Mr Moony

I think that might be REMUS LUPIN. Last time I saw HIM was in the GRYFFINDOR common room. I heard HE IS UNEMPLOYED now. The 19 year old HALFBLOODED WEREWOLF apparently looks a lot like LORENZO ZURZOLO though I have no idea who that is. Some say he can be COMPASSIONATE and RESILIENT although, I have heard he can also be SELF-DEPRECATING and VENGEFUL. I have no idea what side he’s on, but if I had to guess, I would say THE ORDER.

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Remus was feeling frustrated. He’d been rejected from another job, when up until recently getting rejected hadn’t been a worry for him, only keeping the ones he got. Sirius’ question of if he was seeing someone, though not pressed, had been playing on his mind as well, that he had never exactly come out to the Marauders. He was ready to bubble over and he needed some Lily time. “I have chocolate and, uh...” He looked down at the rather uncharacteristic bottle of wine in his hand. “I think my mam thought I was going on a date. She didn’t seem to believe me when I said I was coming to yours.”

Sirius raised one shoulder, and lowered his gaze for a moment.  Yeah, it could have been worse, it can always be worse. A part of him was certain he would die if something were to ever happen to Marlene, Mary or one of the boys. Not literally of course, but in his heart.  His relationship with Regulus wasn’t really comparable though, the two brothers hadn’t been close in years, but it was still blood and the only person who truly knew exactly how it felt to grow up in that house, with those people.  Who understood Sirius in a way that even his cousins didn’t quite compare to. It was done now though, Reg was gone and right now Sirius was just doing his best to come to terms with that.  His father had taken away his right to attend the funeral, a major part of the grieving process. Though, Sirius was quietly contemplating going away. What was the old bastard gonna do anyway?

A sigh fell from his lips as he raised his gaze once again, shaking the previous thoughts away from his head. Sirius was more than happy to take on any sort of distraction.  He nodded along as Remus spoke, realising how much he had missed his friend, his voice filled the gaps of silence which had been surrounding Sirius whilst Marls worked her ridiculous hours. “You ever thought about tutoring students?” Sirius offered, from what he remembered of their days at Hogwarts, Remus had been pretty patient in comparison to some others.  Not that he necessarily needed it himself, though some of their other friends definitely did at the time. At Remus’s question, Sirius jerked his head towards the window. “Just make sure your dropping ash out the window, Marls will absolutely murder me if theres evidence of a smoke all over the place.”  A small almost smile threatened to crack on his face as he spoke.  “I’ve missed you, mate.” 

Remus kept a steady gaze on Sirius, waiting him out to see if he had anything else he had to get off his chest about Regulus, but he had no intention of pushing when the conversation moved on. He raised an eyebrow at the tutoring suggestion. “Isn’t that the sort of job people do to make pocket money while they’re still at school? Most students don’t have all that many galleons to throw about, you know. It’s not something to build a career on.” He gave Sirius a cheeky grin. If he couldn’t joke about the fact that his friends had grown up with a lot less reason to be careful about money than he had, then it would just be awkward. He much preferred it if he could tease them for sometimes treating money as no object. “I don’t know. Maybe it would be okay for the rest of the summer but then what? I can’t even guarantee every weekend in Hogsmeade. I need something that’s going to stick.” That was the real problem he had been having: not getting jobs but keeping them.

He seemed to be agreeable until Violet asked his name. Thats…. questionable. Usually this occurs in normal circumstances, but now recalling the last day, Violet hadn’t had to produce her badge for anyone in the alley. But to be fair, they could have recognized her as she lived here and made a habit of spending a lot of time in her neighborhood. 

“Oh, of course, “ Violet said, pulling out her badge from her pocket. “sorry bout that. This originally was just a chat.” She smiled, opening the folio to reveal her badge. “Hit Witch, Violet Greengrass at your service” she breathed, with an easy smile. “Now that I have shown you mine, will you tell me yours?”

Remus plastered on a smile as he looked at her badge, making sure not to scrutinise it too hard. The name she gave him was the same as the badge and it looked genuine enough on first glance that he had to trust that it was and stop beating about the bush before it became too suspicious. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said with a laugh, even though he had. “You could have got my name from any of the bars, after all. It’s more just that you can never be too careful these days, can you?” He shrugged, like it had only been a surface worry that was alleviated by seeing she really did work for the DMLE. Like he was an upstanding citizen with complete faith in the DMLE. “Remus Lupin.”

She knew that Remus was right. While she talked in ifs and maybes, she knew that the war was here to stay for the long haul. The fact that Death Eaters felt bold enough to attack one of the busiest destinations in the wizarding world was a surefire sign that they wanted to be noticed. There was no coming back from that now, and all that they could do to move forward was to prepare for the worst. Mary, while in the Order, wasn’t as skilled of a dueler as some of the others. Her strengths lied in potions and herbology. Potions could only do so much in the heat of battle, so she felt slightly at a disadvantage and not as much of an asset to the fight.

“Thank you, Remus,” Mary said with a nod as she organized some of the materials. “It’s too bad… I can’t sell most of these ingredients now even those they’re still plenty useful. Do you need anything? Free of cost of course. For your help and all.”

Remus smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. As she went on to muse over the ingredients she wouldn’t be able to sell, though, and then offer Remus whatever he wanted, he chewed on his lip unsure what to say. The Full Moon was near and so it would be foolish to turn her down completely but he wasn’t good enough at potions to do much with the raw ingredients and he couldn’t exactly say oh yes, give me anything that might be useful for a werewolf. “I’m sure Lily would be happy to take some of it from you,” he said, instead. “Um... and if there’s anything for pain that you won’t be able to sell, my mam’s... not doing great” She wasn’t, but he would probably split anything Mary gave him between the two of them.

“I am one to believe that you know very well if I was intending to be rude or mean towards you. But, I will offer up an apology since it seems to be that I came off opposite of the intention I have.” Apologizing was never easy. She was used to having to stick to her guns or assume that anyone, especially those of a lesser status than her, were simply at fault for things that she caused. The latter of which never made much sense to her. Why blame those for the actions that she took? That is how you end up like her parents, taking out their transgressions against their children.

She sucked her hand into the waist band of her skirt. The robes had always been uncomfortable, but it was a uniform. Her parents might not be thrilled to see her in anything outside of proper clothing, but if she had any intentions of proving she was worth more than being a housewife to some pureblood prick, than she need to play the part. Andromeda let out a small sigh, “I have a feeling that our opinions on each other are mutual, Remus, but can we both promise to find at least some amount of common ground for the sake of Sirius. I would be a liar if I acted like I did not know you mean a lot to him.” It was her way of a truce and admitting defeat in an argument and arguing was starting to cause her hands to shake and her body to tremor.

He wanted to bite back another sarcastic remark but Remus could see that Andromeda was trying and that was more than he would expect from most of her family, despite knowing she was the cousin Sirius had spoken most positively about in the past. “Thank you, I appreciate the apology. And I’m sorry, too, for making that assumption. I’ve always known I’d never be an acceptable friend for Sirius in the eyes of the Blacks. You—” He just about stopped himself from using the word ‘judging’ as she didn’t seem to think that’s what she was doing (although Remus was still struggling to see why she would have said anything about it in the first place if she wasn’t) “It put me on the defence.” He couldn’t meet her eyes as he admitted as much, instead looking down at where he was flicking ash by the wall. He itched to take another drag but it was hard to stop himself from thinking that she saw his smoking as a fault, despite her words to the contrary.

He let out a sigh and looked back up to her. “Same.” The cigarette was mostly dead by this point anyway so he dropped it to the floor and ground it under his shoe. In a sign of peace offering, he held out his right hand to shake.

A defeated sigh left Sirius’s lips, bowing slightly at the neck, he held his head in his hands for a moment.  Sirius never cried, never so much as allowed his eyes to swell, mostly because that sort of thing was definitely not allowed in Orion Black’s manor.  In fact, there were only a handful of people who had seen him even remotely close to it, and one of them was Remus, even with that in mind, he still took a moment to swallow hard to quell the catch in the back of his throat that wanted more than anything to be let out, instead what escaped him was a more than audible further sigh.  

Slowly, he raised his head once again, taking what Remus said on board, he gave one shake of his head. “I should have been there.”  Regulus was just as stubborn as Sirius, and even if he had been there, it was pretty unlikely that Sirius could have done anything to prevent what happened, though that knowledge did little to extinguish the guilt he felt in his heart.  “I already did, Rem…..”  Managing finally to find Remus’s gaze, the expression on Sirius’s face was nothing more than exhaustion and pain.  “…Live in the what ifs, it’s been my reality for a while..all my life.  What if I stayed with him, i already wondered that before…. what if I just stood up to him…” Sirius never used Orion’s name, and he never referred to him as ‘father’ and everyone who spent any measurable time with Sirius knew who he meant when he simply used the word; ‘him.’  “…What if everything….”  A low chuckle escaped him, though there was absolutely no humour behind it.  “Sorry, I’m not great company right now, mate….. can we talk about anything else?  How are you? How’s work going? Anyone new in your life?”

Remus’ heart hurt to see Sirius in such pain, but there was little more he could do than sit and listen. He could have found arguments, if he thought it was worth trying to change Sirius’ mind. Regulus’ death was too fresh a wound, though, and guilt was a natural part of the grieving process, or so Remus was led to believe. He hadn’t yet lost anybody that close so while his life, too, was filled with what ifs and guilt and pain, it didn’t feel right to try and equate their experiences just to give a platitude Sirius wouldn’t even want to hear. “If you want to hear all the ways it could have ended up a lot worse, I’m good at that,” he offered. They had no way of knowing any more what could have been.

She didn’t know this kid yet he somehow brought tears to Georgette’s eyes. 

Don’t clean up. This becomes part of the history as well. Ollivander’s can survive anything. 

The fucking kid was right. The fucking kid was right. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to be right, but he was. Broken windows and additional disarray laid at her feet but there could have been serious damage aside from that. At least she hoped there wasn’t more disturbing damage she just hadn’t found yet. Yet.

Georgette didn’t understand how he could see such a simple response to the problem at hand. Ollivander’s had always stood. It never faltered. It always stood. Nothing and no one had destroyed it beyond comprehension so why was she going to let this attack and mess from hell change the store that comforted her her entire life? She couldn’t. And she wouldn’t. 

“You’re right,” Georgette admitted in a bittersweet tone. “This beautiful store” – she always found it beautiful, even if she was the only one – “needs to stay beautiful. And unique.” As unique as Georgette herself. She had put so much of herself into the family business and didn’t want it to fail under her watch. She sighed. “You’re right.” She couldn’t count a time where she admitted someone was right, let alone twice in one brief meeting.  

She looked at Remus. He appeared to truly want to help. Georgette didn’t want to accept help but his words about the store brought a tiny amount of faith to her. “If you could start with the windows?” 

For a moment, Remus worried he had said the wrong thing. He took the tell-tale glisten of her eyes to mean she was upset and why wouldn’t she be? The street on which her entire livelihood was built had just been attacked and here Remus was making everything a thousand times worse by telling her how to run her family’s shop. Apologies graced the tip of his tongue but he held them back, for now. He knew blurting out a sorry too soon screamed of insecure and he would prefer not to let others know where his vulnerabilities were.

He was so convinced by his thoughts that it came as a surprise when Georgette agreed with him. “Oh,” slipped out from between his lips. “Right...” Then, with more enthusiasm: “Right! It’s all part of the charm. It just needs to be more charm and less disaster zone by the time the Hogwarts letters go out.” He grinned at her to show he was just joking.

There was something strangely nostalgic about taking his wand out stood in the same spot it had chosen him all those years ago. He looked at it (cypress, unicorn tail, ten and a quarter inches, pliant) contemplatively before he turned it to one of the windows and made the glass fly back into place with a wave. “We’ll have it sorted in no time at all,” he said, as a reassurance to her. He supposed that she was upset from shock at what had happened.

Mary didn’t want to think about what might happen if there was another attack. She wasn’t sure of who was amongst the death eaters, but she never hid the fact that she was a Muggle born witch. This particular attack seemed to ensure that the Alley took more damage and didn’t target any specific people, at least not to her knowledge. It wouldn’t hurt to have some extra patrols outside. She knew Alastor would make sure of it no matter how much she protested.

She sighed as the clutter finally started to clear. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do for now. She made a mental note of setting up some protection charms whenever she locked up. “That is unfortunate. Next time, we’ll be ready for them. If there’s a next time,” Mary replied with a nod.

Remus wanted to say that hopefully there wouldn’t be a next time. He so wanted to be the sort of person who could give Mary that hope. He didn’t believe it, however, and he knew that false hope would only lead to greater pain when something similar inevitably did happen. “I feel there is no such thing as ‘if’ any more. They want to keep us in war. I’m not sure anymore what would make them stop.” When these things start there’s always an illusion of conditions which would end them quickly and quietly, even if they’re conditions one isn’t willing to give in to. These days, it felt more like violence for the sake of violence.

He sighed and looked around. Most things he could fix he had done so and what remained were things he doubted Mary would want his help with. “I’ll, uh... leave that for someone who did better in Potions than only just scraping through OWLs.”

A whole lotta nothing new Violet thought as he recounted his experience during the attack. She listened along, nodding her head, as she tried to remember if she had seen him. She may have, but he was obviously not doing anything of note to remember him for. 

“Very well” she replied when he had come to a stop, “your account is like many others. If you remember anything else, feel free to send an owl to the department. It would be greatly appreciated.” Violet glanced back at her watch, realizing she had been speaking with this wizard for quite some time. “I’ll let ya go, I did not intend in keeping you so long. If I could just get your name. Reports and all” she said, with a sly smile. 

Remus hummed, making it sound like he was agreeing to send an owl when there was no way that would happen. It wasn’t like he trusted the Ministry to do anything worthwhile with anything he offered them. Even the people there who he did trust personally, he couldn’t help but wonder if the bureaucracy of the department would aid or hinder them. The Order was a lot more reliable from that point of view.

It was silly that he felt a tightening in his stomach at the thought of giving up his name, because the magical world was so small that she would find out anyway and then wonder why he wouldn’t tell her. A combination of his father’s reluctance to let him join mainstream society because of the risk of becoming known to the DMLE and his mother’s warnings that authority could be abused had him determined to cover his back. “Oh, no, don’t worry. You didn’t keep me. We were just chatting, after all. Until just now, that is. I suppose I should ask to see your badge if this is going down as an official statement.”

It is just how you’re raised as a Black. Supposed loving words come in forms of directions and critiques. Would she argue that she was being kind? No. But, she wouldn’t say she was arguing over the smoking because she was trying to nitpick him. If anything, she felt it was valid. He was close to a stranger to her, yet she did not want him smoking just as much as she did not want Sirius to smoke. As much as she wanted to care and potentially offer a hand in friendship, there was no way she could be sure she could trust Remus. Yes, he was a friend of Sirius. That automatically made him better than most. But the nagging suspicion that something was not right regardless of how she felt that anyone, not just Remus, was okay always weighed on her mind.

She shook her head. “I think you are misunderstanding my advice as judgment, which I will not fault you for. You would not be the first person to say I speak rather direct. I might not be speaking to you as your friend, Mr. Lupin, but I am speaking to you as an aspiring healer and someone who works in medicine at the moment,” Andromeda crossed her arms, looking over to this man in front of her. “There is much better addictive substances that will not riddle your lungs unusable by the time you are thirty years young. Caffeine. In some it can have an opposite effect of calmness. Either through coffee or chocolate. If it’s something that takes the edge off for you, than it’s a much better addiction to do through than smoking.”

Remus bit down on his tongue. He would prefer to avoid this conversation. Having it made his mind linger on his mam and all the guilty and frustrated feelings that surrounded her sickness, and then was the fact that he couldn’t explain why smoking was something more to him than an addiction. The topic put him on edge and his instinct was to flee but he also wanted to make some effort to be nice for Sirius’ sake, despite the part of him that was wary of any Black who wasn’t Sirius.

“I realise this is probably a foreign concept, but in general terms, giving unsolicited advice to someone you have only just met will come across as judgemental. Healer or not. But as long as you realise that I didn’t ask and you are not going to be offended that I will not be taking said advice, then we’re fine.” He finished with a pleasant smile and stopped himself from retorting that he gave up on seeing thirty before he hit double figures. Instead, he let her talk, listening with increasing amusement. “Oh, I am addicted to caffeine, too. But thanks for the suggestion.”

Violet could sense the taste of disdain from the wizard before her. And she understood it. She had been disliked a good portion of her life. And by almost everyone in her life. Water off a ducks back at this point. She had to steer this conversation into a different direction. Something she could control.

Violet glanced at the ground, before the silence between them grew too big. “Anyway, were you here when the attack happened? Not sure if anyone talked to you yet and if they did you don’t have to repeat yourself. If not and you were, would you mind recounting what you saw?” Violet asked, contemplating if she should recover her notepad from her pocket or just leave it be.

Remus was planning his exit at this point. He didn’t want to engage any further with her, lest his name creep up in DMLE files and be referenced back and forth until someone dug up those old court transcripts of his father accusing an old tramp of being a werewolf and start to put together the puzzle pieces the way Albus Dumbledore once had. Before he could make up an excuse, however, she guided the conversation in a way that meant he could hardly avoid it without looking more suspicious.

“Ah... yes, I was,” he said. “I was outside Scribbulus at the time. Mostly I just saw a bunch of people in masks apparating in and starting to throw curses around which caused chaos and panic. I threw up a few shield charms. Then one of the curses hit the window of the apothecary where my friend works so I went to check she was okay. I’m not sure what else I could tell you.” He had added a few hexes of his own to the mix, aimed at the Death Eaters, of course, but he had never been a very showy dueller so hopefully it wasn’t obvious enough that he would be caught engaging in vigilantism.

“It was the first place I saw on the way back to my flat. I didn’t really think of anything other than ‘that place must have food,’” she admitted, now propping her face up with her hand. She could hear her mother screaming in her mind about how her manners reflected poorly on the Nott name but she shook it off. Once she had her fill of food, she could head back to her flat, take a sleeping draught and wake up in time for what was sure to be another busy day at St. Mungo’s. “Does it ever occur to people that perhaps a person isn’t speaking to anyone else for a reason? That they don’t want to be approached unless that person is taking their order?”

Remus decided he liked her honesty. It was a funny situation but she had fallen into it so accidentally. “Well... no actually. Not somewhere like here. And definitely not sat at the bar.” He shrugged apologetically.  “Sorry. If it’s any consolation you could have got a lot worse than me. If I wasn’t here, the landlord would not leave you alone and he’s a right prat, but I reckon he’s avoiding me now.” He paused for a moment and then added. “I didn’t plan to be here past this drink. If you rather, though... I promise I’ll shut up and let you enjoy your food in peace, but I can stay sat here so nobody else comes and forces you through the same conversation again.”

Andromeda held her comments regarding Remus’s to herself. Anything that could be trailed back to Sirius would be torturous to her. Instead, she watched helplessly as this young man deliberately took a long drag from his cigarette. At least she could thank him for not blowing it in her face in protest, but she assumed more from Sirius’s friends. Even if they were not her kind of people, anyone who could get close to Sirius had to be a decent person. “Just because all houses do it and Muggles as well does not mean you should be. It is poison and will kill you one of these days,” she noted. She did her best to sound apathetic to the cause, but she had heard the coughing of older, heavy smokers. It was not a habit worth dying for, in her opinion.

She tucked her hands into the pockets of her robes as she cocked her head to the side. “Well, Ms. Black will do just fine,” Andromeda replied with a rehearsed smile. As much as the entirety of this Lupin boy seemed to be created in some dark hellscape made to torment her in particular, he was a friend of Sirius. He was off limits when it came to most comments and hostility. “After all, calling me by Andromeda would imply that we are friends when the actuality of it all is that you are the friend of my cousin. I don’t think I’m mistaken, Mr. Lupin.”

—will kill you one of these days

Remus stilled. Not because he was afraid of death or because he was having some revelation that smoking could kill a person. Truthfully, Remus would rather be killed because he got himself hooked on nicotine than by anything connected to the bite he had endured fifteen years ago but he doubted he would get to be so lucky. The words affected him, though, because he had never quite been able to decide if his mother was so sick because of her own nicotine dependence or if it was a side effect of having a werewolf for a child. Remus had been her main source of stress, after all. And stress made her smoke and her smoking made Lyall stress and Lyall’s stress made Hope stress more. An unrelenting cycle.

He blinked slowly and put the cigarette back between his lips, never letting his face slip out of a neutral mask. Even when he would normally feel that urge to make a sarcastic comment under his breath, intended only for the closest of his friends, making a mockery of the upper-class because she was suggesting he call her Ms when she was only a few years older than him and to a working class boy that was beyond bizarre. Even then, his mask did not slip. He took another breath, to maintain that external control he had spent his life trying to master, but his voice still came out chilly in his response. “As you say, Ms Black, we are not friends. What makes you think you can judge me for my smoking?”

Evie was beyond exhausted and thought that perhaps coming down to the bar would help with her state of being. Unfortunately, she couldn’t return to shutting her brain off until her food arrived. The man just had to keep engaging. Evie wasn’t rude enough to just brush him off, so she raised her head back with a deep sigh. “Sit at the bar? Put my head down on the table? Be at a bar? You need to specify,” she asked trying not to be short with him. 

“I’ve been out to bars, but just not this one. I saw it on my way home and needed something after working almost 20 hours straight. This was an open seat and I thought that I could try to quiet my brain while waiting for my food. Is that an acceptable answer for you?”

“Be at a bar alone.” Remus couldn’t help but be amused by her demeanour. She was clearly tired, so he wondered why she had chose somewhere traditionally so social. And loud, if the aim was to quiet her brain. “You don’t have to make your answers acceptable for me, you know,” he told her with a grin. “I’m just curious, I am. Because you don’t seem to want the conversation but pubs generally are the sort of place where people fall into conversation with strangers and the regular patrons and bar staff won’t let someone be all sad and lonely. That’s a bad look for the business, you know. When I was a bartender they actively pushed us towards talking to anyone there alone. But if that’s what you came here for, by all means I’ll bugger off.”

Andromeda had just finished her shift training and was hoping to have a decent evening to herself and away from the chaos of the hospital. After the attack, she had not had a moment to think beyond her duties. As she rounded the corner, she had not expected to see someone waiting nor did she expect the look of disappointment to swipe over his face once he realized he was not looking at who he wanted to. Her expression matched his as she placed on a scowl on her lips.

“I see the horrendous habit of cigarettes has afflicted you as well?” Andromeda replied back to the boy in front of her rather than confirming her name or her relation to Sirius first. “Is it a hidden Gryffindor trait the sorting hat failed to mention in its little song or …?”

After a second or two, she looked over this boy more thoroughly as she searched a name. A friend of Sirius was a lot different than someone who casually knew one of her sisters or Sirius. A good impression needed to be made, less Sirius be upset with her.

“Yes, Andromeda, and you’re the Lupin boy, correct?”

Remus pulled the cigarette in his hand away from his mouth to look at it, turning it around between his fingers. Memories of getting to go out to the corner shop (the only place he went back then) for a pack of Players No.6 for his mother were what came to mind first when he smelled tobacco, even though it would be years after that before he smoked for the first time himself. “Ah, I actually picked it up from home, not school. My mam’s always smoked, as long as I can remember so I guess I think of it more of a Muggle trait than a Gryffindor one. But I’d meet people of all Houses in the best smoking areas at Hogwarts.” 

Resigning himself to a longer wait for Lily to appear, he leaned back against the wall again and took a drag of the offending cigarette. He had picked up on her distaste for the habit but he had no plans of trying to quit, and especially not for a practical stranger. “Lupin, yes.” He tilted his head slightly as he tried to make heads or tails of the way she had phrased it. His name meant less these days, since his father had lost pretty much all his credibility at the Ministry, so it was always a little unnerving to Remus when people did recognise him by it, even knowing in Andromeda’s case it would just be by association with Sirius. “Or Remus, if you prefer. It would be a bit weird for me to call you ‘Black’, after all.”