Chapter Text
Bill noticed the business wards were down first. His Cursebreaker training had honed his attention to detail and made him sensitive to protection spells, even those that didn’t affect him directly. Every business on Diagon was missing its “No werewolves or vampires” sign, he said. Same on Knockturn. Same in Hogsmeade.
Kingsley asked Remus to check it out. See if it was real, or if the wards had just been made stealthier, or if they were down in name only. More importantly, see if the feral werewolves had noticed.
Remus stepped out of the Leaky Cauldron the next morning. Diagon Alley was still not as busy as it had been a few years earlier. With the war on, people came only when necessary, got exactly what they needed, and left as quickly as possible. As he walked up the street, Quality Quidditch Supplies sorely tempted him. How much had he longed to go into that shop with James and Sirius as a boy? But he couldn’t afford anything in there, even with the money Kingsley had given him for this mission. He needed to know not just if the wards were really gone, but also if the shops would sell to him.
Instead, he walked to Flourish and Blotts and took a deep breath as he looked at the front window display. His mother had bought his schoolbooks for him until her death. Afterwards, his father gave him the list and money and told him to handle it himself, and Sirius had bought them for him. He took another deep breath and put his hand on the doorhandle, half prepared for the ward to activate and fling him into the street. Nothing happened as he opened it and stepped inside.
The cashier looked up at the sound of the door’s bell. Had her eyes narrowed on seeing him, or was it his imagination? He wasn’t sure, but no one intercepted him as he strolled down the aisles of books, browsing. So many books. Any other time, he would have been in heaven to be around so many brand-new books, but now he felt like an intruder. This was not how this change was supposed to come about.
He made his way to the far end of the store and found a magazine rack, where the cover of The Practical Potioneer caught his eye. It was a special edition of protective and reparative potions, and the bulleted list of new recipes included a ‘Werewolf Claw Wound Remedy’.
He picked up the issue and flipped to the remedy recipe. By Athena Silversmith. Was that name familiar? There are only about 150 feral werewolves in Britain. You’d know all of them by now if you’d done better on your mission. He chased away the guilt of his failure; too late to fix it now. Remus flipped to the capsule biographies of the contributing potioneers. His eyes slid over ‘Perseus Parkinson IV, a 37-year-old Slytherin’ and ‘repeat contributor Cameron MacDuff, a 54-year-old Ravenclaw.’ There it was:
With the publication of her Remedy for Werewolf Claw Wounds Untouched By Moonlight, Athena Silversmith joins the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers with the title of Potions Master. A 20-year-old of independent education…
Remus cursed under his breath. ‘Of independent education.’ In other words, she hadn’t attended Hogwarts or any other school. A 20-year-old who hadn’t attended school and yet could invent a potion to heal werewolf claw wounds: that could only be a werewolf herself.
A few years earlier, Remus would have been thrilled to read about a werewolf achieving the title of Potions Master in the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers. He wished he could be thrilled now, but it was only possible because of the Death Eaters’ takeover.
He took the magazine to the short queue at the register. “Did you find everything today, sir?” the cashier asked when he reached the front.
“Yes, thank you.” She gave a faint start when he put the money into her hand, perhaps noticing his over-long ring fingers, but said nothing and didn’t meet his eyes. She put his change on the counter instead of into his palm, as she had for the previous customer, but he could hardly complain about that when he couldn’t even enter the building a week earlier.
Tucking the magazine under his arm, Remus went to a cafe next, where he bought a cup of tea and a chocolate tart and sat at a table next to the front windows.
There were always werewolves on Diagon if you knew where to look and what to look for. Young ones, usually; pickpockets, hustlers, the occasional street performer. He didn’t see the usual suspects today, and that worried him. If they were staying away, there was a reason. Finally, he saw a young werewolf woman walking along the street. She didn’t pass for human; even from the cafe, he could see the wolf-like shading in her blond hair. With her age and her untreated symptoms, odds said she was one of Greyback’s.
She studied each store window she passed, other shoppers flowing around her obliviously. Few people would have noticed her pause when she put her hand on the doorhandle of Potage’s Cauldron Shop or the hesitancy as she stepped inside, just like Remus at Flourish and Blotts. She came out a few minutes later with a brass cauldron in her hand and a smile on her face.
The same happened at the Apothecary, her hesitancy a little less as she went inside. This time, she emerged with a brown paper bag peeking out of the cauldron. She ducked into the space between buildings and slipped both into a mokeskin pouch—Remus knew he shouldn’t make assumptions, but it was probably a Thief’s Pouch—and continued down the street.
She stopped longer in front of Madam Malkin’s than she had at other shops. The display window featured three mannequins wearing brightly colored summer robes with glittering designs: tangerine orange with butterflies, cyan with stars, and apple green with dragonflies. The woman put her fingers to her lips, tapping one like she was mentally counting, then took a deep breath, pulled her shoulders back, and went inside.
A minute later, the mannequin in the apple green robe levitated out of the window, and Madam Malkin stripped the robe off of it. Through the space that opened, Remus saw her hold it up to the young woman’s shoulders. He couldn’t read her lips at that distance, but from her body language, imagined she said something like, ‘Oh, that’ll look lovely on you’ before pointing to the changing rooms. The werewolf woman looked confused and asked something, then smiled, nodded, and took the robe in the direction Malkin pointed.
Remus shoved the last bite of chocolate tart into his mouth, downed the remains of his tea, and went out to the street. As naturally as he could, he wandered by Madam Malkin’s and knelt by the streetlamp outside to untie and retie his shoe. From that angle, he could see inside the store as Malkin helped the young lady, now dressed in the green robe, onto a footstool. At Malkin’s instruction, she adjusted her posture and looked forward very seriously, a smile sneaking across her face at intervals as Malkin, with the aid of some magic, pinned the seams to fit her more closely and turned up the hem to her height.
He couldn’t tie his shoe forever, so Remus stood and strolled down the alley in the direction the werewolf woman had come from. Hopefully, she would continue the way she’d been going and wouldn’t notice him. He was studying the display window of Flourish and Blotts again when Malkin’s door opened a few minutes later and the young lady said, “Thank you so much, ma’am.”
“My pleasure, dear. We’ll have that ready for you within the hour.”
The young woman practically skipped down the steps to the street and continued on her way. Remus started after her, then stopped himself. What was he going to do, take her captive for buying a new robe?
That might not be the worst idea. She might be on the same mission he was, checking if the wards were really down. Her disappearance might discourage the other ferals or even make them think they’d been betrayed.
Or she might just be a young woman enjoying a previously impossible shopping trip.
It didn’t matter. The Order couldn’t hold prisoners right now, and anything more severe was unthinkable. If she was on the same mission, though, the Order’s work just got that much harder. How would they ever get the ferals on their side now, when the Death Eaters had delivered this so quickly after Lord Voldemort’s takeover? Maybe they shouldn’t be on your side, Remus thought. Are you sure you’re on the right side?
Remus didn’t just chase the thought away. He beat it with a club until it fled for its life. He would not support a genocide just so he could go shopping.
You shouldn’t have to. The idea slunk back. I’m not saying the Death Eaters are right; they’re definitely not. But are you sure the Order is? Pureblood or Muggleborn, it’s all the same to the ferals: just people who hate them and cause them pain. Of course they took the side that offered them the best deal. Why wouldn’t they? Why wasn’t it ours? Dumbledore was the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and the Minister of Magic’s most trusted advisor for years. Surely he could have done something for werewolves in the 14 years between wars, if Lord Voldemort could do this in a week after taking over.
Remus watched the werewolf woman stop in front of the toy store beside Gringotts and study the window display, then go inside. Don’t you want your baby to be able to go into Harkiss Toys like that? You say you’re afraid you’ve made him—or her—a werewolf like you. Are you afraid of the pain and rage they’ll feel once a month, or are you afraid of the way they’ll be treated in the world you’re trying so hard to save?
Remus sighed and sat on a bench beside the street. He thought of Hermione Granger, of Justin Finch-Fletchley, of Colin Creevy: bright, eager students who just wanted a fair chance in the world. He couldn’t steal their future away, not even to give it to his own child. But he didn’t want to steal his child’s future, either. Why did it have to be the Death Eaters holding out the brighter path for werewolves?
Don’t you think Dora is asking the same questions?
No, because her father was Muggleborn.
And her husband, and perhaps her child, are werewolves. I promise she is fighting this same fight with herself right now. Why are you making her fight it alone? You say you love her and want to protect her. You know this part of the world; she doesn’t. Don’t abandon her to deal with it on her own when it just got a hundred times more complicated. Go. Talk to her. Figure it out together. The idea poked him gently. You could buy her flowers.
A laugh came out of him before he could stop it, and a passerby looked at him sideways like he’d lost his mind. Yes, he could buy Dora flowers now. That’s what made things so bloody difficult. But he would, just as soon as he’d met with Kingsley.