Chapter 139: July 1999
"It is in the nature of discovery that it cannot be planned or programmed. On the contrary, it consists of surprises and appears many times in the most unexpected places."
-Bengt I. Samuelsson
Everything was instinct.
Smell, taste, sound—Remus' senses were constantly on high, singing with every shift of the air around him. Every new second made the magic within him tingle and pulse, seizing through him more powerfully than it ever had months, years, before.
It was strange, Remus thought, to move through life without the searing pain of his joints reminding him he was human. To approach a full moon without being doubled over in pain, wiping his own vomit from his chin and begging the universe to just let this one go by faster than before. Let his bones remain intact, let his mind stay together, let the moon not completely ravage him.
He didn't know who he was anymore without it. He didn't know who to be without the relentless voice in his head mocking him at every turn, reminding him of how much of an idiot he was. He didn't know how to navigate life with sure steps and an animal grace that still felt so foreign in his overly-long limbs.
Since that Tuesday in December, he'd been more agile, more athletic, and more in control of himself than he'd ever been. He'd slept damn near twenty-four hours once he'd finally passed out, once his chest stitched itself back together again, once Moony had howled in the recesses of his mind for the last time.
He didn't know how to be Remus Lupin without Moony chastising him, but once he was, he wondered why he'd rejected him for so long.
"I bet that's why you always felt like shit," Mika said, as she helped Remus to add the finishing touches on the new map. Her hand was far steadier than his, these days, and she liked writing the names of cities and towns in her swirly, swooping writing.
"Because I didn't want to be a werewolf?" Remus scoffed, adding a few last tracking charms with ease.
He found magic didn't exhaust him the way it used to anymore. And, honestly, it was a bit troubling. It certainly gave a more terrifying edge to the powers that someone like Greyback possessed—someone who so clearly and so readily accepted his wolf and had been on the same page as it for years and years.
"Yes, you walnut," Mika laughed. "I've been asking around—"
"Asking who?" Remus immediately stilled his hands, looking up at Mika. "Who have you been speaking to? No one knows—"
"I know that. Calm down before you raise your blood pressure, grandpa. You'll have a stroke."
"You aren't as funny as you think you are, you know that, don't you?"
Mika rolled her eyes, etching Upper Flagley just above Yorkshire on the map. "I'm hilarious. It's you that's the problem. You've lost your sense of humour."
"I haven't lost anything. There's just not much humour in the world right now."
"That's a load of bollocks, but it's beside the point."
"Which is?"
"I talked to Nikolai a bit, we met recently and I asked him if he'd ever heard of anyone rejecting their wolf for so long."
Remus dropped his wand completely, staring at her with wide eyes. "You what?"
"It's not a big deal—he gave me a bit of information, I'll tell you in a minute if you'd stop interrupting me."
Remus closed his eyes with a short sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Fine."
"Thank you," Mika smirked, turning some of her attention back to the coordinates she'd been marking on the map. "Anyway, he said he's never heard of it in any living pack members. And, he's been through a lot of packs over the years. But, he said there were rumours of it happening years and years ago. When werewolves were actively hunted by humans—magic and muggle both—back in the day that muggles still believed we were real, anyway. He said that werewolves would die off left and right or live in agony because they didn't want to be outed as a wolf."
"Fantastic," Remus muttered. "Great to know that the thirty years of pain I've been in is my own doing."
"Well, to be fair, your wolf and I both tried to tell you that you were being stupid. Not our fault you didn't listen."
"I don't know if you've noticed or not, but people still aren't exactly welcoming to our kind."
Mika shrugged, dipping her quill into the ink. "Maybe not. But, what's the sense in feeling like shit all the time? You're gonna be ostriches either way, aren't you?"
"Ostracised," Remus corrected, more out of habit than anything.
"Yeah, that's what I said."
"It isn't—" he huffed, rolling his eyes. "It doesn't matter. What information did Nikolai give you?"
"Oh, right. So, apparently, there's some crazy camp set up in some caves or something."
Remus stared at her, gaping for a moment. "That's it? A camp in the caves? Did he, by chance, specify which caves?"
Mika pulled her attention to the ceiling, staring up at it as if it might have an answer for her. "Um…somewhere south, I think. Wil…fred?"
"Wilfred?" Remus blinked, his mouth hanging open slightly as he tried to figure out what the hell Mika was talking about. "Wilfred? Are you sure he said Wilf—Wiltshire! Was it Wiltshire?"
She snapped her fingers, nodding. "Yes! Yes, that's it. That sounds right, at least."
"Malfoy Manor is in Wiltshire. Are you sure he said caves? They aren't using the Manor?"
"God, for a swotty git, you really don't read all that much, do you?"
"What do you mean?"
Mika sighed in irritation, looking at him as if he was the most inept person she'd ever encountered. Slowly, she rose from her chair, exiting the kitchen to rustle around in the living room for a moment before re-entering with a copy of The Daily Prophet clutched in her hand. She tossed it at Remus, narrowly missing an inkpot.
"The Ministry seized the Malfoy's estate before they were ever overthrown. They nearly drained their bank accounts for uh…repetitions?"
"Reparations?"
"Yeah, that. And, then, when the Ministry got attacked back in November, there was still nothing to be done with it. You have to be a Malfoy to enter the property."
"How did they seize it then?" Remus asked.
"Beats me. The paper didn't exactly go into detail on that front."
Remus skimmed the article, skipping over the long-winded explanation of where the money would be going and what they expected to happen to the Malfoy Manor. From what he could gather, it still remained in the direct hands of the Malfoy heir—of Draco.
"He's going to burn it down," Remus said, a memory surfacing of Hermione explaining that Draco had kept the property intact—but barely.
"Well, that would be useless, wouldn't it? Isn't the journal in there now?"
"It must be," Remus agreed. "I can't think of anywhere else it would be. He can't burn it down. I know he wants to, I can remember Hermione telling me that he'd contemplated doing it several times, but he'd abruptly changed his mind and decided to keep it."
Mika smiled, her lips stretching wide to reveal a toothy grin full of mischief. "I don't suppose someone will need to convince him to keep it standing…?"
Remus sat back heavily in his chair, staring at the photo of the Manor on the front page of The Prophet. The article had been written in the summer. It'd been nearly a year since the Ministry seized the property and Draco would be returning soon to collect personal items. If they were going to convince him to keep it from being demolished, set ablaze, or whatever else he wanted to do with it, they would need to act sooner, rather than later.
"What did you have in mind?"
Remus stood with his hip cocked to the side, his arms crossed over his chest, as he stared at the map that took up nearly half the wall. He'd been forced to relocate a bookshelf into the spare room, which had caused him several hours of shaky breathing as he tried to think about moving the items in their home. A few plates or mugs being used was one thing, even allowing Mika to sleep in the spare room while he took up the couch most nights was another. But, actually rearranging furniture and removing items completely from the house felt like a stab to the chest every time. He wanted so badly to cling to what small comforts he'd managed to squeeze from the place, it felt wrong.
But, it was necessary. And, really, there wasn't a better place to hang the map where he could observe it from both the table in the kitchen and from anywhere in the living room.
The map was gorgeous if he said so himself. Truly, the most beautiful piece of magic he'd ever created. It had taken months to get everything drawn out so precisely, to bond the right charms to it without the use of blood magic or rituals to attach to souls. Instead, it lit up with small dots, marking anything that gave off a magical signature. Human, werewolf, or otherwise. It wasn't perfect—had Remus had more time and a better repertoire of magical map making, he thought he'd be able to remove anything frivolous completely. As it stood, the map was at least functional and they'd come up with a colour chart to differentiate human magical signature from something lesser—like a flock of Jabberknolls or a mob of Redcaps. And he'd even figured out how to get the map to recognize natural magic—like the Forbidden Forest or Stonehenge.
He watched as the map pulsed a soft green around the Forest of Dean, letting his eyes travel up over the borders of ink to where Hogwarts sat in the Highlands of Scotland, a vibrant green and orange pulsing heavily, a couple hundred tiny black dots moving about the area, spilling out toward Hogsmeade and The Forbidden Forest.
His eyes lingered in the space between them, counting the little cluster of dots over and over, watching as they moved about The Shrieking Shack.
Grimmauld Place had been destroyed. Naturally, it had been on the top of the list for the Death Eaters to locate, and they'd done so surprisingly swiftly. It'd been decimated, Remus only having arrived after the dust had settled. They'd attacked the morning after a Full Moon and he hadn't been strong enough to follow them. He'd still been so weakened, despite his acceptance of Moony, the Full Moons were still a battle. One he was becoming more apt at—but, a battle, all the same.
He stepped forward, letting his hand hover over the small cluster, feeling their magic buzz around the parchment. He wondered if Hermione could feel it, too. If she could feel the difference in her magic the way he could. Perhaps, it had made her just a bit stronger. He certainly hoped so, anyway, Merlin knew she'd need it soon.
"You done admiring your own work or do you need a few more minutes to finish sucking yourself off here?"
Remus stifled a laugh and turned to face Mika. She was staring at him expectantly, tapping a toe in impatience.
"We did a good job," Remus shrugged. "I don't think there's anything wrong with admiring that."
"Yeah, admiring it is one thing, touching it gently with the tips of your fingers is another. It's creepy, Remus. You're being fuckin' weird, mate."
"What's weird is seeing you in her clothes," Remus muttered, eyeing the outfit Mika had chosen.
It was nondescript, really. Approachable. An olive-coloured sundress with a tan cardigan over her shoulders. Mika was thin, but it was strikingly apparent just how thin she was when Hermione's small dress still hung so loosely from her frame, she looked like she was swimming in it.
"Can you fix it?" Mika asked, clearly picking up on Remus' thoughts. "I look like a little kid playin' dress up in Mum's clothes. It's ridiculous."
"We need to eat more. I'll check the potions supplies, I may be able to put together a decent nutrient potion," he pondered aloud as he waved his wand over her, shrinking the clothes down to fit her.
"Don't really fancy your potions, if I'm being honest. The pain ones are decent, but yours never work as well as those first few you gave me did."
"That's because I'm pants at potions and always have been," Remus rolled his eyes. "Now, do you remember—"
"Yeah, yeah I know. I won't muck it up this time. Your name is John, you're a travelling wizard with the German Historical Magical Society or whatever it was you came up with."
Remus wasn't feeling all that confident, but he nodded anyway. They didn't really need to convince Draco Malfoy of much else than to not burn down the Manor.
"Good. Now, go fix your face so we can get a move on. We're meant to be meetin' him soon, aren't we?"
"Yes. Let me get changed, I'll be right out."
He stepped through to the bedroom, sifting through his better pairs of trousers for something without holes in them. He slipped on a pair of chocolate brown ones that were a tad too short, but he didn't think it mattered much. He pulled on a light blue button-down, one Mika had lifted from a charity shop the other day, and a jacket the same colour as the trousers. In the mirror, he pointed his wand to his face, muttering the incantations Pansy Parkinson had taught him so many years ago, to hide his scars, change his eye colour to something a little less arresting than the vibrant gold they now remained, and lighten his hair.
Finally, once he'd transfigured his shoes a bit into something that looked nicer than splitting trainers, he took Mika's hand and they apparated to London.
They landed just outside a dilapidated Chinese takeaway restaurant that, to the muggle eye, appeared to be boarded up and closed for years. Together, they walked through the threshold, entering the Magical Library of London.
Remus spotted him immediately.
Draco Malfoy sat in a chair in the centre of the main floor, his feet crossed at the ankle and propped up on the table in front of him. It was clear the other patrons did not appreciate his pompous display, but they all reeked of fear. Not a single person came near enough to him to chastise him for disrespecting library property.
"It never gets any less bizarre," Remus murmured, taking Mika's lead toward the table.
"I bet it doesn't," Mika agreed. "Hopefully this one isn't as perceptive as Luna and won't recognise you right away."
"Oh, Luna is it?" Remus teased. "You two on a first-name basis?"
"She's got a boyfriend," Mika said, trying and failing to sound chipper. "One of those red-headed kids."
"A Weasley?" Remus raised his eyebrows a touch in surprise. "I wouldn't have pegged that one."
"Ron, I think she said his name was."
"Definitely wouldn't have guessed that," Remus reiterated.
They approached Draco's table, Mika lifting her chin a touch, adopting a haughty stance.
"Oi, you the Malfoy bloke?"
Draco looked up from the book in his lap, an eyebrow raised, amusement dancing across his face. "You the History Society bint?"
Mika narrowed her eyes and Remus could tell she was suppressing a laugh. "I am. Mind if we sit?"
Draco removed his feet from the tabletop—albeit, begrudgingly—and waved a hand at the other chairs. "By all means."
"Thanks," Mika smiled at Remus over her shoulder as he pulled her chair out for her before taking his own.
"How can I help you?"
"Straight to the point," Mika nodded, "I appreciate that. Well, Mr Malfoy, My colleague John and I are interested in a few key items that we believe are in your possession and—"
Draco raised a hand, "The Ministry took anything of Historical worth already. All Dark artefacts have been removed and all that's left in that dump are a few libraries full of children's stories and my own personal belongings. There's nothing there you'd be interested in. I can guarantee it."
"Oh, you can, can you?"
Remus nudged her elbow, trying to silently remind her to shut up and stay cordial.
"Yes. I can. Now, if that's all? I'd quite like to get back to the book I was reading, I haven't revisited it since I was a child, and I'm finding it a bit more interesting now."
"What are you reading?" she asked.
Draco humoured them, holding up the book Remus hadn't noticed was resting in his lap, an old copy of The Tales of The Beedle and the Bard. "Have you read it?"
"Of course," she scoffed. Though Remus knew damn well the only reason she'd ever cracked it open was because of him. "Hasn't everyone?"
"Mm. I thought so as well."
"What story are you on?"
Draco seemed to be confused by the question, but he chuckled, telling them, "The Fountain of Fair Fortune."
"That one's my favourite," Mika said.
"Is it? I think it's quite bleak."
"Bleak?" Mika's brows pulled together and Remus could tell she was trying to place the meaning of the word. Thankfully, she figured it out. "I don't think it's bleak at all. It's about finding something to help others. How could that be bad?"
"I don't believe we've read the same version," Draco smirked. "The fountain isn't about helping others. It's about sacrifice."
"It's a real place," Mika blurted out.
Remus groaned inwardly, trying like hell to maintain his facade of not being able to speak English well enough to hold a conversation.
"You believe that to be true?" Draco surveyed them, his eyes flicking over them both. Remus knew that look. He was observing prey.
"I know it to be true. And, I think there's something in those libraries of yours that could lead us to it."
Draco dropped the book on the table, straightening his back. "Where exactly did you say you're from?"
"The German Magical Historical Society," Mika rattled off, waving a hand impatiently. "It doesn't matter—look, I know you're planning to trash your estate."
"Mika," Remus practically growled in warning, trying to get her to shut up.
"How could you possibly know anything about what my plans are?"
"Does it really matter? Point is, I know. You know—" she gestured toward Remus frantically "—he knows, we all know it's what you're plannin' on doin' and I need you to take your head out of your arse for a minute and realise that while you want to get rid of the thing, it may not be the best course of action, yeah?"
"I don't know who you think you are," Draco's voice was low and dangerous as he leaned across the table and Remus could see his hackles were raised, "but you don't know anything about me or what that estate holds."
"I know you've cut off all contact with your parents and you've joined up with The Order of the Phoenix."
Before Remus could even get the exasperated sigh out, Draco had jumped to his feet, pulling his wand to point it at Mika's chest.
Mika sat back, completely nonplussed, smoothing the skirt of her sundress over her knees with a slight smile on her face.
"You're causing a scene and this doesn't seem like the place you'd really want to do that and I am completely unarmed. So, I would appreciate it if you went ahead and dropped your silly little stick and sat back down before I make you."
"You're threatening me?" Draco sputtered, tightening the hold on his wand.
Remus could hear the silence that had blanketed the library, all pages stilled in the hands of curious onlookers, the fluttering of quills against parchment quietened. He could feel the eyes of the patrons on them as Mika continued to challenge Draco with nothing more but a quirk of her eyebrow and a widened smile.
"You're the ex-Death Eater holding an unarmed woman at wandpoint in public. Is this the look you wanted to give yourself or did you not try to separate from them for a reason?"
Remus had to hand it to her—Mika had bollocks of steel. He straightened his back, squaring up his shoulders to use a bit of his large frame to his advantage, in hopes that maybe Draco would see him still sitting there and settle down a bit. The last thing they needed was a duel getting them banned from the one place Remus could get free information.
Draco's hand slowly fell to his side, he turned on his heel and stormed away, only stopping to look over his shoulder and jerk his head for them to follow. Mika turned to Remus, positively beaming.
"That was reckless," Remus murmured, following a few paces behind Draco.
"Worked though, didn't it?"
"You're going to get yourself killed one day."
"Ah, I've made it this far on willpower and spite—I think I'll be okay."
They rounded a corner and came to a halt at a small alcove nestled between several looming bookcases. Draco turned on them, his arms crossed tight over his chest.
"You're the informant, aren't you?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
Mika shrugged, leaning against one of the towering cases. "On whether or not you're actually going to listen to me."
"You've got my attention." His eyes flicked over Remus, "Why isn't he talking?"
"His English is rubbish. Probably doesn't have a clue about what's goin' on right now, poor thing. Don't worry about him, it's me you're dealin' with."
Draco's gaze lingered on Remus a moment longer and Remus got the distinct impression he recognised him. Thankfully, he remained silent on the matter and turned his attention back toward Mika.
"Why would I trust you, werewolf?"
Mika burst into laughter, nearly doubling over. "Sorry," she wheezed. "Sorry. Is that supposed to frighten me? It's no secret mate—I'd have told you if you asked."
"Answer my question. Why should I trust you?"
Mika gathered herself, taking a deep breath. "Listen, shit is about to hit the fan worse than you can even imagine. This isn't somethin' that's gonna end anytime soon and you're gonna want to go back to available resources at some point. Obviously, I don't actually work for a fuckin' Historical Society and I couldn't give a shit less about what happens to your estate."
"Then why—"
She held up a hand, "Except that it's going to be important that you're able to return there when you need to. You and I both know the Ministry didn't seize everything. Some things can be deceiving, yeah?"
Draco stared her down for several long moments before finally giving a terse nod.
"That's a good lad. Now, one last question for you—was there caves anywhere near your property?"
The question seemed to throw Draco off. His face scrunched up in confusion for a moment before returning back to his normal, cool facade.
"Not on the property, no. But, about a kilometre south there are what I guess you could consider caves. They're practically swallowed by the hillside now, but they're there. That entire area is filled with Hinkypunks, though."
Mika turned to Remus with a look that said what the fuck is that before she gave her attention back to Draco.
"Keep an eye on those caves. Or the area around them. I have reason to believe camps are being set up there. If you're able to figure out how to keep a survey of the area—that would probably be best."
Without another word, Mika turned to walk away. Before she and Remus could get very far, however, Draco grasped her elbow.
"Wait—are you…" he trailed off, muttering something about sounding stupid under his breath before starting again. "Are you actually trying to find the fountain?"
Remus stopped in his tracks, forgetting himself for a moment. "Why?"
Draco looked to him, then back to Mika, releasing her elbow from his grip. He licked his lips nervously.
"For what it's worth—which could be absolutely nothing—my father always believed that the Fountain of Fortune was hidden in plain sight. It goes back centuries, but there's a rumour that there's a magical body of water in the Forest of Dean that only appears when you need something most. I don't know if that will help at all, but…" He trailed off again with a small shrug, pocketing his wand as he stepped around them.
Remus watched Draco walk away, his blonde hair disappearing amongst the stacks.
a/n: Sorry for the long wait for this update friends! Thank you for your patience! i love youuuu 3
