Archive of Our Own ^beta

1.

She ran.

“Sanctuary!” she shouted as she ran, bare feet frantic on the cobbles. The stones were wet and cold beneath her feet, the sky dark, the church ahead of her tall and foreboding. And yet it was her hope.

Hope Lupin clutched the bundle in her arms closer to her chest. He was heavy, but she would carry him. She could make it to the door. She had to make it to the door, else they’d kill her son, if not now then as soon as they knew what he was. Blood stained the blankets, his blood, not hers, but he was going to live.

“Sanctuary!”

Hope was a Muggle. She didn’t know what the green light meant. All she knew is that she was falling, and she was losing grip of her son.

“Remus!”

2.

Ted Tonks had never enjoyed this job, however necessary it was.

He straightened his coat, fluffed his hair, and continued down the street. It was as normal a street as any other Muggle street in the outer boroughs of London, all the houses semi-detached with little front gardens planted with flowers. Hers, the one he was aiming for, had begonias. At least, he thought they were,

He didn’t look his best, he knew that. Not the most trustworthy of people who might knock on someone’s door late at night. Hell, if someone had come to his house looking like he did and asked to take his kid, wild horses wouldn’t have made him hand it over.

And yet that was exactly what he was about to ask these people to do.

They were Richard and Helen Granger, dentists, with one small daughter, called Hermione. They were Muggles; the girl was a witch. A Muggleborn witch, which put her in danger these days.

She’d be in danger whether she went with him or stayed where she was, admittedly, but less if she went with him. Here, sooner or later, the Ministry would be able to discover that she was a witch, and they’d come for her, and they wouldn’t treat her as kindly as he and his friends would. They weren’t about to let anyone fall into the hands of Grindelwald’s minions, not if they could help it.

Still, Ted hated this job. He knocked on the door, two short, sharp knocks.

“Hello,” he said, when the door opened. “I’m here about your daughter, Hermione. I’ll come in. This isn’t a conversation we can have on the doorstep.”

3.

Remus Lupin had precisely three friends. They were called Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail, and they were made of stone. And it was with them he sat as he watched the people coming into the city.

“Look,” he said, to the gargoyles, “there’s people. New people.”

He wouldn’t be allowed to talk to any of them, of course. By the looks of them they were Mudbloods, and they’d be hunted out within a week. And, besides, even people like them wouldn’t want to associate with somebody like him. He was a monster; Madame Umbridge always told him so. He couldn’t even do much magic.

“And there’s a rumour there’s going to be a festival. I’ve heard them talking about it, down there. Their voices carry.”

There wasn’t any point in thinking about that, because there wasn’t any chance he’d be allowed to go, so Remus slunk back into his tower.

It had been a church once, a beautiful old building built long before most of the rest of the village. But then Grindelwald had come, and Godric’s Hollow had fallen, and the church had become this. A prison, to him, a government, to others. But it was dry, and it was sometimes warm, and it was his home, here amongst the old church bells, and it was more than the rest of his kind had.

Of course, the tower was only part of his home, the other being the cellar beneath the nave. But he preferred not to think of that place. He went down there once a month, and that was when the monster came, and that was why he was here and not allowed down there. He was a monster. He wasn’t allowed out to talk to any of those people, because he was a monster, and they were Mudbloods, besides.

His mother had been a Muggle, too. Perhaps she was still alive, but she’d abandoned him because of what he was, and the only one that hadn’t was Madame Umbridge. So he ought to be grateful, that’s what she said, grateful for what he did have.

Remus wanted to go down there.

4.

In the shadow of the church, the group crept into the town. Hermione thought it could have been beautiful, once. She’d seen pictures, back when it had been a village where magical and non-magical folk lived in harmony. But then Grindelwald had come, and now, it was this.

“Alright?” asked Dean, dropping back to where Hermione was, almost at the back. Only Minerva McGonagall, the stern woman who led their little group, was behind them, her wand drawn. She owned her own wand, chosen for her at a wand-shop, and it was the envy of the rest of them. Some of them didn’t have wands at all, and of those that did, almost all had ones they’d borrowed or won or stolen. Some of these worked fine for them, others barely at all.

Hermione was one of the lucky ones; along with Dean, they’d managed to find wands that seemed to like them enough to do passable magic. Justin, the same age as them, had one that barely worked on a good day, and Mary, older than them, had one that either worked perfectly or not at all, with no pattern to it. They were lucky. They could do magic, at least most of the time. That, and they weren’t dead.

“Yeah,” Hermione replied. She tightened her grip on her own wand. “Just, you know.”

Dean nodded. “Ted says it isn’t far.”

Ted would know. Minerva’s second-in-command, Ted was almost as quick as she was, despite being a Mudblood. Most of them were, aside from Minerva and a couple of others. They’d been saved from the fate that almost certainly had awaited them from the Ministry; a lifetime in Azkaban prison, or worse. Ted had been saved himself, many years before.

“I can hear something,” Hermione said. And Dean could, too, as he pointed to the exact place she’d heard the noise from.

A nod from Minerva instructed them to go and investigate, so the two of them slipped off from the group and followed the direction of the noise. Luna followed them, an anomaly in the group, she was a half-blood like Minerva, and so, on blood alone, eligible to be a full member of the wizarding society. But her father had angered the authorities, and so she was here, as outcast as the rest of them.

By the time the three of them got there, it was too late. The woman was dying. She lay on the riverbank, presumably where she’d been left, the blood spilling from a wound that Hermione just knew none of them had the skill to heal. The blood flowed into the river, and the woman was pale and shaking. She didn’t have long. They’d seen this before.

“I’m sorry,” said Luna, crouching at her side. “I’m sorry, we can’t save you.”

“It’s her,” said the woman, pausing after each word, her breathing laboured. “She’s here.”

“Her?” asked Dean, but Hermione knew exactly who she meant.

“Umbridge,” she said, and the woman only nodded. She wore the brand of Azkaban on her upper arm, marking her as a former resident. An escapee. Because nobody left with permission.

“Shit,” said Dean, as Luna, with the best-working wand, cast spells that would ease her pain. They didn’t have any that would save her, not from this curse.

“We should bury her,” Hermione said, as the woman took her final breath. She turned away. It wasn’t that she was scared of seeing death. She’d seen it enough times before. “It’s what’s right.”

They raised a small grave, and it was with a slower pace that they made their way back to their column, the three of them sticking as close together as they could. In the shadows, quiet, unassuming, they didn’t attract too much attention, as long as they kept off the main routes. They would be tolerated most places, but if she was here…

They rounded a corner, allowing them a full view of the church ahead of them. It was like nothing from the pictures. It was foreboding, dark, smelling of dark magic and despair.

“That’ll be it, then,” said Dean. “Her evil lair."

“Come along,” said Luna, cheerfully. “Can’t be getting ourselves left behind. And lair seems overly dramatic, don’t you think?"

Their new camp was underneath a bridge - dry, at least. Hermione found herself a corner along with Luna and Dean, and Justin, and a few other of the younger members of the group. They huddled together not because in any other circumstance they’d have got on, but because they were bound together by blood status and discrimination, and their ages. Hermione had often wondered whether they’d all be friends in a different scenario, if they’d been allowed to be at Hogwarts with the pure-bloods and half-bloods.

It wasn’t fair.

“Course it’s not,” Dean said, making Hermione realise that she’d said that aloud. “We just have to get fighting.”

“We’re cleverer than they are,” Luna added.

“We won’t give up,” Justin added.

“I just don’t see how they can do this,” Hermione said. She gestured around at the camp, but it wasn’t just that. It was the people walking past, ignoring them except to glance over with looks that ranged from outright hatred to complete indifference. It was how nobody here had seen their families in years, in most cases. It was the dead woman down by the river. “Doesn’t anybody care?”

“It doesn’t seem that way,” Dean replied. “They might if it was them, or someone they loved. But it isn’t, and it might be if they say something, so they don’t. They just see us, and they look away. Safer that way.”

“We’re the lucky ones. Ted and Minerva keep an eye on us. We’re lucky.”

“Yeah.” Dean leant back against the wet stone walls of the bridge. “Doesn’t feel like it, but we are.”

After they’d eaten, Hermione left the camp. It wasn’t safe, she’d been warned of that enough times. But she couldn’t stay there. This was Godric’s Hollow, after all. It was crucial part of so much of wizarding history, so much of what she’d read about in books had happened here. And she wasn’t a part of that society, not really, not stuck here as she was on it’s margins, but somehow, she wanted to know about it nonetheless.

Besides, they were short of food, and anything she could get hold of would be useful.

Something drew her towards the church. Even as she walked that way she wondered if it was a compulsion, some kind of magic that would draw her in and lure her into a trap. But, logically, the richest houses were closest to the centre of power, which was the former church, and, therefore, the best place to steal from.

It was when she picking the lock to a bakery that she noticed somebody watching her. He, because she thought it was a wizard, by the shape and the size of him, was watching from the church’s belltower, standing in an open window like he was a sentry. Hermione loosened her wand. But if he’d seen her, he didn’t do anything, so, after a few minutes of remaining still and silent, she continued picking the lock.

She was out on the street again with a bagful of leftover loaves of bread and pastries when she dared to look up again. He was still there, and he still wasn’t doing anything. Of course, he could have reported her to the authorities and returned to his post, by now. But she didn’t think he had.

Even from this distance, he didn’t look like one of them.

So it was quietly that she crept her way into the old church, her hand on her wand. It sparked a warning into her pocket. It had never really liked her, but it allowed her to use it. She tapped it twice onto a back door, and the door yielded open. Good. It wasn’t as if she’d have been able to fight herself in.

The church, downstairs at least, remained looking much like she’d expected a church to. Rows of carved wooden pews, an altar at the front, the windows stained glass and the floor tiles and gravestones. Her instinct was to walk up the aisle, but that would be visible. Instead she took a route along the edges, between pews and pillars, in the shadows.

Hermione’s mother had been religious, Ted had told her. Hermione didn’t remember much more than glimpses of her parents; showing her mother a picture she’d drawn, her father reading her a book, her mother putting her to bed. She didn’t know anything about them other than what Ted had told her, and he hadn’t known much. But her mother had been religious, and so Hermione thought she would have liked this church. She didn’t know if that was how religion worked. None of the witches and wizards she knew practiced any sort of religion, and Hermione didn’t believe. She wanted to believe. She wanted to have that link to her mother.

Cautiously, slowly, her curiosity tempered by her desire not to be caught, she made her way to the altar.

What would she pray for, if she believed? She wasn’t sure.

It wasn’t as if she was entitled to an opinion. But all they wanted was to be allowed to live like the rest of them. They weren’t asking for much, any of them, not her or Dean or Luna, Ted or Minerva or Justin or any of the rest of them. She didn’t even want it for her, not really. She was one of the lucky ones.

“Hello?”

Her thoughts interrupted, Hermione took several rapid steps backwards, behind the nearest pillar, and shrank into it, drawing her wand. She slowed her breathing. Calm down, think first, act quickly. Minerva’s words echoed in her head. She remembered all the curses she knew.

“I know there’s someone here.”

He didn’t sound unfriendly. It was a male voice, low and quiet, with a tone to it as if he was just as scared of her as she was of it. But that was what Dean said to Justin about spiders. That didn’t relate to being in enemy territory, with someone who was almost certainly an enemy.

Hermione stepped out into the light. As sure as she could be, it was the man from the window.

“Who are you?” she asked. He seemed to shrink back into the shadows even as she spoke to him, as if he was ashamed to be seen. So she stepped forwards. He didn’t have anything to be ashamed of, as far as she could see. He looked more like one of hers than one of them, she thought. His robes might have been shades of mud brown rather than the bright colours they favoured, but they were worn, tattered and ill-fitting just as the robes she wore. They usually wore decent robes, fitted properly, neat and clean. So he wasn’t as much one of them as he could have been.

“I can’t talk to you.”

“Why not? I’m not going to do anything. I know what they say about us, but we’re not like that, I’m not like that, I promise.”

“You’re a Mudblood. That’s bad enough. I’m a monster.”

“Monsters don’t exist.”

“There’s one standing right here.”

Hermione didn’t believe that for a moment.

“Come out then,” she said. “Let me see for myself.”

He stepped out.

“You don’t look any different to the rest of us,” she said. It was true that he had a lot of scars, so maybe that’s what he’d meant. But so did most of her friends. He was taller than anyone she’d ever seen, and broad, too, strong, probably. Handsome, in his way.

“Hermione Granger,” she said, holding out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Remus Lupin,” he said, cautiously, and he didn’t take her hand. “I can’t talk to you.”

“Why are you down here, then?” she asked. “You saw me outside. You came down to meet me. Why are you here if you can’t talk to me?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you want.”

“I don’t know the answer to that, either. What do you want? You came into my house.”

“House?” she asked. But Ted always said it was polite to answer the question, and so, she did. “I wanted to see what was in here.”

“You don’t.” He interrupted before she was quite finished with her combination of truth telling and lies. “You don’t want to know what’s in here. It’s just me and her, and her things, and you don’t want to know about any of it. You should go. You should go to somewhere you’d be safe.”

“Safe?” Hermione knew she didn’t understand who he was, but she was just as certain he didn’t understand what she was. “I’m not safe anywhere. Mudblood, remember?”

“More safe, then. You’re not safe here. You know who lives here, don’t you?”

“Madame Umbridge.” Hermione checked over her shoulder, checked that she wasn’t coming down on them for even saying the name. She’d read about magics that could summon someone if their name was said. “I know who she is.”

“Then you know why this isn’t safe.”

“That isn’t the point,” said Hermione, firmly. “Because it isn’t about whether I’m safe, it’s about whether all of us are safe. And if we’re going to make a world where I can be just as much a part of it as she can, I can’t be scared to face her. I want justice for my friends. And she’s in my way.”

It was braver talk than she felt. She’d not considered what she’d do if she came up against Umbridge, not alone and with this wand. They all talked the big talk, Dean most of all, but none of them had much real experience in fights except a few of the older ones. Minerva might be able to fight her. Lily Evans, but she was in Germany somewhere looking for Grindelwald, so she wasn’t an option.

“I just want justice,” she said, into the silence, as Remus Lupin wasn’t talking.

“Good luck,” he said.

“Why is this your home?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You can’t do an awful lot of things. I was told I wasn’t allowed to use magic.” She holds out her wand, proving a point, one that she isn’t quite sure what it is. “Nobody gets to tell you what to do.”

He looked like he was thinking of saying a lot of things, but instead brushed his hair out of his face. The movement revealed more scars. Hermione didn’t think he was a monster, but she didn’t know what he actually was. He showed no sign of owning a wand, for a start. But he lived here, in Umbridge’s stronghold.

The hair flopped back into his face, the front of it obscuring an eye, and suddenly he looked far more vulnerable than he had. If she’d had to put an age on him, she’d have said he was a fair bit older than her, younger than Ted, maybe in his late thirties. Something in his eyes made him look far older, something in the way he held himself, far younger.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Except her. You said that, didn’t you?”

Hermione nodded. “Is she why you can’t talk?”

It was his turn to look around nervously.

“Can you come back tomorrow night? After sunset? I live upstairs. In the belltower.”

“Okay.”

Dean would tell her to go, she decided, as she crept back out of the church. It was funny how it was wasn’t charmed against her in any way. Justin would say she should, too. Some of the others would be against it. Ted, he wouldn’t like it. Luna would probably want to come with her.

She was going to go, obviously.

5.

Remus didn’t know what had possessed him. He’d done everything he wasn’t allowed to do. He’d spoken to a stranger, a Mudblood, of all things, and he’d invited her here. He didn’t know why he’d done it.

“Why did I do it?” he asked the gargoyles. Their advice was suspect at the best of times. Prongs believed in true love, and would try to convince him that she was the woman he was destined to be with. Padfoot believed in nothing. Nihilism. It was in one of the few books Remus owned. Wormtail would tell him to look after himself and his friends, except his friends were made of stone, so Remus wasn’t sure exactly what that would be composed of.

So they had no answers, and neither did he. And, also, they didn’t talk. They weren’t bloody real.

“Don’t you have things that you should be doing?”

Madame Umbridge. He didn’t have time to think about Hermione. Not with her around. She kept him busy, yes, but at least he wasn’t out on the street. He had a home and a bed and food, and she was the only one that would have given him that. He was what he was, after all.

A werewolf.

He wasn’t allowed to say the word. He didn’t even like to think it, in case she knew, in case she would be able to tell. Sometimes he wondered what would happen if he did. There were moments when he wanted to know what she would do if he said it out loud, if he walked outside the church and at least spoke to somebody else, even if he didn’t tell them what he was. He believed her when she said he’d be shunned, or worse, if anyone knew what he was. He’d read the books. The news reports. She was telling the truth.

“Yes, Madame Umbridge,” he said. “I was just admiring the view.”

She joined him by the window, looking down over the maze of Godric’s Hollow as the sun set in the trees out to the west.

“You’ll have seen that Mudbloods have arrived.”

“No, I hadn’t.” Lying never did him any good, but she seemed to buy this one.

“They’re planning something. And I will find out what.”

Remus didn’t look at her. She hovered in the corner of his vision, her pink hat and cloak impeccably clean, her face almost certainly in it’s signature scowl.

It wasn’t that he didn’t feel guilty keeping things from her. Not that he had much. He didn’t know anything except that he’d met one, and she hadn’t told him much. So it wasn’t keeping anything, really, because he didn’t know anything of use to Madame Umbridge.

“I don’t want you getting any ideas. You will not be going out there.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, a warning as much as anything else “I just want the best for you. You know that. The world down there would not be kind to you. You’re safer here, with me.

“I don’t want to, anyway.” It had never been a lie when he’d said it before. “I’m a monster.”

Her grip tightened. “Yes. You are. And I hate to confirm that, you know I do, but it’s important that you know it. We must not tell lies, Remus, not even to ourselves.”

Remus told himself a thousand lies each time he thought of Hermione. The lie that she might show up this evening. The lie that she might want to talk to him again. The biggest lie of all, that, one day, a woman like her might consider a man like him to be a friend. Or more. But he was not even a man; Madame Umbridge told him as much.

“We mustn’t,” he said.

“I have to be able to protect you. I don’t want to tell you what they’d do to you. They’re not like normal people, my dear. They’d do horrible things to you, because they don’t know you as I do. You understand.”

“I do.”

“Good. If you see anything, you will tell me. I know that they are planning something. There’s rumours of something planned at the festival. Something to disrupt the celebrations of civilised witches and wizards, no doubt. They would have us all live in anarchy, allowing anyone who wanted to pick up a wand the right to steal magic. Some of us are entitled to it, and others, are not.”

Remus nodded. “I will. I’ll tell you what I see.”

“Good lad. I have places to be, so I shall not be eating with you tonight.”

And with that she glided off down the stairs, and Remus was once again alone.

“She says we must not tell lies,” he said, to the gargoyles, and he could have sworn Padfoot winked. “But I don’t know if she tells the truth.”

Prongs moved. Remus wondered if he’d imagined it, but he didn’t think he had. It was a distinct movement of a middle finger on the gargoyle’s right hand.

“Glad she’s gone,” said a voice, and for a second Remus thought it was one of them that had spoken, but it wasn’t. Hermione pulled herself over the sill, through the window and into the room. “I’ve been hanging there for a while.”

“Why?”

“Because I promised I’d come to see you. And now I’m here. Is this where you live? I like it.”

“It isn’t much.”

“I slept under a bridge last night. It’s lovely. You have a bed.”

Remus, inexplicably, felt himself go bright red at that.

“It’s a bed, yes. A nice bed. I think.”

Why on earth had he said that?

“And you’ve got a table.” She was wandering around the tiny room now, her hands trailing over the back of a dining chair, wrapping into the curtains, and over onto a side-table. “What’s this?”

“My things. They’re not any good.”

She picked up one of his wooden animals, a stag, turning it over in her hand to examine it from every angle. “I like it,” she said, looking over to him with a smile. He still hung awkwardly by the window, not sure what to do with the woman in his space. “You could charm it to move if you knew the spells.”

“I don’t have a wand. I mean, I do, but I’m not allowed it most the time. It’s locked away.”

“That’s barbaric. Even I’ve got a wand. It hates me, sometimes, but I’ve got it. It isn’t fair. You’re a wizard?”

Remus was a lot of things, but wizard wasn’t usually a word used to describe him.

“Sort of.”

“Not that it matters,” she said, putting the stag back down and picking up the dog. “I’m not going to judge you.”

She was a Mudblood, she was supposed to be just as much of a scourge on society as he was. But she was human. She liked his carvings. She thought it wasn’t fair that he wasn’t allowed a wand, even though he’d do horrible things with it.

He felt the urge to make it clear exactly what he was.

“I’m a werewolf.”

“Oh. That’s only on full moons, though. You’re a wizard the rest of the time. I mean, I’d need to see if Ted or Minerva have any books on it, but I’m fairly sure that’s right.” She put the dog down too, and walked towards him. “You’re not a monster at all. You’re unlucky.”

“That isn’t right. What book told you that?”

“What book told you it wasn’t right?”

“None of them. Madame Umbridge told me.”

“You must not tell lies,” said Hermione, and Remus wondered how long she’d been listening in. “But she lies.”

“How do you know?”

“She wants to kill me and my friends. Do you think she should?”

“I’ve never met your friends.” She laughed, and Remus instantly felt ashamed. That wasn’t what he should have said. “No. That isn’t right. I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“And that’s what makes you not a monster.”

“Really?”

“As much as anything else.” She was next to him now, and reached up to touch his face, her hand skimming over the mixture of skin and scar tissue that he knew made up his face. “You’re not a monster. I don’t deserve to be killed.”

“No. You don’t. And neither do your friends.”

“Even if you haven’t met them?”

“Even then.”

“You’re beautiful, you know. You’re as beautiful as anyone else.”

He wasn’t. If Madame Umbridge lied, maybe so did she.

“I don’t know about that.”

“Look at you. Do you have a mirror up here? You need to look at yourself, and, you’ll see that you’re just as good as anyone else.”

“Anyone else is out there. Out of this tower. I have to be here.” He let the words fall out in a rush. “I’d love to go out there. Just for a day, even, that would be enough. I want to know what it’s like to live like a normal wizard, just for a while.”

“Come on, then.” Her hand fell away from his face as she moved towards the window. “A bit of magic is helpful to get down, I reckon, but you might have enough without a wand.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t? Why not? There isn’t any spells or charms keeping you up here, I checked. Well, I checked as well as I can, and I’m quite good at finding those.”

“She wouldn’t like it.”

Remus doesn’t need to say who she is. They both know.

“Well, sod her. She doesn’t need to know.”

“She’ll find out.”

“How? She doesn’t watch you every minute of every day. You’ll be fine. More than fine.”

“I can’t.” He was repeating himself. “I can’t leave this tower.”

“Alright.” She leant back against the table, pulling her tattered robes around her. She was younger than him, with a life outside of the tower. “I came here for information, you know. I could be asking you questions, trying to find out what you know, trying to use it against her.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Because, as strange as it might seem, I don’t want to get you into trouble. If I find out things that only you and her know, she’d know who’d leaked them.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Thank you.”

“I’d better go.” Hermione didn’t move, though, still leant up against the table with her robes wrapped around her like a shield. “They’ll worry, if I’ve been too long. I’m going to come back, though. Just because they want you to be stuck here, doesn’t mean you have to be. Just because they want you to be a monster, doesn’t mean you have to be, either.”

“I suppose.”

“Come and find me, if you want.”

She swung herself out of the window, dropping out of his sight with her wand at her side. He wanted to follow her. He should just join her. No, he didn’t have a wand, but he’d used ropes before to get himself around the church tower to clean it. He’d be able to use those to get down without a problem, if he wanted to.

And he wanted to.

“You’re the beautiful one,” he said, to the gargoyles.

“If you want to go, you should go,” said the Padfoot gargoyle, and Remus jumped. “No time like the present.”

He stuck his head out the window to see if it was Hermione again, making them talk with her magic. But she was just a figure in the distance darting from shadow to shadow between the buildings of the town.

“You’re not real,” he said. “What do you know?”

“All sorts of things that you don’t,” said Prongs. Remus span around to face it. Him? He wasn’t entirely sure what pronoun one used for a stone gargoyle. “What it’s like out there.”

“You’ve never been out of the church either.” He was arguing with a gargoyle. This was bollocks.

“Now’s the time,” urged Wormtail. “She wants you to.”

“She doesn’t. She’s being polite.”

“With the greatest of respect,” said Padfoot, “when has anyone ever been polite to you without liking you?”

Remus muttered a phrase he wasn’t allowed to say. Never, that was the answer, at least not in any memory he was certain was true. He thought he remembered his mother being kind after he’d been bitten, but that couldn’t be true, because she’d abandoned him for what he was. Perhaps it was before.

“See,” said Prongs. “She likes you.”

“I wish I was ordinary,” he said, going back to the window. Her figure had gone now, replaced by a stalking tabby cat crossing the rooftops. “I wish I was more like somebody else.”

“Can’t be what you’re not,” said Wormtail. “Best to be what you are.”

“That’s on a hiding to nothing,” said Remus, who still felt absurd.

“And who are you talking to?” Madame Umbridge was in the doorway again, and Remus hadn’t heard her come. How long had she been listening?

“The gargoyles.”

“And what are they made of, Remus?”

“Stone.” The gargoyles weren’t saying anything, and Remus felt fairly stupid.

“And can stone talk?”

“No.”

“And you are not permitted your wand unsupervised.”

“No. Could I have it? I’d like to feel like a wizard.”

“Certainly not. I heard voices. I always know, Remus.”

Remus thought quickly. “I was acting something out,” he said. “With my figures.” It sounded pathetic, for an adult, but pathetic seemed to convince her.

“Very well. Do it quietly.” She swept away, and Remus was left with nothing but an urge to leave, and only sometimes-talking gargoyles to discuss it with.

6.

“We just have to infiltrate the festival,” said Luna. “How difficult can it be?”

Hermione could come up with six or seven difficulties with it, and that was without thinking, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it.

They dressed in the best robes they’d been able to steal, to blend in with the crowd of witches and wizards, and then her and Luna crept into the crowds massing in the square of the town. They were to celebrate the anniversary of Grindelwald’s rise, so the atmosphere ought to have been jubilant, here in one of his strongholds. Hermione thought it lukewarm, at best.

“We stay out of trouble,” Luna reminded her.

“Yes,” said Hermione. She caught herself looking up at the bell tower of the church. She wondered if he watched the festivals. Maybe he’d come. He wasn’t allowed, no, but she thought that he might leave one day, no matter what he said.

“If you were in a prison, but there wasn’t anything stopping you leaving, would you?” she asked Luna.

Luna shrugged. “If there wasn’t anything stopping me leaving, it wouldn’t be a prison. I suppose what you mean is there isn’t anything physical or magical. That doesn’t mean there isn’t something. Coercion. Peer pressure. Mental health difficulties. Nargles. Oh look, dancers. Shall we blend in with those?”

Hermione didn’t think much of that idea, but followed Luna. They’d been told not to split up. A year of dancing lessons before she’d joined Ted and the others didn’t stand her in much stead for this, but she was able to keep up just about enough that someone wouldn’t notice she shouldn’t be there. They’d hopefully just think she hadn’t been paying enough attention in rehearsals.

And soon they were at the centre of the festival, still dancing along with the troupe. Luna twisted and swirled in the centre, but Hermione hung to the edges. She kept her eyes out for anything untoward, or for Minerva. And she scanned the crowd for someone else entirely, but he wouldn’t come.

Someone bumped into her from behind, and she realised she’d stopped dancing. She recognised that head of hair, even though she’d only seen him twice. He wore stolen robes too, she guessed, or his only decent set. Remus Lupin watched the crowd like she did, alert, determined, watching for something important.

Maybe he was watching for her.

It was unlikely, she decided, but it was possible. She wanted to ask Luna what she thought, but Luna was in her element, and Hermione was having to keep up. They were going up to a stage, now, and if she made a misstep here it would be noticed far easier than it had in amongst the crowd.

She was in the centre of the stage when their eyes met, seconds before the shouting began.

“It’s the monster!”

“There he is, the werewolf!”

A man in a dark cloak and hood had hold of Remus, dragging him out of the crowd, and it wasn’t long before another had his other side, and Hermione couldn’t not do anything. She caught Luna’s eye, who gave her the slightest nod, and Hermione dashed out of the clump of dancers, still following in their routine, towards the sound of the shouting.

“No!” she shouted, reaching the edge of the stage and coming to a stop as the boards gave way to air. “Leave him alone! He never did anything to hurt any of you!”

“Monster!” came the shout in reply, because none of them were listening to her. She was going to have to make them listen.

“Stop!” she tried, again, even though she knew it wouldn’t work. She pulled her wand from her robes, willing it to do what she wanted it to. “Fumus!”

The smoke billowed out, and soon there was just enough chaos for her to jump off the stage and try to make it to them. The noise behind her suggested that Luna was following, but Hermione didn’t have time to verify that. She careered through the crowd, coughing and spluttering from the effects of her smoke spell with the rest of them, in the direction of the shouting.

A circle had formed around them when she arrived, Luna hot on her heels. Remus was on the floor, the two dark-robes figures doubled to four, all with wands drawn, seemingly taking turns to hex and curse. Luna began casting spells of her own, but Hermione didn’t have time for that. She threw herself physically into the circle, knocking a dark-robed man down, positioning herself over Remus.

“Don’t hurt him!”

“She’s a Mudblood,” said one of them. “Crucio!”

Before the spell could hit, Luna had downed him, but the first man knocked down was back on his feet, and the use of spells had made the others even more angry.

“Vermin!” one screamed, his hood knocked back to reveal a sharp face that could have been attractive were it not so twisted in hate. “Mudbloods and werewolves!”

“Blood traitor,” said Luna, firing a curse as she stepped into the circle. “It’s always better to have your facts straight, don’t you think?”

And the fight began. From the beginning it was clear that they didn’t have the advantage, Remus with no wand and her and Luna outnumbered. They kept up for a time, but that was all it was, and Hermione began looking for a way out.

“Can you Apparate?” Hermione asked Remus, between trying to fend off attackers. He shook his head. They’d have to get out of here through other means, then.

“Go with her,” he said, nodding at Luna. “Escape.”

“No,” she said, with a defiant shake of her head. “Expelliarmus!” Ted was right, they needed to use deadlier spells. “I’m not leaving you.”

“But I’m a…” he began, punching one of them in the gut, and Hermione shushed him.

“Don’t say it,” she said, “because you’re not. Sonoros!” she shouted, having a sudden fit of inspiration. “All of you standing here! Do you condone this? Are you happy with an innocent man being attacked in front of all of you, and are you happy with nobody coming to his aid? Nobody should be attacked, nobody! You’re all as bad as they are!”

They were hopelessly outnumbered, so she grabbed Remus by the arm and ran.

They fell through the town, joined together only by her grip on him, stumbling every so often on a cobble or a kerb. They were almost out of the town when they finally came to a stop, him crashing to the floor, her standing over him with her wand still drawn.

“Quietus. I don’t think they’ve followed us.”

“I knew this would happen. I knew I shouldn’t have come. You’ve seen what they treat me like. She said that would be what happened.”

He was bleeding, and Hermione focused on that before she focused on his words. Kneeling down alongside him, she put her wand to the cuts and abrasions and the beginnings of bruises in turn, muttering the healing spells. Most of them closed up, and his face lost the paleness it had worn. If her hand wasn’t shaking so much, she’d have done a better job.

“It’s them that’s the problem,” she said firmly. “Not you. Do you want me to take you home?”

“No,” he said, pulling himself up from the floor with a look of grim determination. “I’m outside. I’m going to see the town.”

They walked for what seemed like hours, skirting around the edges of the festival, but seeing enough. Hermione didn’t feel like she was focusing on the scenery, not really. She was watching him as he looked around him, seeing the town he’d lived in for years properly for the first time.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“It’s almost as if this is real,” he said.

“It is.”

Remus smiled, perhaps the first time she’d seen him smile. He still had a half-healed cut along his cheek, one where the healing charms she’d used hadn’t quite taken, but that didn’t distract from the look of wonder on his face or the way his eyes lit up each time he saw something new. Nor did it distract from his smile.

“We should do this again, when there isn’t something going on,” she said. “You can’t see all of it without going back into the festival. And there’s so much outside of Godric’s Hollow. You should come with us when we go.”

“When you go? I can’t.”

“You said that about coming out here at all. And look.”

“Yes, look.” His hand went to his face, tracing the line of the half-healed cut. “I was attacked. They know what I am and they hate it. That would happen elsewhere.” He turned away from her. “I’m safer where I am.”

“You’re safer away from all of this, if you’re worried about people knowing what you are. Come with us, when we go. Come with us to somewhere nobody knows what you are. It doesn’t matter, not to us, but nobody will know.”

“They will. They’ll know when it’s the full moon and I turn.”

“Well, if you’re going to be so damn stubborn, don’t.”

Their eyes met again, for the first time since when she’d been on the stage, and Hermione remembered everything Luna had said about physical barriers, and the ones that weren’t so physical.

“She lies to you, remember. She might have been right about this, or she might have made this happen. So you’d stay in line.”

“I recognised two of them,” he said, sitting himself down on a nearby bench. “Rodolphus Lestrange and Antonin Dolohov. She knows them. I don’t know if it’s how they knew what I am.”

“It could have been.” She sat herself next to him, not touching, but close enough.

“She says we must not tell lies.”

“Everyone lies. I promised to stay out of trouble.”

This time he laughed. Hermione wanted to hear him laugh again.

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up back in the tower, and all of this will have been a dream,” he said.

“A dream, and not a nightmare?”

“A dream.”

She felt an urge to lean in, touch his face or his hand or do something, but there was a crash and a bang from the centre of the town and instead she leapt to her feet and pulled out her wand.

“I have to go,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Go,” he replied. “You’ve got a world to save.”

“Be safe.”

“And you.”

Hermione took flight before she could decide to stay, running towards the noise and into danger like she always seemed to be doing. She didn’t look back. She hoped he didn’t judge her for that.

7.

Remus’ tower room seemed even smaller having left it. It was exactly six paces across and eight long, although at least the ceiling was high. He tried to see if he could get across in five paces. He could.

So he sat at the window, instead. He thought about making another figure. He thought about reading the book he owned. He thought about doing a lot of things, but he chose sitting at the window.
“I don’t know why I’m here, it isn’t like she’s going to come back.”

“You’ll get the girl,” said Prongs, making Remus jump. Apparently, they could still talk. “Just takes perseverance.”

“And her to like you,” said Wormtail. “Which she does.”

“Who wouldn’t like a guy like you?” asked Padfoot.

“Everyone. Look at what happened down there.”

“That’s a fluke,” said Prongs. “They don’t know you like we do. They don’t know the real Remus Lupin.”

“You’re made of stone,” said Remus. “You can’t talk.”

“Can too,” said Padfoot.

And then she hopped into the room. Hermione almost landed on his lap, in fact, given how close he was to the window. But she was here; she’d come back.

“Sorry,” she said, pulling herself up to her feet and arranging herself on the other side of the windowsill to where he sat on his chair. “Didn’t know you’d be there.”

“I was looking for you,” he said, and his palms felt suddenly sweaty. “I wanted to know you were okay.”

“Fine,” she said, although there was a graze on her arm the length of her forearm. “I wanted to know if you were okay.”

“As good as I’ll ever be.”

“Good,” she said. They sat in silence for a moment. Remus didn’t know what to say. What did someone say in this situation?

“I hope you don’t mind that I came back. I hope I’m not interrupting anything. I’m spying, you see, and I wanted to see you.”

“Oh, obviously you are. I have a lot going on in my life.” He waved a hand expansively out over the tiny room, and laughed. She grinned in response.

“I can see that.” She paused, then, and rubbed the back of her head with her hand. “I’m sorry about what happened down there. I told you to do that, and, well, it didn’t go very well. I didn’t think that would happen. I still don’t think it would be like that if we did it again, I’m still not sure it wasn’t her, telling them to attack you. I don’t want you to be scared, or think everyone’s like that.”

About the only part Remus heard of that was ‘we’. He resisted the urge to just repeat the word.

“Just because they want you to be scared, doesn’t mean you have to be,” he said, instead, and she smiled.

“I’m glad,” she said. “There’s so much more I want to show you.”

“How are your friends? The blonde girl? The thing you had to rush off for?”

“Everyone’s safe. We’ve almost got what we needed. They’re after us, and I don’t know if we can hide. Unless we leave, but we can’t just yet, because if we do we’ll never get in again. So I can’t stay long, because I’ve seen that they’re plotting to come after us tonight. And I don’t want to say too much, either.” She rubbed the back of her head again. “I want you safe. It isn’t that I don’t trust you.”

“You’ve only known me three days. I’m not going to blame you if you don’t.”

“I suppose.”

“I trust you.”

“Why?” she asked, shifting herself along the windowsill closer to him, making them almost close enough to touch. “I told you it’d be safe to leave. And it wasn’t.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’re right, all of the evidence suggests that I shouldn’t. You’re a Mudblood. I’ve been told you’re dangerous. That you’d steal my magic as soon as look at me.”
“Damn it,” she said, miming plucking magic from the air with her hands. “You’re onto me.”

“But if you’re not trying to steal magic, why do they hate you so much?” he asked.

“We’re different. You could go into a thousand theories, but that’s the only one that sticks. People don’t always like people who’re different. You and me, we both suffer from that.”

“And you’re not scared of me?” It was a lot of questions. He wanted to get them out there, the truths of all of this, so that he could be justified in trusting her, maybe. There had to be a reason he was asking all these questions.

“No. I’ve read books. You’re a human most of the time, and some of those are terrifying, but you don’t seem so bad.”

“A resounding compliment.”

She giggled. “And you’re not scared of me?”

“Dunno. You fight well. Maybe I should be. But no, I’m not, I’m not scared of you at all.”

“Good,” she said. “Because I like you. And I don’t have any experience of liking anyone.”

“Neither do I,” he admitted. He didn’t have any friends, except the gargoyles, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he was hallucinating their speech, anyway.

But she had friends.

She didn’t mean like, like that.

He had even less experience with that.

Remus Lupin decided to take the metaphorical gargoyle by it’s horns.

“Can I?” he asked, standing up and leaving barely any space between the two of them. Half an inch, if that. He could almost see her breathe. “May I?”

“Yes,” she whispered, pushing some hair back behind her ear as she spoke. “Please.”

And he leant forwards and kissed her.

It was everything he could have imagined it would be, soft and sweet and perfect. The touch of her lips on his became stronger, more insistent, and her body pressed into his too, her arms wrapping around him to bring the two of them closer than he had ever been to another human being by far.

And then it was over. They broke apart, her lips still slightly open, him panting gently.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Don’t think about it too much,” she advised, with a smile that reached her eyes. “Just be in the moment. Just be here, just the two of us.”

It was her that pulled them back together this time, until their lips met again, and he tried to take her advice. He didn’t think of anything except how their lips moved on one another, how her breasts felt against his chest, how her hands twirled in his hair. He didn’t think about anything except how perfect this moment was.

“I have to go,” she said, as their lips parted for the second time. “I”m sorry. I can’t stay. They’re after my people. Umbridge will come for us, and I have to warn them.”

“Go,” he said, even though that was the last thing he wanted her to do. Remus had little idea about women, but he knew what he wanted to do next, even if it wasn’t what he should do. He wanted to kiss her again, to feel her skin against his hand and his body, to pull her into his tiny room behind the curtain and to show her just how beautiful she was to him. But that would not save the lives of her friends. “Go,” he repeated. “I’ll try to delay her.”

“Thank you,” she said, reaching up and stroking his cheek. “Thank you, Remus. If we all live, we will be indebted to you.”

“You can’t be indebted to a monster.”

“Perhaps that’s true. You’re not a monster, though, so I think we’ll be alright.” She pressed a small, round stone into his hand, closing his fingertips around it. “If you want to find me, use this. It’s charmed to lead you to me, or to send a message if you need my help. Use it with care.”

“I will.”

She turned, and with a last peck on his lips, she left. Remus was left hoping that, one day, he would have the same certainty that she did about that.

He reached his hand up to where she’d touched him, where her hand had touched his cheek and her lips and been on his. It seemed like the room was lighter than it had been. Friendlier. Was this how normal people felt all the time?

“I know where they are.” Madame Umbridge made no introduction as she entered the room, no greeting. Remus expected no less. “They have a secret hiding place, and I know exactly where to find them.”

“Do you?” he asked. Wormtail skittered under the table away from her, lurking by Remus’ foot. He didn’t blame the rat.

“Yes. And, believe me, I will attack them, and I will do it tonight. I will find out why they have come to my city, what they have stolen from us, and I will punish them. And if I find that you have been harbouring any of them, you too will be punished, Remus. This is your last chance to tell me the truth. I have always been merciful to you. I have always been kind, even though you are a monster, even when nobody else would have been. Haven’t I?”

“Yes, Madame,” Remus said, lowering his head. She had taken him in when nobody else would, that was true. But he wondered if it may have been better to not have lived with anyone than to have lived with her. He wouldn’t give up Hermione. He wouldn’t. He didn’t know anything, anyway/ Madame Umbridge had never been kind to him. Hermione had. She’d been kind to him when she didn’t even have to. “I don’t know anything, Madame.”

Madame Umbridge looked him over with disdain, and snorted. It was the truth, but she didn’t seem to believe him.

“Let’s hope that turns out to be true. I don’t want to be disappointed by you, Remus. I don’t like it when you tell lies.” She looked him over again. “Perhaps we should be certain.” She flicked her wand in the direction of the doorway, without removing her eyes from Remus. “Accio quill.”

Remus knew what would come around the corner before he saw it. The blood quill. He’d used it before, but, this time, it wouldn’t get the better of him.

“Fetch parchment,” she ordered. Remus scurried to obey. It didn’t do him any better to ignore her. He let his hand slip onto the stone in his pocket. He’d do what he could to stop Umbridge from leaving here.

“Write their location,” Umbridge ordered. “And I will know if you lie.”

Remus put the quill to the parchment, and almost instantly felt the burn in his hand.

They are at the crossroads, he wrote. The blood flowed from his hand into the quill, by whatever nefarious magic it was, but the letters came out red and clear. They weren’t a lie, not really. He didn’t know any truth to give her.

“I knew that you were in league with them,” she said, a nasty grin playing across her face. “I knew it. And you will pay for that, Remus, but not until I have done what I must do. Incarcerous.”

The prison he was in had never been physical before, but now, it was. Remus struggled against the bonds, but it was no use. She was gone, off to find the Mudbloods and he was trapped, and unable to warn them. All he could do was to watch the moon rise, thankfully, a half-moon. All he could do was to hope that the information was truly false. What if it wasn’t? He hadn’t lied, because he hadn’t known the truth; the blood quill hadn’t picked up any deception. But it could be the truth. It could be that they were there, by mere coincidence.

Remus tried to work his hand into his pocket, to reach the stone, to see if somehow that could be of any use. He managed to clasp two fingers around it, but he couldn’t bring it into his line of vision, and it twisted out of his hand and skittered onto the floor. It lay there in the dust, and Remus could only wait.

8.

There were footsteps on the stairs. It could be her, Umbridge, coming back to make him pay for hiding his knowledge of Hermione, or for leading her on a wild goose chase. Two sets, he thought. It could be help.

“He’ll be in here,” he heard, and it was her voice, he was certain of it. “He doesn’t leave. She won’t let him leave.”

He was right, when the faces appeared it was Hermione, and behind her, her blonde friend from the festival.

“You came,” he said.

“Of course. We don’t leave anyone behind. We’re a family.” The blonde girl tipped her head to one side.

“I don’t have a family.”

“You do now,” she said, and behind her, Hermione nodded. “Don’t mind her, the girl added. “She’s worried you don’t like her the same way she likes you. I’m Luna, pleased to meet you.”

“Remus Lupin.”

“Luna!” whispered Hermione.

“I’m going to leave you alone,” said Luna, and, with a flick of her wand and a muttered incantation, loosed his ropes.

“You came back,” he said, again.

“Yes. We don’t leave anyone behind. And, if you want to be, you’re part of the us now.”

“I don’t know if they’ll want me.”

“They will. They’d like you. You’ll like them, I think. We’re all dangerous, or that’s what Umbridge would tell you, but if you’re happy to risk us, we’ll risk you. Are you coming with us?"

Remus wasn’t sure if he could allow himself to hope they’d accept him. Whether they did or not, though, this was the right thing do.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m coming with you.”

Hermione took his hand, stroking the scars on it with her fingers.

“You don’t know where we’re going,” she said.

“I trust you. It’s somewhere that isn’t here. That’s good enough for me. It’s with you.”

“It’s with me.”

Their lips met one more time, and this time it felt like a victory. He didn’t know what had happened to Umbridge, to their plan, to whatever was they’d been looking for. He knew he’d find out, in time, but right now, this seemed like it was more important.

“We’d better go,” he said.”

He barely took a look at the room as they left it. He didn’t need to. He’d committed every bit of it to memory over the course of his life, and, now, he’d never see it again, and nor would he miss it.

“Go on, boy!” said a gargoyle, as he left.

“We won’t miss you!”

“Speak for yourself!