Silver Bullets // Wolfstar AU

FLOWER MOON WAXES

INTERLUDE

Lisa had been bitten when she was nine, and had been carried into the cave that served as the cubs' rooms that month. Her hair had fallen about her like a halo, Remus had thought.

It wasn't until the next day that she woke, and when she did she thrashed where she lay, refusing to let anyone touch her. Remus watched from the doorway.

"How old are you?" he asked once the room was clear, everyone else gone down to eat.

She glared at him. "Wossit to you?"

He shrugged. "Jus' tryin' to be friendly."

A moment of contemplation, in which she sat up, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. "I'm nine. Nearly ten."

"So am I," he said. "Nine, I mean. My birthday's in March. Dunno which day though. So I'm not ten for a while yet."

"My birthday's in one month, is wot my mum says." She sniffed. "I'm older than you."

"No you're not."

"You jus' said so yerself! Your birthday's in March. Mine's in August."

He scoffed, but was internally pleased to have someone new to talk to.

And so it was.

.

.

May 27th 1979

THE OLDE SEADOG

"I'm ready to tell you some things now."

They'd looked at him-Moody with his mechanical eye whizzing up and down Remus's body, Dumbledore with his blue eyes fixed and sharper than ever. Sirius had stood behind Remus, still and quiet but so definitely there and Remus wasn't sure why he was so relieved at that.

"We'll talk over a drink, shall we?" Dumbledore had said after a moment of silence. "Why don't you come with me and we'll floo from the kitchen?"

The fire spat them out in a pub, well-kept but rather small, consisting of only five tables throughout the room. The woman at the bar nodded once to them and tilted her head towards a table in the corner, set a little apart from the others. "Mornin', Albus. What'll you be 'avin fer today?"

"Four butterbeers please, Madam Bigbury. And a bowl of chips. Extra ketchup."

"Sit yerselves down and I'll bring it over fer yeh."

Remus was sure West Country accents had never been so strong as Madam Bigbury's. She sounded-and looked-like the stereotypical gal to own a Cornish smuggling inn. It was just like Dumbledore to frequent place like this, he thought, looking around at the paintings of ships battered by storms that hung on every wall. An old anchor hung behind the bar, rusted and as wide as a man's armspan.

The pub, apart from them, was empty.

They sat, Remus perched awkwardly on the edge of his seat, ready to fly if need be. He'd been to pubs before, of course; Greyback like nothing more than a good pint, but Remus felt strangely vulnerable among the wizards, aware that he was still weak.