The Werewolf's Child

Privet Drive

The snow and ice were gone from the yard. The days were pale and bright, with high clouds in a pearly sky and a fresh sharp breeze from the west. Gavin and Amanda did lessons with Remus in the mornings then went out and ran and shouted on the dead yellow grass of the back garden, while Remus worked in the greenhouse, or started clearing away old weeds and brush in the beds outside.The plants in the greenhouse grew riotously in the strengthening sunshine. The snargaluffs were over three feet tall. The bluish hellebore plants were covered with tight buds, getting ready to burst forth.

Remus set lessons for Harry, Ron and Hermione as well, although they seemed distracted. They spent hours sequestered in the library, working on a plan they would not share with Remus and Sev.

Harry met with Reb Eleazer every other day. Often Ron and Hermione would accompany him, all three disguised in glamours of increasing creativity - teenage girls out for a bit of shopping, or grey haired American tourists, wearing white trainers, cameras swinging. They went out as dreadlocked Jamaican boys, or a Japanese family on holiday, with Harry as a tiny dark haired girl clinging to her mother's hand.

As his pregnancy progressed Remus found himself increasingly slow and heavy. His belly which had seemed so big before, was bigger. He took to napping in the afternoons, curled like a cat around the baby in a patch of southern sunshine on Amanda's bed.

One bright morning, the air was so warm and the sunshine so bright that Remus had been compelled to open the small glass windows at the top of the greenhouse, lest it overheat. He was hanging wash outside, pegging up sheets and towels in the fresh breeze. Amanda and Gavin were playing with an old soccer ball they had found in the dried weeds behind the greenhouse. Suddenly, an owl dropped from the sky. It landed on one of the clothesline poles and hooted. Remus took the parchment it held in its beak cautiously.

He recognized the old fashioned, spidery copperplate at once. It was Sev's handwriting. The message was short. My office. Tonight, 11 PM. Important. Bring H.'s cloak. Dress warmly.

********

Sev was seated at the small desk in his private study, grading papers and keeping nervous track of the time. He had been busy and he hadn't seen Remus in several days. There had been Death Eater meetings nearly every night. Voldemort was consolidating his forces. The Dark Lord was wound up, and his energy was intense. War was coming soon, Sev had no doubt. Sev himself had been sent up north to review preparations at the Werewolf camp. He'd had to parley with Fenrir Greyback, in a close, low ceilinged room lit by one stark overhead bulb and filled with the rank smell of old blood. He had been sent further north, to a grim barren camp in Scotland, closely guarded by dementors, where inferi were in production. He had sat in meeting after meeting, his secrets closely guarded, fortified by Kabbalistic spells. Bellatrix stared at him across the table, her eyes glittering. He knew she was watching him closely, waiting for him to make a mistake, patient as a spider.

Now he heard a distant clock start to chime, and glanced at the mantel clock above the fireplace anxiously. Just gone 11:00. The flames in the grate crackled, then turned green for a moment, and Remus entered the room.

Sev was up in an instant, catching Remus as he stumbled out of the fireplace and overbalanced. He helped him straighten, brushed the soot off his cloak. It was so good to have him near once again. Sev swept the hair off his forehead. It had grown longish, hanging in elf locks around his face. They both needed haircuts. Their mouths met, and Sev pulled Remus close, if only for a moment. He wanted him now, of course he did, but they hadn't time.

"Have the cloak?" he asked, a bit breathlessly, when they came up for air.

"Yes," replied Remus. "Where are we going?"