Retrouvailles

"Ages," she whispered. "Since I did Professor Snape's essay..."

That man—

"He'll be delighted," Remus said coolly. "He assigned that essay hoping someone would realize what my symptoms meant. Did you check the lunar chart and realize that I was always ill at the full moon? Or did you realize that the boggart changed into the full moon when it saw me?"

He saw Sirius's face crumple into an expression he didn't care to read just then.

"Both."

Remus forced a laugh, hoping it didn't sound as bitter and resentful as he thought it did.

"You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione."

Once he had told that to Lily. He meant it just as much now as he had then.

"I'm not," Hermione whispered. "If I'd been a bit cleverer, I'd have told everyone what you are!"

"But they already know," he said. "At least, the staff do."

"Dumbledore hired you when he knew you were a werewolf?" Ron gasped. "Is he mad?"

"Some of the staff thought so," said Lupin, recalling Severus's sneering. "He had to work very hard to convince certain teachers that I'm trustworthy—"

"And he was wrong!" Harry roared. "You've been helping him all the time!" He was pointing at Sirius, who suddenly crossed to the four-poster bed and sank into it, his face hidden in one shaking hand. The cat leapt up beside him and stepped onto his lap, purring. Ron edged away from both of them, dragging his leg.

Remus wondered how much of Sirius's actions were genuine and how much was his flare for dramatics.

"I have not been helping Sirius," said Remus. "If you'll give me a chance, I'll explain. Look—"

He tossed Harry, Hermione, and Ron's wands to their respective owners.

"There," he said, sticking his own wand back into his belt. Sirius gave the action a disdainful look. He had no room to talk about the proper ways to store a wand. He didn't even have a wand. "You're armed, we're not. Now will you listen?"

Harry hesitated. "If you haven't been helping him," he said with a furious glare at Sirius, "how did you know he was here?"

"The map," said Remus. "The Marauder's Map. I was in my office examining it—"

"You know how to work it?" Harry said suspiciously.

Remus hated that this was how Harry was finding out about James's troublemaker past.

"Of course I know how to work it," said Remus, waving his hand as if the detail was unimportant. It was anything but. "I helped write it. I'm Moony—that was my friends' nickname for me at school."

Harry should have grown up knowing this. He should have grown up calling him "Uncle Moony" like he had tried to do as a young child.

"You wrote—?"

"The important thing is, I was watching it carefully this evening, because I had an idea that you, Ron, and Hermione might try and sneak out of the castle to visit Hagrid before his hippogriff was executed. And I was right, wasn't I?"

Remus had started to pace up and down, looking at them. It was a habit he had gotten in his school years. Little patches of dust rose at his feet, leaving footprints similar to the ones on the Marauder's Map. Years ago the footprints in the dust of the Shrieking Shack had inspired new ideas. Now they were just cruel reminders of all that Remus had lost.