Work Text:
Friday, September 15, 1995
Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was always chilly, even in September. You could clean and sweep and dust all day, but the moment you turned your back a spider would start spinning a new web right behind you. Most days, it was eerily quiet, apart from the sighs and moans of ghosts that never showed themselves.
On this late afternoon, the silence was broken by loud, slightly maniacal laughter from the kitchen. Fae was organising a cabinet that had been overlooked during the big summer cleanup. It had turned out to contain lots of unlabeled bottles and she'd gotten no further than trying to distinguish between potions and poisons. She put down two nearly identical glass vials and hurried downstairs to check if Sirius had not finally cracked and joined his mother in the land of absolute insanity.
When Fae opened the door, a disgruntled owl swooshed out and nearly flew into her face. 'Oi!' she said, but the owl took no notice and disappeared upstairs.
Inside the kitchen, it was considerably warmer and the hearty smells of Remus' cooking gave it an almost homely atmosphere. Tonight, he was making jacket potatoes for three. He'd told Fae once he'd never really been taught how to cook and she privately thought that he'd mastered the art pretty well for someone who'd figured it all out by himself. Sirius had never been taught how to cook either and, in comparison, it showed.
Sirius was at the table, waving a letter in his hand, trying to catch his breath. Fae raised an eyebrow inquiringly at him.
'We warned Harry his letters might get intercepted, remember?' he began. 'This one just arrived and he's practically written it in code. It's brilliant, look.' He held out the letter. 'This bit about my mother.'
Fae made no move to take it. 'Go on, give us a dramatic reading then,' she said with practiced ease.
'He goes, We've got a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Umbridge. She's nearly as nice as your mum.'
A piece of cutlery clattered into the sink and Remus turned around.
Fae gasped and said, 'Oh, that's clever.'
Sirius guffawed again loudly. 'How did he ever get so sassy? Was James ever this sassy?'
'That's not James,' Fae grinned. 'That's Lily.'
'The rest of the letter is a bit more concerning though-'
'Did he say...' Remus' voice sounded higher than usual. 'Umbridge?'
It wasn't until then that Fae made the link. Umbridge. The lady at the Ministery. The one who'd been at Remus' hearing, who had changed werewolf legislation with a flick of her wrist.
Sirius checked the letter again. 'Yeah, it says here.'
'And she's doing Defence Against the Dark Arts?'
Sirius' face fell as it dawned on him what that must mean to Remus. 'Yeah.'
Remus turned away from them, picked up a jar of olives, put it down again heavily and leaned on the counter.
'That's... just unfair, mate.'
Remus whirled around again. 'WHY DOES SHE GET TO TEACH?' he yelled, face and body contorted, fingers clawing at the air in the useless despair of powerlessness. He was a soft-spoken man, who took great care to keep his anger in check for fear of revealing the monster within. It had been many years since either Sirius or Fae had witnessed him lose his temper.
They fell silent. Moments passed in which only the crackling of the fire and what were presumably Kreacher's shuffling footsteps overhead could be heard.
In a constrained voice, Remus said, 'What is she teaching them?' An unwanted tear escaped and rolled down his lined face. He wiped it away impatiently. 'About, about - what is she teaching them?' Abandoning dinner, he abruptly stalked out of the kitchen.
Fae silently raised her wand to lower the fire so the jacket potatoes wouldn't burn to a crisp.
Sirius looked at her. 'It was inappropriate of me to laugh, wasn't it?'
'No,' Fae said with a sigh. 'Harry was fucking hilarious. You laughed for the right reason. And he got angry for the right reason.'
Downstairs, they heard a door slam.
'Wait, did he go to the panic room?'
'Must be really bad, then.'
Remus wouldn't set foot in the cellar unless he had to lock himself up on the night of the full moon. The rest of the time he would barely acknowledge its existence, could hardly bring himself to even look in its direction. He'd never gone in there on his own account before.
Fae bit her lip and sat down.
She and Sirius had been friends for so long, ever since they were eleven. They didn't need to speak to know that they both only just now were realising how much Remus must have loved teaching. That he had been good at it. That he missed it. That it had been taken from him by his childhood bully and been given to the woman who had legalised discrimination against his kind. That it was just about the worst thing they could have done to him.