Chapter 100: Tuesday, May 21, 2002

"Major breakthroughs often come after major breakdowns."

-Matshona Dhliwayo


"Cheers," Remus said, lifting the goblet Harry handed him a bit before putting it to his lips. Despite the vile taste of the potion inside, Remus had found himself eager to receive it.

"Cheers, mate," Harry responded with a smile. He sat on the edge of the bed across from Remus and sipped from a glass of water. "Alright?"

Remus gulped down the smoking liquid, trying desperately not to taste the foul rot of meat as he did. Once he finished it, he coughed a few times, willing the potion to stay situated in his gut. "Yeah, m'alright, you?"

"Yeah."

The silence felt heavy and awkward and Remus wasn't quite sure what to do with it. He had spent a fair amount of one on one time with Harry since he had been here, but they were usually working on one thing or another. It wasn't like they had an abundance of down time to talk—what with the war rearing its ugly head.

Remus had just gotten in from the Ministry when he realized the house was far more quiet than usual. Hermione and Ginny had apparently gone with Charlie and Tonks to set traps for Snatchers and most of the others had grouped to go look for Justin and check in on his mum.

"You didn't go out with the search groups?" Remus asked, kicking himself for asking such an obviously stupid question.

No, you dolt. He's right here, isn't he?

I'm aware. It's called starting a conversation.

Shitty way of doing it. If that's the case you may as well just open with 'I'm going to say something incredibly stupid.'

Oh fuck off, you mangy mutt.

Harry seemed to realize Remus was warring with Moony in his head, his eyes alight with curiosity as they flickered over Remus' face.

"Sorry," Remus mumbled.

"No need to apologize," Harry chuckled, waving his hand idly to excuse the apology. "And no, I thought if you showed up and the Shack was empty it could be alarming."

"Probably right about that."

The weight between them seemed to lessen, however awkward it still hung. Remus patted the top of his thighs a few times, more for something to do with his hands than anything, before puffing out a small sigh.

"It's weird to see your face without any scars," Harry said, suddenly.

"Without...oh! Oh, I forgot I had them glamoured," Remus shook his wand from his sleeve and waved it over his face, wrinkling his nose at the slight discomfort as his skin melted back into itself.

"That's much better."

Remus couldn't help the laugh that bit past his lips, "I don't know about better, but more familiar maybe."

"No, better, I think. I broke my nose once and Luna told me I looked more 'devil may care' that way. I think I understand what she meant, now."

"How'd you break your nose?" Remus asked, imagining the time in fourth year when Sirius dared James to attempt his first Wronski Feint which had resulted in James smashing into the pitch and breaking his nose and chipping a tooth. He wondered if it was a Quidditch related injury as well, having heard how good a player Harry was, he half doubted it.

"Oh, erm—Malfoy, actually." Harry admitted, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck.

"Draco?"

"Yeah," Harry gave a strange laugh. "We uh—kind of hated each other for a long time. It was on the train on the way back for the start of term sixth year. I was spying on him under the invisibility cloak but he saw me—my ankle was out. He hexed me and then stamped on my face."

Remus' eyebrows shot high into his hairline, "And now he lives with you?"

"Yeah, well, bygones be bygones and all that rubbish," Harry shrugged, waving his hands as if to sweep the past under a metaphorical rug. "Besides, I'm shagging his best mate and I like to remind him of that when he's being a prat. So, I guess I can't really complain anymore."

Remus snorted, "I reckon not."

Harry drained the last of his water and set the glass on the floor before resting his hands on his knees. The light pitter-patter of his fingers as he drummed into his jeans gave off a nervous bit of energy and Remus felt very aware of the James-esque way Harry was avoiding talking about something that was weighing on his mind. A pang shot through his chest and he swallowed thickly, trying to draw in a steadying breath without giving away that he still struggled to look Harry in the eye, lest he be consumed by the emerald inferno that was Lily staring back at him.

"Is there something—"

"Was it like this—"

They spoke at the same time and Remus hummed a dry laugh.

"Go on," he said.

Harry's mouth upturned in a close-lipped smile before he spoke, "Was it like this before—all this fear and uncertainty?"

His eyes bore into Remus, searching him. "Yeah," Remus sighed, feeling his shoulders sag. "It was fucking terrible pretty much all of the time, well...not all of it, I suppose. Hermione was a bright spot—for all of us, really. Your parents and Sirius loved her dearly, too. And you coming along, of course."

The strange thin lipped attempt at a smile broadened at that and Harry had a look of fondness that sat in the way his brows relaxed and his hands stilled. "She has that effect on people and I don't even think she realizes it half the time."

Remus smiled, more to himself than anything. "No, I don't think she does."

"Remus," Harry began, his voice hardened slightly. "Are you staying? I know tonight is when you'll need to do the ritual, do you plan on being here tomorrow?"

"Yes," Remus confirmed, without hesitation.

"You know we have no idea what will happen, the longer you stay." Harry stated, looking expectantly at Remus.

"I know."

"And, you know you'll have to go back eventually…?" Harry shook his head slightly and jammed his fingers through his hair, "Time doesn't work this way, we're not meant to muck about in it."

A more-bitter-than-he-cared-for-laugh escaped his lips and Remus couldn't help the phrase that fell from his tongue, "You are so much like your dad."

Harry nodded, "So I've heard."

"I'm sorry, that was...I shouldn't have…I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"Using James as an insult?" Remus suggested, shifting in his seat and wishing he could take back the words. "He's only just...it's not right to speak ill…"

"You didn't." Harry insisted, "And I'm twenty-two now, it's been a long time for me, yeah?"

"Twenty-one," Remus corrected, automatically.

"What?"

"You're not twenty-two yet," Remus swallowed back the pain that had been lingering on the edges since he had arrived here. Regardless of how far he'd come past the all-consuming grief, how hard he'd been trying to get on with his life and cope with the loss, the ache always sat just on the edges.

"I rounded up," Harry said, good naturedly.

"Don't," Remus pleaded, trying desperately to ignore the sting in his eyes.

"Mate, are you alright?"

Remus chewed the inside of lip, bobbing his head a few times, trying to get his emotions together. He had made it almost a week without losing himself completely, he had been doing so well here, in the presence of Hermione. But, she wasn't here now to swoop in and pull him to her when she could tell the abyss was trying to swallow him up. Remus cleared his throat again.

"Once you've turned twenty-two, I can't tell you that you look like your dad or that you act a lot like him. Or...or that you say things that Lily…" he took a sharp breath and begged his hammering heart to slow, "...that Lily would say...I can't say those things because...I'll have no idea."

"You'll have no...Remus, what are you—"

"Because you've outlived them," he said, a pathetic hitch in his cracked voice. "At twenty-two you're older than they were and I…"

Harry leaned forward and squeezed Remus' hand, a brotherly gesture that was so fucking much like James it made him feel ill. The Wolfsbane potion rolled heavy in his stomach and he found his traitorous tongue had finally been loosened enough—between loving words from Hermione, screaming his head off with Luna and small chats with Harry—he couldn't stop the spillage as it leaked from his mouth.

"It was always terrible then," Remus murmured, drawing in a deep breath and looking down at the toes of his old trainers. "The moment we left Hogwarts it was like all hell broke loose. Everyone was terrified all of the time and your parents and Sirius and Hermione, they were the only good thing in the world." He cleared his throat and looked up at Harry, trying to push a smile onto his face, knowing it probably looked pained. "Then you came and it was bloody madness but fuck if it wasn't actual magic—not this rubbish shit we keep dying for. But, real, pure magic."

Harry gave a watery smile, his eyes resting easy on Remus' face. Remus continued babbling, wiping furiously at his eyes as he cleared his throat. "And then they—they're gone. And James—James! He fucking knew. He knew he would die and he just...did? And it doesn't make any fucking sense and I can't even look at you without seeing them and my head hurts all the fucking time and people are still fucking dying! People are still getting captured and probably tortured and I can't make any sense of it. But, being here with you lot…"

He took a deep breath and tried to collect his quickly spiraling thoughts while swiping angrily again at his betraying, stupid eyes as they spilled down his cheeks.

"You lot are the only thing keeping me here, I think."

After a few moments of silence, Harry stood. "I'll be right back," he promised, turning away and quickly stepping from the room.

Scared him off with all your whinging.

I took the potion, doesn't that make you shut the hell up?

And miss you make a fool of yourself while you act like a blubbering cunt?

Merlin and Morgana could you just shut up?

Remus was ripped from his squabbling with Moony as the door banged back open and Harry sat back down on the bed across from him, a photograph clutched in his hand. It was old, Remus could tell, weathered around the edges and slightly sun-bleached. Harry held it out to him, waving it insistently at him until Remus' own fingers connected with it.

He stared down at the photo and felt his heart slow into a hum of appreciation as he stared at the easy, lopsided smile of James and the broad, luminous grin of Lily on their wedding day. In the background he could see himself and Sirius twirling about the dance floor and he vividly remembered being rather drunk that night. His fingers traced the outline of the intricate lace gown Lily wore—in lieu of traditional robes. James' arm secured itself tightly around her waist, pulling her into his side as he looked at the camera. The moment shifted slightly and Lily doubled over with a laugh and James turned to look over his shoulder, the ghost of the words "Padfoot and Moony" on his lips.

"Keep it," Harry said.

Remus dragged his eyes up from the snapshot as it reset itself and looked at Harry, "I can't—"

"You can," Harry assured him. "I think you need it more than I do right now. Besides, you'll give it back to me eventually."

The emerald of his eyes sparkled with something that promised he knew a secret that Remus didn't and Remus nodded, "Okay."

"I've had over twenty years to learn how to get on without them. Never really knew them, so I think it was easier, somehow. I miss what I think I would have had but it's hard to miss a person when you don't know them." Harry stood, resting his hand on Remus' shoulder, "It's still new for you. Keep the photo safe for me and don't fuck up while you're here or else I'll never get it back."


Hermione bit down on her wand as she held it between her teeth, her hands tugging on the strange, luminous rope that Charlie had handed her.

"So, once the rope is down, it'll create a boundary that traps any living thing inside of it until we come to let it out," Charlie yelled over the space between them.

Hermione pulled her wand from her mouth, shoving it into the top-knot of her hair and continued to feed the marker to Charlie as he whispered the charms under his breath.

"Any living thing? What if a mole or a squirrel—"

Charlie barked a laugh, "You can set a weight identifier on it. Think any of the Snatchers will be smaller than you?"

"Oh, don't call her small, she'll be angry with you!" Ginny warned, laughing at the murderous look Hermione shot her across the clearing.

"I very much doubt it," Hermione said. "They seem to mostly be men, don't they?"

"Yeah, that's because the only women on their side insane enough to actually fight have been killed!" Tonks said, with a strange look of pride. "The rest of them are too busy providing heirs."

"Do you sit around and just think about Death Eaters shagging, a lot then, Tonks?" Ginny laughed.

"No! Of course, I don't. But, when they essentially support inbreeding, it's a little difficult to imagine their women are doing anything else."

Charlie and Ginny both laughed loudly and Hermione pulled a face of disgust as the last of the rope left her hands.

"Anyway," Charlie said, dusting his palms off and stashing his wand in his back pocket. "We use these traps for dragons. So, if it can hold an angry Horntail, I'm confident a couple bumbling idiot Snatchers will be no problem."

It wasn't a bad plan, in Hermione's opinion. Having Charlie and Tonks back to bring fresh ideas of how to capture some of their enemies was proving to be useful. Charlie had even offered to bring them some charmed dragonhide armour to wear in the event of a planned ambush. He'd promised Harry that it would protect against everything short of Fiendfyre, and even then, it would buy them time to get away before getting burnt to a crisp.

"How's Remus holding up?" Ginny asked, as they began the walk back toward the small town on the edge of the clearing.

There had been countless reports of 'dark magic activity' in the area, according to a few of the older wizards and witches that lived nearby. Xenophilius Lovegood had become a sort of liaison to get people in touch with The Order and relay these types of messages. Long gone was the insane, terrified man cowering in the corner at the presence of Harry, Ron, and Hermione in his sitting room. Now, he supplied The Order with good leads and hard evidence of Death Eater involvement in a far quieter manner, having shut down the official Quibbler publication.

"He's...well, not okay," Hermione admitted. "But, he'll get there."

"Yeah, just lost his mates and then shows up to a time he's dead in, to find out a lot of what happened was a lie? I can imagine he's got his head full of bad things. I'm not even sure I could wrap my head around all that in one go."

Hermione nodded, frowning at Ginny's words. He really had been through so much in his short life and she just wanted to see him healthy before she had to break his heart again. She wasn't sure a second time would see him through it. But, she would need to have the conversation—he needed to know that his time here was limited.

"I just want to see him happy, again, you know?" Hermione said, her paces slowing. "He didn't have a lot of it before, but he's barely smiled since he's been here."

Ginny remained quiet for a moment before lacing her fingers through Hermione's hand and resting her head on her shoulder, "You really love him, don't you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I really do."

"Swot," Ginny chuckled, giving a playful shove to Hermione's shoulder. "Leave it to you to fall for a Professor."

"He's not a professor."

"Yet."

Hermione laughed and rolled her eyes, knowing the teasing would be endless and it was wasted effort to correct it.

"Oi!" Charlie shouted, "If you two are done prancing around, I need to set the warning on your wands!"


Hermione poked her head into the library-turned-workspace and looked for a sign of Remus. She had checked the attic first—for some strange reason he had taken to shutting himself in there when he came home from work at the Ministry most days. The constant barrage of people passing in and out of the Shack seemed to disrupt what little hold on his already overworked mind he had. He claimed he needed the privacy to collect his thoughts but Hermione worried that he was wallowing—suffering in silence with misplaced guilt.

She noticed one of the private rooms off the back wall had its door closed and she wandered toward it, placing a light knock against the wood.

"Remus?"

"Hermione—er, yeah. Hang on."

After a few moment's rustling, the door creaked open and Remus was filling the doorframe, the top of his head brushing the wood.

"What are you doing in there?" Hermione asked.

"Er, nothing, really...just…" he pushed the door open further and motioned for her to come in.

Closing the door behind her, she looked at the beds that were in complete disarray. Stacks of parchments were spread over the surfaces of the thin mattresses, a few blank pieces stuck to the wall next to ones that had been marked in Remus' loopy scrawl. He had several books about tracking magic and defensive guides open at the place he must have been sitting.

"What is all this?"

"I er...well, Harry told me earlier that I shouldn't keep to the attic. So, I claimed this room, I hope that's okay. But, I needed space to work it all out."

"That's fine, Remus, but work what out?"

"What the Death Eaters are doing," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing on the planet. "They've broken into St Mungo's for blood—according to the Ministry records, St. Mungo's only keeps a very limited supply of Metamorphmagi blood in case they need to make a blood replenisher work in a pinch. But, that doesn't happen often because they keep their supply of different blood types in stock. However, the metamorphmagus blood can also be used on Dark Creatures like werewolves, wyvern, dark nymphs...even vampires, in the odd event they need healing and—"

"Slow down," Hermione said, trying to make sense of the mountain of research. "Hang on, we knew they were using the blood on werewolves, at least, we figured as much."

"Right," Remus said, crawling back to the space on the bed he had been at before she knocked. He reached over, hastily tossing a stack of parchments to the side and patted the spot for her to sit. "So we know that, but what we also know is that metamorphmagi blood can alter an already altered witch or wizard's DNA slightly, in turn, altering their magical core."

"Okay…"

"You don't see it...well of course you bloody don't, I sound like an idiot."

Hermione shook her head, frowning as she spoke. "I'm not following, but I don't think you sound like an idiot."

"Okay," Remus drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes as if physically grounding his racing brain. "Okay, so, if the blood works on other Dark Creatures, and it's medically known to alter the status of magic, who's to say the blood won't work as a base for a cure to the curse?"

"Because they...wait. Wait a minute...Remus...that's genius."

He beamed—a large, bright smile that showed most of his teeth. A smile that actually reached his eyes and lit his face like sunshine, despite that it was well into the night.

"I haven't worked it all out yet," Remus explained, motioning to the strewn documents and open text books, "But, I think it's a start. I want to stay, Hermione, for as long as I can, and I want to see...I want to see it end."

Hermione returned his smile and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his jaw. "Me too."

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a/n: WOAH 100 chapters! Holy shit! If you've read this far, I can't tell you how much I love you. Quite honestly, somedays this story is the only thing that keeps me going. I hope you liked this chapter and please know that I love you all so so much.

xo

mimi