At the top of the hill that loomed over the picturesque Icelandic town, there stood a large church with a big red door and high, arched windows. The windows were stained glass, a myriad of colors, which when the sun shone through them painted everything inside in their colorful light.
It was mid-morning on 3 November and the sun was shining brilliantly through the windows. In one of the windows sat Remus Lupin, high up from the ground, back against the frame of the window, staring through one of the red panes at a rose-colored town far below, spreading away to the crystal bay, visible over the colorful rooftops. He hugged his knees. Balanced on top of his knees were several parchments, unrolled and pressed flat by his palms. He stared over the multitude of sheets filled with the tight scrawl of Albus Dumbledore's handwriting, and flurried through the pages, hopeful a forwarded letter might be tucked in between, but there was nothing, and Remus sighed, letting Dumbledore's pages slip to one side, staring away out the window.
He'd hoped that there would be maybe at least just one letter - just one - and his stomach and heart ached with worry. Was there none because Sirius had been captured? None because his husband was angry with him? Either option made Remus's heart beat faster and a wave of longing tore over him, a tremor in his resolve... How was he supposed to be strong when half his heart was screaming?
He had no choice, though.
The huge doors to the back of the sanctuary creaked loudly and Remus steeled himself, his fingers lacing together tighter and his foot jigging some of the anxiety out of him as he kept his eyes resolutely glued to the view of the bay.
Footsteps echoed through the high rafters, all the way to the front of the room, where Remus had made his perch. Spencer Stewart's voice carried up to him from below. "The meeting's ready to begin, Remus," he called. "They're all here. Well. Nearly all. Blackburn refused, as we expected, I'm afraid."
Remus sighed, scooping Dumbledore's letters in his fist, and he pushed himself up carefully, aware of the ledge. Below, Spencer stared up at him from beneath the shaggy mop of hair, the style of which he had never updates from the 70-80s rocker look he had always worn. He had a smattering of facial hair, but not much, and his frame was smaller than ever, his clothing hanging loose.
Every one of the werewolves Remus had seen had a shallow, underfed look to them - just as they had before, the first time he'd come to them. It was just another instance of history repeating itself, of the Ministry failing to do what it was supposed to do.
A flick of his wand and the stones of the sanctuary wall had formed a stair for Remus to climb down from the high window arch where he sat. He walked down carefully but with an authoritative air growing with each step, mustering courage and confidence that he didn't truly possess. He balled his one hand into a tight fist and shook his wand into the cane he used, leaning upon it as he stepped off the final brick and the wall returned to being nothing but a wall.
Spencer watched it with awe - he had never gotten over the wonder of magic, even in all the years that had passed. He looked at Remus with a certain amount of reverence - and he nodded, leading the way across the quiet sanctuary, Remus in tow. The main antechamber had been prepared as the meeting hall, and even from this side of the door, Remus could hear the quiet rumbling of tense small talk.
He stopped at the door and turned to Spencer. "All of them but the one came?"
"Yes," Spencer nodded.
Remus drew a deep breath. "And we kept Gerry and Verna separated?"
"By the length of the table, but that's never stopped them."
Remus nodded.
"There were a few changes of leadership since you left, also... Old Carl passed last year; a bloke called Storm's took his place," Spencer said. Something about his voice was wary and Remus paused while shrugging on his shabby suit jacket. He raised an eyebrow at Spencer, who hesitated, scratching behind his ear in a way that Remus remembered doing all his childhood until Lyall had finally broken him of the wolfish habit. He reached up and stilled Spencer's wrist mid-scratch and Spencer flushed, having not realized he was doing it, and paused.
"Storm?" Remus asked.
Spencer nodded. "Huge bloke, very strong-minded. Might want to keep your thumb on him, he has a lot of ideas of his own, kind of pushy. I don't think he'd mind taking an opportunity to fight you. He's not a wizard, though."
Remus released Spencer's arm and looked down to button his jacket. He wanted to run like hell. He wanted to go find Sirius. He wanted to say forget it and let Dumbledore find somebody else to care for once. Why was it always Remus caring? Why didn't anybody else?
"Be-because n-no-nobody else c-can, or - or d-d-does," Newt Scamander's voice echoed in Remus's mind and although they'd been spoken ages ago, the words rang no less true now.
He looked at Spencer. "Here we go."
Spencer nodded and he followed as Remus opened the door and stepped into the main hall. Silence fell over the room the moment the sanctuary door had opened, all heads turned toward him as Remus ducked around a statue, and walked quietly across the plinth, taking the two steps down and walking over to the head seat at the table where twelve people sat.
A varied bunch, to say the least, they were the representatives of each "family" in the pack. There were some who appeared more aggresive than others - a couple were older, feebler, nervous expressions on their faces and others were bulky and brutish. One was a woman, jostling a toddler on her knee as she sat at the table, watching as Remus approached. Some of the faced were new, but most were the same as they'd been the last time Remus had been to see them. He glanced around the table, taking a quick assessment of the werewolves assembled. He stood before his seat, not sitting, leaning against his cane, hands lying one atop of the other on the moonstone top. He drew a deep breath.
"First of all," Remus said, skipping pleasantries and lowering his voice a couple octaves to his usual register - a tone Sirius had once called his commanding voice, "I see new faces here I did not appoint. Who appointed you? Are you here due to an overthrow, a death...?" His eyes lingered on the man he easily identified as Storm.
Spencer was right. Storm was a bulky bloke, clearly quite obstinate, and clearly much more the type suited for a position like Remus's than Remus was. The man had Remus on edge the moment he looked upon him, and Remus's fist tightened around the top of his wand/cane.
Spencer hovered near Remus's right side, motioning for Remus to sit, and Remus waved him down. Spencer sat in the right hand seat and waited for further instruction.
"You," he barker at Storm. "Tell me your story."
Storm looked up. The man's dark complexion was warm but his eyes were cold as they met Remus's. "The old man died and I was chosen by the family," he murmured. He had a thick beard that was contoured to his face, and hair that hung to his shoulders, which were easily twice as broad as Remus's own shoulders. Remus wondered how impressive Storm must appear in his wolf form, considering how impressive he was in his human form.
"And when did Greyback bite you?" Remus asked.
"Was born in," Storm grinned.
Aha. Well. That complicated things, Remus thought, carefully keeping the reaction from his face. "And are you Old Carl's boy?" Remus asked.
"That's right," Storm replied.
Remus nodded slowly, then turned to the woman with the baby. "And you?"
"Me pack chose me," she said quietly, her voice tremulous compared to Storm's. "Our previous Omega was Tobias Vane, me 'usband. He's done been kill't."
"Murder or accident?" Remus asked as gently as he dared.
"Was a suicide, sir," the timid Mrs. Vane replied. "The family sent me 'ere for the last meetin' and the council agreed the leadership would stay with Tobias's family, appointin' me in 'is place."
Remus nodded, and finally looked to the last new face - a narrow, lanky man who reminded him more of a scarecrow or a librarian than a leader of a werewolf family.
"Our appointed Omega chose to step down to be registered," he said.
A loud groan went up 'round the table. "REGISTERED?" Gerry, a particularly cantankerous old man who led one of the families grumbled, "Whottt the hell isshe thinkin' going ter REGISTER???"
"Sense is what!" Verna, an equally old and cantankerous woman from another of the families barked back. She had always been of the mind that the registration process was necessary, but had been voted against a good many times in her attempts to say the pack ought to support registration. She wasn't a believer enough to leave the pack. But she was the most outspoken about thinking registration was a good idea on some levels, despite the negative points to having it done.
Gerry was the most outspoken against the process. "Hand over yeh neck to the Ministry, lay yeh head down on their gilloutine, Verna! Thoss what yeh suggestin'!" he grumbled. "He's more dead to me then Carl or Toby."
Remus cleared his throat as Verna growled and Gerry glared at her. "Alright come now, settle down," he murmured. "Godric - been away over six years, you lot haven't settled a thing in all that time?"
Gerry muttered, "Crazy old bat ain't talkin' sense."
Verna, ruffled, said something under her breath and Gerry stood up, "Whoss that yeh thinkin' of talkin' up o'er there?! Whoss that???!"
"SETTLE!" Remus barked sharply, and Gerry sank into his seat, grumbling. Remus shook his head, then addressing the three, said, "I'll require counsel with all three families to confirm the appointments; as Alpha I retain the rights to revoke or confirm the assignments as I see fit. You'll speak to Spencer to settle a time and place." The three nodded, though Storm scowled as he did so, and Remus settled into his seat at last. He tightened his grip on his cane, took a breath and used his free palm to channel his magic, closing his fist and releasing a tea cup onto the table.
Everyone at the table stared at the teacup in awe - even Storm. The woman jostling the baby paused her knee bouncing to stare at it, the idea of magic sinking in. Storm looked at Remus with curiosity and an inkling of respect, which had been the intended goal of the display of power. Remus calmly clicked his fingers over the cup once - twice - and two little cubes of sugar splashed in with a small waterfall of milk. The eyes at the table grew wider as he lifted a small spoon from the table, stirred the tea, and tapped the silver against the cup's edge before taking a sip of the steaming tea.
He looked up at them as though only just noticing their amazement.
"And now my second order of business," he murmured, as though nothing extraordinary had occurred at all, "There are rumors of a resurgence - a new arising - of enemies that we have seen before..." he paused, holding his cup. "I need to know if your families have been approached. I need to know what happened and what was offered?"
Storm leaned back in his seat at the table, a smug look on his face, and Remus didn't like the way his mouth curved.
"A bloke approached us," said one of the men - an older gentleman named Brixton. "He mentioned an opportunity, that's how he worded it, and offered to see to it we were better compensated for our troubles in the future - he didn't detail how, only that it'd be better than what the Ministry offers us. We didn't hear him out. He came 'round in August and I told him we wasn't interested, that the Ministry ain't hard to best, but that our current situation was good."
"Thanks Brixton," Remus said.
Storm leaned forward, "Why don't we see compensation from the pack, like what the Ministry offers, by the by?" he asked.
"We support one another in other ways," Remus answered, "Surely your family has benefitted once or twice when you've come short on your bills or at the grocery? Rather than offering little and one family ends up with abundance while another starves, we offer the need where it is."
Storm shrugged. "Seems a good leader would provide at least what the Ministry they're so against offers, dunnit?"
Remus looked 'round at Spencer. "How are our stores, Stewie? Our accounts?"
"Our stores are still quite well stocked," Spencer nodded, "And we recently received a very generous donation to use to support our pack families."
Remus looked at Storm. "Every family in the pack is taken care of. You have food on your table and a roof over your head? You have more than the Ministry offers. Period. I was recently inquiring about the registration process myself and I guarantee you --" he leveled a glance at Verna as she started to get excited, "-- the pack BY FAR exceeds what the Ministry's willing to do for you. If you have a need, bring it up to Stewie and he'll assist getting you taken care of."
"What if we have more than a need? What if we want more?" Storm argued. "Will this so-called enemy offer us more?"
"What was offered, Storm? Power?" Remus stood up, his hands shook as he gripped his cane. "Is it power that's impressed you? Magic perhaps? Because you want power and I can show you power. The power that brought Fenrir Greyback to his knees stands before you."
Storm stared at Remus, grinning hungrily. "Yeah?" he prodded. "Let's see it then, old man. Because to me, looks like you can barely stand at all!"