~ 8 ~

Toil and Trouble

Horace selected another piece of crystallised pineapple and popped it into his mouth, fastidiously brushing sugar from his fingers before turning back to the letter he had just opened.

The ink was bright purple, and the handwriting was rather more enthusiastic than elegant.

Dear Professor Slughorn,

I am a former Hogwarts student who would like to learn to brew a potion that is said to be quite difficult. May I consult with you about the possibility of a brewing lesson?

Yours sincerely,

Nymphadora Tonks

Chewing slowly, Horace tried to match a face to the name, but couldn't; his correspondent must have come through school while young Snape was teaching Potions. Although—it could be a daughter of that Tonks boy, the Muggleborn. He'd married Andromeda Black, and what a scandal that had been.

He swallowed the pineapple and squinted at the letter. "Difficult, eh?" Teaching a difficult potion to an unknown witch almost sounded like more trouble than it was worth.

Almost.

Who was this person, and what did she want to brew, and why? Was she important?

Could she be useful someday?

Hmph.

"Might as well let her come and talk to me," he muttered. It would be a spot of entertainment, at least.

He could always decline to help once he found out what it was she wanted.

Nodding sagely, Horace scrawled a few words on a fine, thick piece of parchment bearing his monogram and let the waiting owl carry it off into the night.

~o~

Alastor fidgeted while Molly Weasley stammered out some tremulous worry or other, and then that scruffy mongrel Fletcher wasted everyone's time with a useless whinge. They were already running a quarter of an hour behind schedule.

But, at very long last, the Order meeting did break up.

He caught Tonks's attention with a sharp jerk of his chin just as she was trying to slip out the door. She turned back and pushed her way through the Burrow's crowded kitchen to the corner where he sat, walls at his back and sides.

"Wotcher, Mad-Eye." She smiled, a little.

Alastor didn't much like to see his lass looking so tired. And the mousy-brown hair that hung past her chin was proof that she still wasn't Metamorphosing. Not that she wasn't a crack Auror—she didn't need a natural ability for disguise to be that.

It was just that, if he were being honest, he would have to admit that he was worried about her.

"Tomorrow's my first debriefing with Lupin," he said.

Her smile faded, and those clever dark eyes of hers went curiously blank.

Interesting.

"I just wondered if you had any messages for him." Alastor raised an eyebrow. "I know you two are thick as thieves."

"Oh," said Tonks. "Not—particularly." She swallowed, and pressed her lips together. "Just—tell him I haven't forgotten what we were talking about, before he left." And now she was downright scowling.

So there was something different going on, there.

He'd thought as much.

~o~

The next day, along about noon, there came a knock on Horace's office door.

He opened it to find a rather short young witch with a striking heart-shaped face and fine brown hair. Oho! He had clearly guessed right about her family. She looked quite a lot like her mother—and more than a little like her Auntie Bellatrix.

"Miss Tonks. So delighted to meet you. Please come in." He showed her to a nice soft armchair before settling himself into an even softer one.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Professor," his visitor began politely, perching gingerly on the edge of the chair instead of sinking in.

"You're most welcome, my dear. Now, let me see...Tonks is not a very common name. Are you Ted and Andromeda's daughter, perhaps?" She nodded, looking surprised, and he smiled in satisfaction. "So that makes you a descendant of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."

Miss Tonks frowned. "Not in any sense that matters. The family disowned my mother for marrying my father. They'd never acknowledge me."

"A pity." Horace shook his head. "Being a Black can open a lot of doors in wizarding society, you know." His visitor's ill-concealed expression of distaste at those words piqued his curiosity again, but he filed away the information for future analysis and smoothly changed the subject. "I understand you're interested in brewing a difficult potion. Which one is it?"

"Yes, Professor." Miss Tonks nodded again, with a look of earnest innocence that was just a shade too perfect. "I'd like to learn to brew Wolfsbane."

That was not at all an answer that Horace was expecting.

He stared at her for a moment, habitual jocularity fading. "That is a difficult potion, Miss Tonks." His words were careful. "Not everyone would have the skill to learn to brew it."

"I have a N.E.W.T. in Potions," she replied, attempting an ingratiating smile (which did not seem to be a particularly well-cultivated skill of hers). "I'm sure I could do it, if you helped me practice."

"N.E.W.T. level, eh? Hmmph." Horace was still eyeing her shrewdly. "But it's not only that the potion is difficult to brew, you see. There are security concerns."

"Security concerns?" Miss Tonks regarded him, wide-eyed, as though this were a new idea.

Horace frowned. Of course there were security concerns. Anyone with half an ounce of common sense could see that. A potion that allowed werewolves to keep their own, human minds during the full moon would prevent a well-meaning werewolf from hurting anyone, certainly. But the opportunities it would create for a werewolf who wanted to attack people, someone like the notorious Fenrir Greyback, were too horrible to contemplate.

"Who is the potion for?" he asked.

Miss Tonks looked a bit taken aback. "A friend," she said, finally. "That's all I can tell you."

Horace squinted at her again, absently smoothing his moustache. There was a trace of honest pleading, just discernable behind the false saintliness, that made him feel...

...sympathetic?

But he sighed, remembering a certain careless disclosure of sensitive information in his past—one with deadly and ongoing consequences.

"If I don't know who the potion is for, and why you want it," he said, "I'm afraid I can't help you. In dangerous times like these, we must be very careful."

"But I'm not a security risk," she blurted. "I'm an Auror. I work at the Ministry!"

Horace smiled blandly. "Unfortunately, as the Headmaster so often reminds us, working at the Ministry is not necessarily an adequate credential these days."

Miss Tonks blinked once, and hastily called up her innocent expression again. "The Headmaster! Professor—would you just talk to him before you make up your mind? He'll vouch for me."

Horace shook his head. "The Headmaster is elsewhere today, I'm afraid."

Her shoulders slumped. She bit her lip and turned her head away, and he thought she might even be blinking back tears.

Her despair was much more convincing than her innocent act had been.

Horace knew perfectly well that the sensible thing to do was to send his visitor on her way. Brewing the Wolfsbane potion was a great deal of bother, in any case. But the whole situation was so very interesting. Why was this young woman so determined?

"I could," he offered, "speak with the Deputy Headmistress instead, if you will wait here for a moment."

~o~

Ah—there he was.

It was Alastor's magical eye that caught sight of Lupin first, coming along the path through the wood toward their chosen clearing. The lad looked well enough. Thin, and tired, to be sure. He hadn't been all that well even before he left, what with Black's death and all. But there were no apparent injuries, and he was holding his head up.

Those were good signs.

Wouldn't do to have him beaten down by the pack, not this early in the mission. It had only been a week. Later on, after Lupin had spent more time in Greyback's company, things might well be more—difficult.

Alastor waited, of course, until the lad had actually entered the clearing before he pulled the Invisibility Cloak away from his face. (Constant vigilance.)

"Lupin."

"Hello, Alastor." Lupin's voice was quiet—wise choice, that—but not even very hoarse.

"You're looking well," said Alastor, in his own quietest rumble. "Making out all right?"

Lupin nodded, and smiled, although it was somewhat grim. "I'm on the margins of the camp so far. That's useful, really, since I'd like to go on avoiding any notice from Greyback himself for as long as I can. But I've started to work my way into the group that keeps furthest away from him, and I've already found a few werewolves who don't seem to like his ways all that much."

"A start, then." Alastor trained his natural eye, and both ears, on Lupin, but he kept his magical eye spinning in all directions. You never knew who might be sneaking up on you, in a wood.

Lupin's expression shifted to something that was a little less smile and a little more grim. "We'll see," he said. "It's slow going. Trust isn't thick on the ground around here, and I have very little in the way of status or credibility. I can't reveal too much until I know who to trust, and that will be hard, until some of them start to trust me."

"Right you are," said Alastor, tracking a distant pair of werewolves—well out of sight of his natural eye—who seemed to be setting snares in the wood. "Constant vigilance. If you make the wrong decision, there's no going back."

"Indeed." Lupin let slip a small shiver.

Alastor really couldn't blame him.

"Hold up," he said, spinning his magical eye in another direction. "Someone's coming this way. Two of 'em."

He concentrated for a moment, bringing into magical focus one short stooped figure and one taller one. Tall, and bewhiskered, and scowling—

"It's Greyback," he said.

~o~

Deputy Headmistress McGonagall looked up from her desk when Horace knocked on her office door.

"Good day, Minerva. May I have a moment?"

"Certainly, Horace. Do come in."

He sat a bit heavily, mopping his brow with a flowery silk handkerchief. There were just too many blasted stairs in this school.

"It's most intriguing," he said. "A witch has come to see me. Wants to learn to make a potion. But it's a sensitive situation—security risk, don't you know. I was hoping you could tell me a little more about her."

"Who is it?" asked McGonagall sharply.

"A young woman named Nymphadora Tonks."

"Ah." McGonagall's face cleared. "I know Miss Tonks quite well. In fact, I've been in touch with her often, this last year or so."

"I see." Horace, reading between the lines, took that to mean that his visitor was a member of old Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix. As far as anyone knew, Dumbledore had only been hoodwinked by one member of the Order in twenty years. Those were fairly good odds...

McGonagall allowed herself a small smile. "I suppose the sensitive potion in question is Wolfsbane?"

Horace blinked. "How on earth did you guess that?"

"Miss Tonks is," said McGonagall delicately, "very good friends with Remus Lupin."

"Oho!" Horace beamed. Expending effort had paid off. Now he understood the reason behind the young woman's anxious stubbornness. "I remember Lupin. Quiet boy. Nothing particularly interesting about him—apart from his condition, of course."

McGonagall frowned, a bit primly, in Horace's opinion. "In any case, he's absolutely trustworthy. They both are."

Horace nodded and heaved himself out of his chair. "Thank you, Minerva."

~o~

Alastor stepped back into the cover of the trees and pulled the Invisibility Cloak up over his head. Lupin crouched down and began picking some blackberries that were growing at the edge of the clearing, dropping them carefully into a dented tin bucket he'd been carrying.

"Oi," came a rough voice. "You're the new one."

Lupin stood, setting the bucket on the ground.

Greyback, tall and rangy and filthy, loomed over the shorter man walking beside him. He pretty well loomed over Lupin, too, but the lad held his ground with a calm, impassive face.

"Greyback," said the werewolf, jabbing at his chest with his thumb. His nails were long, but ragged and filthy. "This is my camp. Never forget that."

"All right," said Lupin, mildly, tilting his head to one side with a bland, casual air. Nicely done, that.

But behind his back, where only Alastor could see, one hand clenched into a fist.

"What's your name?" Greyback took a step closer, looking the lad over.

"Lupin."

"Lupin?" The tangled eyebrows furrowed for a moment. "I've heard that name..."

And then Greyback burst out laughing.

The fist tightened.

"Little Lupin! I remember you! Didn't think you'd live this long." Greyback wiped spittle from the corner of his mouth with the back of a grimy hand. "How'd that posh father of yours like having a werewolf for a son? Eh?"

Lupin visibly stiffened.

Come on, now, Alastor thought at him. Don't let the old thug get under your skin.

"Said we were evil, didn't he," Greyback leered. "Said we deserved to die. Heard him myself." He spat on the ground, just missing Lupin's left foot. "Did he tell you those things too? Your whole life?"

Lupin swallowed a bit too hard, but then he landed a perfectly casual shrug. "Not really."

Greyback stared him down for a few more heartbeats.

Lupin faced the threatening glower with the blandest of all his bland looks. He didn't push his luck with the aggressive werewolf—but he didn't back down.

"Hmph." Greyback spat a second time. "Well. You've got to earn your place around here. Bring things back to the camp. If you don't, we'll turn you out." His leer returned. "But if I decide I like you, I'll show you the good life. You haven't lived until you've eaten human flesh at the full moon."

Lupin tilted his head again, his perfectly mild expression back under control.

Greyback shook his head and stomped off, the silent henchman following in his wake.

Alastor laughed, silently. Lupin had spent his life trying not to be noticed. Seemed he had perfected his art, if he could make even Fenrir Greyback think he was too boring to bother with.

He tracked the two werewolves with his magical eye until he judged that they were far enough away. Then he pulled the Cloak off his head again. "Nasty piece of work, that one."

Lupin dropped to his knees and began to retch into a stand of ferns, again and again and again.

~o~

Horace strolled slowly back through the corridors toward his office, sorting and filing his new information. So crafty Miss Tonks was a member of the Order of the Phoenix. That would certainly explain her attitude toward the Black family. Lupin was probably in the Order as well—he had been the last time around.

If he helped his visitor with the Wolfsbane, then, he would collect not one, but two Order members who owed him favours. Might be very useful, depending on how things went this year, with the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters on the prowl and all.

~o~

Lupin got shakily to his feet and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket—crumpled, but clean enough—to wipe his mouth.

"Sorry," he muttered, staring at the ground.

"Never mind," said Alastor gruffly. "The thought of eating human flesh would make anyone sick up."

"What?" Lupin looked up, then. "No, it's not that. I knew I would have to deal with that prospect when I came out here. I've brought some aconite leaves—Poppy Pomfrey's Potions brewer thinks that if I chew one or two before moons, I'll be able to put the wolf off its appetite."

"What is it, then?"

"Fenrir Greyback." Lupin seemed to retreat even further inside himself than usual. "I've just been standing face to face with the one who—" He pressed his hand to his mouth and swallowed convulsively.

The one who, Alastor finished for him, had taken a clever boy with a bright future and set him on a path to illness, pain, and poverty. Before his fifth birthday.

Lupin tried to smile, but it was a brittle, twisted thing. "And it seems that my father had a bit of history I don't know about."

Alastor cleared his throat, awkwardly. "Might have to ask Dumbledore."

Lupin nodded.

The silence thickened between them.

"That's really all I had to report, anyhow," said Lupin. "I'd best pick some more berries and get back to the camp, if I want any supper today."

Alastor knew he was crap at expressing sympathy. But he didn't much like the dead look behind the lad's eyes.

"Oh." He had almost forgotten. "Saw Tonks at an Order meeting last night. She had a message for you."

And that did it. Lupin drew a real breath, and his face came alive again, warmth seeping back into his gaze. "How is she? Is she—"

"Metamorphosing? Not yet." Alastor grimaced. "Don't know what's wrong with the lass. Bellatrix knocked her out pretty hard with that hex of hers, true, but that was more than a month ago by now."

"Hmm," said Lupin, looking worried—but that was better than the utter despair of a few moments ago. He shook his head. "You said she had a message for me?"

"She said—now, what was it—that she hasn't forgotten what you two were discussing before you left."

"Oh." Lupin swallowed. "I wish she would forget."

His eyes were sad, now. Wistful.

"Can you tell her," he asked, quietly, "that it's better if she does?"

Alastor had no idea what was going on between these two. But whatever it was, it was complicated.

~o~

Horace swept into his office with a flourish.

Miss Tonks had wandered over to the mantelpiece and seemed to be appreciating the extensive display of signed photos and publicity clippings from members of his Slug Club. She turned when he came in, her eyes large and anxious in her pale face.

He paused dramatically, letting the tension build. Then he winked. "So the potion is for Remus Lupin, is it?"

She visibly bristled. "I was attempting to respect his privacy."

Horace chuckled at her protectiveness, waving a hand expansively. "He was a student of mine, you know. All of us on staff were aware of his condition."

She blinked. "Then—if you know Remus, surely—"

Relenting, he ended the suspense. "The Deputy Headmistress has indeed approved your request, so I suppose there's no reason why I shouldn't help you with this."

Miss Tonks drew a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly. "Thank you." Abandoning her strained attempt at an angelic persona, she came out with a much cheekier grin.

Horace rubbed his hands together in anticipation of the intellectual and practical challenges ahead. "All right, then, let's go down to the Potions classroom and see what we can do."

"I should warn you," said Miss Tonks cheerfully, "that I'm a bit clumsy. More than a bit, actually. And I'm no good at householdy spells at all. But I am good at Potions. And cooking."

"Perhaps," suggested Horace as he showed his guest out of his office, "you could send me something you've baked one day."

He felt rather pleased with himself—it was a good day's work. He would be adding two Order members to his collection, and he'd solved the mystery of his unexpected visitor.

Although, it hadn't really been much of a mystery, in the end. She was in love. Nothing particularly complicated about that.

~o~


Author's notes: Thanks for bearing with the long delay. I hope to begin posting updates to Kaleidoscope (II) much more regularly again. One of the next few chapters still needs some work, but other than that I've got completed drafts of all the remaining ones, so things should move along more quickly!

The Slughorn sections of this chapter are actually a revision of the first chapter of one of the very first Remus/Tonks pieces I ever posted, over at MuggleNet, called "To Brew a Potion." (The second chapter of that piece was very much not DH-compliant, so I won't be doing anything with it for Kaleidoscope, but it was fun to be able to salvage some of the Slughorn bits.)

The details of Remus's bite, and his father's history with Greyback, are based on information in the Remus Lupin biography on Pottermore.