Archive of Our Own

Remus pinched the brow of his nose tiredly.

It had been a long week. The full-moon had only just come and gone, and the last of the aches and pains were still bothering him. That wasn’t unusual - Wolfsbane worked like that. Whilst Belby advertised it as mitigating the symptoms - letting you keep your peace of mind - what it actually did was stretch the symptoms out.

You kept your mind when you transformed, at the cost of being a little more aggressive, a little more territorial. Fonder still of red meat, more prone to scratching at surfaces. That niggling feeling behind your brow that, perhaps, just perhaps, you might want to leap towards the weakling limping down the corridor…

Nothing he couldn’t control.

But a long way from alleviating the symptoms.

In everything, compromise.

Hadn’t that been the deal he made with himself?

A little happiness here and there, to balance out the lingering sense of guilt he had for all the months that he couldn’t afford Wolfsbane, that he hadn’t been able to find somewhere safe to spend the night. All the nights he woke to find himself surrounded by animals ripped and torn apart, and hoped and prayed that no one would ever stumble across him.

That was why he had moved out to Yorkshire. A cottage in the middle of nowhere. Far from everything. Run-down and silent and quiet and hidden.

Between the middle of nowhere and the end of eternity. It was a ten mile hike to the nearest road, and twenty miles after that to the nearest town. 

Far enough, he had thought, that everyone that wasn’t him would be kept safe.

Then Dumbledore had come.

Remus had a teaching qualification. It wasn’t widely known. But he had managed to make his way into a teaching qualification course. The stipend had been barely enough to pay for his food and his Wolfsbane, just for long enough to let him limp his way through teaching English to Muggles for a year and qualify.

That had been enough for a year or two. But he had struggled to find a job after he was done. After he had the piece of paper that said he could take a job..

The shabby suit, he supposed, or perhaps just the lingering suspicion that Muggles seemed to place on any man trying to work with children. Combined with an excess of English teachers, and really it was no surprise that he had struggled.

He should have specialised in Maths.

And so he stuck it out in his little cottage in Yorkshire, scraping by on what little bits of teaching he could put together here and there, and the contents of his small garden of vegetables.

Then Dumbledore had come.

And now here he was. At Hogwarts. Wondering why he had scheduled a lesson on boggarts -  of all things - for so early in the term and for so close to a full moon.

Forgetfulness, he supposed. Forgetting what Wolfsbane was like. Forgetting how exhausting full-time teaching could be. Forgetting just how bittersweet Hogwarts was, with constant reminders of James and Peter and… the other one. Who he knew he should hate, but who he could never manage to hate.

Life was too short to hate your friends, even when they made stupid mistakes - and there had clearly been at least one stupid mistake being made there.

Why hadn’t he been allowed to speak to Sirius? 

Why hadn’t he been allowed to hear his side of the story?

He had gone to Peter’s funeral. 

He had been the only guest that wasn’t directly related to the man.

That, really, summarised everyone’s thoughts on Peter, Order of Merlin or not.

Remus missed him keenly, like he missed all of them. How life might have been differ-

There was a sound from outside the door. Presumably his Gryffindor third year class. And hadn’t that been a nostalgia trip into the world of school grudges? Slytherin was as hated as ever.

School grudges which had started a war - it should be noted - but nonetheless. School grudges.

Remus tried to be above them.

Sometimes he even thought he might manage.

He definitely managed better than Severus, who was still clinging to his hate like a cloak wrapped around him.

As he swept through the corridor, the gaggle of teenagers - Harry - whispering furiously behind him, he tried to put them - Harry - out of his mind. There were things to focus on.

Boggarts were a bold start.

There was a general belief in the wizarding world that you should be forced to face your fears. That you should be forced to stare them down until you stopped staring them down.

That was what was in the teacher handbook for this lesson.

Let them suffer .

After all, the Hogwarts handbook seemed to suggest, it wasn’t like children had real fears. Spiders, heights, bumps in the night. The occasional school teacher, perhaps, if a child was sensitive .

What did children have to be afraid of?

Remus had taught in Muggle schools. He had learnt far too much about identifying children that had more serious fears than that. That had been forced to grow up too soon. To face issues that they had no reason to have faced.

And the third year class - like many of his other classes - was a class that had grown up in the shadow of a war that had marred and scarred their parents.

The Muggles had words for it.

The ways that it changed people.

Depression.

Paranoia.

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

Many others. Lots of words.

The wizards had no words. That scared Remus a bit. That Muggles understood this so much better than them.

But at the very least, it meant that Remus had been trained in recognising the signs of struggling parents in the children. And when you knew what to look for, it was clear to see many signs in the children that came through Hogwarts. Stories about being thrown out of windows - was there a clearer sign of neglect? High incidences of anxiety and panic. Children who barely knew their parents, and parents who barely paid attention to their children.

Make them face their fears .

Remus knew that this lesson was going to be tough. Recommended or not, boggarts were always risky when you had fears in your mind that were more than just spiders.

There were even some in this class - Harry - that he was particularly concerned about. Neville Longbottom, who had seen his parents tortured, was perhaps key on his mind. And Harry Potter of course.

He started with him, of course.

Severus in a dress was a vision that wouldn’t leave his mind any time soon. A humorous moment - if slightly sad for what it said about his colleague’s teaching.

The rest of their fears were more normal. He wasn’t concerned about them.

And then Alex Rider stepped forwards, and something inside Remus screamed caution .

He wasn’t sure what it was. The blonde looked relaxed, looked fine. And perhaps that was it. The calm was like a mask draped over his face. It would have been normal to look worried - or excited perhaps - but instead he just looked serene.

Remus didn’t know much about him - he’d spent most of the previous year out, following the untimely death of his uncle. No one had been able to tell him much about what had happened. But he was an orphan twice over now, and that was not a good place to be in when you were facing your fears.

Remus kept an eye on him as the boggart began to twist and turn and shape an-

What was that ?

Rider’s mask trembled - cracked even, perhaps - but the words fell out of his mouth nonetheless, “ Ridduikulus .”

“You didn’t think tricks like that would work here did you, Alex?” The man in the suit opened his briefcase, “We’re going to have to examine your file in some more detail.”

Rider lifted his wand again, his voice trembling, “ Riddikulus .”

A target. Remus had seen them before. But not with the face of a woman plastered on it. Ginger hair, smiling, friendly. A bullet hole neatly between her eyes. Tears fell down the teenager’s face.

“Riddikulus .” 

The teen tried again. And this time he faced himself. Only, Remus realised, it wasn’t quite him. It was… Something else.  Wearing Rider’s skin. Standing there, but wrong . Like someone had tried to make a copy and just hadn’t quite got it right.

It might have even been believable if the real thing hadn’t been standing there before. If Remus hadn’t spent a month getting to know the real thing through his diligent attempts to write an essay on handling household pests.

“You think they want you ?” The clone asked, “You couldn’t kill a man to save your life. We both know that, don’t we?”

Rider’s mask fully crumpled, frustration and anger and failure flaring all over his face. Remus stepped forward immediately. He should intervened sooner, he should hav-

“ Riddikulus .”

The moon swept into a balloon and vanished back into the cupboard. 

Controlled, contained.

The door slammed open and then slammed shut and Remus knew without looking that Alex Rider had fled.

Fled before he had to face the looks, the stares, the pitying glances.

Remus could sympathise.

He couldn’t tell anyone what he told the other Gryffindor third-years. He apologised to those that came after - Harry - that they hadn’t had a chance to have a go. He invited them to come afterward. And then he went to hunt down his student.

He didn’t know what Alex Rider had been through, but Remus had learnt one thing.

Teachers didn’t get the right to say that everything was okay until they had spent some effort in trying to make sure that things might be okay.

He couldn’t help everyone.

But maybe, just maybe, Remus could help someone .

And even if he wasn’t allowed to speak to Harry - not really, not about what mattered - because of the rules that Dumbledore hadn’t been able to purge from his contract, then he could still do some good.

Alex Rider needed someone in his corner?

Remus could do that.

Remus would do that.

Maybe he could help Alex find himself again.