Marauders - Always - Part One

CLXXIV: Storm

Storm's broad shoulders barely fit through the door to the small private quarters in the back of the church where Remus Lupin was living. Storm had to angle himself and duck his head to get through - and he seemed too big to be real once inside. Some might find it intimidating, having such a hulking werewolf before them, but Remus knew that it took more than physical stature to loom large in power.

"Tea?" Remus asked.

Storm shook his head, sitting in the chair that Remus indicated. Unlike many leaders, the chairs in Remus Lupin's sitting area were magically adjusted, so that regardless of who sat in them, the occupants were all of equal eye level once seated. Storm watched as Remus drew his wand and set a kettle to boiling before conjuring a tea cup on the small table beside the chair that he himself settled into.

Remus crossed one leg over the other, resting his right ankle on his left knee and studying Storm for a moment as the kettle roared in the hearth. "So. How are you, Storm?" he asked.

"Well," Storm answered shortly, his eyes following as the kettle lifted off from the hearth to meet a couple flying lumps of sugar, a spoon, and a ceramic cow filled with milk to assemble Remus's tea cup by magic. Remus paid no attention to it, and from the outside it seemed entirely effortless, astonishing Storm - just as Remus had intended for it to do.

"And to what do I owe your visit?" Remus asked, sipping carefully from the cup as the spoon laid itself down on the saucer.

"I volunteered to assist you on your trip to visit the Blackburn Pack Family," Storm reminded him. "And you'd asked to meet with the newly appointed leaders of the families. I figured that it would be best to do that sooner than later, as you certainly must intend to visit Blackburn before the full moon?"

Remus nodded slowly, then lowered his tea cup back onto the saucer at his side. "I see. That's very intuitive of you - excellent." Remus looked the boy over. "You said you're Carl's boy, yeah?"

Storm nodded.

"I remember your father quite well," Remus said, nodding, "He lived with Greyback's pack family in the Great North Woods when I first met him, ages ago. He'd been turned some time prior to that, during the 1970s, by Greyback himself, during the time when Druella Black lived with the werewolves there."

Storm nodded again. The interest in his eyes betrayed that he had few details compared to what Remus was sharing about his father. 

"Carl was a good man - and I can't say that about most of Greyback's pack leaders back then.... Carl was one of the first to join with me during the divergence," Remus explained. "He was by my side in the Battle at Blackburn against the Dark Lord of the Wizarding World, during the first revolts. He was the only one that I trusted to care for the packs in my absence during some weeks I spent away early on... Carl was a good, loyal man, with a heart of gold." Remus smiled, pausing, and then his smile melted away and he grew a serious expression. "Are you like your father, Storm?"

"I should like to believe that I am in many ways," Storm answered. He paused, too, looking Remus over. Storm leaned forward. "I know what you're really asking here, Remus," Storm said, straight-forward, "I know what you're really asking is about my fealty to you... to the pack."

Remus nodded, submitting to the truth of his motives.

Storm said, "My father spoke as highly of you as you just have of him. I remember sitting at his knee in awe of the latest story he had brought home to us about the great leader, the great Alpha of the new Pack. You were a hero in our house - and I remember playing at being you when I was young, pretending to be the big strong Alpha leader. I dreamed of growing up and pledging my loyalty to you and living out my days in servitude to a leader that we believed in and counted one of our own..."