"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
- J.K. Rowling, The Deathly Hallows, Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter 2: The Truth About a Lengthy Visitation
The next weeks were a study in redundancy, specifically, of the pattern their lives had taken since the death of James and Lily, up until the moment of Remus' employment at Hogwarts.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Kara wondered. Had Dumbledore hired Remus because of Sirius' escape from Azkaban, or was there a higher irony at work? The two events had happened so quickly, and Dumbledore had been sufficiently close about his own reasoning, that she was left with nothing but her own supposings as she mulled it over.
She finished drying a mug - by hand. She found too much magic clogged other senses, and repetitive tasks loosened them. Wizards hadn't really advanced much over the years, by any definition. The most original figures she had encountered to date were two red-haired twins by the name of Weasley, who of course broke every rule in the book while they were at it.
Rules meant to control and to check, to keep secrets and protect the more vulnerable Muggle world, but also possibly to prevent change.
Kara sighed, and put the dish down. She wasn't getting anywhere brooding over the Ministry's shortcomings, or the shortcomings of an entire society that never really had to struggle for anything. Everything was so easy with magic.
Unless you were Muggle-born and from another world, and under a curse. Unless you were a half-breed werewolf with no employment prospects. Unless you had spent twelve years in prison and had no way of proving your innocence.
The aforementioned werewolf was currently sitting at the counter, fully human and studying a copy of the Daily Prophet, and pretending to ignore her irritability.
She nudged the window over the kitchen sink ever-so-slightly further open, letting in the scent of the herbs she had planted in the garden below that particular window.
"Kara, have you seen this?" Remus asked behind her.
She sighed again, turning. "I'm sure I'll hear about it at the Cauldron later."
He looked up at her, and any attempt at indifference left her. "What."
"There was an attack at the Quidditch World Cup."
She was beside him in an instant, the short step to get there sharp, and together they peered down at the Prophet.
A black and white skull looked back up at them, and Kara felt Remus' shiver, an echo of her own. Above it loomed a headline: SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP.
Silently, they read the encounter together.
"Thrown together with Rita Skeeter's usual objective reporting," Remus snorted, putting it down.
"I'll see if I can find out anything more reliable from the Aurors today," Kara promised him. "Kingsley is usually in around lunchtime."
Remus glanced at her sideways. "Yes, every day, isn't it?"
"Don't start, Remus." She fingered the edge of the paper. "Skeeter is one thing. This picture is another."
"Yes," he said grimly. "Tells an entire story all its own." He paused. "Did I tell you I had a letter from Alastor Moody?"
She shook her head at him.
"He's taking over the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. He wanted to know where we'd left off last year."
"More help than you got when you took the position."
"Indeed, but, Kara..."
"I know. I know. It's quite telling, isn't it? Says a lot about what Dumbledore thinks of all this."
Remus sighed and resumed his perusal of the paper. "I wonder how much Sirius has heard?"
She looked at him sharply. "Enough, I'd wager. He'll be watching, especially with Peter on the loose and Harry...being Harry."
Remus smiled, but there was nothing warm or comforting in it.
It wasn't until Kara had left for the dinner shift at the Leaky Cauldron that Remus really began to consider everything that had happened in the last few months. Remus was no fool. He knew the sense of something building. And he had time on his hands.
Time to consider all the questions weighing on his mind.
He could, he thought, sit tight and await some signal from Dumbledore, or Sirius, but he had sat tight for too long, and his unwillingness to truly investigate last year had let his friend's one chance at freedom slip by.
Remus had been an odd fit with Sirius and James. He was a man of inaction, he felt, while those two could never sit still. The addition of Kara to their group had been like a breath of fresh air, in that she never made any obvious attempts to rock the boat.
Sirius had disagreed. Sirius had always thought Kara was on the run, about to vanish at any moment.
Remus shook his head. This wasn't helping. The time to consider their dynamics had been before Peter had gotten away. If he had stopped to think for a moment, to wonder, to ask questions beyond his assumptions, he would have seen that Peter was the most likely candidate for the spy. His loyalty had been based entirely on dependence, not affection. Whereas Sirius had loved James and, Remus was quite certain, Kara, with unrelenting fierceness.
Fierceness matched only by Kara's loyalty to Remus, and of course she had never liked Peter...
He felt himself go still. The revelation was creeping up on him, and his limbs felt leaden under it.
Kara had hated Peter.
And he suddenly understood what had been so odd about her expression when he'd told her about Sirius, and again that morning with the news about the World Cup.
Kara had not been surprised.
Troubled, certainly. Grieved and worried, but never surprised.
A conversation from the previous year came back to him. He had been sitting in Dumbledore's office, enjoying a well-earned bottle of wine, and they were speaking less as colleagues and more as old friends...
"Tell me," Dumbledore had said without transition, "how is Kara doing?"
Remus had shifted awkwardly in his seat. "She won't really talk about it."
Dumbledore had waited, a slight frown on his face.
Remus sighed, and set his glass of wine down on the desk. "I hate saying this, because the Ministry has already given her a bit of trouble, and I don't want to give them any reason to do so again. They were close enough that there were rumors, you understand?"
Dumbledore nodded.
"The truth is, Kara has never believed Sirius was guilty."
Now it was Dumbledore who set down his wine and sat back, considering.
"We fought about it, at first. Quite a bit, honestly. But then we just...dropped it. I guess we realized it wasn't worth what it would have cost our own friendship. We have never spoken about it since."
The Headmaster's frown had deepened, and his brows were drawn together. He was not looking at Remus.
"This has been troubling me, I will admit."
"You mean you agree with the Ministry?" Remus asked, alarmed. "I know I said they were close, but I don't really believe she could be helping him!"
Dumbledore held up a hand. "Rest easy, Remus. That is not what is troubling me. I no more suspect Miss Thrace of helping Sirius than I suspect myself. What troubles me is the possibility that she could be right."
He stood and, hands clasped loosely behind him, began to pace behind his desk.
"I have good reason to trust Miss Thrace's judgment, moreso even than you, for all you are, as I understand it, her closest friend. It has always sat ill with me over the years that she and Sirius were so close. She is not someone easily taken in. But for her to still insist Sirius is not responsible, after people saw what happened to Pettigrew..."
Remus hesitated again. "There...there may be some prejudice there, Albus. Kara never liked Peter."
Dumbledore had stopped pacing.
"No?"
"No. She couldn't explain it, just said she had a bad feeling she couldn't shake."
"Now that is very interesting."
After a few more moments, Dumbledore had resumed his seat, and both were sipping quietly at their wine again. Remus rather hoped the conversation was over, but was disappointed.
"Tell me - I had always found their relationship somewhat ambiguous, and, as you said, there were rumors...What exactly were Sirius and Kara to each other?"
Remus snorted softly. "If you had asked me at the time, I would have told you they were a pair of fools. They were clearly attracted to each other, and they were fervently loyal friends, but for a long time they were determined never to do anything about it. James and I had an agreement that he would see about nudging Sirius, while I would wheedle Kara. After...I don't know how much you know about it, but after that terrible battle when Gideon and Fabian were killed..."
Dumbledore nodded. But of course, even Mad-Eye had known about that drama.
"Kara wasn't right for a long time afterwards. Sirius took care of her, and something changed in him after that. If you had asked me at the time, I would have told you he loved her, and she certainly loved him. But I would have told you he loved James too."
There was a longer silence, during which Remus finished his wine. As he set his goblet down again, Dumbledore said, "Thank you, Remus," and Remus knew he was dismissed.
And then, even more unbidden, another memory surfaced, one he'd not had cause to examine in a long, long time...
They had been sitting in the Great Hall, speaking to the newly-engaged Alice and Frank, and Sirius, with his usual tact, had been having a go at the wisdom of marriage in general:
"...I'll continue to consider spending time with any girl for more than two weeks comparable to being hit relentlessly with the Cruciatus Curse and then locked up in Azkaban."
And Kara had reacted with such violence it had been hard to believe it was only her growing fancy for Sirius that was upsetting her. She had known.
Kara had known. About all of it.
Why the hell hadn't she told them?
When Kara returned, sometime around midnight, she was weary. She wanted a bath to wash the bar off of her, and she wanted a drink of her own. Whiskey and a bath was starting to sound good. Maybe with a spicy novel.
She was not expecting Remus to still be up. Or to look so angry.
Slowly, as if it were a great effort, he stood and took a few steps closer to her. She remained by the door, wary, because she knew that look. Knew it from full moons and bad Ministry legislation.
Remus was fighting for control.
"You knew," he said.