Chapter 141: December 1999
"Everything has a past…If you don't know the past, you can't understand the present and plan properly for the future."
-Chaim Potok
Remus was bleeding when his feet hit the ground just outside the cottage. His shoulder ached horribly and he could feel the warm wetness seeping through the sleeve of his jumper. He shoved open the front door and stumbled through the entryway, kicking off his shoes before slamming the door closed behind him.
"Oi! Where the fuck have you been? I heard that stupid crackin' sound and thought, 'Mika, don't be ridiculous. Remus wouldn't be that angry at you for being right about something,' but then you didn't come out and I went to check and you were fucking gone."
Mika was on him instantly, words mixed with fury and worry spilling past her lips as she followed along to the kitchen on his heels.
"—you can't just off and pop out of fuckin' existence like I'm not bloody here! And I can't even do anythin' about it because I haven't a clue where you'd run off to and I—wait. Is that blood? Are you alright?"
Remus grunted, reaching up to open the cabinet where they kept their paltry collection of potions.
"Splinched myself a bit," he muttered, finally locating a blood replenisher—that was Merlin only knew how old—and a bit of dittany.
Remus tugged his shirt over his head with his uninjured arm and left it in the centre of the kitchen floor in a crumpled heap. He strained his neck to assess the damage, frowning as his eyes traced the wound that tore across his shoulder blade.
"Can you put a few drops of this on it for me?" Remus asked, shoving the dittany into Mika's hands.
"Yeah, yeah of course."
He clenched his jaw in anticipation of the burn from the essence, but still hissed when it hit his skin, instantly fusing the torn tissue back together with little more than the smell of burnt flesh. Mika handed him back the phial and he opened the blood replenisher, taking a swig from it before placing the stopper back on. Their supplies were limited, but he knew with the amount of blood his jumper had soaked up, he needed something to help.
He felt dizzy with the effects of the metallic-tasting potion and stumbled into the living room, not even bothering to replace his jumper or clean the blood from his arm and back. He fell onto the sofa and took a slow breath, letting the warm, tugging feeling of his magic envelop him just a moment longer.
"You mind tellin' me where the hell you skipped off to?" Mika said finally, after several long minutes of silence.
"The Shrieking Shack."
"The Shrieking Shack."
"Yes."
"And what exactly were you doin' there, mate?"
Remus sighed, letting his head loll over to the side to face Mika. "I needed to see her."
She stared at him, wholly unimpressed. "You're a right knob, you know that?"
"I do."
Mika smirked. "Good. You feel like tellin' me how you managed to split your shoulder in half like that?"
"I told you, I splinched myself."
"Yeah, you can say the word again, doesn't mean I know what you're talking about."
Remus closed his eyes, "It's when you apparate when you aren't strong enough to. And, apparently, I could apparate and use wandless magic a bit, but not enough to do it twice."
His eyes flew open as Mika's hand collided with the back of his head.
"You absolute wanker. It's because you were close to her again! You know your magic goes all funny when you get close to her. Why would you leave your wand behind?"
"I didn't mean to," Remus said defensively. "I just…I thought about leaving here—about going to see her, just once. I just needed to…I don't know, really. But, I thought about it and I thought of Hogsmeade and the Forest and then I was just there."
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but that is so ridiculously irresponsible. You know they're hunting us down. And, if someone would have seen you, you would have led them straight to her. You're supposed to be dead."
"I know," he sighed, finally letting a bit of shame seep into him.
"You can't just up and leave me like that. Not right now. Not when there's so much at stake."
Remus looked at Mika then—really looked at her—and saw the worry scribbled all over her face. Saw the fear that she'd been abandoned again, that she'd been left alone without anything again. He knew that fear deeply, intimately, and he felt his stomach twist with guilt.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, reaching out to grasp her hand. "You're right. It was reckless and stupid and I shouldn't have gone."
Mika squeezed his hand, a small gesture to say she understood, to say she was okay, that she accepted his apology. They sat like that for a long time. Remus, half asleep from the exhaustion of apparating twice wandlessly and the toll it took to feel his magic rear its gnarled head in such close proximity to his not-yet-mate.
"So, how was it?" Mika asked.
And, though his eyes weren't open, Remus could hear the smirk in her voice.
"It was everything."
"The year two thousand," Mika sighed, sinking next to Remus with a steaming cup of tea held out for him.
He smiled gratefully, flicking the pages of one of the opened books. "I honestly didn't believe I'd live to see it."
"You know, everyone thought there was this thing that was gonna happen last night?"
Remus looked up, his brows pulled together. "What are you talking about?"
"The normal people—muggles—they all thought the world was going to end or something. Callin' it Y2K. Somethin' with computers I think?"
"Where did you hear that?" Remus chuckled, going back to his book.
"It was all over their news. On the headlines and on the telly when I went to the shops. They really thought something major was gonna happen. You reckon it has something to do with the Death Eaters?"
Remus shook his head, "I doubt it. They've been rather quiet between their hunt for metamorphmagi and kidnapping more werewolves for their ranks. Sounds like some rubbish made up by someone with too much time on their hands."
"What would you do though? If it was the last day and you knew we were all gonna die in some big explosion of the sun or computers or whatever."
Remus shrugged slightly, sipping his tea and trying not to grimace. Mika had certainly gotten better at brewing a cuppa, but it still wasn't great.
"Probably what I'm doing now."
"Swot."
He laughed, "Yeah, a bit. But, I don't think I would believe it."
"I think I'd go find my mum," Mika whispered. "I'm not even sure she's still alive, but I'd try to see if I could find her. Tell her what happened. Make sure she knows I never forgot her."
"After all this is done, we'll find her. I'll help you find her," Remus promised with a sad smile but more conviction than he'd felt in quite some time.
Mika returned it, blinking her gold eyes rapidly to clear the brightness that had appeared in them.
"You're a good egg."
Remus chuckled, going back to his book as Mika pulled one from the stack and flipped it open, working across from him in silence.
The bitter winds of January quickly gave way to a frosty February which melted into March. Three months come and gone and Remus felt stagnant—crazy. He spent a good amount of time bouncing between the magical library in London and the walls of the house in Godric's Hollow, books strewn across several surfaces and letters were written urgently to different packs he'd slowly begun to ally with—or at the very least, stand on neutral ground.
Mika staved off boredom by reading more than she ever had before, though the majority of her reading was children's books and fantasy novels. Remus couldn't blame her for wanting the escape of it, though. With each day inching closer and closer to what they knew would be an ambush by The Order at Wiltshire to get the werewolves out, their nerves were running high.
There was a myriad of things that could go wrong. There were so many people involved, people they weren't totally sure they could trust. Nikolai had vouched for the majority of the pack members they were getting to freedom, but that wasn't much comfort to Remus. While Mika seemed to still trust Nikolai implicitly, Remus wasn't so sure.
And, he didn't really even know why. There was just something about him that Remus didn't like. Some part of his DNA that rejected Nikolai—that made his hackles rise and gave him an uneasy feeling. He hadn't really given Remus any good reason to feel it, in fact, he'd provided them with several good tips and information he wasn't sure they'd have otherwise.
Maybe it was Nikolai's desperation to get away from it. The fear that Remus could practically smell on his letters and the way his voice shook slightly with every meet-up. He couldn't blame him. Remus knew that whatever the Death Eaters were doing to the werewolves—experimenting further with the transformation potions, he imagined—wasn't pleasant. And, Remus knew first-hand how horrible Fenrir Greyback was. But, he couldn't help but think that if the roles were reversed, if it were Remus in Nikolai's place, he would tough it out. He would do what was necessary to make sure this all ended—once and for all.
But, then again, Remus had more of a stake in this, he supposed.
Remus' fingers trailed along the map on the wall, tracing the area in Wiltshire they'd be in the next night. Nikolai had sent a letter the weekend before, explaining that the only Death Eater keeping watch of the dens that was worth anything was Walden MacNair and a few of his minions. The Death Eaters were apparently under the impression that since they'd begun threatening the werewolves with horrifically painful, midday transformations, they had the beasts on a leash.
Remus' fingers itched as they hovered over the caves and forest, something buried deep within him ready to fight again. To do some sort of good for the people he was (unwillingly) a part of. No matter how long he fought with the fact that he was a werewolf, it was still incredibly wrong what the Death Eaters were trying to do. They didn't see them as people—they never would. And with a large portion of the wolves who had joined up with them revelling in their animalistic tendencies and falling further into the promises offered, Remus grew anxious.
They needed this to go well. They needed to be able to get in and out with little damage to The Order, to himself and Mika, and to the wolves they'd promised safety to. He wished more than anything it could be easy.
But, nothing ever came easy, not to him at least, and he knew that it would more than likely be more complicated—more dangerous—than they could realistically plan for.
"I've met another one," Mika said by way of greeting as the front door slammed shut behind her. "Theo. He'll be in the group with Luna, Harry, and that Malfoy bloke."
Remus peeled his eyes away from the map, his fingers still lingering on the soft parchment. "Theo is joining them?"
Mika nodded, throwing her jacket over the arm of the couch before flopping onto the cushions. She put her feet up on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankle.
"Luna assured me he could be trusted, but given he's with The Order I kind of just assumed that to be true."
"That's not always the case," Remus murmured, a long-buried pain flinching in his chest, lighting up enough to remind him how much the betrayal of trusted friends could ruin.
Mika's eyes lingered on him for a few moments, a sad look on her face. "I know."
"But, Theo is brilliant. He's incredibly gifted when it comes to creating spells. He'll be an asset."
He hoped the words would ring true.
As the evening moved on, Remus and Mika went over every detail of their plan. Granted, it wasn't much. They knew the location and the relative area that the hideout was in, they were aware of the guards and how many of them would be there—less than a dozen which seemed easy in thought given the Order would be present as well. But, Remus had been through too many ambushes to expect anything to go smoothly.
They would trail in behind The Order. Mika had discovered that Luna, Harry, Draco and Theo would be leading them in clearing the way to find the Death Eater's safe house. Once it was discovered, Theo would signal the others to move in. Hermione, Ron, and Ginny would hide in a cave to the west—Blaise, Bill, and Neville in the foliage on the east. There were—theoretically—more than enough of them to take on the small squad of Death Eaters that would be present.
Remus, however, worried more about the werewolves' involvement. There wasn't a confirmed number that they needed to get out. Some of the werewolves had seemed hesitant to accept the offer, worried that they'd be used in some other facet of the war. Remus could understand that. He didn't love feeling indebted to anyone, either, and he was certain that the others would feel obligated to fight should the need arise.
He prayed to whatever deity may be listening that it wouldn't come to that.
The biggest obstacle they were set to face wasn't just the hesitant werewolves and the incompetent Death Eaters that had been stationed there. Remus had a bad feeling that gnawed at his gut the closer the day came. They hadn't heard of Greyback's whereabouts in a while and if he was present, it would change everything. Greyback alone was powerful enough to take them all down but with the ability to keep his mind and transform…well, it could be a bloodbath.
Remus woke from a restless, fitful sleep early in the morning. The warm, golden rays of the early spring sunlight were pushing their way through the gaps in the curtain, glittering against the old, wooden floorboards in the bedroom. Remus remained in bed, watching as dust motes danced around in the sun, landing gently on the surface of the wardrobe.
His mind was whirring with a thousand different thoughts. Continuously going over the plans he'd laid with Mika. Trying to create a backup for their backup plans, wanting more than anything to be prepared and ensure there would be no casualties on their side. The Order's will to fight was strong but the Death Eaters had what they'd always had over them: manpower. They could easily call for help if needed and The Order didn't have the luxury of dedicating the entire operation to one ambush, regardless of how dangerous it could be.
He dragged himself out of bed over an hour later with the only good thing he knew would happen today. Hermione would be okay. She would be safe. She would make it out because he had yet to see her in 2002, so he knew without a doubt, she would be okay. It was the only thing he could cling to.
Leading up to an ambush or an infiltration of some kind was always a peculiar experience. Remus had done it dozens of times, but it still ate away at some part of him. It still wrapped him in nervous energy that he couldn't shake, giving him hands that trembled and a stomach that churned uncomfortably with every step he took. He wracked his brain as he ate a pitiful breakfast of beans on toast and tried to recount anything about this that Hermione might have told him. But, he came up dry. He couldn't remember a single conversation about this particular battle and they'd talked ad nauseam of her experiences once he'd gotten to her in her own time.
This was big. They were fighting to free werewolves from what essentially had become enslavement. Hermione would have told him something of this, wouldn't she?
"Mate, you're like eighty. It makes sense that you'd forget some details you were told when you were twenty. Especially given that she scrambled your brain and sent you out," Mika said around a mouthful of beans.
"It just doesn't feel right," Remus sighed, giving up on his breakfast in favour of another cup of tea. "I can recall so many of the things she'd said. But, this should stick out. We're freeing a load of werewolves for Merlin's sake. I feel like this is something she'd remember."
"Maybe she thought it'd be a touchy subject and didn't bring it up?"
Remus hummed, a bit deflated. "Maybe. But, I still can't see why—"
"You're just talkin' yourself in circles. So, she didn't tell you about it. Why's it matter? We've known about other things and people still got hurt—died even. We can't change things that are supposed to happen. Aren't you the one that keeps tellin' me that?"
Remus closed his eyes, rubbing them furiously with the heels of his palms until galaxies burst behind his eyelids. "It feels like we're missing something."
"Not everythin' has to be some big, crazy puzzle. Maybe it is just as easy as gettin' in and gettin' out. I'm sure she told you a lot of the bad shit that happened but people tend to forget the good stuff when it does. Especially at a time like now."
Remus let his hands drop to his lap and stared at Mika for a few beats. "When did you get so wise?"
She laughed, stuffing the last of her toast in her mouth. "Always have been. Just couldn't read."
