cxvii. in the ashes

Remus met Sirius Black in the early morning of September second, 1971.

He remembered himself being a tentative and wary boy—a byproduct of a childhood spent terrified of discovery, moving from village to village before the neighbors caught on that the howling around the full moon was not, in fact, a dog. He'd come down to breakfast earlier than all but a few studious Ravenclaws, looking up at the High Table to see Professor Dumbledore glance his way and smile. He had been excited to begin class—and anxious about being around so many children his own age. His experiences in a dozen different Muggle primary schools had taught him that strange, scarred boys did not make friends.

Students had trickled into the hall—and then Sirius Black tromped in with James Potter, the pair familiar with each other in the way most pure-blood children were, having met once or twice before at some far-flung common relation's birthday party or wedding. Despite being in their year—in their dorm—Remus had felt excluded and ready to accept that exclusion, to exist in the peripheries, grateful just to be allowed into the school—and then Sirius Black had thrown himself onto the bench at Remus' side, arm brushing his with shocking casualty, and had held out his hand.

"Hey, nice to meet you! I'm Sirius."

Remus had shaken his hand, had blinked up into the blinding smiling directed toward him like a starstruck fool, and had said, "I'm R-Remus."

Sometimes, Remus looked back and thought it would have been better if he'd said nothing at all, if he'd stuck by his initial plan of keeping his head down and completing his studies—but there were certain things he could not bring himself to regret no matter the pain later inflicted upon him and his heart. Even so, he could not help but wonder how his life would have changed had he not shaken Sirius Black's hand.

He'd only just settled into his bed when Dumbledore's Patronus came sailing through the wall of his quarters, the spectral phoenix's beak opening to tell him Sirius Black had attacked the Fat Lady, had slashed her portrait to ribbons. Remus sat frozen in the dark after the Patronus vanished, feeling as if he'd had a close encounter with a ghost—which wasn't terribly far off from the truth. Then, he moved, bolting upright with enough force to throw his blankets to the floor, and he ran for the door, pausing only to shove his feet into his shoes without socks and to slip on his robes over his pajamas.

Panting, Remus met with the rest of the staff on the main floor, the lot of them making a show of being cool and collected—but Remus could feel the nervous tension in the air, the unbearable tang of fear burning in the back of his throat. Maybe they had a reason to be frightened, no matter their age or experience. If Black could escape Azkaban, if he could—could murder so many people and laugh about it—maybe they all needed to be a bit fearful.

"Severus has gone ahead to scout the dungeons," the Headmaster was saying as Remus joined the group. "Professor Slytherin is—." Remus could see Slytherin already, standing with his back to the wall inside the Great Hall while the last of the students were ferried inside the doors. He looked bored, for lack of a better word. Remus didn't trust the wizard at all, not after Albus had taken him aside the first day and strongly cautioned him against conversing with or even meeting the eyes of the Defense professor. The students shuffled onto Conjured sleeping mats and gathered spangled blankets. "Minerva, you will stay here, and Remus—?"

"Yes, Headmaster?"

"The third floor, if you would. Quickly."

Remus nodded and departed, shaking off the vestiges of his exhaustion as he pulled out his wand and strode through the unrelieved corridors. Sometimes he forgot how menacing the castle could be at night when the students were meant to be abed and the torches dimmed or doused themselves. It became an entirely different place—menacing and watchful, each footstep caught and magnified in the empty stone passages. He imagined it must have been similar, if not the same, centuries ago.

Of course, he didn't think the Founders ever had to root out a serial killer hiding in their castle.

He reached the third floor, and Remus' traitorous mind jumped to thoughts of Gunhilda of Gorsemoor—the One-Eyed Witch and the secret she hid inside her stone hump. Sweat prickled the back of Remus' neck despite the pervading chill. He couldn't be using the tunnel, could he? Surely someone in Hogsmeade would have seen him, and the map—. Remus had checked Filch's office for the Marauder's Map back in September but had come up empty-handed. Either it had been destroyed or misplaced—hopefully permanently.

Rounding a corner, he found Gunhilda in her usual place and inspected the statue, relieved to see undisturbed cobwebs linking the hump to the wall, a thin layer of dust laying atop the seal. He didn't come this way. Perhaps the passage behind the mirror on the fourth floor? But, no—I checked that in September as well, and it's closed off. Remus huffed a breath and moved on, his wand illuminated. Maybe we should start asking students if they've let in a great, black shaggy dog.

He nearly froze in place as the thought crossed his mind. It could not be possible; Remus couldn't fathom Black still having the ability to change forms, not after twelve years in Azkaban. From everything he'd heard and learned over the years, it took a measure of thought, patience, and clarity of mind to hold the Animagus transformation; Black had to be barking mad after a decade in the Dementors' loving care. There was no possible way—.

Anxiety crawled in Remus' skin as he chewed his lip and checked behind a tapestry. Again he played the old worries in his mind, wondering if he should approach Dumbledore with concerns of his old map and Black's illegal Animagus status—but that would mean informing the Headmaster that he and James and Peter had all direly broken his trust in their schoolboy years. What would happen to Remus then? Would Albus chuck the lying werewolf out on his ear? Merlin and Morgana be kind, he didn't want to go back to Knockturn Alley. He didn't want to go back to minimum wage jobs in Muggle stores, buying stale crumpets at the corner shop, his tea tin empty and his flat dark as a tomb. Having tasted this life, it'd be all the crueler to return to the dire straits he'd been living before.

And what if your negligence gets someone killed?

It wouldn't. It wouldn't. He just needed to pay more attention, be a bit keener in looking after the children—more so Neville, as it seemed the attack on the Fat Lady proved Black meant to go after the poor boy. The sheer relief Remus felt in realizing the bastard hadn't tried to sneak into the Slytherin commons disgusted him, but at least Harriet and…her should be safe. Hopefully.

Remus became so absorbed into his own thoughts, he neglected to notice when a curtain of black parted from the greater shadows clinging to the stairwell, and he nearly shouted when that shadow collided with his side and threw him into the wall.

"For God's sake, Snape!" he snapped, heart beating out of his chest, his embarrassment at being caught out quickly overshadowed by anger. "Are you out of your mind—?"

Snape had his wand raised, the edge dangerously close to Remus' face, and so he kept his mouth shut even as he glared. The other wizard had a wild look about him, dark eyes glinting, hair disheveled, and Remus noted he still wore the entirety of his teaching attire, right down to the dragon hide boots and cinched cravat at his throat. He held Remus at arm's length and jostled him, hard, startling Remus' gaze back to his own. The wand twitched, and then—.

"Legilimens!"

Remus felt a sudden cold force hit his face, like opening a window in the dead of winter, the biting chill of it sinking into his flesh and bones in an instant. He was assaulted with a barrage of images ripped out of his subconscious, violent bursts of color like Muggle bombs falling from an unseen sky. At the forefront of it he could sense something other, a presence he quickly realized was Snape suddenly inside his head like a bloody jetty in the tide. From him rose a single idea—a thought, a name, a beacon, a tuning fork shivering to a very specific tone, searching for what matched it. Sirius Black.

He was a skinny lad in new robes, prefect badge on his chest, and Sirius reached out to straighten it—.

—Sirius' hand was on his shoulder. They were older, seated a table, two plates of breakfast and The Prophet thrown aside—.

"—SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES," the headline proclaimed, Remus unable to look away as he dragged his weary feet past the newsstand, "MADMAN WANTED FOR—."

"—the murder of twelve Muggles and the wizard Peter Pettigrew. He has been taken into custody by the Aurory." He couldn't believe what the wireless had just reported. He couldn't breathe. No, no—not James and Lily and little Harriet—.

—Potter sat in his classroom, an open, curious expression on her small face. A pity she didn't resemble James or Lily more, but she was a darling thing all the same. Her look was a bit harder than anything her parents had ever worn. Remus glanced at the girl next to Harriet and met a pair of familiar gray eyes—.

"—She has my eyes, of course," Sirius said as he cradled the infant to his chest. "But there's a little of her mother in there too." Laughing, he carefully extended the wrapped bundle to Remus, and he accepted the slumbering child with exceeding care. "Isn't she beautiful, Moony? Our—."

"—daughter is dead," he choked out between strained breaths, handsome face painted in soot and ash. "Marlene, her whole family, Elara—they're all fucking dead—."

—the remains of a burnt cradle like a hollow ribcage reaching through the ashes. Remus can't stop sobbing—.

"—Where is she?" Remus ask as he came into door, tired and spotted with rain. Sirius didn't stir from the armchair.

"I thought it best," he said, quietly, "if she went with Marlene into hiding."

"What? How could you—? How could you decide this without asking—?!"

—Shock bled from his heart—shock and betrayal and—.

—Rage, all he felt was rage as he screamed at the man he lo—.

—Despair, the ashes of a once grand home still drifting in the morning breeze, scorch marks and snow upon the cinder of walls, furniture, bones—.

"—no survivors," the Auror said as he stood with Remus amid the wreckage. His face began to distort when Remus choked. "No survivors."

All at once, the presence in his head retreated, and Remus sucked in air like a dying man as he blinked and focused on the wizard in front of him.

"Ah," Snape commented, voice quiet. "So that is why you asked after the girl."

Remus saw red.

"You son of a bitch." He threw his fist into Snape's face and they toppled, slamming hard into the stone floor below. "You had no right—!" Beyond reason, Remus aimed another blow at Snape's face, only to get caught by a strike to the middle forcing the air from his lungs. They rolled, his head bouncing on the floor—but he had enough sense to jerk out of the way just far enough for Snape's own fist to crack against the flagstones instead of his nose.

"Fuck—!"

They struggled, flailing like drunken Muggles outside a dingy pub—right up until somebody else dashed into the corridor.

"Enough!" Headmaster Dumbledore shouted, and the two men were yanked apart by a spell gripping the collar of their robes. Snape landed hard on his knees, not quite steady on his feet, while Remus stumbled but remained upright, blinking stars out of his eyes. Professor Dumbledore, marching forward to stand before them, looked less than pleased. "I will not have you fighting in the halls! What is the meaning of this?"

The uncharacteristic anger in the Headmaster's voice made Remus feel thirteen again, standing with his three cohorts under the looming stare of his Head of House. Even Snape was here—just as sullen and snide as ever. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"He accosted me," Remus said, swallowing. "And invaded my memories somehow."

Dumbledore turned his head toward Snape. "Albus, see reason," the Dark wizard retorted, blood dribbling from his split lip. "How else would Black be getting into the school, if not without help from his faithful wolf—."

"Severus."

The Potions Master quieted.

"I have told you that Remus has my trust."

"He does not have mine."

"Be that as it may, you will have to hold faith in my judgment, then." The disappointment in his tone couldn't be mistaken, and even in a daze, Remus could see how it rankled Snape against his will. "I won't accept this kind of behavior from either of you. We are colleagues and cannot be driven apart by petty grievances in these dark times." Dumbledore rubbed at his brow, sighing. "I take it by your presence here the dungeons have been checked over?"

Snape nodded, his black hair falling forward to hide his face when his head dipped. Blood welled and dripped from his mouth.

"Good. Return to the Great Hall and watch over the students now."

Again, Snape nodded, spinning on his heels to stride—limp—toward the stairs. Remus watched him go and exhaled, shaking hand coming up to prod a shallow graze on his cheek. He was pleased Severus hadn't resorted to magic. He knew from experience that, by seventh year alone, his hexes had begun to far outshine the Marauders' in both variety and viciousness. Remus didn't much fancy spending the night in the infirmary. He already had a sizable bump on his skull.

"I do hope you'll forgive Severus," Headmaster Dumbledore said, his sad eyes also trained on the now empty stairwell where Snape had disappeared. "His occupies a rather…stressful position here. More stressful than my own, I daresay. He did not react well to your appointment."

Remus grunted, not finding that surprising in the least. "I struck him first," he admitted. "He…I wasn't prepared for the memories he…stirred up."

"He had no right to do such a thing. I will be speaking with him later."

"I—." He imagined that would only embitter the wizard all the more. What in the world had that spell been? Remus had heard of mind magics before but had never seen them in action, the art terribly esoteric and mostly relegated to lying, back-alley tricksters and frauds. That had not been a fraud. "I don't understand why he seemed so—."

"Angry?"

"No." Not angry. Not a day passed in which Remus witnessed Snape in a mood varying from irritated, indifferent, or angry. This had been something else entirely; the fervor of his movements, the tightness of his grip, the tremor in his breath. "…afraid."

Surprised, Dumbledore hummed in thought and furrowed his brow. They stood together in the barren corridor and all was silent, not a madman to be found, the night beyond the windows clad in dark clouds and nascent fog creeping in from the mountains. Remus knew the Headmaster wouldn't be there if the rest of the castle hadn't already been scoured. He knew Black must have gotten away. Merlin, how he hated Hallowe'en.

"I believe Severus has a lot to lose if Mr. Black were to attack the students."

That puzzled Remus. "What would he have to lose, sir?"

Dumbledore just smiled and didn't say a word.


A/N:

Dumbledore: [banging pots together in the corridors] Wakey-wakey, escaped murderer in the school! Slumber party time!