True to Remus' word, he knocked on the door to Salvis Manard's classroom at six-fifty-eight sharp.

Manard answered the door immediately, and his eyes skated over Remus' freshly-pressed robes and combed hair. Remus stood, unsure of what to do.

"Take the gloves off," said Manard abruptly.

"What?"

"The gloves. Take them off."

"But why? I always wear these gloves."

"Not today, you don't. I promised I would make this as easy as possible for you, didn't I? And there's no point in going back on my promise—the better I do, the better you'll want to do when I take you to find Greyback…"

"Keep your voice down, please…"

"Oh, no one's around. Anyway, I used to work with the Werewolf Department. Trust me: nobody there likes your gloves. They make it look like you're hiding something."

"Oh." Remus slid the gloves off and tried to fit them in his pocket, but Manard took them from him immediately.

"No. Keep them in my classroom. Is there anything else in your pockets?"

"No, sir."

"Good. And…" Manard yanked Remus into the classroom, closed the door behind them, and stared at Remus scrutinizingly. "Fix your hair," he said.

"I did. I've combed it three times."

Manard sighed, waved his wand, and then aggressively patted Remus' head several times (Remus flinched). "There," he said. "The more presentable you are, the better I look. If anyone at the Ministry thinks you've done something that I didn't find, then there's going to be hell to pay—for both of us, but especially for you."

Remus nervously brushed off his robes one more time. "Am I all right now?"

"Yes, you're fine. Take my arm."

It was difficult to take the arm of someone whom Remus despised with every morsel of his soul, but he did—almost immediately, there was a sharp crack, and they were in a telephone box. "Does Professor Dumbledore know that you're taking my case?" Remus asked as Manard pecked a number into the pad.

"Yes. I told him a couple of days ago."

"A… a couple of days ago?"

"Couple of weeks ago, actually. He was under the impression that I'd already told you."

The phone box began to descend into the ground, and Remus felt a sharp burst of nausea in his stomach that was either from the descending telephone box or deep confusion and hatred. "So you had a plan to blackmail me?!" he yelped.

Manard shrugged, smiling.

"But… but Greyback hadn't even attacked Hogsmeade yet! How were you planning on bribing me if you didn't even know that would happen?"

"Remus, think about it. You'd received the messages from him. You were directly in contact, and I knew the Ministry wasn't going to treat you well no matter what. I had plenty to bribe you with already. The Greyback invasion was simply a push in the right direction."

"But you told Dumbledore you were going to take my case… what if I hadn't agreed to it? You would have helped me regardless?"

"Oh, no." Manard grinned. "See, Remus, the wonderful thing about taking your case is that I could have gone either way. I could have helped you, which is what I'm about to do now… or I could have made this the worst Registry experience of your life, and called it 'inevitable' when we got back to Hogwarts. I'd tell Albus someone else took your case… or perhaps that there was another in the room with me. He wouldn't be able to prove it, and I would have acted legally."

"Acted? What would you have done?"

"Well, anything I wanted. The usual, probably, perhaps dialed up a tad. Veritaserum. Would have found out every little thing about your life and used it against you. And… well, we both know I'm capable of some really excellent curses… or rather, necessary interrogation methods, as I could have called them to Dumbledore's face."

Remus stared at the ground angrily. In through his nose, out through his mouth… he would not attack Salvis Manard. Not here. Not now. Not ever.

The telephone box came to a stop, and Manard stepped out and beckoned for Remus to follow. To Remus' great surprise, they had emerged from the box directly next to Manard's office, meaning that they wouldn't have to walk through the entire Ministry building.

"You're welcome," said Manard. "I have a handicapped entrance to the Ministry building because of my leg. Hardly any walking at all."

Manard opened the door to his office, and Remus stepped inside, gazing at the walls in amazement.

The walls weren't a sterile white, like most Ministry offices seemed to boast. Instead, three of the four walls were part of a giant map of Europe, spanning all the way around the room, with a couple of glowing red locations. "What's all this?" Remus stammered.

"The places where Greyback has been." Manard tapped one of the glowing red locations with his wand—London—and newspaper clippings, some moving video interviews, and radio transcripts were immediately projected onto the only blank wall in the room.

Remus took a few steps closer and read the headlines. Each of the projected items had to do with Greyback sightings in London. There was even a fuzzy photograph of Greyback prowling the streets.

"Wow," said Remus. "You're obsessed."

"Surprised you hadn't worked that out already." Manard walked back to his desk—clack, clack, clack, said his cane—and sat in the large chair behind it. Remus kept staring at the clippings on the wall, mesmerized. There were dates, there were videos, there was a list of dates, times, and victims… oh, Remus felt ill.

"Sit," said Manard impatiently. "You know how this works. Unlike most of the people working the Registry, I want to be done with today as quickly as possible. I'm not getting paid for any of this, and I have essays to mark back at the school."

Remus scurried over to the desk and sat facing Manard.

"Thank you. Now, I promised to make this as painless as possible, so I won't be asking you the questions to which I already know the answer. Omitting them technically isn't allowed, so don't ever tell anybody I did this."

"Yes, sir."

Remus watched as Manard began to fill out a piece of parchment that Remus had seen so many times before. He could see it upside-down, and looking at the parchment was a lot more pleasant than watching Manard's face, the newspaper clippings on the wall, or the large quantity of glowing locations… so that's what he did.

Name: Remus John Lupin

Date of Birth: March 10, 1960

Date Bitten: February 16, 1965

Height:

Manard looked at Remus. "How tall are you?" he asked.

"How do you know my birthday? And my middle name? And… how do you know any of that?!"

"Nicked your file a couple of months back, remember? I read over the information quite meticulously."

Remus looked around the room. "Talking of the file… isn't there supposed to be a transcript of everything I say in this room?"

Manard smiled and pulled a sheet of parchment from his bag. "Fortunately for you, I've already written one up. I'll let you look it over if you want, but I think I've gotten your voice down well."

Remus skimmed the parchment. "I don't stutter this much," he said.

"Yes, you do."

Remus noted that some of the language had been taken directly from some of his previous conversations with Manard. He flipped through the transcript, wishing to edit, but knowing that Manard probably wouldn't want him to change much….

He reached a page about two-thirds into the transcript and looked back up at Manard. "No," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"You wrote me confessing that Fenrir Greyback bit me as revenge on my father and then visited me the month after, in human form, to confirm and try to recruit me."

"Isn't that what happened?"

"Yes, but… but you said you wouldn't divulge that information! I told you in confidence! The Ministry can't know, not after my father and I have essentially been lying to them for years… I only got lucky that they've never asked that question while I was under Veritaserum."

"Yes, Remus, which is precisely why this is the month to tell them." Manard sighed. "The people at the Ministry want me to use Veritaserum, which is completely fair. Something big has just happened, and they want to know whether you let Greyback in."

"Yes, but…"

"That means that, in their minds—and on that transcript—I am asking you questions about Fenrir Greyback whilst you are under the influence of Veritaserum."

"Exactly! So—"

"So if I say that you told me, whilst drugged, that Greyback did not bite you and that you had no contact whatsoever with him… then they might actually believe you, which funnily enough, literally nobody does at the moment. But what will happen next time you have a Registry appointment, if we've not managed to kill Greyback by then? They'll find out that you managed to lie under Veritaserum."

Remus saw the problem, and he bit the insides of his cheeks to keep from shouting in frustration.

"You see the problem, of course. They'll either think that you have the ability to lie under Veritaserum, which means you'll never have a chance of getting treated fairly when in a trial—they'll just assume you're lying, no matter what—or they'll find out what I did and sack me. Forgive me, but I'm not willing to risk that last one."

Remus nodded slowly. "Okay."

"Not to mention that they fully expect me to find out something. If I 'discover' this simple fact, then they'll count that as a success, and they'll stop prodding you. Hopefully, that is."

"Oh. All right."

"So may I include it? I won't do it without your permission. I must admit, the prospect of a trial of yours being even more unfair does make me happy…"

"You may include it," said Remus, nearly breathless from fear.

"Good. Don't worry. Everybody knows."

"I just don't want my father to get into trouble…"

"He won't."

"And I did tell Mr. Ragfarn last year that I hadn't had any definite, knowledgeable contact with Greyback. I lied to a Ministry official."

Manard waved a hand dismissively. "Dav isn't going to say anything. He likes you."

"No, he doesn't."

"Yes, he does. He doesn't like werewolves, but he doesn't want you to die. He changed his tune after the investigation last year, almost exactly a year ago now."

Remus did remember. "We did have a nice conversation at a pub near here," he said. "He didn't treat me very well before that."

"Fatherhood is turning him soft. Had some sort of existential crisis last year when he was trying to pin something on you, suddenly realized he couldn't stomach the thought of harming someone his own son's age… I don't know. Something dumb like that. He won't fight very hard for you in a court of law, of course, but he certainly won't go out of his way for your imprisonment."

"Oh."

"Come now, Remus. This is the best possible time to divulge this secret. I don't understand why you were keeping it a secret in the first place."

"Well, there's some stigma attached to being bitten by Greyback himself, and…"

"I know. I love the stigma, personally. My point is, you'll be a lot safer if you let me handle this right now instead of waiting for it to snowball later on. I promise I will vouch for you, if push comes to shove. I need you to find Greyback, remember? So don't be afraid."

Remus nodded slowly. He didn't trust Manard, but he absolutely trusted Manard's obsession with catching Greyback. That was just about the only thing Remus could trust. Manard would not, would never, do anything that hindered his ability to catch and kill Fenrir Greyback.

"Okay," said Remus. "Fine. The transcript is fine."

"Good," said Manard. "Now… height?"

Remus looked at the ceiling, and then the floor, and then Manard.

This was significantly better than being executed, but it was still pretty awful.

Manard filled out the rest of the paperwork within fifteen minutes, and then he handed it to Remus. "Make sure everything is accurate," he ordered.

Remus skimmed it, even though he'd been reading it upside-down the whole time. Mother's name. Father's name. Mother's maiden name. Place of residence. Weight. Highest level of education. Age in months.

There was more—so much more—but Remus didn't finish reading it before he heard footsteps coming down the corridor. "Ragfarn's coming," he whispered.

Manard snatched the paperwork from Remus' hands and stuffed it into his bag. He pointed his wand at Remus, and all of the sudden, Remus felt almost unbearably hot. He nearly cried out, but Manard had reached over and crammed a hand in front of Remus' mouth. "Remember," Manard hissed, "you are under Veritaserum right now."

Remus nodded, eyes wide, and Manard withdrew his hand and sat back in his chair. Moments later, the door opened, and Dav Ragfarn stepped into the room.

"How goes it, Sal?" asked Ragfarn, staring at Remus in a sort of way that made Remus very uncomfortable. Remus felt sweat on his face, and the heat was making it difficult to breathe. He coughed.

"Very well so far," said Manard.

"Have you gotten anything from him?"

"I did," said Manard, "but you're going to have to wait until later."

Ragfarn's face hardened. "He didn't help Greyback get into Hogsmeade?"

"Not purposefully, if the Veritaserum is working. I'm currently trying to find out if he could have accidentally contributed to the event."

"Ah, I see."

Ragfarn walked up to Remus and then knelt beside him. He looked him directly in the eyes for a solid ten seconds, and Remus couldn't help but blink heavily. His eyes were burning, and his throat was burning, and there was sweat dripping into his eyes, and…

"How much Veritaserum did Sal give you?" asked Ragfarn, disapproving. "You look like death."

Remus tried to remember what he'd spoken like while actually under Veritaserum. "A bit more than the normal amount," he said, "and I've also been on some new medication recently, so that might have something to do with it." His eyes began to water so violently that Remus felt a tear drip down his chin, but he kept talking. "Madam Pomfrey told me that it would help with my bones, the pain, and general insomnia. It's helping so far, I think. I was thinking that…" Suddenly, his throat seized, and he coughed.

That had sounded realistic, yes. A full answer, even when he desperately did not want to give one. Remus was proud of himself, despite the fact that his face was prickling.

Ragfarn rolled his eyes and pulled a small bottle from his pocket. "Here, take this," he said. "Sal, more Veritaserum isn't going to make him more truthful. It's only going to make him feel worse."

"That's what I want," said Manard. "Now, I'd really appreciate it if you left me to do my job. I assure you that I am most certainly qualified."

Ragfarn gave Remus one last look, and then he left.

Remus began to uncork the potion, but Manard stopped him. "No, Remus, that's not going to help. I'll pour it into a plant later."

Remus could barely get any words out—he felt as if he was choking, and he was beginning to panic. "Please," he wheezed.

"Yes, yes." Manard waved his wand, and Remus' chest immediately cleared—so sudden and mind-blowing was the feeling of relief that Remus nearly wept. "Sorry about that. According to the transcript, you're already supposed to be under the effects right now. I had to make it more realistic."

"Yeah, I understand."

"Excellent acting, by the way."

"So… you have to change the transcript now and add what Mr. Ragfarn said?"

"Yes. We'll be here for an extra half-hour while I do that, I'm afraid."

"Okay."

"You can take a book from the shelf if you'd like, though I'm not sure any of them will quite fit your fancy."

Remus stared at the bookshelf, which was very short and placed in an odd location so as to avoid obstructing any large landmasses on the wall maps. Why Werewolves Deserve to Die. Top Ten Best Ways to Kill a Werewolf. Silver Doesn't Harm Werewolves—Unless You Do It Right.

Remus shrugged and plucked Most Dangerous Werewolves of the Nineteenth Century off the shelf. He began to leaf through it, not really reading, but using the opportunity to focus his eyes on something else while he thought.

"Careful with that one," said Manard without looking up.

"Why?"

"Tad gruesome. A copy of it is in the Hogwarts Restricted Section."

Remus scoffed. "I'm not afraid of a little gore, obviously." He flipped the page and came face-to-face with a decapitated man, blood spilling, bite marks all over his body, tattered clothes soaked through with red… "Point taken," murmured Remus, feeling ill, and he closed the book. "Don't you have anything lighter to read?"

Manard reached into his bag and pulled out a copy of Witch Weekly. "Don't judge," he said. "My wife used to read this religiously, and I haven't had the heart to cancel my subscription."

Remus smiled and took the magazine. "Thank you," he said.

"Don't mention it. Literally."

Remus had only gotten about halfway through the magazine before he heard Manard put down his quill. "Finished," said Manard triumphantly. "Ready to go back to the castle?"

"What if someone sees us leaving and asks why I'm going so early?"

"Do you sense anyone out there with your superior werewolf senses?"

"No."

"Then they won't. I'm also planning on locking the door—I don't think anyone will bother me for a while, and I put on the transcript that you've left at half-noon. I won't have to lay low for very long."

"Okay… if you're sure. I can stay here for longer if you think it'll be safer."

"Not an issue. And frankly, I don't want you to stay here longer."

Manard half-pushed Remus to the door, and Remus hurried to the telephone box before anyone could see the two of them crossing the corridor to their ticket back to the castle.

Remus reported directly to the Hospital Wing instead of going back to his dormitory. "Remus!" said Madam Pomfrey, welcoming him in. "Oh, I was hoping you'd stop by. Did they give you any Veritaserum?"

"No. None."

"I heard Professor Manard helped you out."

"Yes."

"How was it?"

"By far the most pleasant Registry visit I've ever had," said Remus, and he was being entirely truthful. The Registry visit had been fine. Manard had fulfilled his promise and made the visit as painless as possible, and Remus hadn't even had to answer many questions.

No, the painful part was what came next. Remus had sold his soul to the devil to get through this appointment, and he was about to pay the price.

"Good," said Madam Pomfrey. "Is there something you need from me?"

"Yeah, I… I've just noticed that I've been jumpier than normal lately. My heart feels fast. I was only wondering if that's a side effect of the potions, and if there's anything I can do to slow it down."

Madam Pomfrey frowned and took hold of Remus' wrist. "Your heart does feel quick," she said. "How long has it been like this?"

"A few days. I thought I was just anxious about the Registry, but it's not going away. Or, it is, but not for very long. Can you fix it?"

"Yes."

"How?"

Madam Pomfrey gave Remus a long, hard look. "A Calming Draught."

"Madam Pomfrey…"

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking one. This isn't a side effect of the potions, Remus. You were right. It's anxiety. You need to calm down."

"I can't!"

"Then you take the potion."

"No."

"Remus Lupin, what you go through every single month is enough for anyone to be traumatized for life after having experienced it only once. You don't have to take the potion, but I want to make sure you're refusing it for a legitimate reason. Because it. Will. Help."

"I don't need help." Remus pushed her hand away and smiled slightly. "I'm going to go back to my dormitory, and I'm going to ask my friends if they want to play a game of chess. They're going to refuse. Then, they're going to suggest something completely outrageous, like turning Peter's bed into a slide or playing Exploding Snap with our noses instead of our hands."

"What…?"

"And, after that," Remus continued, "I'm going to feel fine. If this is just anxiety, then I already know how to cure it. I just need a little bit of time, a little bit of comfort, and a little bit of comfortably going outside of my comfort zone, if that makes sense."

Madam Pomfrey gazed at him for a moment, and then she patted his hand. "You do that," she said. "I'll see you in a few days for the full moon. Take it easy, all right?"

"Okay!"

Remus went back to his dormitory, and then he and his friends successfully transformed Peter's bed into a slide. It was the most fun Remus had had all day, and he couldn't help but fall asleep with a smile on his face (and also Peter's hand on his face, because Peter couldn't very well sleep on a slide).

AN: A very happy belated birthday to Remus Lupin!