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I should start off by saying that I'm a cat person, always have been. And not just me, but Remus and his father, too. Cats are independent, never needy or demanding. They're attentive, even affectionate, occasionally, when they're in the mood. Sometimes they’re quietly companionable. You can settle in on the sofa on a grey rainy day for a read and a cuddle and fall asleep listening to the deep, low vibrations of the purrs.
We had a cat when Remus was a boy. Minnie, we called her, just a little joke between John and me to remind us of our school days. But Minnie ran away shortly after—well, shortly after, and that's probably for the best. Never saw the need to get another, what with all the traveling we've done, taking care of Remus. Still, we'll watch out for the stray who comes by, or care for a few kittens until a home can be found. We're cat people in this family.
Look at me, going on. All I meant to explain was that I was not happy to see: one, James Potter at the door to our flat on the second morning after Christmas with, two, a giant black dog on a leash at his side. The dog was huge and lanky, all awkward legs like a teenager, with a wide-open mouth and a pink tongue hanging out. Yuck.
"Well, if it isn't James Potter on my doorstep," I said. "Your Floo not working?"
He gestured at the dog with him thumb. "I wasn't sure about traveling with him." He gave me what I'm sure he thought was a winning smile. "I have a favor to ask, Mrs Lupin," he said.
"No," I said immediately. If I've learned anything these past six years, it's that James Potter always has a trick up his sleeve and it's never as amusing as he thinks it is. You have to say no early and often.
Then I had a horrible thought. "Especially if it has anything to do with that dog."
"But Mrs Lupin," he said, cajoling. "We don't know what else to do with him. Is Remus here?" The dog poked its snout in the door, past my knees, sniffing loudly, looking around.
Behind me in the flat, I could hear John at the kitchen table, rustling his Daily Prophet. (John had a habit of hiding behind his newspaper when the going got tough and clearly would be no help.)
"Remus!" I called. Remus was probably sulking in his bedroom, as he always was these days. I hadn't seen him in hours.
Silence. Reluctantly, I asked James in. No need to be rude while saying no.
"Does the dog need to come inside, too?" I asked.
James just shrugged innocently. "Better not to let him bother your neighbors, right?
I sighed.
As we walked into the living room, the dog nuzzled at my hand, wet and slobbery. Yuck, yuck.
"Remus!" I called again, drying my hand on my trousers. No reply. That boy. So sweet for so many years, and so surly once he hit fifteen.
James quickly made himself comfortable on the sofa with the dog at his feet. ("No dogs on the couch," I said.) I perched on an armchair, warily.
"My mum says hello," James said. "And thank you for the holiday package."
"Tell her we said hello, too," I said. "And we appreciate the invitation, but we're not much for skiing in this family." Or for wasting valuable Galleons on a holiday in Switzerland, but no need to add that. I was surprised she'd asked us, to be honest. Remus had been involved in a row with his friends earlier that term so serious that all four sets of parents had been summoned to Dumbledore's office to sort things out. All four boys had refused to talk about what started it, so the meeting was an unproductive as it was awkward. The tension had since eased a bit, I gathered from Peter's mother, but I suspected Remus' sullenness was largely due to things still being out-of-sorts with his friends.
"It's about the holiday, actually," James said.
"Yes?"
"We, erm, just got a dog, and we can't leave him alone while we're away."
"You can see for yourself: we have no room for him, James. Tell your mother to ask Sirius' mum—or, well, maybe Peter's mum would be better. The Pettigrews have a garden."
"They're, erm, coming on holiday with us."
"The Pettigrews?"
"And Sirius."
I raised an eyebrow. Really? All three off on holiday, and they expected us to watch the dog? "You could drop him off at the Beastiary for a few days." Heaven knows the Potters could afford it.
"He's bad with other dogs."
"Your neighbors?
"They don't like animals."
James must have seen something in my face at that moment, a loss of patience, because his eye widened and he leaned forward, a pleading look on his face. "I think Remus would be good with him. He's got to stay here, he's got to."
"No. I'm sorry, we can't," I said firmly. Time to stop this ridiculous back-and-forth.
"But—"
"But Remus will say hello to you before you leave," I said. "Remus!"
("That would be nice," John muttered from behind his newspaper. "But highly unlikely.")
Hearing nothing but silence from Remus' room, I raised my voice: "Remus! Your friend James is here! Now."
Finally, steps in the hall.
Still clad in his pajamas after noon, his hair uncombed, Remus appeared, glaring. The dog jumped up, straining at his leash, panting with excitement. "What are you doing here?" he said to James. "What is he doing here?"
"Manners, Remus," I said.
"Erm, happy Christmas, Remus!" James said, grinning. "Surprise!"
"No. No. Oh, no," Remus said, slowly walking backward. "No, no, no."
"But Remus," James wheedled, and the dog barked.
Something about the dog's bark set Remus off. "Go, just go!" he spat at them, visibly angry. "This is my flat. I don't want you here."
"But Remus—"
"Manners, Remus."
"I hate you!" Remus said.
"Remus!" I said. Really.
"Go away, you, you—bloody animals!" Remus said furiously and retreated to his room, slamming the door.
It wasn't so much the language as the emotion behind it that shocked and mortified me. This was not my boy, not the one I’d known all these years. James and I were both silent for a moment. The dog sat down at James' feet, burying his face in his paws.
"Remus!" I called. "Come back out here."
"I don’t have time for your mangy dog!" Remus’ voice was muffled a bit by the bedroom door.
"Remus!" I said.
John hrumphed from behind his newspaper. After twenty years of marriage, it was a noise I understood. In fact, I agreed. That kind of attitude was unacceptable, regardless of what had transpired among the boys. Remus had been getting away with a lot recently, refusing to help out around the house, quitting his part-time job because he was "bored." Perhaps the discipline of a dog was the very thing Remus needed. It would certainly get him out of that bedroom occasionally.
I sighed. As much as it pained me to do James Potter a favor, a dog might be a good thing for a few days. Remus needed a schedule and some responsibilities. And some money, now that he’d quit his job. I’d talk to Mrs Potter to make certain Remus was paid, even just a few Galleons.
"Does he come with anything? Instructions?" I asked. Meekly, James reached into his pocket and produced a small scroll, a bag of dog food, and a lumpy blanket that the dog apparently slept with. "We'll be back soon," he said. "It's just till the first."
"What's his name?" I asked.
James blinked at me for a moment. "Oh!" he said, eying the dog. He licked his lips. "Erm. Remus will know his name."
Merlin, the boy never had a straight answer. Fine. I stared at him. "What are you forgetting, James Potter?"
James looked confused.
"Thank you, Mrs Lupin," I said loudly. John snorted again, even more expressively. We felt the same way about James. "How kind of you to do me this favor, Mrs Lupin. What would you like me to bring you from St Moritz, Mrs Lupin?"
"Oh," James said. "Yeah. Cheers, Mrs Lupin. You’re the best." He smiled brightly, as if he’d invented the phrase, and left.
***
As I'm sure you've gathered, Remus had developed anger issues. I can't make excuses for him there. Over the past the six months or so, he’d grown curt in his letters and surly at the dinner table when he was home. He's instigated some sort of trouble at school that estranged him from his friends and caused the headmaster to intervene. Just a few days ago, he'd even quit his job at the grocery store, where he’d worked part time since the summer.
It was as if something inside him had switched off 'round the age of fifteen, and all of his eagerness to help, his desire to do the right thing, had evaporated.
It was exasperating.
It’s not as if I didn’t understand his frustration. The wizarding world hadn’t been very kind to him; it’s why we’d moved to Cunningfolk in the first place, to escape the worst of the pureblood bigotry. We’d been run out of wizarding Stamford shortly after he was bitten; someone set fire to the house one night after we’d gone to bed. We’d been told to expect that in a town where everyone knew about his condition, and we moved house quickly, hoping for more anonymity in wizarding Nottingham.
Nottingham turned out to be just as bad once word got out. Oh, no one had set the house on fire, to be sure, but we hadn’t expected the rumors and the stares and the superstitions that seemed to develop around him: people who crossed the street when they saw him, children who stopped playing with him, no explanation offered. Occasionally, chillingly, knives would appear on our doorstep.
We moved house again, this time to our current flat in Cunningfolk New Town. Stamford and Nottingham were ancient places, home to some of the oldest wizarding families, but Cunningfolk had been built in our lifetimes, and witches and wizards had moved to this New Town from all over the nation. In fact, many had come because they hadn't fit in in the small wizarding villages where they'd been born. Surely we'd find more acceptance here? We let a two-bedroom flat with a view and led quiet lives—the very kind of lives we'd previously taken for granted.
And then his Hogwarts letter came. We’d spent Remus' childhood traveling, looking for help with his illness, seeking a cure. Treatment after treatment failed, and we'd begun to despair. When Dumbledore offered him a place Hogwarts, John and I felt hopeful for the first time in years. He made friends, enjoyed his studies, even earned a prefect's badge. His friends knew about his condition, he wrote to me, and they didn't seem to care. Perhaps the world was changing, and he'd find a place in it.
When he turned fifteen, I'd decided he was old enough to look for a part-time job for the summer holiday. He had a hard time finding one, and although we never said anything out loud, John and I feared the worst. Remus was shy with strangers, a bit awkward, true—but had word of his condition preceded him? I was relieved when the local greengrocer Frank took him on. A few weeks into the summer, Remus even explained his condition to him and found him a sympathetic ally. A retired Auror who suffered from night terrors and a tremor, he seemed to understand Remus' reticence and his dry, sometimes black humor.
Frank's friendship was one of the reasons I was so angry with Remus when he told me he'd quit. First the trouble with his friends at school now this. It was as if Remus was determined to reject the world before it rejected him.
***
The dog surprised us.
And by "us" I mean John and me, not Remus. Remus did the bare minimum, grudgingly, taking him on three walks a day only after I reminded him repeatedly. He rarely paid him much attention, but the dog, with that contrary logic you often see in animals, adored him, sitting at his feet while Remus slouched on the sofa watching television, trotting happily after him when they went on walks, stretching out on the floor outside his bedroom door, waiting for him to emerge in the morning (or the early afternoons, for that matter). Remus either didn't know his name or wouldn't share it with us for some reason, so we took to calling him Dog.
I won't say that I liked him. Dog had hot, stinky breath and seemed to be constantly underfoot in our small flat. He slobbered before meals and shed black fur all over our nice beige rug (and sometimes on the new couch; clearly he sat on it when we weren't looking). But he was gentle and attentive and infinitely patient, and as someone whose patience often ran thin, I admired his ability to nuzzle Remus's knee when Remus was at his most sullen. Dog didn't hide behind the Daily Prophet and didn't explode in anger when the washing up wasn't done, and that was a point in his favor, at least.
***
"Sorry about what happened the other day," Frank said to me halfway into Dog's stay, as I paid for the groceries for our New Years meal. As he packed up my bag, he gave me a warm, sympathetic smile. "He’s a good kid. I miss him."
"Thank you for giving him a chance," I replied. "I'm sorry he wasn't able to stay on. He’s just going through a rough time right now." I was relieved that Frank hadn’t been insulted; he'd done so much for Remus. Perhaps the boy had managed to quit gracefully, at least.
"I can't blame him," Frank said. "People can be awful. My brother served in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for nearly sixty years, and he always said he'd never met a creature as vicious as well-bred witches and wizards could be."
That made me pause. He wasn't talking about Remus. Remus, no matter how contrary or sullen he could be, was never vicious. "What happened the other day?" I asked warily.
Frank quirked an eyebrow at me. "Remus didn’t tell you?"
"These days Remus doesn’t tell me a thing if he doesn’t have to."
"Well, he’s at that age, isn't he?" He leaned in and lowered his voice. "I had him up here, at the cash register because it was busy, and, well, a customer refused to take change from his hand and walked out."
My stomach dropped. This had happened in Nottingham, too; first one shopkeeper and then another refused to touch his money, until Remus became too wary make a purchase on his own. It was something about the silver in the sickles, some stubborn, ancient superstition that had been twisted inside out and emerged as a stigma. I hated it.
Frank leaned in closer. "And, well, someone said something, and they all left, one by one, every customer in the store."
My blood ran cold.
"I told him it was fine, this isn't a small town, I wasn't bothered. Half of them would forget and come back, anyway."
"And then he quit," I said.
"Right there and then." Frank handed me my bag. "I sent him an owl the other day, but he hasn't responded. Let him work through it. Tell him I'll take him back again over the summer, if he changes his mind."
"Thank you, Frank," I said, taking my groceries. Thank you wasn't enough, but it was what I could offer at the moment. "I will."
I walked home the long way, past the health center and the park, feeling unsettled and needing some time to think. Would we have to move house again? Frank clearly didn't think so. People would forget. Things would change. Cunningfolk was a lot larger than Stamford, more anonymous than Nottingham. There was no established wizarding society to turn us out. No families had lived here for generations. There were fewer traditions, fewer superstitions, more tolerance. Muggles and strangers were respected. In fact, my neighbor Claire had told me last week that her daughter, who'd struggled at Hogwarts and earned several humiliating Trolls, was thinking of going to live in the Muggle part of town to earn a living there. Claire even sounded happy to hear of her plans. I couldn't imagine any of our family or friends in Stamford expressing anything but disapproval.
Was this the best we could do for him?
***
As I reached the top of the hill and turned past the health center, I caught a glimpse of a boy and a dog in the park below. I must have been deep in thought because it took me a moment to realize it was my boy and our Dog. Remus was waving his arms at Dog, who was bounding happily after a bright yellow ball, who scooped it up in that giant mouth of his and just kept running.
"Come back, come back!" Remus yelled, laughing. "That's the other half of the game!"
Dog quickly reversed himself and returned to Remus, all long legs and flopping tongue, toppling him over and standing on his chest triumphantly, tail wagging.
"Off!" Remus yelled, still laughing. "Off!"
Remus flipped them over and they began wrestling. After a minute or two Dog must have realized that he and his long, slobbery pink tongue had the upper hand in this fight, because Remus howled in disgust.
"No licking! Unfair, unfair! Eruuuuuhg!"
I hadn't seen Remus laugh so much in years.
***
Their game of fetch must have finally broken the ice, because that evening John and I were preparing dinner when Remus and Dog returned, both smiling and smelling of grass and the winter chill.
I handed Remus the dinner plates. "After that, wash up," I said. "We're almost ready."
Remus wasn't talkative that evening, exactly, but he watched John and me chatting almost shyly. Dog, I presume, was crouched under the table, because Remus fed him bits of chicken when he thought we weren't looking.
"I saw Frank today," I said. "He said he'd take you back over the summer, Remus, if you weren't too bored with the vegetables."
Remus flushed a bit and hung his head.
I hadn't meant to sound so sharp. I took a deep breath and took a cue from Dog, who knew something about love that cat people like John and I didn't.
"Frank likes you, Remus," I added more gently. "He's been impressed with you from the start. Give him another chance."
Remus' eyes widened. "Did he say that?"
"He said so again today. In fact, he says so almost every time I stop by, if not in so many words."
I don’t praise Remus often enough, I suppose, because he smiled with delight in a way we don't see often enough in this family: deeply, fully, so the faint dimple in his cheek appeared. I've always thought John and I needed to keep the boy in line, given his lot in life, but perhaps there's something to be said for wholehearted, unstinting praise. Merlin knows his path will be difficult, no matter what we do.
"I'll wash up," John said. "Go on. Mastermind in a few minutes."
Remus and Dog and I moved into the living room, turned on the telly, and settled ourselves down side by side on the couch. Remus, always a bit chilly, wrapped a blanket around legs and pet Dog with his foot.
"Wait," I said shifting to the end of the couch and patting the space between us. "Come on, Dog."
Dog looked up at me, and then at Remus, and then at me.
I patted the couch again. "Come on up."
All awkward legs and excited tail, Dog jumped up, turned in a circle twice, and sat down between us with his chin on Remus lap.
I smoothed the rough dark fur on his back, and his tail wagged back and forth, quickly.
Remus looked at me and raised an eyebrow, just like his dad.
"Never seen you petting him before," he said. "He's going to shed everywhere."
"We can clean the couch when he's gone," I said, shrugging, and Dog's tail whapped my shoulder in joy.