/I hope each of you has read the extra chapter from last week by now? And how do you like this chapter, which now runs parallel to book 1?/
I've been walking in the moonlight
Looking for you
I got nobody but my shadow to get me through
So put your lips on my scars
And teach me to love
Give my slow heart the rhythm of a blood drum
I don't want you to go
I need more of you in my life
Nobody should be alone
Please, let me take you home tonight
Don't you know that I
Don't you know I want you so bad?
And every night, I call for you
- Don“t you know by Jaymes Young
Before I stepped out of the fireplace, the light blinded my eyes, which were still sensitive to light from the magic potion of Severus. With narrowed eyes, I looked around the pub " Leaky Cauldron". This pub was located between a large bookshop and a record store on London's Charing Cross Road and Muggles usually overlooked it, so it was the perfect meeting place.
"Catherine, I'm here!" I heard Remus shout kindly. He quickly ran up to me and hugged me before I had the chimney soot from my cloak. It was good to see his friendly face after my difficult farewell. As if Remus had read my mind, he asked:
"Do you need something stronger to drink?" and pulled me to a table where two butterbeers were already waiting for us. Just like in the old days.
"No, it'll work, Remus," I said, trying to laugh. But the past few weeks in Cokeworth have simply been too beautiful to adequately cover my grief over my hard goodbye.
"I know you're not going to tell me why you're doing all this when it's obviously not what you want. But I want to know if it's necessary," Remus said with a serious face after I had placed my suitcase next to us.
"It really is," I said curtly, reaching for the butterbeer. As I took a sip, I watched as Remus raised his eyebrows skeptically.
"You know James and Lily's son is coming to Hogwarts this year?" Remus asked, looking at me again. He could clearly put one and one together, I had to give him credit for that. Although Remus has always been clever when it comes to seeing through others.
"And I'm not ready for it," I replied, seeing a flash of anger in my friend's eyes that he had to pull everything out of my nose. But I didn't reveal any information so easily and unnecessarily, not even for Remus.
"Why don't you want to meet him? I thought that would be the first thing you'd do when he came to Hogwarts. I even thought that was the reason why you accepted the position as a teacher 3 years ago," he said and his gaze slid over the corners of my mouth that turned upwards, which irritated him even more.
"Yes, that's what I thought too. But there are things that are more important than that, it helps him more than hitting me," I continued to explain vaguely and to distract from myself, I added: "And why don't you do it? Why don't you want contact with Harry?"
Remus closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. His hand slid over the bottle of butterbeer, which he now brought to his mouth. He was thinking and I had clearly hit a sore spot and before he drank, he opened his eyes and put it back on the table.
"What should I offer him? An old werewolf who was friends with his father an eternally long time ago? His father, about whom he probably knows very little? What is he supposed to do with me? Should he be ashamed of me?" asked Remus bitterly. There he was again in full presence: his self-hatred. And I wondered why the two men in my life couldn't get enough of it. Why they didn't see what really made them who they were. Two men who had a strong meaning in my life. Both a reason why I continued. Both saw themselves differently than I knew them. Deep disgust for one's own decisions and one's own self. It seemed hopeless to convince them otherwise, but I would work on it. In the meantime, I even saw it as my main task.
" Remus, no one will ever be ashamed of you. You've been the only one so far, haven't you? And I think it's inevitable that the boy will want to meet both of us sooner or later. But for his safety, it is important that it is with me later. So, Remus, I have to ask you: if you ever get in contact with him, keep quiet about me and my connection to Lily or you. It's so important, even though it may sound strange."
Remus exhaled heavily, crossing his arms close to his body.
"You can't tell me why you're asking for this?" he asked.
"No. But I ask you for your word," I said and it was so important because I somehow put my life in his hands. He had to conceal my existence.
"If you ask me to do it, I can't deny it to you. I would do anything for you. You know that," he said in a softer tone.
"I know, Remus," I said, smiling at him as I pushed his butterbeer back to him. I knew that he was the only one in my life besides Severus whom I trusted completely.
He hesitantly lifted his beer and held it out to me to toast.
"Like in the old days when we had to keep something secret for James and Lily," I whispered and a smile forming around the corners of my school friend's mouth.
He, like me, remembered their secret nightly meetings or their visits to Hagrid, the gamekeeper of Hogwarts. We had all made the acquaintance of Hagrid's creatures. I remembered how I met a gigantic spider named Aragog in seventh grade because Lily was pushing for it.
"To the old days!" said Remus, and we drank to our past, which I would have called happy if I hadn't thought of Severus so often back then. But in contrast to today, with an unfortunate aftertaste.
"Then we're going to your new home?" Remus asked after we had emptied our drinks.
"Yes, I'm ready. Will you take my arm?" I said and slowly stood up, packing my suitcase in one hand and Remus in the other. Then I concentrated strained on our goal before everything around us started spinning, I got dizzy and we landed hard on the soft ground.
We landed at a roaring sea, the waves of which were almost raised by a storm as if they wanted to indicate to me that my antipathy to leave Cokeworth and Hogwarts would be right, as if I should defend myself against it... but there was no other way.
Remus looked around wide-eyed before smiling.
"The sea. I could have guessed that. It's always been your favorite place," he said, looking at me knowingly with his gentle eyes.
I nodded with a smile, waved my wand on the empty shore, and with Leviosa, the suitcase flew beside me as I grabbed Remus' hand and led him up the small hill where a little cottage stood by the sea, trying to fight back against the tides. Severus and I had cast some wards such as an antiapparition spell so that one couldn't get in directly. Only Remus would be the person who would know where I lived and how he could get to me.
And I had managed to persuade Remus to stay in my small apartment in the city while I lived in the cottage that Severus and I had bought together. Lonely, by the roaring sea. But we would be safe and sound. The other option would have been to share a flat with Remus and It would have left out our secret cottage. Of course, it would certainly have been the safe option, because besides me and Severus, another person knew our shelter. But if Remus had been my roommate, how could Severus have seen me secretly? And since this was not an option, neither was Severus' suggestion to just have Remus thrown out the door (and Severus knew it would never happen). Severus had finally grudgingly agreed that Remus would know my new home - at least as long as we thought it acceptable. So, I gave the small apartment to Remus and devoted myself to the remodeling of the old house.
Together, Remus and I unpacked my enlarged suitcase, so that my antique chest of drawers and some memorabilia as well as many books quickly found their place.
But when Remus suddenly unpacked a filigree silver picture frame, my breath stopped. I saw Severus holding me tightly in the picture as I pressed his arms even tighter against me. We both smiled at the viewer, even Severus. I swallowed while Remus looked at me irritated.
"A picture of Urquhart Rackharrow?" Remus asked, relaxing me inwardly. So the spell of Severus had shown its effect, as he had promised me. No one but me and himself saw the true subject of the picture.
"Well, let's say I'm a big admirer of his discovery of the Entrail-Expelling Curse as a magical healing method. But I'm amazed you even know him," I replied with a smile.
"I know him because behind a painting of him at Hogwarts there was a little shortcut to the hospital wing. And I thought he always looked quite threatening," Remus explained, and after looking at it for a moment, simply placed the picture on a small corner table in the bedroom. I grinned, because it was exactly the place where I wanted to put it.
"Look further in the box! There must be more pictures," I said, looking at him invitingly. After a moment's hesitation, he reached inside and pulled out a few more moving photos. Immediately, his gaze brightened as he took a closer look at the motives.
"These are photos from our school days," he said in a breaking voice. His gaze slid over a group photo in which Remus and I were standing next to each other, he had put his arm around my shoulder in friendship, next to him stood James and Lily, smiling broadly and hugging like lovers, framed by Sirius and Peter, grinning broadly. Remus stared at it for a while with a strangely transfigured expression before he found words again.
"It's been so damn long. It seems to me as if it had been a different life," he stated hoarsely.
"That's it, Remus. We were innocent, we didn't know the risks that lay ahead," I realized and took a few more photos in my hand. One featured Remus with James, Sirius, and Peter.
"Here, if you want, you can keep this one," I said, handing it to him. He looked at it closely.
"I can't look at it without feeling the pain of loss and betrayal," he said, continuing to stare at it as if there was another mystery behind it.
"Yes, I understand that. That's why the pictures are in the box. I can... can't stand it either," I replied, holding out my hand to take the photo from him. But he shook his head and put it in his breast pocket with trembling hands.
"Maybe one day I can see it differently," he said softly, swallowing the grief.
"Look, this one deserves a picture frame, don't you think?" I asked, holding another photo in my hands, which Remus immediately snatched out of my hand.
"That's the two of us as we are amused by James, who has raised Peter's red eyebrows," Remus stated with a grin that resembled the one in that picture in his hands.
"Here, we'll just swap it for this," I said, removing a picture of me graduating from Hogwarts, which my parents had done with a Muggle camera. I didn't move, and my forced smile was frozen.
Remus put the picture inside and placed it next to the picture of Severus and me, which for him was just one of no significance to Urquhart Rackharrow.
"Perfect," I said. There they stood next to each other: the only friends from my school days that I still had. One of them was now more than that, and yet they both didn't really know each other. I wondered if they would ever get to know each other the way I knew them.
I still had a few days left before my work at St. Mungo started after Remus went back to town for his transformation, so I was safe. Without the Wolfsbane Potion, he would be dangerous again during this time and he insisted that I continue to help him without my position as a teacher and free access to most of the ingredients.
So, I used the time alone and roamed the old walls, which I liked. And the view of the roaring waves reflected my inner self in such a peculiar way that I felt a strange warmth. I decided to furnish the old building, in which I would now spend many months, in such a way that I could accept it as my home.
With many spells I was able to renovate the substance, as well as the old heating system. And all this distracted me from the fact that Severus had only sent me a single line with an owl so far, which was:
It's acceptable in Hogwarts, everything else later.
I wondered if this would be the beginning of a very taciturn exchange and I knew that I wouldn't be able to stand having so little communication with him. It had been a few days since I had last hugged him and it hurts to think about it. I had so little of him, so little of us.
I was longing for almost mid-September, when I would finally start at St. Mungo. I had believed that Severus and I would use the first weeks of the month to come to terms with the physical separation, not realizing that I would spend this time alone.
But when the fireplace in the living room was finally cleaned, there was suddenly a knock on my door. I knew there could only be one person. I opened the door and in front of me stood a tall, thin figure in a long black cloak. I gasped with joy and staggered into his arms and pulled him into the little cottage by the sea.
Severus immediately held me tightly, his hands running feverishly through my long hair. We stood for a while before he pulled away from me and slowly looked around.
"Do you think it will really be enough for you?" he asked softly.
"Yes, that's enough for me. After all, it's bigger and more beautiful than I've ever been used to. My small city apartment or the miserable apartment of my childhood can't compete here."
He looked at me scrutinizing before nodding briefly and pulling me back to him.
"I'm going to continue to prepare this little cottage and plant a garden. Then it will be perfect for me. I have a lot of time ahead of me," I replied, snuggling my body against his.
"I'll try to see you every night," he said softly and I suppressed the question of why he hadn't contacted me yet. But he seemed to know my thoughts.
"I had to be sure that Dumbledore wouldn't get suspicious. I wanted to be here since the first night," he explained in a deep voice and now looked me in the face, my shoulders clasped tightly.
"I was worried, Severus," I said, feeling my body visibly relax with relief in the man's arms, I needed more than anything else.
"I'm sorry. I don't want you to feel even a second of suffering because of me. But I'm afraid I won't be able to keep appointments made from time to time. Filch has increasingly reported nocturnal runaways from the Gryffindor Tower . He expects my support, just as he is used to from me," he said bitterly.
"The twins?"; I asked.
"Probably. But for some reason, neither Filch nor I have been able to catch them red-handed," Severus said, burying his face in my hair, taking long and deep breaths.
"And what was the House selection from Sorting Hat? Harry's in Gryffindor, isn't he?" I asked, immediately feeling Severus tense. He reluctantly pulled away from me and I saw him grimace in disgust. Before he could say anything, I pulled him onto the couch in front of the fireplace.
With a wave of my wand, 2 glasses and a bottle of elfmade wine from the kitchen stood in front of us on the old small coffee table decorated with inlays.
"Where else would James Potter's son be? There is only one suitable house for such a celebrity," he said in a distorted voice, his eyes sparkling with hatred as if he were standing directly opposite James. I poured something into our glasses and handed it to Severus, who had emptied it in one gulp.
"What's he like?" I asked skeptically, filling him up. Severus put his hand between his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose tensely before answering.
"The boy is mediocre and as arrogant as his father. He enjoys his celebrity. He didn't learn a bit before he arrived. Can you believe that? And Potter Junior violates rules like his father and his gang before him. And he's just as outrageous," he said in a voice that made my blood stop in my veins. He sounded so full of hatred that it frightened me. Dumbledore had to be right, the boy had to be an external spitting image of James.
"Severus, don't be too harsh! He grew up with Muggles. At Petunia." I tried to pronounce her name as disparagingly as possible, because neither of us had a good memory of this person.
" Wouldn't you have immediately opened your books and tried to learn everything about your parents' world? All these incredible things he could have known. I can't understand it, with the best will in the world. I asked him three questions, which are addressed in the chapter of the introduction to Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Bunsen. But nothing. He didn't know anything about it," Severus grumbled. We were silent for a moment, and I heard Severus try to calm his anger with deep breaths.
"I understand your thoughts. But we are both different from the majority, Severus. We were already different in our school days. That's why we found each other and that's why Lily tried to help both of us," I said quietly. "And Harry is part of Lily. He must have something from her. Maybe you just missed it, Severus. But I'm sure Lily is in him," I said, fervently hoping that I would be right and that he wasn't a second James Potter. At least not in the way Severus knew him. Severus took his wine track in his hand again and slowly swirled the liquid in it, while I watched his graceful movements and slowly ran my hand down his back.
"Yes, maybe you're right," Severus said after a few moments, looking at me with skeptical black eyes.
"And the son of Alice and Frank?" I asked, his fate was also heavy on my mind.
"Longbottom? Don't remember the next stupid Gryffindor. He is the counterexample of Potter. He grew up with a witch and I've never seen a bigger dunderhead. Sometimes I have the feeling that the children do not even remotely match the achievements of the parents. Alice and Frank were both so talented, they performed magic at a high level. Their son, on the other hand, will demand great displeasure from me," Severus explained and grimaced again and I grinned at some memories of Alice and Frank from my school days.
"I remember how shy and clumsy Frank was before he went out with Alice. I think it was only through them that he got the security he needed to practice magic at a high level, as you describe. Before, he was just mediocre, no one would have guessed what kind of talent lay dormant in him, except perhaps Alice." I remembered exactly how Frank had constantly forgotten things, getting one howler after another from his terribly fussy mother. No one would have ever thought that he could become an Auror until the fourth grade.
"I only remember the Longbottom from the dueling club, who made even Mulciber or Rosier tremble," Severus said dryly with raised eyebrows.
"Yes, but it was Alice who gave him the love and support through which he could grow. She always believed in him. It's a good thing that at some point he found the courage to ask her out on a date."; I said, remembering how shy Frank was. It was so atypical for a Gryffindor and yet I recognized myself in it and immediately found it sympathetic.
"So, you mean there's a real Longbottom in this foul boy too? You wouldn't say it if you knew that he managed to melt even a cauldron in his first lesson, even though he was only supposed to brew a simple potion to heal boils. That idiot," Severus said disparagingly, and I raised my eyebrows.
"He must have added the porcupine spikes before he took the cauldron off the fire?" I asked, feeling sorry for the boy. Certainly, the melted cauldron made Severus furious. It was something that Severus didn't take a joke about. The waste of precious materials.
"That's right.", sneers Severus.
"So, wasn't there a bright spot in the first grades?" I asked. I was really curious to know how Harry and Neville would do and I regretted not being able to teach them herbalism.
Severus shook his head in annoyance.
"Not in a bunch of dunderheads like every year in class. The young Malfoy was the only one who had braised his whelks properly. And you know, I always have to favor the Slytherins because of my old connection to their parents. And that's easier for me when I appreciate something about them," he said, sighing before leaning back on the couch. I looked at my beloved. His face was pale, he looked tired and exhausted. He clearly slept badly. But who could blame him? I felt Severus living back in the past when he saw the children of his old schoolmates in front of him. Harry as the ever-popular show-off James, Neville as the shy and clumsy Frank, Draco as the power-hungry Lucius... he relived his own nightmare of his school days. And I couldn't do anything but be there for him with an open ear and some lame advice. I wanted to do so much more for him. Not only would I have given anything to take this burden off him at that moment. Gently, I stroked his arm, which he had placed next to him.
"And what is my successor?" I asked quietly. It hurt to think about what I had given up.
"Pamona? Well, she's more of the maternal older lady type. She has not yet figured out how to use cleansing spells correctly. But honestly, you probably don't mind her black fingernails," Severus said, looking at my clean hands.
"I mean, what is she like as a teacher? To the students?" I said, rolling my eyes with a laugh.
"Well, she's a Hufflepuff. Presumably, she does her job quite well. Dumbledore at least considered them capable. Which I can't say about the new Defense Against Dark Arts teacher," Severus replied, and I saw his gaze take on a strange expression.
"You're not jealous, are you?" I asked, looking at him sharply.
"On Quirrell? Never. There's something about him that makes Dumbledore suspicious. In any case, I'm supposed to keep an eye on him," Severus said quietly and ran his chin thoughtfully.
"Why?" I asked, eyebrows raised, my tone suspicious. "That Dumbledore hires someone he can't assess - I don't know that from him."
"There are hardly any applicants left. There has been an enormous amount of wear and tear in recent decades," Severus stated and looked me firmly in the face, he had apparently noticed my mistrust, which did not surprise me. We knew each other too well by now.
"But why should you keep an eye on him?" I asked.
"It might have something to do with what Hogwarts is currently hosting," Severus replied, averting my gaze barely noticeably.
"And what would that be?" I grabbed his hand, forcing him to make contact, as I felt him trying to slip away from me. He was willing to exclude me, but I wouldn't let him, I knew that would be fatal for his salvation.
"I can't say," Severus replied curtly. "For your safety."
"Severus. We didn't want to let anything between us. This also implies Dumbledore's secrecy," I replied more brusquely than I would have liked.
Severus sighed and looked me in the eye again.
"It's the philosopher's stone," he said softly.
"The what?"
"The Philosopher's Stone. With it, any metal can be turned into pure gold. In addition, it produces the elixir of life, whose drinker is granted immortality," Severus explained, watching me as he spoke.
"I know what it is. But I thought its existence was just a rumor," I said, gasping in surprise at such a masterpiece of alchemy.
"A friend of Dumbledore's, Nicolas Flamel, has managed to create one. So far, the stone was in Gringrotts, but Dumbledore suspects that it would be better off at Hogwarts at the moment," Severus said and I looked at him closely. I recognized in his face that he was not necessarily of the same opinion as Dumbledore, it told me a twitching of the corners of his mouth, the pinched jaws and a corresponding tension that ran through his face. And I could understand his concerns.
"But you feel differently?" I asked him, raising my eyebrows.
"My opinion doesn't matter. But Hogwarts is a safe place. The goblins... Well, they're not always trustworthy, are they? And Dumbledore suspects that the stone could be an interest for the Dark Lord."
I shrugged my shoulders, because I had had little contact with goblins so far.
"And Dumbledore suspects that he might aspire to it? Now?" I asked. Voldemort should rise to power now? I hadn't heard of it, but I wasn't interested in sources either, unlike the headmaster, who had his accomplices everywhere.
"He probably thinks so, but he's not sharing his information with me right now. In any case, it's also a reason why I couldn't be here with you until so late," Severus added, taking my hands in his.
"Why?" I asked in a low voice.
"I was one of the professors who was supposed to secure the stone. Minerva, Filius, Pamona, Quirrel, me and even Hagrid," he said, his thumbs running over my knuckles like it was a game.
" The headmaster thought Hagrid was a good idea?" I asked in astonishment. I shuddered at the thought of his reliability, even though I knew how much Dumbledore meant to him, certainly no less than Severus.
"Obviously," Severus replied curtly. I looked at the man next to me. He was willing to tell me everything, I knew that, but it would be against his principles. So I refrained from further questions about how the stone is secured. It didn't matter to me anyway.
And when I looked into his dark eyes, something else became more important again. Our task, our future.
"What does Dumbledore say to Harry?" I asked, for perhaps the schoolmaster could convince him of the boy's qualities, when his plan was for Severus to protect him when he couldn't do it himself.
"You know him. He loves arrogant rule-breakers from Gryffindor. He thinks the boy is humble, amiable, and reasonably talented. He thinks he's... an engaging child," Severus said, his face contorted with disgust, but I had to grin at the memory.
"Yes, I know his preference for busy people. But maybe you should just give Harry another chance?"
"He can be lucky that I didn't immediately give him detention for his laziness. But that was only because I couldn't stand his presence and didn't want to waste valuable time that I could otherwise spend with you."
"I already have some ideas on how to pass our time better.", I said, putting my glass aside before slowly opening the zipper of my dress. Severus followed my every move and the dark eyes in front of me sparkle, I clearly read a strong desire out of them. Immediately he put his glass loudly on the table and moved to me. Grinning, I pull out my wand and open the many buttons on Severus' frock coat, which he had not yet taken off.
