives it a firm shake. "If you run into any trouble, let me know. We're in this together now."
With a final grin, she turns and slips into the throng of passerby. Remus loses sight of her almost instantly.
He books a flight out of Lisbon for the following morning and rents a bed at a youth hostel by the water. The place is overflowing with backpackers from all over the continent on breaks from school, chatting and laughing up a storm. It feels strange to be among the general public again—for however long he was put away, Remus existed in a solitary bubble with only fleeting interaction. Now, he's been thrust back into the madding crowd.
He finds a convenience store by the 25 de Abril Bridge and buys a few packs of cigarettes.
He's itching for some proper drugs—he always is—but he'll need all his wits about him if he's going to pull off this job. He's reeling with the idea of it, of being able to see Lily and James and Pete and beg for their forgiveness before going to join them again. The angry, muddled cloud that shrouded him in the hospital has lifted, replaced by a clearheaded concentration. There's a singular focus that takes over Remus when he's latched onto a goal—in school, it was getting top marks; in the war, it was taking out Death Eaters; these past few months, it's been looking for ways to take the sharp, unbearable edge off his pain. Now, it's the veil.
Remus goes back to the hostel, lights up, and cracks open the book Eve gave him: Advanced Magical Core Theory. Remus's understanding of magical theory has always been intuitive rather than something he studied; as for the subject of magical cores, he knows almost nothing. As he skims through the first chapter, he becomes reacquainted with a few key concepts: magic is an organic energy that springs from the natural world; as such, there are places on Earth where that magic flows from powerful sources—usually some sort of geological phenomena, like Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe or Mount Fuji in Japan. As a mage's body is thought to contain seven magical cores, it is theorized that the earth holds seven main cores as well; places where magic is concentrated and abundant, spilling over into the surrounding environment like an energy field. The exact locations, however, have been disputed for centuries.
Remus's reading is interrupted by a small black owl rapping on the window. He stands up to retrieve the letter from its beak and give it a little pat on the head.
Dumbledore says you've gone missing.
He let slip that you were in the hospital—if you had two brain cells to rub together, you would go back and let them fix whatever the fuck is wrong with you. If you're lucky, perhaps you'll be lobotomized.
Respond if you're alive, and I'll put our esteemed leader's mind at ease.
SS
Remus calls a flame to his hand and burns the paper to ash. He neatly sweeps the smoky black flakes off his bed, sets the book aside, and rolls over. He's asleep within seconds.