Chapter Text
“Lumos.”
Remus Lupin’s breath fogged in the frigid air. He shifted on his cot, drawing the thick quilt higher up his chest. He ignored the loud pop of the last log on the hearth as it snapped, then sighed with a shower of sparks. By the light of his wand, he scanned the parchment in his hands. He had received it only two days ago, yet he had read it so many times, it was already beginning to fade with wear. Yet again, his eyes lovingly traced the swirls and loops of the writing before him.
Remus, My Love,
If I don’t say it now, I’ll waste the rest of my ink and parchment trying to convey it: I love you and I miss you.
I long to see you, though I wish it were not under circumstances which will bring us together next. Damn everything that keeps us apart! Damn full moons! Damn trainings and missions! Damn Voldemort Voldemort!
I’m sorry – they’re trying to encourage us to not speak his name – it frightens the patients. There are many things they make us do to pacify the patients that I think would be better to face head on. I will admit, though, that there is some prudence in this idea of shielding them from certain things, as we have already treated several for shock that occurred when they found out their loved ones were killed.
Because of this though, we’re now only allowed to read The Daily Prophet in our dorms.
That’s where I’m writing from: the female Healers’ dorm. It’s not at all nice and cosy like those in Gryffindor Tower. It’s rather like a very long hall with a sloping roof like an attic. The walls are white and the floors are cold tile. We all sleep in two rows of identical beds, each with our own lamp and small table.
It makes me long for our own little cottage. When I sit, as I do now, in this stiff chair beside my bed, dashing out a few lines before I collapse into bed, I think of what our home will be like.
I like to think about how we’ll decorate it. A sturdy wingback chair for you and a small chintz rocking chair for me perhaps. Of course we’ll have photographs lining the rooms, and a whole wall just for books. In the bedroom, we’ll have an enormous four-poster bed with the quilts from your mother’s hope chest and lace curtains on the windows.
What do you think we should call it? Would ‘The Den’ be too on the nose? Or perhaps ‘The Nest’? Not that the name matters much. Which of the Muggle authors said “A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet”? It just matters that it will be ours.
There have been moments, usually after a long night shift, when I wonder if I should even continue my training here at St. Mungo’s. Perhaps I should call it quits and just run out and marry you and we can hide away in our own little world.
It’s what my parents did, when Grindelwald was on the rise. They weren’t cowards, mind you, but it wasn’t their war. Things are different now though, I suppose. We’re in this fight. The world is counting on us.
But….I also suppose the war will have to end sometime, and I wonder what our lives will look like then.
Perhaps James and Sirius will become Aurors. Lily would make a great professor – perhaps a Potions Master. Of course you know how much I would love to see you able to teach. And I feel that, one day, you can. Because, when this war is over, I swear to you that you’ll be able to live freely and openly. That’s why we’re fighting after all. Not just against evil, but for good.
Speaking of Lily and James, I heard that they had quite the awful time at her sister’s wedding. Can you imagine your family not liking you just because you’re a witch? And the way they treated James was just awful. I can’t believe we might be in-laws to them someday. I hope we never see or hear from them again.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak of unpleasant things.
I’m terribly excited for Christmas. We’ll get to have a whole week together, like a proper family. I’ll see you in a few days more my love.
Your Cyw Bach,
Branwen
Remus’ eyes lingered on the page. His fingers traced the letters his loved one had written. It had been nearly a month since he had laid eyes on her, though her smiling image waved at him every morning from the photograph in the frame beside his bed. He stared at it now, his eyes drawn to his mother’s ring now gracefully encircling his fiancée’s finger.
They had discussed marrying over the summer, after they left Hogwarts in July, but she was due to begin her apprenticeship at St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries on the first of August. As part of the training, she was required to live in the hospital’s dormitories, so that she could be available day or night for cases as they came in.
Remus found himself busy as well though. He and his best friends, James Potter (Branwen’s brother), Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew, were quickly swept up into their own training programme. They and several other hand-picked recruits were being personally mentored by the Ministry of Magic’s top Auror, Alastor Moody.
For nearly two months, they spent every day practicing jinxes, hexes, and curses. They learned how to use them and how to counter them. They could cast nonverbal spells with ease, and learned how to blend in with the Muggle population to escape undetected.
They were taught how to use magical devices such as Sneakoscopes and Secrecy Sensors, both designed to alert the user to dark and deceitful presences. Moody showed them his Foe-Glass and an invisibility cloak he had especially designed from the coat of a Demiguise, then enchanted with a powerful Disillusionment Charm.
Of course, the Marauders (as the five friends liked to call themselves) had other tricks up their sleeves. James and Sirius carried about two-way mirrors through which they could see and speak to each other any time they pleased. James also possessed an Invisibility Cloak unlike any other in existence. It needed no charm or spell, but had remained invisible as it passed through generations of the Potter family.
During their seven years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry they had used these items to perform spectacular feats of magic. One item that they had left behind was their “Marauder’s Map.” It was an enchanted parchment which, upon addressing with the correct phrase (“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good”), would reveal an intricately detailed map of the school and its grounds. It was supposed to be impossible to accurately chart a building with so many charms and protections over it, yet they had done so, and moreover used it to cause mischief in epic proportions.
Moody knew nothing of these things, however. It had been decided among the five of them that their secrets would be better kept amongst themselves. They had even made a blood pact as young teens, a solemn oath that they would keep each other’s confidences and never turn their backs on one another.
In their seventh year of school, the Marauders added a sixth, honorary member: James’ girlfriend, Lily Evans.
Lily’s sister Petunia, whose wedding Branwen referenced in her letter, was a Muggle. The man she married was a Muggle too. Together, they were perhaps the most unmagical people in the world. At the wedding, in front of friends and family, they had disavowed Lily and James. Lily tried hide her grief, but confessed to Branwen that her sister’s shunning had broken her heart.
Branwen was, herself, incensed by Petunia’s actions, unable to understand how one family member could turn against another.
The Potters were a loving, tightly-knit family. Products of generations of pure wizarding blood, James and Branwen were cradled in the lap of luxury from birth. Silver spoons weren’t good enough – they were born with golden ones in their mouths. Nevertheless, they were raised with the ideals of goodness, kindness, and fairness. Any kind of discrimination was repugnant to the siblings.
Her heritage of empathy and virtue made Branwen the perfect mate for a werewolf.
Remus had been bitten by the sadistic werewolf Fenrir Greyback, just before he turned five. At twelve, his secret was discovered by the girl he would fall in love with. She and their friends did everything they could to protect him, including becoming Animagi.
One of the most complex magical processes in the wizarding world, the friends accomplished it by the time they were fifteen. James’ alter ego was a stag known as Prongs; Sirius was Padfoot, a large black dog; Peter became a rat and went by Wormtail. They used their combined animalistic strengths to control the wolf, allowing him, for the first time in his life, to run free without worry of attacking unwary humans.
Branwen’s animal form was Feathers, a raven. She used her powers of flight and observation to keep an eye on Remus’ wolf form. In her human form, she was his Healer. His monthly transformations literally tore his body apart, and Branwen devoted her life to easing his pain. Her path to the healing arts had begun with her desire to treat Remus in the best ways possible.
Of course, that path had led to her training at St Mungo’s, which resulted in their current separation. In the past four months, Remus had seen his fiancé only four times, each time on the full moon. His injuries during those times left only their letters with the opportunities to express their affections and desires.
The wind rattled the window panes once more. Rather than draw his blankets closer, Remus threw them from himself and began to pace the room, the small puffs of his breath misting the room.
The wizarding world was at war, a war such it hadn’t seen since the early twentieth century, when the Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald attempted a global conquest. That battle had ended when Grindelwald lost his duel with Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts and one of the most powerful wizards to ever live.
It was Dumbledore around which this new resistance rallied, taking the name, the Order of the Phoenix. Their new threat came in the form of yet another powerful, Dark wizard. Voldemort (or He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named, as he was increasingly called) was wreaking havoc across Great Britain. Death and destruction following him and his gang of Death Eaters wherever they went.
For the Marauders’ first mission for the Order of the Phoenix, they had been sent high into the Lake District. Its cool climate had been pleasant in the late days of summer, but by November, a thick carpet of snow was permanently installed upon the ground, and the nights howled with frosty winds.
It was important though, the assignment they had received. It was the kind of mission for which James and Sirius had begged and pleaded, one critical to the success or failure of the war. What they hadn’t realised was that it was also dead boring.
Dumbledore had chosen to station the Marauders at the entrance of the Gringotts mint. The goblin-run bank employed curse-breakers around the globe to seek out and collect the gold, silver, and bronze used to make the wizarding currency exchanged in London, but it was deep within the bedrock of the remote mountains that the raw ore was converted into thick coins and solid ingots. It was a prime target for Voldemort, for, if he controlled the money, he controlled the people.
So, for three months the Marauders sat and watched. And for three months, nothing happened.
Every day was the same. Beginning at eight in the morning, James, Sirius, and Peter would take up their posts in their Animagus forms. They perched on a crag overlooking, what appeared to Muggles, an ancient stone boathouse, long forgotten and falling in. Actually, it was the entrance to the mint where dozens of witches and wizards, most of them shabby and worn-down, descended for their hard, dirty work.
At eight in the evening, the workers would ascend and Remus and Lily would take up their watch, their human forms better concealed in the dark of night.
On this night though, for the third time since their arrival, there would be no one on watch, for it was the full moon.
The window panes rattled yet again, echoing in Remus’ pulsing mind.
“That’s quite enough!” He growled, raising his wand. “Branwen!”
At the window, rapping with her beak while her wings were buffeted by the snowy wind, was his fiancée.
Remus flew to the window. Pointing his wand again, the window dissolved, and the sleek black raven tumbled into the room. Another wave of his wand and the window sealed itself once more. When he turned around, he found a small lump of coats piled in the middle of the floor. Peeking from the centre of the pile was the sleek dark head of Branwen Potter.
“Puppy!” She squealed as she attempted to disentangle herself from the thick fabric encasing her body. As she shed them, she shivered. “Remus, why don’t you have a Warming Charm on here? It’s positively freezing!” She pulled her own wand from the inner pocket of her final cloak and flicked her wrist. The room instantly began to warm.
Remus shrugged with a twinkle in his eyes. “I guess the cold doesn’t bother me much. Besides, you look like you had enough coats to keep you warm in Antarctica.”
Branwen rolled her eyes. “Mother’s doing. I popped by the house on my way over. She and Cassie sent these.”
Beneath one of the layers she had discarded, she produced a large wicker basket. The scent of warm bread and something cinnamony wafted through the air.
But Remus was only subliminally conscious of the ambrosial scents. Instead, his eyes feasted on the sight of his fiancé. Her face was splotched from the adjustment from cold to heat, and she was breathing quickly, but her jet black hair was as sleek and shining as ever and her deep blue eyes sparkling with life.
“Oh, my cyw bach,” Remus murmured. He rushed forward and wrapped his long arms around her. She pressed her face to his chest, thawing her nose against his beating heart. He rested his lips atop her head. For several long moments, they stood that way before melting into each other, their faces tilting into a slow, savouring kiss.
“I’ve missed you so much, my darling.” His broad hands caressed her back.
“Don’t be so melodramatic. It’s only been a month,” Branwen responded, but there was a thickness to her voice that belied her emotions.
“Feathers!”
The couple quickly broke apart at the sound of the door slamming and the shout of their friend. Sirius ran straight to Branwen and lifted her in the air, spinning her around the room.
Her laughter rang out. “Padfoot! Padfoot, let me down!”
Her unofficially-adopted brother obeyed and stooped to give her a kiss on the cheek. Her actual brother followed suit. “Bon-bon! It’s about time.”
Behind the two exuberant young men lurked a smaller, chubbier boy. “Hi, Feathers.” Peter grinned shyly.
“Wormtail! I’ve missed you too!” Branwen kissed his cheek.
“Lily Apparated back home after the shift change.” James checked his watch. “Just a few minutes now. You ready, mate?”
Remus nodded, then slowly began to undress.
This came as no surprise as, for nearly seven years, once a month, their friend shed his clothes for his transformation. Unlike the change of the Animagi, werewolf destroyed both his body and his clothes. Still, the boys politely averted their gazes.
Branwen gave no such pretence, however. She openly eyed her fiancé’s body, knowing he was pleased to receive the attention.
Remus was not what could be considered traditionally attractive. His body was gangly and awkward, gouged everywhere with scars, his face lined with weariness and pain. His tawny hair was neither messy, nor particularly well-groomed, and his eyes wavered between blue and green, but as they rested on Branwen, they were momentarily lightened.
If Remus’ attractiveness was doubtful, however Branwen’s was undeniable. Whereas her brother’s hair was permanently disheveled, her black mane was preternaturally glossy and tangle-free. Growing up, she had had the ideal figure, slim and athletic from her hours upon hours of Quidditch practise. During her final year at Hogwarts, she had not played on the sports team, and lost some of her muscular definition. Now she was just thin, worry and work eating away at her energies. But the warmth and life that sprung from within her pale complexion in the presence of her friends gave her the picture of health.
Suddenly, all life was pinched away from Remus’ face. His body convulsed as he doubled up in pain. These moments of transformation were of the most excruciating agony. In order for his body to turn into the wolf, his human bones had to be broken. They snapped and knit themselves quickly back together in twisted and unnatural shapes. Thick layers of tawny fur erupted over his body. His fingers curled and hardened into thick, sharp claws. His face twisted, his skull elongating, ears wrenching up to the top of his head.
Though they would never know the physical pain of their friend, the mental anguish of watching him suffer was always a trying time for the other Marauders. Branwen, especially, turned into Feathers at the very moment the transformations began. It was easier that way, as a bird, to distance herself from the very human emotion of empathy.
Feathers was joined quickly by Padfoot and Wormtail. James stepped outside, for Prongs’ antlers would have never fit through the doorway.
After several minutes of wrenching cries of pain, the werewolf joined the Animagi. Now fully emerged, the wolf howled with a ferocious sort of delight and the entire cabin echoed in a bone-rattling sort of way.
Feathers swooped through the open doorway, cawing over her shoulder as she went, drawing the wolf into the open air.
There had always been a suspicion in the back of Remus’ mind that the main reason the Marauders had been stationed near this particularly remote potential-target was exactly for its remoteness. The high cliffs and shadowy clefts made excellent grounds for a cautious pack of strange creatures to move undetected by human eyes.
But, in the form of the wolf, not such thought entered his mind. He only opened his mouth and howled to the full moon, darting and romping through the craggy fens and fells with his unusual, magical pack.