Remus Lupin and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter 3: Bitter Pill

It had been impossible to meet Sirius Black and not think he was handsome. It hadn't even been so much an opinion as a fact of life that was just accepted across genders and orientations. The sky was blue, trains were loud, Sirius was good looking.

It had happened so much that whenever an adult would mention, 'my, what a handsome child!' in his presence, the boy would hunch himself up and pull the most horrific face possible. Which, of course had made James, Peter, and Remus shoving their fists against each other's mouths to keep their strangled wheezing in check while the offended party would stalk away in a huff. Remus knew the exact glint in his eye when he was about to pull something petty that none of them were fast enough to prevent, the wild flounce--as James had called it-- to his hair when he first emerged from his blanket den in the morning.

Sirius was not handsome now.

In the fleeting dark moments he allowed himself to slip down that nightmare-rabbithole, he had pictured, vaguely, the man he knew, sitting in prison. A darker, more twisted, malicious version, the one he had so obviously overlooked, but, essentially, who he had been. This--this was...almost unrecognizable. The hair was one thing, the jutting bones and ashen, waxen face but his eyes. Pale, luminous, burning. He had seen this man in utter despair, in a towering rage, in manic laughter and never had he seen these eyes. Never had he seen this man.

That feeling was back. The unnamable one Dumbledore had brought with him. Staring into this face he knew so well and yet was so utterly foreign that it was a demolition of his very memory brought that pulsing through his limbs, that tightening in his chest. Who ARE you, something within him hissed. He bore the gaze of those eyes, and that gaze bored into him. His brain seemed to be trying to factor this in, somewhere, to finish a calculation that had been missing a variable until now and before Remus could deflect, derail, it presented him with a vision.

Sirius, younger, darkly suave, his smile on his face but those eyes. Watching James and Lily. Watching baby Harry. Knowing. Smiling. Laughing as they took him away.

We trusted you; our hope, our love, our future, their--our--child, all those years, all those YEARS--

Blank-faced, he slammed his fist over the photo and the table teetered sideways and crashed to the ground, scattering pages of Prophet over the cobblestones. He couldn't seem to move. He merely sat there, a light tremor traveling up and down his body. He was quite devoid of any recognizable feeling. Something in him was howling. The Romanian witches had been startled into silence when the crack of the table had rung out and they peered at him curiously, map momentarily forgotten. After few seconds, chatter that had tapered off at the noise was resuming and the flow of time and humanity rushed like water back into the vacuum. No more puzzle pieces. No more Sirius. No more of this. Bolstered by the flow, he rose, righted his table, and tossed the paper back down onto it. Face down. He left.

He was leaving Gringotts after having checked his vault--which was as barren as his Muggle account, he did not, if anything, lack consistency--when he was stopped by a voice behind him,

"Ah, Professor Lupin, if I'm correct?"

The shock of being directly addressed in public hit first, the shock of the first time being called a Professor followed close behind, and, lastly, the recognition of who it was, stopped him cold on the white steps. You're going to be living in a castle full of people, that reproachful voice scolded as he tried to mentally right himself. You can't freeze up every time someone tries to interact with you.

He was older, slightly thicker, Lucius Malfoy was, but his silver-blond hair, not-so-subtle disdain, and obvious wealth were the same as when he had been an upperclassman at school. Something in him recoiled and raised its hackles at the fact Lucius was the first to call him Professor. It hated the oily feeling it left him with. Adult, you're an adult, chided one side. Hex the Death Eater, growled another that sounded suspiciously like...someone who was dead.

"Lucius... Malfoy, isn't it?" He asked innocently, as it dredging up the name with difficulty. Adult!

Lucius curled a chilly smile. Palpable hit. "Mm. So nice to see you, out and..." his glance took in Gringotts, the deflated coin sack he was holding, the state of his robes. "About." Hex!

"Yes, well. Preparations for school." Remus refused to stuff the bag into his pocket but couldn't help his fingers from squeezing deeper into the fabric.

"Ah yes, I had heard, as school governor, but you knew this already. So considerate of Dumbledore to think of you; you don't have past qualifications, I've seen, so he must think you have exemplary character." Another sweep of his eyes drove home the subtext 'because what else would be going for you?' "I do hope you're up for the task; the last few to take that job met rather, er, regrettable departures from duty."

"Well, if you'll forgive me," Remus smiled easily and tilted his head, said with his eyes 'and I know you will', "It wouldn't take too much to surpass a sham author and an ineffectual Death Eater."

Lucius' gloved grip tightened on the snake-head of his cane and he smiled. Remus' grip tightened further on his coin bag and he smiled. He made sure it was friendly.

"Yes, I suppose not. But what remarkable timing, it occurs to me." Lucius broke eye contact to brush something invisible from his cloak. Some excess contempt dribble down?

"Oh?" He couldn't unclench his teeth behind his lips. Here was the wind up.

"Well," he scoffed, "I should think it obvious. An old school friend escaped from prison; I recall how chummy you all were. Just peculiar that it is now that the Headmaster chooses to recruit you and not any previous year when hard times," another, deliberately slow scan of his eyes. "Might have been as pressing as they ever were. One might wonder at his thinking. Certainly not anything to do with Black and your history, I balk to think. Gryffindor being renowned for such things as loyalty, after all."

The drop of sudden, intense emotional vertigo combined with an already Change-churned gut almost persuaded him to throw up on Lucius then and there on the steps. Part of him was tempted. He pulled a bright smile from somewhere and pasted it on, leaning forward. "And Slytherin's being known for their power and cunning. Not everyone fulfills every aspect of their House; being held to such high standards, we must forgive each other our little failings." That he kept his tone light and sympathetic was a wonder to him as he caroled a farewell and briskly, blindly, took the rest of the stairs.

He must have knocked shoulders with at least 3 people, rushing as he was through the crowd without any plan. It hadn't even felt like a small victory; just the beginnings of some sort of ulcer, boiling in his stomach. He ended up in some Knockturn Alley backstreet, stomach trying to heave, but he had had no breakfast. His vertebrae felt as though they were literally crawling and he had to lean against the damp, mildewed wall to catch his breath. Control. CONTROL. The symptoms worsened with stress.

But his mind maelstrom refused to quiet. How could it? When Dumbledore was only hiring him to have control over his whereabouts because of Sirius?