let me be brave

She almost says no, hastily, like a natural-born reflex or subliminal knee-jerk. Alice is so used to saying no. It has become her gut reaction, hot one moment cold the next, that now she has to pull herself back for a moment, wash the expression from her face, swallow the word.

Amos must see the transition—Alice’s skin washes from white to pink and her widened eyes crease into commas—but she doesn’t mind. The mirror is keeled over in the other direction; once it had been her pulling Amos away, from the fragments of Nora left behind that he was desperate to make fit, and out into nature.

Alice’s mouth twists into a smile. ‘Alright,’ she says, threading her arm under his and curling her fingers on his arm. She casts a glance back to the cobra lily, only for a moment, as if it is like leaving behind a child not yet sure how to dress and feed and care for themselves. Amos guides her, so by way of nature she allows herself to be guided, lifting her chin to look at his face. All her attention is his now. ‘Let’s go wherever our legs take us.’ 

He can hear the no already, on the forefront of her mind if not on her tongue, can see the doubt on her face that dances around on her browline. He wants to reach forward and smooth the crease that sits on her forehead. He wants to brush his fingers through her hair and banish the part of her that makes her feel like retreat is the safer choice.

He beams when she says yes instead. Grins when she reaches for his outstretched arm and accepts it, follows along when he sets out along the path. Away from the tents. Where no one will interrupt them. In the days before, he probably wouldn’t bother to resume the conversation, happy as they usually are to enjoy each other’s company without needing to talk. He lets the silence sit for a little while, but he fears the results of letting Alice stew in her thoughts alone for too long.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says lightly, “about doing a bit of gardening myself. Carrots and pumpkins, you know. I’m much better at the Muggle plants than the magic ones.”

     ‘It’s just, my– erm, my da. He works in the Spirit division. You might know him.’

It’s been so long since Remus had more than a passing thought about his father. Since he let himself. Lyall was more than happy to keep his routine, to remain ignorant to the worst of the war. A good job with the Ministry, magic running through his veins, his muggle wife several years dead of a mundane illness, he had nothing to fear from Voldemort or the Death Eaters. Remus had left because he didn’t want to burden him.

No, that wasn’t right. Remus had left because he didn’t want to feel like a burden in the first place.

He’d spent all these years assuming that everyone in the Department of the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures was much like his father, had the same way of seeing the world. That they all would have turned cold and practical had their own sons turned to werewolves as children, would have isolated them and kept them secret, would have let out heavy sighs, would have quietly complained to their wives about the cost of the destruction their child had unwittlingly caused. Would have been more than happy to ship them off to somewhere safer. 

Amos, he thinks, doesn’t seem like the type who would have done that. And again, not for the first time, Amos is making him feel like maybe he’s deserved better than everything he’s gotten so far in this life.

     ‘Lyall. Lyall Lupin.’

He gives it a beat to catch up with the topic change and run the name through his memory. He’d been in the department long enough to know members of each division, but it had been a while since his last liaison with the Spirit Division--his brow is furrowed but he’s still staring at Remus when the family resemblance abruptly clarifies his memory.

“Yeah, I--hold on, your da’s...”

Amos jerks upright, spilling his tea a bit, and if he wanted to be subtle about knowing Remus’ father he’s failed spectacularly already. He can’t help it: Lyall Lupin is a legend, the one sent out to the worst boggarts and monstrous apparitions. The kinds of creatures who didn’t necessarily pose a direct threat, but manipulate the environment, exploit your fears, threaten the Statute of Secrecy en masse. Lupin is the man who can face the strongest boggart in history and not be cowed by the force of his fear.

Furthermore: the man rumored to be in the bad books of every rogue werewolf in Great Britain.

It either makes no sense at all or too much sense. Those rumors, the ones he heard while working with the Werewolf Capture Unit, alleging Lyall Lupin had encountered Fenrir Greyback himself, had been the only one to figure out what he was, had been targeted for it but survived the attack--

With horror, Amos is realizing that they might be true.

Did the werewolf hatred come before Remus, he wonders, or because of him? Or--he feels nauseated now, casting his eyes around so can get a hold of his thoughts, carding his hands through his hair with enough force to pull a few strands out. Or did Greyback come after Lyall and Remus got caught in the crossfire, it’s been rumored that Greyback likes to go for children--

Too much sense, he decides, draining the rest of his tea. It makes too much sense and it’s terrible. Remus is accustomed to being treated so badly he believes he deserves it, has even internalized it so much that he doesn’t know it’s wrong. Amos recognizes it because Amos grew up with it, unlearned it through years of Nora Diggory picking him apart and putting him back together. Remus is a werewolf raised by a man who believes werewolves are monsters.

“...a bit famous in my line of work,” he finishes, aware how inadequate that sounds. Did you know your da pissed off an infamous werewolf and maybe that’s why you’re one. No, he definitely can’t say that. How did you survive an upbringing with a father who despises who you are?

“Merlin,” he mutters. He realizes he’s leaned forward, because his instinct is to reach out, touch, hold, because strong emotional epiphanies are easier to handle when grounded in physical contact. He’s feeling too much--confusion and empathy, and something right there on the back of his tongue, something that tells him don’t when he thinks about leaning back and putting some distance between himself and Remus. Remus looks so open and vulnerable and Amos, inexplicably, thinks about kissing him.

He doesn’t lean back, but he does banish that thought. Inappropriate. He doesn’t know where it came from. Even if it was appropriate, he’s pretty sure Remus is living with his partner, Andromeda’s cousin--the Gryffindor Black. Sirius.

“He has a reputation,” Amos offers as a secondary explanation for his shift in behavior. He watches Remus’ face for clues, unwilling to say much more until he’s figured out what kind of relationship Remus has with his father.

What, have they made you house cook since I’ve been gone? The words are gentle and half-teasing, they shouldn’t sting the way they do. But sting they do so much that she hopes her half turn to reach into the cabinet for a bowl has hidden her face. It doesn’t help that she’s thought them herself in a dozen self-deprecating forms. No one has made her into anything but what else can she provide the Order but food and the flickering light of her dying hope? “Oh you know me, I’m just trying to keep busy.” 

Starved. He says and she worries for Alice. She and Frank will have gone through the spread she left during her last visit by now - it will do no good running over there as though Amos has made such a thing clear, she’ll have to bring the rest of the soup over in the morning. She ladled some into a bowl for Amos and passed it to him. 

There is a sincerity to Amos, even though she remembers seeing him in school trying on different faces for different audiences, his gratitude is real and solid and his desire for connection has always drawn to her. She’d missed him after school and had written for a while until their respective lives led them far enough apart that only a faint thread of familiarity existed between them and the letters stopped. She’d found out about Nora from a Prophet buried under a pile of unanswered mail weeks after she’d been put in the ground and had stared at the image of him bracketed by the Longbottoms in a sea of other faces at the funeral. Some of those faces were familiar in much less comfortable ways. She’d seen them contorted in disgust as she passed them in the halls of their school. Fucking Mudblood. 

But Amos is her ally… her own old friend who trusts her and just wants to help. She smiled back at him and wished the warmth of it would melt the ice that drips into her veins when she remembers all those faces. 

“Of course,” she took a seat at the small kitchen table and waved at a fresh cut loaf of crusty bread by a dish of butter,” help yourself.”

She hummed at his gentle assessment of Alice,” It’s been… quiet.” Quiet like the calm before a storm… like a room filled with naught but the soft ticking of a clock. Which is to say almost deafening. “Dorcas found a letter in the post. Arabella thinks it might have something to do with the second safe place Glenda mentioned.” She busied herself for a moment tearing off a piece of bread and buttering it before finally allowing the first of her own questions to slip through, “How is it out there?”

He’s made a misstep, he can tell already. Something shifts in the room. She’s facing away, so he can’t tell for sure, but her tone is too strained. Charity has never been particularly good at hiding things. That, or he’s become too used to the sound of mild disapproval on her tongue and can recognize it in the span of ten words now.

He takes the bowl from her, leans forward to kiss her cheek lightly, his typical greeting and so ingrained that he can’t avoid doing it even when he’s fairly certain she’s not pleased with him. He’s always been the type to assume the kind of relationship that invites physical contact very quickly, given the appropriate level of consent. The touch-starved child Amos had once been never fully grew out of craving--and now, proffering--that kind of contact.

He hums around the bite of bread he’s taken, considering her as he takes a seat, too, leaning back at the sort of angle that comes naturally to those with legs as long as his. “The same,” he says after he swallows, newly grateful for Charity’s baking abilities. Perhaps he’d bring her some supplies from his mother’s kitchen. He hasn’t cooked properly in a while, after all, and he hopes she’d appreciate a sous chef.

“Failed legislation around what to do about Godric’s Hollow, somebody wants to turn it into a memorial, but nobody can figure out what to do about property rights, too many people involved, so it’ll be years before anyone’s even got clearance to come out here and take a look so Shacklebolt thinks we’re safe for a while yet. Rumors of activity from Greyback’s pack but who’s to say if that’s true or just another pack of feral dogs like it was two months ago.” Amos’ shrug is calculated to look lazy but he’s too tense for the effect to be convincing. “Who was the letter from? Or to? Any ideas where the second safe place might be?”

It’s more depressing to hear about the outside world than he thought it would be, even couched in Amos’ soft voice, his kind tone, his attempts to make things not sound so bad, somehow, all without sugarcoating anything. It’s hard to imagine anything ever returning to normal, hard to even remember what normal was. Maybe because he’s never had a normal that wasn’t, in its own way, sort of awful, never had a normal the way people uninvolved with all of this can have.

He imagines, for a moment, a life where he went to Hogwarts, got a job, maybe had a family and settled down. One where he wasn’t a werewolf, one where he hadn’t known Lily or James or Sirius or Peter. What would it have looked like, to him? A couple of terrorist attacks, and then a long period of quiet. Maybe he’d think things were back to normal then, too. But he’s never had the luxury, in this life; he’s never lived an adult life unhaunted by this war. He’s been a soldier of sorts for longer than he cares to remember.

     ‘Routine,’ he repeats, instead, choosing to focus on a different word, one he knows so much more about. Because everything’s always been a routine for him. This tea he’s drinking is a routine. His full moons are a routine. The way he’s spent his whole life pretending that everything around him was justified was a routine.

Amos has broken his routine, just a little bit. He doesn’t quite miss the comfort of it.

     ‘Wonder what that’s like,’ he half-jokes, and then takes a sip of tea. And then, sometimes occurs to him, at Amos’ mention of the Ministry– ‘You, er, you word for the Department of the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures, yeah?’

Routines are a double-edged sword in Amos’ opinion. He used to crave it: routines were the sign of stability, the indication that the family was getting used to you, wanted you to stay. Routines meant you were safe. And for a long time, all Amos ever wanted to be was safe.

(He’d had it, even, for a while. Routines with Nora, with Mum as she became, watering plants and cooking and spending hours with her learning Ancient Runes or astronomy or whatever hobby struck her that month. He’d never not felt safe, with her.)

Routines and safety meant you were lucky, now. Meant something in your life exempted you from the horrors raining down on others who hadn’t stumbled into your kind of luck. Amos was lucky: chosen by a pureblood mother to be raised as her son, blood status covered up by her pristine surname. Lucky to be clad in green-and-silver when the time came, lucky to have befriended the children who would turn to acts beyond mischief come adulthood. Lucky to be stupid enough not to realize what they were doing, to keep his head down and his nose in his work, self-preservation and wishful thinking keeping him safe. He’d only just started endangering himself, because he was lucky to have the privilege of choosing to.

Nobody’d told Remus if you want, you can pretend none of this is going on, you can ignore it and be happy. Remus hadn’t had that choice. You can die, he’d been told (the universe had decided), or you can fight.

Amos’ guilt was that the first voice had spoken those words to him, more or less, and it had taken him far too long to say no.

“Yeah,” he answers Remus absently, staring a little too long, a little too wrapped up in watching the ways emotions play across Remus’ expression. “Being Division, these last four years or so. Big step up from the Ghoul Task Force.” 

Like love and war, Alice and Amos were poles apart; in the light, their fingers stretched across whole horizons to finally meet. There had always been an extraordinary roughness to Alice; her hands bloodied by rose thorns, dirt settled in the beds of her fingernails – all this her mother doggedly scolded. She could not pluck that wild heart from between her ribs: in spite of her efforts, she could not quite bring herself to love all the things she was supposed to love. And there was Amos, with his gentle, uncalloused hands, negotiating his way around breakable petals, as if he was afraid, almost—so Alice had always thought—of their tenderness. Their fragility. As if they might tear at his touch.

But love and war will always catenate; they will coil their tails around each other, blending their furs into one. They will do this for as long as there are lovers; as long as there are fighters. 

     ‘Please, do,’ Alice says, her hands still smothering the last of the roots with dirt. Her grip has loosened since she was a girl: softer things depend upon a gentler touch; this she gives with all the tenderness her constitution possesses. She takes a moment, exhales the first breath of air that has not made her body shake with vulnerability in days, and arranges the plant a little: untangles its leaves, irons over the soil, rubs at the serpent’s brow with her index finger. It is not so much that she does not hear the inconspicuousness of grief in Amos’ voice, the way his intonation squeaks a little at the footling mention of Nora—rather, quite the opposite. In spite of all things she reads it all; even it does not exist, even when it is of her own invention. But Amos has no interest in himself: he has no interest in rehashing out the past; he has no interest in dredging out old woes. This she knows, revealing a smile not unlike his own; clumsy and a little wobbly.

She closes her eyes and tilts her head towards the sun—now skulking languorously beneath cloud—and feels the sunlight touch her skin, in spite of its disguise.

     ‘Ordinary flowers don’t do very well here,’ she says, bringing herself from the ground and brushing the dirt from her knees. What she means is: only magical plants grow here; the soil rejects all things else. ‘The Lovegoods have no problem, I know, but here—’ Alice stretches her hand across the dirt, kneeling beside the beds once again, as if to catechise them, ‘They have a little trouble.’

Alice is aware, all too suddenly, that she is simply sitting here, hands blackened by dirt, talking of very little; of things of insignificance, of things that Amos certainly already knows. Nonetheless, it is the first time in weeks, perhaps, that she has been able to string whole sentences into a weightless interdependence; it is the first time since Neville that she has spoken with such ease. She pulls herself from the ground—for the final time, now—and scrapes her whipping hair into a loose bun, releasing it to gather at the nape of her neck. She would invite him in—for a cup of tea, or a plate of food—but she knows her cupboards are bare, that they have been for days now. She suspects that Amos knows it, too.

He’s struck, always so struck, by her. It’s unfair, the way the world has been. Giving her Frank, giving them a child, taking it away--he doesn’t know anyone who’s deserved it less than Alice. Is there anything in the world she has never felt for, any flower or animal or person she has not wept for? Yet she is cursed by this unending pain, because someone else decided she deserved to be punished. Amos wishes, not for the first time, that he could absorb this for her.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” he asks, quick, seeing the look on her face. He’s never going to stop wanting to rush her away from the things that hurt her. She is so much, with dirt in her fingernails, talking brightly about plants. He hasn’t seen her like this in weeks--months--and wants to keep her here on this emotional buoy as long as possible. Amos offers an arm, his raised eyebrows pleading with her not to say no. “It’s too nice to stay inside.”

There’s something warm, in his chest, despite the brittle February air. He cups his hands tighter around the mug, shoulders hunching a little around it, like he needs to shield himself from the way Amos is looking at him, the sincerity, the earnestness, nothing hidden or lurking behind the expression. It feels like it’s been so long since anyone was this honest with anyone else. 

     ‘Cheers,’ he says, to that, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Because there’s a lump caught in his throat and he’s not sure when it got there, and his voice is so quiet around it, almost a whisper, hanging in the air between the two of them. 

He closes his eyes, for a second. There is a strange and quiet peace, here on the front step: silence, but not the cold and tense kind that had filled the house for weeks, since he and Sirius stopped really speaking. He feels like he and Amos could sit here in silence for a while and he’d feel more relaxed on the other side of it, instead of worse. He finds he is, inexplicably, relaxed, some of the perpetual tension in his shoulders eased out. He finds, suddenly, startlingly in the absence of it, that he has head a headache, somewhere around the hinges of his jaw, for over a month. 

     ‘I–’ he starts, but he doesn’t know what to say, what to ask. Just knows he’d like Amos to keep talking until he has a chance to set his own head on straight. ‘What’s it like, out there? I hardly count my little full moon excursion as a chance to see what the world’s become, and I haven’t left aside from that.’

Cheers, really, that’s all Remus has to say? Something whirrs inside his mind, putting pieces together, re-evaluating his impression of this man. A few possibilities: first, that the kind words are unwelcome, and Amos is overstepping, assuming a friendship that does not exist; second, that Remus is entirely unaccustomed to being held in any sort of estimation that isn’t profoundly negative and has no idea how to respond. He hazards a guess that if the first were true, Remus would find a reason to go inside or end the conversation here, and that hasn’t happened--he’s closed his eyes, asked a question, seems relaxed. Looks for all the world like he’d be happy to sit here for a while, not even in a rush to drink his tea, but expects that the universe won’t allow that to happen.

If he thinks of Remus as unused to complimentary words, he can decode a bit more of his body language. Puzzle pieces slotting into place once the border is completed. He can’t be sure he’s right--but the assumption can’t be that far off base, if he thinks back to the first time he met Remus’ eye, in a crowded room with everyone’s name but Remus’ on display, after words jumped from his throat in defense of a man he knew virtually nothing about. He hadn’t been able to tell, in that moment, what the expression was, but he’s starting to figure it out now.

He shifts, all angles and limbs, to lean back against the foundation of the house, facing Remus now with his tea cradled in one hand. The other hand goes up to muss through his hair, a practiced gesture that puts in mind distracted nonchalance. Sometimes that’s actually what it is. “It’s, ah--pretty much the same.” Somehow, that fact is more depressing than anything else he could have said. All the horrors that have transpired, and everything is just...business as usual. People mourned and moved on.

“I work at the Ministry, but nowhere near all the important stuff. I don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes, so I can’t speak for that. I know there hasn’t been any public Death Eater activity lately. The average people--I mean, the ones who aren’t directly involved in the war, aren’t aware of the Order at all--they’re all trying to relax. Some of them really believe that the war is over, or close to it. They’re trying to get back to their regular lives. Can’t blame them. Some semblance of routine is comforting.”

The way Amos explains it– so matter of fact, so decent. The same say Pandora had asked do you have anything for the pain? As if it was something that should have occurred to him, as if he should have thought, all this time, that basic human decency was a thing he was owed. It’s shocking, in its own small way, the realization, all over again: the thought that Amos – who doesn’t even know him, who’s never even had a conversation this long with him before today – thought that standing up for him had been decent and not somehow the monumental thing Remus had believed it to be. 

He thinks Amos would listen, if he did. That’s the worst part. He thinks maybe Amos is the one person who would listen while he said all of this, and wasn’t that what his friends were meant to be for, all this time? Wasn’t that what Sirius had been supposed to do, what he’d wanted Sirius to do for weeks?

     ‘People don’t usually stand up for me like that, that’s all,’ he says, simply. It’s the easiest way to put it all into words without going into the immense baggage behind it all, without sitting here on the front step and pouring out his heart to Amos Diggory about the conversation they’d had when Lily and James had needed a Secret Keeper, or about any of the other things he had always thought about his curse and was beginning to question because of those simple words of Amos’ at the meeting.

A sea change, a reversal of what he’d thought he’d known his whole life, and the man who had caused them was acting like it had been nothing to write home about. Had no idea how profoundly he’d changed the way Remus thought, how much he’d been on Remus’ mind. 

     ‘I, er… supposed I don’t know as much about lycanthropy as I maybe ought to.’

Remus looks at him in a way that makes him feel flayed to his soul, and he doesn’t hate it, not really. Amos has never liked being heard, understood, read--not before he’s ready, not before he’s sure he’s arranged himself to be the kind of story they want to read. Amos is, has always been, too afraid to be seen for what he really is; he is an expert at making himself liked, just as he has always wanted to be. But the Order distrusts him for all the reasons he’s made up to be so very likable for so very long. He’s on the wrong foot, thrown off just enough so that when he sits here with Remus, he doesn’t know how to offer anything that isn’t unguarded.

He’s surprised and yet not, because who stands up for a werewolf, but also--why wouldn’t anyone stand up for the Remus he sees here, who actually looked hopeful when he learned he could be part of the Fidelius Charm, when everyone else looked apprehensive? Remus isn’t a martyr, no, he’s seen those types before and Remus is lacking the death wish that usually comes along with it. He can tell. It’s the look that he can read in Sirius’ eyes, but absent in Remus’. No wonder they ended up together.

He wants to take Remus’ hand, reassure him that Amos will always stand up for him, but that’s a ridiculous idea because they’ve only just met. It’s just that something about Remus feels like Alice. It’s just that he’s been mildly in love with Alice for a decade or so and--

He interrupts the thought with whatever pops into his head first: “None of us really do,” he admits. “We try, but--honestly, Remus, you seem like the kind of person worth standing up for, by my estimation. Not just anyone volunteers to be Secret-Keeper for something this big” He gives him an earnest sort of look, eyebrows drawn together, holding Remus’ eyes a moment longer than necessary, making sure his words stick.

He watches with care as Amos makes the tea, watches him ponder the choice attentively and put the milk in, files that away for the next time, and he’e surprised to find himself really hoping there’s a next time, another chance to put this information to use. He takes a sip of his own tea, and then lowers the mug, elbows resting on his thighs. 

     ‘I, uh,’ he starts, uncertain, and clears his throat. ‘I never got to thank you. You haven’t– been around the village, much, since we got everything set up. But I meant to. To thank you for, you know…’

He trails off, not sure how to phrase it. Coming to my defense? It feels overly simplified, for the enormity of the gesture, and the strange surprise of it. For the complicated feelings still wrapped up in it, and the the what ifs, the what if someone like Amos had been there when James and Lily needed a Secret Keeper and said it could have been him instead, the what if Peter hadn’t needed to be tortured into giving up the information and he could have kept it safe instead, kept James safe.

And the feeling that Amos, more than anyone else – including, he things, chagrinned, himself – is possibly the only one in the world to somehow see him as being fully human, curse and all. 

The tea is refreshing, once it’s cooled off a little. He’s been out here working about an hour--not enough, he has plenty more hours to go, if not at this house than at others around the place--he likes to keep busy, though, make up for his lack of presence in Godric’s Hollow since the Order settled in. He’s fairly certain that half the Order would rather he stay out, given that his life, unlike theirs, has not been directly threatened. Hell, a few of them probably wonder if he, with his old friendships still marginally intact, is more a danger to them than a boon. He wonders if any of the Order ever thought the same of Remus. 

Amos takes a slow drink of tea to mull over how to best respond. It’s obvious what Remus is referring to. Still, Amos had never been sure if backing Remus as Secret Keeper had damned him or saved him. Remus was thanking him, so it must be a positive thing in his mind, and he wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t willing--but Amos has heard what happened to the last Order Secret Keeper. He can only hope that they’ve protected Remus better than they protected Peter.

He hasn’t spent enough time around Remus to figure out what kind of man he is, and the grief that’s shattered this town has settled into the bones of all of its new residents, making it hard to read anyone unless he knows them already. He wants--rather desperately--for Remus to like him, but he hasn’t decided yet how to go about it. Amos has the vague suspicion that Remus is capable of knowing a lot about him just by learning how he takes his tea. He has a soul-searching way of looking at people.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Amos says finally. “I did what any decent person in my situation would have. No reason going around letting people act on misinformation.” There’s no shortage of it, and he’s never been surprised to hear the misconceptions tossed around, but with an actual werewolf in their midst--well. He’d been seized with the sudden desire to correct the bizarre misinformation they were spreading, spurred by the barest light of hope that had come onto Remus’ face when he spoke up. Sitting with him now, Amos stole a glance at Remus that was longer than it needed to be, wondering what it would take to make him smile again.

Hands on meant different things for different people and Alastor had learned that fast when he was growing up for many different reasons. He had learned another round of lessons in it when he’d had his life gone down an alternate route and then again when he’d entered into Auror training. Everyone had different interpretation of hands on, but he’d only ever encountered a few people that had jumped on board with plants. The Lovegoods, particularly Pandora, were enthralled with the idea of keeping everything they could in the backyard and it had come in handy more than once.

It certainly had meant less runs out for supples and less chance of raising someone’s eyebrow for those purchases, not that many people questioned items that he’d picked up when he ventured down Knockturn Alley on occasion. But on the time that he did send out Dorcas or Pandora undoubtedly snuck out? Well… it at least lessened the amount of times they’d go and risk detection. Amos wasn’t one that he figured that he’d find on his knees with his hands in the dirt, the dirt smudged in various places.

Not to mention the fact that he was pretty sure that he was talking to himself and Alastor couldn’t quite bite back the chuckle in his throat. “Diggory, I didn’t figure that I’d find you in the gardens of all places,” he said with a smile, crouching down into the grass. “Eventually we’ll have to get them a greenhouse if we’re sticking around here.”

Something about Alastor Moody seems to straighten the spines of everyone around him. He emits an aura--even the plans stand a little straighter, look a little brighter, aiming to please or at least not displease the man. It’s the kind of aura that makes everyone pay more attention to their consonants and watch the words they use. Not for no reason did this man make Auror in near-record time. Or so Amos hears. There is no shortage of rumors floating around the Ministry about Alastor Moody.

Amos isn’t immune to the effect, though. His spine grows rigid like he’s under inspection at the orphanage and a sweeping glance around shows that the plants are following his lead. Moody’s voice is something rough and earthy and low and Amos endeavors to be as casual as he is. “Mum’s gardening rubbed off on me,” he answers, willing his spine to relax so he can lean down. Being a head above the Auror is a touch unsettling. “’m not particularly good at it, I think, but these are strong plants. It’s a good hobby. Lovegoods have some interesting stuff growing here.”

     ‘Well, with any luck, the right plant for me will end up being something immensely useful, and decidedly on the nose. Like aconite. Anyway, it’s no trouble, really, just a mo’–’ 

He holds up a finger, heads inside. The kettle’s going already, anyway, he was making himself a cup, he’s always making himself a cup when he’s home, so he waves his wand to top up the water and pulls two mugs down from the shelf and then realizes, all of a sudden, with a start, that he doesn’t know how Amos takes his tea. He knows how Lily takes hers – a little less sugar than his own, steeped a little longer – how Peter used to take his – brewed fast, three sugars, a splash of milk – and how James used to take his – black as the night, and surprisingly bitter for someone so sweet. He’s even gotten used to half the new people here, Charity and Arabella and anyone else he’s had tea with more than once.

He’s never had tea with Amos, before. He’s hardly ever had a conversation with Amos before. 

He fills a tray up, once his own his made, the mug filled with hot water, a tea bag and anything Amos could possibly want stacked precariously alongside it, shoulders the front door back open carefully without spilling any of it, and takes a seat on the front step, setting the tray down for Amos.

     ‘Here,’ he says, as he sets it down, and then picks his own tea up (a spoon of sugar, enough milk to give it some body) and cups it between his hands, half-observing so that he’ll know for next time. So that maybe this man will stop making him feel entirely out of his depth. 

He’s returned to absently winding his fingers in the ivy, trying to find where it’s weakest, where it can bear to be pruned without fighting too hard. He’s too late, he’s already learned: the ivy took root deeper than he was expecting when he first inspected it. He can arrest its attempt to take over the front door and the window that looks into the kitchen, but it has bonded with the house itself. Brick and vine, it’s all the same, and to remove one threatens the stability of the other. Ivy is hungry and jealous; Amos can’t fault it for holding on tight to the thing that gives it shape.

The clatter of something distracts him, and Amos steps back from his work, opting to give it up for the moment in favor of better company--he’s never had a chance to properly talk to Remus, and he’s always been afraid that his outburst in their first proper meeting put the man off talking to him entirely. He hadn’t even really known who Remus was before that meeting, let alone that he was a werewolf, and maybe it wasn’t good manners, the way he’d interrupted that meeting to tell off whoever-it-was for their allegations about werewolves being corrupt, or something. It had shocked enough people, he’d noticed, and he’d caught the conflicted look on Remus’ face but never had the chance--or maybe just not the confidence--to explain his motivations privately. Or to thank the man for giving up his independent existence to sign up as Secret Keeper for all of his friends.

It was, in Amos’ experience, not generally good manners to make it known that you were aware of someone being a werewolf--all the boys at the office pretended not to know that one of their own was afflicted with it, because the man tried so hard to keep it secret (and not necessarily unsuccessfully given how well he concealed the majority of it and if it weren’t their literal job to figure out that kind of thing maybe he’d have kept up the charade longer) but he did good work and they covered for him cleverly enough that he hadn’t even properly figured out that all of them knew. There was a certain amount of discomfort Amos felt, knowing this important detail about Remus without knowing anything else about him.

Amos, after all, knew firsthand what happened when the first thing a person learned about a man was that he was a werewolf.

Frankly, the alarming thing about Remus in this moment is how much he’s carrying and how disastrous the front step would look if he dropped it. Amos has an unbidden thought of what Charity’s face might look like if he sheepishly asked her how to mend teacups, because he’d broken a few trying to make friends, and immediately moves to help Remus set things down. He pieces together the story behind it--everything necessary for anyone’s cup of tea, no matter what they might like. Remus is nothing if not thorough, he thinks with wry amusement and some appreciation.

Amos takes his tea, in truth, however it’s made, because the gift of sharing tea with someone is in the company and not the drink itself. When he is alone, he rarely puts anything in it, but not out of preference of taste: he usually gets impatient by the time the tea is finished brewing and hasn’t had the forethought to prepare the sugar or milk in advance, and thus drinks it scalding and quickly. Amos seems a slow, methodical person but only because that is how he is when observed. If he moves quick or speaks short, it’s only when he is alone, and then it does not get recorded in anyone’s memory of him.

He makes an effort, now, because Remus is watching, and Remus clearly cares about how he takes his tea or else he wouldn’t have made the effort to start. He owes it to the man who’s saving all of their lives, giving all of them breath along with his, every second of every day. Simply put, Amos does not think often about how he prefers things, and thus it takes him several seconds to consider how he wants to drink his tea today. He finally settles on the way his mother always made it, the tea that tastes like home and safety: brewed strong, a touch of milk to offset the bitterness. Nora Diggory’s absentminded concoction. “Thank you,” he answers when it’s finished, raising it to his mouth to take a sip while it’s still too hot to drink. Old habits.

Transference: that is what it feels like as Alice feels the weight of his arms, the air between them swallowed up all of a sudden, gone away. She feels all those anxieties and hell-hounds draughted out from her, winging their way from the both of them. Even now, no more than a hull of the girl he’d come to know in school, Amos’ presence was irreplaceable: he reminded her, though changed, that she was still that girl, still just a girl. Amos still saw her, knew her, not as the bale of grief who receded from the human touch, misshaping herself into twists and knots, but Alice. Alice who loved unexplored boulevards and poison plants, more comfortable with things forged from thorns than gold. Alice who knew him, who had turned up on his doorstep one louring November night, and shown him all this. Alice, who still had that same belligerence, tucked away somewhere. Alice, who was only gone away, only for a little while.

All this she knows, even if she cannot believe in it herself, even if she thinks the girl she was and the girl she has become can never truly be reconciled; can never be one. As a child, Alice had always overburdened by the weight of expectation; now, fully-grown, Godric’s Hollow is no different. Estimated like glass, handled breakably, people slip past her as if she might shatter at their touch. But Amos, Amos knows her, in his marrow, in his bones. Alice knows there are those amongst them who do not trust him, even still; those who do not make good use of his virtues, as they could. But to bring him into the fray, that is a decision she would make, and make again. There are few things, these days, Alice is certain of: but Amos is one of them.

As her feet touch the ground again, Alice is moored. As if, for the first time in a week—two, perhaps—her knees might not buckle from underneath her. She lifts her neck—it is a necessary alternation, her head narrowly coming to meet his shoulder—to reveal a warm smile, her eyes unburdened by their weight. “No, it’s alright, it’s alright,” she dismisses, waving her hand about haphazardly, “He’s right. But you’re here now.” Alice pulls herself up onto the porch-step, curling her leg and resting her arm on the door-frame so as to steady herself, procuring some much-needed height. If her features had been brightened beforehand, now they were entirely illuminated, her grey eyes conceding to that pooling glow of gold. Alice’s lips part to a subtle laughter as she takes in the cobra lily; pellucid, red and lovely.

“Oh, I remember—they’re brutish things, you know. And you thought the serpent on your robe would be enough to keep you safe from their bite,” she says, with the breath of her vanished self. Transported, if only for a moment, to those Herbology greenhouses—airless and heavy, but nonetheless home. Alice relieves Amos of the plant, his hands suspended gingerly in the air, and she tucks the plant beneath her arm. She inspects Amos’ half-horrified bewilderment at the act, dumbfounded by her willfulness, cradling it as if it were her own child. Alice readjusts her gaze, slinking a delicate finger down the plant’s spine. It hisses in retreat, coiling languidly around her thumb. “You see,” Alice whispers, “Snakes can be easy to charm. All they need is a little love—that’s what really hooks them.” There is something warming, Alice thinks, about his shapelessness; the way his eyes glow and his smile curls aslant. There is something real to it; something raw, something human. “Oh, well there’s your problem—they’re not overly fond of the heat. It makes them lazy, a little… burned out. But then, they hate the winter too.” Alice considers the soil outside for a moment, the vine refusing to relinquish its grasp on her as she strokes its stem. “They’re fussy things. Outside is milder. We could plant it here, out the front,” she pauses, the memory of a simper crawling onto her lips. “Of course, you’d want to consider coming in through the back from now on.”

He could listen to Alice talk about plants for years, probably. That’s not necessarily because he loves her, though that fact doesn’t hurt, certainly. It’s mostly because Amos enjoys hearing people talk, especially talk about things they adore, and Alice adores plants in a way nobody but Frank understands. Oh, Amos loves his plants, of course, but his are the sweet green and yellow things that grow without much effort and strain toward a gentle word, no sign of snapping or snarling or danger of biting off fingers. Alice loves those, though, same as any other. The poisonous, the dangerous, the horrible. Things the Diggorys never kept around but Frank hunted like pieces of expensive jewelry. Amos admired him for that.

He’s given her the closest thing to what she loves, and he drinks in her pleasure. He hasn’t heard her speak this many words in succession in quite a while, and he suspects, given the reports he’s heard from others, he’s not alone in that. Does Alice talk to anyone except Charity, here? Charity and him. And now, hopefully, her plant.

Snakes can be easy to charm. Yes, well, she would know.

He badly hides a cringe at her familiarity with the plant, aware of how hard its bite can be--it hadn’t been happy about being uprooted from the greenhouse, though now that he thinks about it, maybe it was the greenhouse that was making them unhappy in the first place. Perhaps he should uproot them all and bring them here. They had been an experiment of his mother’s, and Amos isn’t sure he has the time or energy to continue it. He’d rather spend his time on things that aren’t semi-dangerous plants--and Alice could take better care of them than him.

He’s made up his mind on the spot, then, to bring the rest of the cobra lilies. It’d turn her front step into a danger zone, really, somewhere he’d be nervous to step, but nothing can really stop Amos from visiting Alice. She could cover her door in venomous tentacula vines and he’d still shoulder his way through to seize the knocker. “I think I could manage,” he chuckles in return, recovering his composure. “If it does well out here, maybe I’ll bring a few more--you’re right, I don’t know anything about them, they were my mum’s...” As usual, talking about his mother is like stuffing cotton in his mouth, and he trails off unexpectedly with a pained smile.

Charity had watched through her window earlier as Amos made his way down the village path to Alice’s house and set to refreshing his spot on the couch. She leaves it made up when he’s gone, just in case. After all, they are at war and she never knows when her frequent house guest may need to arrive without warning or in the middle of the night. It was a dangerous world out there, especially for those who have chosen to resist the red tide of cruel tradition that is threatening to wash over the magical world… no matter how belatedly those people may have chosen. 

She was in the kitchen when she heard the door open - there’s no need to knock she had assured him and others as well you’re always welcome… still there was a split second of panic that sent her hand darting for her wand before Amos’ familiar voice followed the sound. She swallowed down the panic slowing her breaths and giving the potato soup on her stove a few stirs to release the tension that built up in her limbs before answering his second call, “Yes, I’m in here!”

Charity turned to watch him make his way into the kitchen her eyes scanning him carefully for signs of injury or bad news waiting to be unleashed. How is it out there? What is happening to the world while we stay here hidden away? How are all your dear old friends? …How is Alice today? The questions pile up and fight for a place on her tongue but instead, she reaches for a second bowl to join hers on the counter and asks, “Are you hungry? It’s cold out there I have some hot soup if you’d like.” 

Charity has this--way about her. Something calm and steady, when inside she’s vibrating, her voice betraying none of the worry he knows she feels. She exudes an aura of predictability, of oh please like me, I like you already, of something akin to the smell of fresh baked goods. She makes Amos feel safe and he hasn’t been close with her since they left school. She just...is that way, he supposes.

Amos entered the kitchen carefully, drawn in by the smell of whatever she’s making. “Merlin,” he breathes, “that smells delicious. What, have they made you house cook since I’ve gone?” Although, come to think of it, he didn’t know who was really cooking what out here, and maybe that’s not that out of the realm of possibility. “Yeah. Starved, actually.” And he is--he hasn’t noticed it til now, because he ran straight to Alice when he arrived.

“Thank you,” he added, and smiled at her, hoping he might receive a genuine smile in return. He liked Charity, really, in a way he didn’t like a lot of people here. She was real in a way many people seemed afraid to be. Honest. “How have things been here? I just came from visiting Alice, but--well. She doesn’t have much by way of gossip.”

He smiles back, pure instinct – put on a happy face, smile at anyone who smiles at you – not a hundred per cent genuine but not entirely false, either. Just habitual, in a situation where he isn’t entirely sure how to react: to this baffling man unexpectedly on his doorstep, tending carefully to plants that Remus had long ago given up on. 

     ‘No, no, by all means, please,’ he says, gesturing towards the ivy on the walls, where Amos has his hands caught in it. ‘Someone’s got to do the gardening around here, and I know an entire class full of Hufflepuffs who could tell you that I oughtn’t ever be let too near any plant you don’t want to obliterate.’

It’s an easy kind of conversation he’s defaulted towards: basic pleasantries, simple civility. That good old self-deprecating humor that’s seen him through the worst, most awkward social situations with some measure of success. Past this, he isn’t sure what there is to say, to Amos, especially when Amos has caught him out unprepared. Especially when there is a strange gratitude Remus doesn’t fully understand and can’t articulate caught in the space between them.

     ‘Can I– bring you something? Tea? I think we’ve got a few biscuits, too, if Harry hasn’t gotten to them all yet.’

It’s rare to see anyone truly happy in this place. Everyone’s always hunched slightly, like they’re trying to avoid looking back over their shoulder. Like they can pretend there aren’t ghosts and memories haunting them.

Amos has spent enough time with his ghosts. He doesn’t mind their presence, anymore.

But this place is steeped in it. So he can’t really blame them. Seeing a smile is nice--he’s seen a lot of expressions on Remus’ face, having been present at many meetings, including the one in which he’d told off someone or other for discrimination based on lycanthropy. But smiling isn’t one he sees frequently. Wisps of it, maybe, but nothing that springs up, automatic, like it’s been dying to see the light, the way it does on Remus’ face. It’s pleasant, and Amos lets his eyes linger on it a moment too long, lets himself smile back in a way that feels entirely natural. He’s used to smiling at people who look like a smile might be their only way back to the surface.

“‘s not just Hufflepuffs who like their gardening,” he replies amiably, untangling his hands from the ivy. “Everyone’s got a bit of a green thumb, it’s just about finding the right plant for you.” He’d stick to that, under duress, knowing his own interest in gardening had started with killing many of his mother’s plants. There was always a fit for everyone, somewhere. “Tea would be lovely, thank you, but don’t go out of your way.” Really, he’s just happy for the company, a person he admires but has never really had a chance to talk to before.

He’s not expecting to run into anyone, when he leaves the house– wrapped up tight in a jumper full of holes, just popping outside to get some fresh air, he’s expecting to stand outside for five or so minutes with his arms wrapped around himself regretting his choices and then duck back inside for a cuppa to warm himself back up. The weather’s been gray and gloomy and still too cold for his own comfort, lately, like it’s trying its hardest to reflect everyone’s mood, or worsen it. 

If he was expecting anyone, though, to be out in the poor excuse for a garden this place has, un-tended to and barely there, just weeds and ivy making the place look more long-abandoned than it is, it wouldn’t have been Amos. And yet, there the man is, on his knees near the front porch, hands buried deep in the unruly ivy, like some magical garden-spirit come to fix the place up for them. 

Amos hasn’t spent much time in the village, since they all moved, and it’s felt like something of a blessing and a curse all at once. He is, of course, grateful to Amos, more grateful than he can put into words: to have someone other than Arabella or James or Lily vouch for him in front of the rest of the Order, to say to their faces that he’s just as much a member– just as much a person– as and of them… he was stunned into silence, when it happened. But it’s mixed up in so many other feelings, all of the werewolf shite and the Secret Keeper business and… and he doesn’t really know Amos, could hardly have picked him out of a lineup before the man stepped forward to defend him. He hasn’t thanked him yet, but more than that, he doesn’t know how to, doesn’t know what to think of this person he hardly knows, knows that the second they say more than a few cordial words to one another, he’ll be stumbling over himself, an awkward mess with no idea what to say. 

       ‘Morning, Amos. Thought I heard someone out here,’ he lies as he wraps his arms around himself to pull his jumper closer, just for something to say. 

He’s muttering at the wall, cursing at the ivy that’s got its tendrils dug a little too tightly into the space between the stone. Maybe this endeavor is futile; who knows how many generations have ignored it, allowing it to grow too comfortable. Perhaps it’s roosted so deep in the cottage’s walls that it’s holding up the stone. Perhaps their roots are so entwined that they hold up each other.

Well. It still needs pruning, at any rate.

Remus steps out of the door in a threadbare jumper, looking not at all like he was expecting to see someone on his front stoop. Amos smiles at him a little, wondering if he came out just to say hello, or if his mutterings might be causing some distress indoors. “Good morning--am I being too loud? I can come back when you’re all out--”

The days of February had been hard on them, so far. After the incident that had led them to call Pandora home from her supplies run, they had found their moments of becoming lost to the voices more frequent. It was difficult to feel useful, as the paranoia grew day by day. The arrival of the census announcement only added to it. They themself had nothing to fear, a pureblood, even one from abroad, all but safe from the trouble, but they worried for the community they had found here, for their wife, who cared so deeply about others, and for the Order that the voices whispered danger for in their ears.

Little is a comfort to them in these times, and yet they try to persist. Xenophilius busies their mind with research, during the rare moments of something close to clarity, attempting to suss out just where the second headquarters could be, if perhaps, it may be near the home they miss so dearly. During the other moments, they find themself taken over by a haze, dozens of voices fighting for their attention, urging them to act. And this is such a morning.

In a haze, they wander out of the tent in their housecoat, barefoot despite the cold, the only clear thought amongst the whispers to pick some of the Hellebore-Moonseed hybrid plant they had created to perhaps help with some of the anxiety suffered by the community’s residents. A test is needed, and what better subject than themself, they think. They had not expected to see anyone there, though, and stop just at the edge of their garden as they intrude on Amos speaking with his plants.

“You must forgive my intrusion. Do not stop your conversation on my account; I’m certain the plants are grateful for the vibrations of your voice. I’ve read they help growth.”

He jerks his head in the direction of the new voice, staring up through an eyeful of curly hair. Perhaps he should invest in some of that hair potion everyone in school used. He thought this every few years or so, it seemed, whenever his hair got long. He never did buy any. It seemed to have an annoying side effect of straightening hair, and he’d never looked good with that sort of style.

“Oh, hello,” Amos calls pleasantly, brushing bits of dirt from his fingertips. He places the weeds in the bag sitting beside him for the purpose of collecting detritus--he’ll compost it, later, or something. “I hope I didn’t wake you.” To be honest, he’s not even certain what time it is. He’s been out here for hours, probably, though maybe it’s just been minutes. Godric’s Hollow has no need for the tracking of time. “Have you? My mother used to say the same thing, but I never knew if it was true.”