Disclaimer: Thanks to J.K. Rowling for allowing me to take her characters for a lengthy stroll through my imagination.
Four
Rude Awakening
“Hello, is anyone home?”
Dobby bent over the grate, gazing at the wavering face in the green flames before recognition set in. “Oh, Mistress Hermione!” he yelped in alarm. “Dobby did not expect anyone to call today!”
“I understand, Dobby. Is Remus or Tonks about by any chance?” Hermione inquired, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible.
With a barely discernable pop the house-elf Disapparated, returning moments later with Remus in tow.
“What a pleasant surprise, Hermione,” Remus offered with a wide grin as he allowed Dobby to magically whisk the worst of the mud from his gardening boots. “How’s motherhood?”
“Just fine at the moment, but that’s not really why--”
“Harry and Ginny won’t be back from their honeymoon for another week,” Remus supplied.
“Yes, I know,” Hermione stammered, not sure where to begin. “I think that’s precisely why the story ran today. Without Ginny to edit it before it was broadcast on the wireless.”
Knowing that Hermione could not leave her infant to travel, Remus made an instant decision. “Dobby, please tell Tonks I’ve gone to Hermione’s briefly. She can contact me there when she returns with the children if she likes.”
Without waiting for a reply, Remus threw a generous handful of Floo Powder into the fireplace and announced, “The Ronald Weasley residence,” as he stepped resolutely into the leaping emerald flames.
A small furrow of worry creased Remus’ brow as he unfolded his limbs from the hearth in Hermione’s kitchen. He found her seated at the table surrounded by baby paraphernalia, the empty basinet at her feet as she cuddled her four-month old daughter on her shoulder.
“You don’t mind?” he posed, nodding toward the sink.
“Make yourself at home,” Hermione urged. “Forgive me, but doesn’t Dobby generally do the gardening?”
Remus looked up from working the soap bubbles underneath his fingernails. “I was preparing a surprise for Tonks. Getting some new flowerbeds ready in our private patio. Today seemed the perfect opportunity since she’s taken the children to her parents’.”
“Not too many days before the winter frost will make the dirt impossible to work,” Hermione concurred. “I’m afraid my flowerboxes will go unplanted this year.”
A smile broke through Remus concerned expression as he took the adjacent chair and laid a gentle hand on the baby’s back. “How’s young Eleanor today? Already surveying her new kingdom?”
“She has the entire household at her beck and call,” Hermione agreed, gazing up at him with obvious maternal pride. Pulling her thoughts to the matter at hand, she added, “Forgive me for interrupting your plans, but I couldn’t get away in person today.”
“Not at all,” Remus returned. “I take it you’re not just in need of a baby-sitter, though.”
“Did you not hear the latest story on the WWN?” Hermione urged. At Remus’ blank look, she flicked her wand in the direction of the wireless to start it with a sharp click.
The modulated tones of the announcer blared forth, “… eve of her retirement, long time Ministry employee, Dolores Umbridge, felt it was her duty to speak out. To unmask the half-truths and fabrications that have been force-fed to the wizarding public for the past decade. Allegations that will rock the very foundation of everything we hold to be true.”
“I just couldn’t stay quiet any longer,” Umbridge simpered in an ingratiating tone which immediately raised Remus’ hackles. “It’s unfair that we have been presented with a series of tall tales by those in power to legitimize their leadership. Have you stopped to think that we have only the words of those parties involved for what really happened? Where are the unbiased observers?” she posed rhetorically.
“Forgive me for not having thought to bring along the remainder of the Hogwarts student body when we confronted Voldemort’s forces in Godric’s Hollow,” Remus muttered angrily as he caught her import.
“I doubt that a series of senseless killings would have strengthened our case,” Hermione returned in an attempt to mollify. “Besides, she would just claim we had poisoned the minds of everyone at the school.”
“Surely she can’t be as vile as that!”
“Just you listen to the reports, Remus. She’s obviously been planning this for a long time. Long enough to come up with a way to twist everything.”
With the house unnaturally still around them, they listened in disgust as Umbridge presented her own contorted view of reality. Even events which had been witnessed by many fell victim to her diabolical revisions. While she could not deny the wizard’s battle which had culminated in the Ministry’s own atrium just as workers were arriving for their morning shift, who was to say that the other wizard was Voldemort?
“His face was certainly more grotesque than many remembered from years past. After all, there’s no denying the events of the previous wizarding war,” Dolores insisted.
Catching Hermione’s eye, Remus harrumphed, “Surely that lying toad wasn’t going to imply James and Lily killed themselves, was she?”
“Do you mean to suggest it was a staged performance?” the awed reporter’s voice issued from the wireless.
“Doesn’t the timing strike you as extremely fortuitous?” Umbridge returned, barely managing to sugarcoat her cunning tone. “Curtain time to coincide with the weekday morning rush hour.”
“But he was clearly a wizard,” the interviewer backpedaled.
“Of course, but he was also an accomplished actor,” Umbridge asserted shamelessly.
“I find it hard to believe that a wizard of Dumbledore’s standing would be complicit in such a charade.”
“Nor do I believe so, either,” Umbridge concurred with the sweetness of a viper. “He may not have realized he was facing a clever imposter. After all, doing away with Dumbledore was part of the overall plan, wasn’t it?”
There was an audible gasp from the reporter. “But that’s monstrous! Who…?”
“If I had that answer I would have come forward long ago, my dear,” Umbridge crooned.
“If she had that answer, she could have parlayed her distortions into a best selling political thriller,” Remus scoffed through narrowed eyes. What would the Dowager make of Dolores’ diatribe? Remus pondered. Dare he attempt to contact her via Sera and try to make amends?
Their attention was riveted on the wireless once more as Umbridge continued in saccharine tones, “Did anyone else even see Dumbledore’s alleged murder atop the spires of Hogwarts?”
“We have the testimony of Harry Pot--” the reporter began only to be cut across.
“Why he’s their chief charlatan, dear. Don’t you see?” Umbridge elaborated as if she were instructing a small, recalcitrant child. “No one even saw him atop the Tower, just an extra broomstick he claims to have used. The other poor lad, Draco Malfoy, is dead; the Carrows imprisoned in Azkaban for war crimes, and as for Severus Snape… Well, that man is a walking antidote to Veritaserum itself!”
Hermione turned questioning eyes towards the unwitting bark of laughter that escaped from Remus. “Forgive me, Hermione,” he begged, “but Severus would take her words as a glowing testimonial to his Occlumency skills.”
“True,” Hermione allowed as a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “If only we could count on the rest of the world laughing in the face of such malarkey!”
But the commentator’s closing statement belied Hermione’s optimism. “The question we must ask ourselves is this: does Dolores Umbridge’s retirement from the Ministry mark the end of an era that never was?”
“Has the Daily Prophet picked up the story?” Remus prompted as grim scenarios replayed themselves in his mind.
“Not today, but I expect to see it tomorrow.”
“What does Ron have to say?” Remus inquired as he recalled that Ron’s temper often ran as hot as his fiery red hair.
“He left early this morning before the story broke. Time to do the quarterly inventory at the Joke Shops and he does have such a good time helping Fred and George. Brings out the schoolboy who refuses to grow up in all of them, I suppose. Ron does entirely too much paper shuffling at the Magical Games Department during the week, to hear him tell it. I assured him Eleanor and I would be all right for a few hours.”
“What’s the word from the Department for Regulation and Control?”
“I don’t know,” Hermione cried. “I’ve been on maternity leave and no one mentioned anything when they came to see the baby.”
“I suspect that has a lot to do with the timing also,” Remus responded through pursed lips. “Contact them on Monday to see what their position is.”
“I’m not scheduled to return for another fortnight,” Hermione bemoaned. “But perhaps I should rethink that. Eleanor would be fine with Molly during the day; she adjusted to a regular timetable almost immediately --”
“Don’t overturn your life just yet,” Remus counseled. “It’s just the word of one overzealous fanatic at the moment. Surely the media must see there’s nothing to substantiate her allegations.”
“I think Ginny would have stopped the story from airing without any hard evidence,” Hermione pointed out thoughtfully.
“Which explains their timing,” Remus concurred.
But the stories which ran in the Sunday edition of the Prophet were even more sensationalized with direct quotes from Cornelius Fudge himself. Looking more humble than ever, he appeared in the moving photos worrying his signature bowler hat in his hands as he spoke of the small group of concerned citizens who had arrived on his doorstep one afternoon.
“I told them I was quite through with public office. Had my fill of it, to tell you the truth,” Fudge maintained in print while his eyes shone with ambition in the photos. “Mistakes were made by the previous administration and I was willing to step down. The people are entitled to have a leader they feel they can trust…”
He’d left his words hanging in a most unsettling way, Remus decided. Fudge wasn’t ready to substantiate the lies spewed by that Umbridge cow “ not yet anyway. But he clearly didn’t repudiate the stories as rubbish, either. Dumbledore had been so right to claim that man’s ego outshone his intelligence and reason every time.
Fudge spoke on the wireless not long after the newspaper story, the interviewer posing the questions which had smoldered in Remus’ mind since he’d read the Prophet’s article over breakfast that morning.
“Do you think you were deposed so others could impose their more drastic plans?”
“Now I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories,” Fudge equivocated. “But the current administration did rise to power on the basis of the threat which was hanging over the wizarding world.”
“A threat they may have manufactured for that very reason,” the gullible reporter finished for him.
Remus barely restrained himself from chunking a shoe at the wireless to silence Fudge’s whiney voice as the former Minister continued, “Obviously, Ms. Umbridge’s allegations are very serious indeed and will bear thorough investi--”
Luckily, Tonks read Remus’ glower correctly and simply turned it off with a quick wand motion.
“It does no good to get upset, sweetheart,” she reminded him. “Fudge has always been as malleable as his name implies.”
“And that…witch…has vitriol in her soul,” Remus sputtered. “She was clearly collaborating with the Death Eaters during the war.”
“The war she claims was a fabrication. Unfortunately, the most damning bit of evidence was contained in the Horcrux which Harry, Ron and Hermione destroyed.”
“Surely, there’s got to be something else among all the Ministry documents!”
“Nothing that’s come to light, but the gaping holes speak for themselves, don’t they? Her over-zealousness got her shuffled enough among Departments to make her job performance questionable, but I don’t think we can actually prove our case against her anymore than she can prove hers. Don’t you think the Auror Department would have brought her to trial for war crimes just as they did others? The Wizengamot is not as easily swayed as it used to be, you know. Give Scrimgeour credit for that, at least.”
“But if the corruption goes as far as Scrimgeour himself “ which is what that harridan is suggesting “ then everything is suspect.”
“It’s all lies, Remus. Sour grapes from someone whose own career has hit a brick wall.”
“I know that, and you know that, and everyone else who was involved directly in the war effort knows that; but that still leaves a tremendous chunk of the wizarding world out there which may fall for her lies.”
“Without any evidence?” Tonks decried. “That’s insane!”
“That’s a crowd mentality, unfortunately,” Remus asserted grimly. “They’ll believe in the most heinous things simply because they’re afraid deep down that they might just turn out to be true. A leap of bad faith, as it were.”
“It’s nothing more than a bit of whinging on a slow news day,” Tonks affirmed with a determined set to her jaw. “It will all be a bad memory when something else catches the public’s fancy.”
Despite Tonks’ protestations, the story was still slowly simmering when Harry and Ginny returned from their honeymoon.
“She wasn’t scheduled to retire until early spring,” Ginny protested. “It was already penciled in on the station’s calendar.”
“Apparently, she moved it up,” Remus pronounced unnecessarily.
“It would have been too much of a temptation to not take advantage of both Hermione and Ginny being out of the picture temporarily,” Tonks concurred.
“But no one outside of our circle knew about the wedding,” Harry cried. “Did we end up with some gate-crashers after all?”
“No, nothing as clever as that,” Remus assured him.
Luna’s idea of casting a Fidelius Charm with Remus and Tonks as Secret-Keepers had allowed them to control just who received the hand-lettered wedding invitations. Hagrid double-checked Patronuses at the gate to make sure no one had passed their invitations on to a Polyjuiced poseur, as Ginny put it. Any gate-crashers would not have known the date of the event nor been able to even see the lanes leading to the grounds.
“You did have an announcement run in the Prophet a few weeks after, though,” Tonks pointed out.
“Mum insisted,” Ginny supplied. “Besides, it was a done deal by then. They weren’t likely to try to track us down on our honeymoon.”
“If they could have ever come up with the location,” Harry added with a sly wink.
“I was hoping you could ease yourselves into married life without such a cloud hanging over your heads,” Remus volunteered.
“Reality always makes other plans,” Harry noted stoically. “Besides this cloud hangs over all of us: every member of the Order as well as much of Scrimgeour’s administration.”
“It’s not that I haven’t thought Scrimgeour is somewhat mired in the past,” Tonks acknowledged. “But he doesn’t deserve to be tarred with Umbridge’s trumped up story, either.”
“She’s depicted him as a total lunatic, completely mental,” Ginny complained. “Wouldn’t the rest of us have had to be barking to go along with that?”
“Not when you take account how the Death Eaters allowed themselves to be swayed by Voldemort’s senseless rhetoric,” Harry remarked. “Let’s not forget she was one of them.”
“Too bad she didn’t have the Dark Mark tattooed on her inner arm like the rest of them,” Ginny commented. “Would have made identifying her that much easier.”
“True, but Voldemort would have been a total imbecile to mark his moles so blatantly,” Remus opined. “I’ve seen numerous photos of her in short-sleeved frocks at the height of summer.”
“I bet she had a mark where no one thought to look,” Ginny supplied with a sharp slap to her right flank. “Is probably sitting on it even as we speak.”
“No one would want to look there!” Harry exclaimed with look of revulsion.
“So much the better,” Ginny asserted.
“And Aurors can’t go around strip-searching suspects, not without hard evidence,” Tonks explained. “We never found enough to officially add her to their list of suspects even though it was common knowledge she was Voldemort’s stooge.”
“Or was she?” Remus considered much to everyone’s shock. “She’s beginning to come across as more of a political opportunist, if you ask me.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Harry prompted as he drew up a chair. No one was as good at dissecting a problem as Remus; that’s why he had been unanimously selected to head up the Order after Dumbledore’s untimely demise.
“First she manages to keep her job after Fudge is forced to resign,” Remus began.
“So did Percy,” Ginny reminded him. “He went from being Fudge’s personal assistant to attending to Scrimgeour’s needs.”
“Kingsley had a lot to do with singing Percy’s praises,” Tonks volunteered. “Don’t forget he had an ulterior motive, too.”
“And no one was about to rave about Umbridge,” Remus took up the threads once more. “Fudge is deposed, Voldemort’s coup unmasked, and Dolores gets shuffled a bit from one job to another “ but she retains her posting with the Ministry.”
“You think she’s gunning to bring someone else down, don’t you?” Harry surmised.
“And aggrandizing herself in the process,” Remus maintained.
“Who’s the target?” Tonks urged, not sure that she was ready for Remus’ answer.
“Either Scrimgeour or Kingsley would be my guess,” he supplied to horrified gasps.
“But Kingsley’s a hero!” Ginny protested.
“Not according to Umbridge,” Harry announced. “It’s all a figment of his overactive imagination.”
“And Scrimgeour legitimized the fabricated tale of Voldemort’s defeat by awarding everyone present at the final battle with Orders of Merlin,” Tonks provided.
Despite the message he’d received to retrieve his children early today, the scene that greeted Remus at Shell Cottage was nothing out of the ordinary. Fleur welcomed him with kisses to both cheeks, a custom that had long since stopped making him feel self-conscious. The glow of the setting sun painted the interior of the large playroom in shades of bronze and coral as he took in his surroundings.
“Will Harry be home?” Phoebe’s cobalt eyes searched her father’s face as she climbed into his arms in greeting.
“Yes, Rabbit. He and Ginny returned from their honeymoon two days ago. You do remember what a honeymoon is?”
Phoebe nodded her blonde head and mumbled, “Wedding trip,” more to convince herself than for her father’s benefit.
Fleur caught Remus’ eye over the child’s shoulder. “I theenk zey ‘ave both been missing ‘arry very much,” she offered with a knowing look.
“That’s to be expected; he’s been a fixture in their lives,” Remus allowed. “Did anything unusual happen today?”
Fleur shrugged dismissively in a typically Gallic fashion. “Teddy and Victoire got eento an ‘eated argument. Zey ‘ad to seet een opposite corners of ze salon to cool down while zey drank zair juice.”
“Nothing serious, I trust?” Remus posed with concern as Phoebe played happily with the ends of his tie.
“ ‘Tis ze stuff of children, nothing more,” Fleur maintained as she waved towards the two combatants who were hunched companionably over a large book with pictures of swiftly moving animals. “Can I eenterest you een some tea, Remus? A chat wiz an adult would be quite nice.”
“Tired of English?” Remus posed sympathetically.
“Not so much. Just a child’s vocabulary.”
“Ah,” Remus commiserated as he switched into French himself. “It’s been much the same for me. Small words for those who are still finding their land legs on your native shore.”
Fleur laughed easily, a musical sound that made Phoebe smile in unison. “Always so poetic. Are you perhaps thinking to convince them to expand your teaching duties?”
“Promise me you won’t breathe a word of it to Minerva. She’s a veritable gorgon when it comes to delegating. I barely escaped with my skin intact today!”
“Then perhaps a bit of cognac? Bill tells me he still prefers the harshness of Firewhiskey.” She shuddered at the very thought.
Drawing his battered pocket watch from his trousers, Remus made a quick note of the hour. “Just a small one then. I don’t want the children to miss seeing Harry and Ginny this evening. The newlyweds are dining with Molly and Arthur at the Burrow tonight.” He stretched his long limbs languidly on the chintz sofa as Phoebe scampered down to rejoin the other children.
“Of course,” Fleur chattered amicably. “Bill and I are supposed to join them “ if he doesn’t get back too late from the bank. He’s prone to lose track of the time since they assigned him this special project.”
“Wasn’t it a promotion of sorts?”
“Yes, which is why I don’t feel I should pester him by Floo.”
“What are you drinking?” Teddy tugged on Remus’ sleeve insistently.
“It’s about time you noticed your wayward father,” Remus intoned with mock severity. “Have you outgrown hugs already?”
Nonplussed, Teddy climbed onto the seat cushion to throw his arms eagerly around his father’s shoulders. In the process, he brought his nose to the rim of the snifter Remus cradled in his palm. One exploratory whiff was enough for him to recoil in disgust.
“Smells like battery acid!” Teddy remarked with a grimace as the adults broke into laughter.
“And just how much do you know about such Muggle trappings?” Remus challenged.
“Grandpère Arthur took me out to his shed and showed me the metal dragon that eats grass. He says it only drinks battery acid and petrol.”
“ ‘e didn’t actually start ze zing, did ‘e?” Fleur asked with some alarm.
“Naw,” Teddy maintained with his customary stoic expression. “He said this dragon was very old and needed its rest.”
“I theenk Arthur will recruit young Teddy in ‘is own mania before you can teech ‘im to ‘ave a deescriminating palate, no?” Fleur confided to Remus as they said their goodbyes.
Once home, the children insisted Harry keep them company at the table while they consumed an early supper. Ginny finished dressing in time to join them for pudding and they regaled her with requests for more tales of her recent travels with Harry.
“Let’s just wait until we get the photos back,” she insisted. “You two will wear me out before I have to tell the same stories all over again to my other family tonight!”
It was only after Harry and Ginny had extricated themselves to Floo to the Burrow that Remus was able to steal a few minutes alone with Teddy. He waited patiently while Phoebe said her goodnights and Tonks led her into the other wing.
Remus patted the cushion beside him on the long leather sofa facing the great stone hearth. Teddy didn’t need to be told twice as he curled up in the protective curve of his father’s arm.
“Did you and Victoire argue today?” Remus posed conversationally. “Be honest with me, Teddy.”
Looking up at him with great solemn eyes, Teddy replied, “It wasn’t a fight, Dad. It’s what you always call an intell…an intelligent discussion, that’s it!”
“You mean an intellectual debate?” Remus barely managed to conceal his smile.
“That’s it!”
“So you had a difference of opinion. What about?”
“Me…us…our name.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Remus admitted.
“You know how Victoire hates to lose an argument…” Teddy began.
Remus suspected Victoire’s mother was much the same, but wisely kept that to himself.
“…and she always knows everything about everything,” Teddy finished with the voice of authority.
“A veritable encyclopedia of chatter, she is.”
Teddy giggled at his father’s wry description. “Yeah, but I have enough sense not to say so to her face.”
“Wise boy,” Remus acknowledged with a smirk. ”So what was the point of your bickering? Besides to get to the truth of the matter as in all manner of learned debate.”
“She was convinced that Lupin is a French name.”
“It is. My father’s family came from Rouen, but that was many generations ago. And your grandmother’s family has roots in Ireland as well.”
“So Victorie tells me that’s why Phoebe likes rabbits so much.”
Uncertain where the conversation was heading, Remus supplied, “Lots of little girls like bunny rabbits. They’re soft and cuddly -- and don’t snarl at her. Surely you recall from when we went to the zoo.”
“Victoire says it’s because of our name,” Teddy insisted. “Lapin is rabbit in French.”
Remus did his best to keep his voice as neutral as possible. “Yes, it is. But Victoire’s been playing her rhyming game again. Lupin is a totally different word.” Dear Merlin, how was he ever going to explain the irony of the name to a five-year-old boy? Perhaps that was a subject for a later discussion, he decided inwardly.
“I told her that, “Teddy insisted. “Said we were named for flowers. Just like her mother was.”
“I take it that didn’t satisfy Victoire.”
“She wanted me to show her one in her Grandma Molly’s garden.”
“Molly only plants vegetables,” Remus volunteered.
“I told her that, too. Which didn’t seem to make her very happy at all. She argued that we’d just have to ask Ginny since she was the one who always coaxed the pretty flowers to grow on the fence.”
“The trellises, yes. But there’s mostly wild rose vines at the Burrow. You won’t find any lupines there. Lupines are meadow flowers, spreading as far as the eye can see during the spring. It’s also the wrong time of year, Spook.”
“Oh.” Teddy’s face fell at his fatal error. “I didn’t think of that. What month was it when we went to France?”
Remus took a moment to consider. “It was over the Easter hols; sometime in April, I would say. You remember that? You were only three at the time!”
“I remember the steep meadow behind the old church,” Teddy supplied. “And how Rabbit was trying so hard to crawl up on her hands and knees and not getting anywhere.”
Remus had no difficulty picturing the scene. Teddy had run off among the overgrown grounds of the ancient cathedral while Tonks was intent on finding at least one weathered tombstone engraved with the Lupin name -- although neither of them had any idea of the proper century. Phoebe had been unusually fussy all day, no longer content to ride in her mum’s rucksack-style baby carrier. Not that she much preferred the view from the higher angle of her father’s arms, either. Phoebe was determined to run after her brother as her outstretched arms seemed to indicate, although she was still a few months away from walking unaided.
“Look, cherub, let’s just give it up for the day,” Remus capitulated.
“Don’t you want to know for sure?” Tonks protested. “We can’t very well ask if anyone remembers the Lupins; it’s been too many generations. Besides, it’s not such a strain bending over the stones without having to balance a squirming infant on my back.”
He was about to mention the siren song of their hotel’s shady terrace and a tall glass of pastis when he heard Teddy’s joyful whoop of laughter coming from much too far away. They both set off at a trot towards the wild meadow sloping down to the church cemetery.
It didn’t take them long to spy Teddy. Standing atop a large granite boulder at the top of the hill, he brandished a discarded stick as a king waves his scepter over the vast expanse of his demesne. Remus hesitated at the base of the hill. It was a lot steeper than it had looked from a distance, shot through with tumbled rocks among the riotous display of wildflowers.
“There’ll be no coaxing him down, you know,” Tonks warned. “Let me know if you get tired and I’ll carry Phoebe the rest of the way.”
So with a resigned sigh, Remus had stepped onto the canvas of an Impressionist painting, the late afternoon sun transforming the knee-high grasses into tendrils of pure gold. As the slanting light revealed the tiniest threads of their interior structure, the vibrant red, pink and purple flowers seemed to be constructed of nothing more than tissue paper. Phoebe reached out with her chubby fingers to grab some of the passing jewels only to find she could not reach. Noting that her efforts might cause Remus to lose his balance, Tonks handed her daughter a small bouquet of tapered blossoms in lemon yellow, lavender, and bright fuchsia.
“Do you remember the flowers that Phoebe tickled your face with that day?” Remus posed to the young lad at his side. “When you stood with the world at your feet?”
Teddy turned serious eyes to his father’s laughing ones. “They were long and thin, like a paintbrush covered in tiny flowers.”
Remus smiled at the memory, surprised that Teddy remembered the events of that day so clearly. “Those were lupine blossoms. The shape is like that of an animal’s tail, a wolf’s tail to be exact. Lupin also means wolf-like.”
“So we’re named for animals just like the Weasleys.”
Sagging with relief inside, Remus confirmed, “Yes, like the Weasleys. Fox and Byrd are other common surnames. And in France, chevalier is a noble horseman just as it’s used as a family name today.”
“But why wolf?” Teddy pressed.
“I’m not sure I follow,” Remus remarked in order to give himself time to think.
“Why wolf? If cheval…”
“Chevalier.”
“Right. Those people were involved with horses in olden times, right?”
“Probably either as horse breeders or perhaps even members of the royal guard. It’s impossible to say. The names are often ancient in origin.”
“Dad, what did our family have to do with wolves? Didn’t you tell us that the hungry man-eating wolves in fairy tales didn’t exist anymore?”
“Yes, they were wiped out by farmers protecting their livestock throughout Europe.”
“Then we’re named for something that doesn’t exist anymore?” Teddy’s curiosity seemed to know no bounds.
“Certainly in that incarnation.” Remus fought the sensation that he was quickly drowning.
“But…” Teddy urged with that unerring sixth sense of children everywhere.
With a deep breath, Remus stammered, “Teddy, you know that your father… that I suffer from a disease, something I contracted when I was not much older than you are now… something for which there is no cure.”
Much to Remus’ relief, Teddy shrugged as if it were the most common pronouncement. “Sure, that’s why Mum’s always giving you that foul-smelling potion. She explained that to me once when I asked her why she was punishing you.”
Remus laughed awkwardly despite the trepidation hammering in his chest. “Well, it’s not exactly the sort of illness that’s contagious so you don’t have to worry about being in the same room with me or anything.”
“I would never think that, Dad. Is that what makes you so sad sometimes? Do other people say ugly things to you?”
Surprised at his son’s intuitiveness, Remus could only reply, “Those who are ignorant do.”
Teddy nodded his head in commiseration. “Mum said there would be those who thought less of me because I could change my hair color and they couldn’t. Envy, she called it.”
“People often fear what they do not understand. Those who are different from them, for instance.”
“I still don’t get what this has to do with wolves!” Teddy persisted.
Recognizing that his son’s relentlessness was but an echo of his own, Remus explained, “If I were not taking my medication, the disease would cause me to turn into a wolf on the night of the full moon.”
“But you turn into a giant turtle and Harry into a zebra when we play games.”
“That’s something we learned to do at will. The disease is different; it changes you whether you resist it or not. And afterwards all you remember is the pain of your bones and muscles stretching as you transform, but you have no memory of what transpired during the hours in which you were in an altered state.” Despite his best efforts, Remus’ voice nearly gave out before he reached the end. “That’s what’s most frightening of all, Teddy; you can’t remember what you’ve done!”
“But the medication helps?”
“Yes, it does,” Remus admitted with a shaky smile. “It allows me to lead a more normal life. But not everyone who suffers from this disease is lucky enough to have access to medication. They have to go to designated cells when the moon is full so they are kept safe from one another.”
There was only concern in Teddy’s expression as he asked, “These poor people are caged up like animals?”
Not being able to deny his son the truth, Remus replied through ashen lips, “Some of them are forced into this because the government controls the source of the medication and it can be very expensive.”
“Can’t they have someone brew it for them like Mum does?”
“Not everyone has your mother’s skill. The Potions Master at Hogwarts recently perfected a much more effective variation to the basic formula. It’s not yet available to the general public.”
“Does Victoire know all this?”
Remus hesitated, suddenly lost as to how to proceed. “I’m not sure,” he conceded. “I know her mother does. But it’s a little too personal to discuss with anyone outside of our immediate family, don’t you think?”
Teddy nodded gravely.
“Even your little sister,” Remus cautioned. “Any questions you have should be directed to me or to your mother. No exceptions.”
“Do we know anyone else who suffers from the wolf sickness?”
Had he asked so many questions of his parents when he’d been a child? Remus considered inwardly. With a sigh to acknowledge that he had likely been even worse, he responded, “Yes, but I will tell you only if you promise not to breathe a word to anyone.” He waited for Teddy to nod his head. “Serenity’s mum also suffers from this disease.”
“Does Serenity know?”
“I’m sure she’s old enough for her mother to have confided in her. But, Spook, that doesn’t mean she’s willing to discuss this with you. It’s still a very personal issue.”
“I’ll remember, Dad,” he promised with a tight hug that had Remus trying to swallow the lump in his throat.
As bedtime beckoned, Teddy turned towards Remus at the entrance to his room. “Is that why Mum’s Patronus is shaped like a wolf, too?”
“She told you about that?”
“Yes, but it’s a secret, too.” Teddy flashed him a conspiratorial smile. “I just didn’t think it was a secret between you and me.”
“It isn’t, son. I don’t ever want you to think you have to hide things from your mum and me.”
“What about Harry?”
“Not Harry, either. But I don’t think he’ll be comfortable discussing these matters with you, not until you’re older anyway.”
“I promise I won’t put Harry on the spot then.”
“As for your mother’s Patronus, it was one of the things that convinced me she was ready to become a member of this family.”
“Is that why you married her?” Teddy asked as he struggled with his pajama top.
Remus straightened the hem as he pulled the fabric down over his son’s ribcage. With a small smile of contentment, he added, “That and the fact that I loved her very much.”
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