"Oh, and Mister Remus? My name's Harry."
Remus Lupin had to stop and lean heavily against a store window just to eliminate the threat of collapse. It couldn't be true. He told himself that it couldn't be, but then again, he knew it was. He'd known it before the boy had even said his name, suspected before he'd even seen his eyes—it was all in the scent.
Almost twelve years previous, Sirius had once accused him of never being able to keep a secret. The memory was faded a bit, but he could still clearly see the man's annoyance, hear the scathing tone in his voice.
"Goddamn it, Remus, you can't keep a fucking secret, can you?! And now if Lily and James get divorced it'll be your fault, you know that?!"
He'd been tongue-tied at the moment, too aware of Lily crying in the next room to think of a response, but over the years he'd been able to formulate one: "James was the one cheating, Sirius. If he and Lily get divorced, it's his own fault."
But he hadn't said that, and Sirius had continued.
"You weren't even there! You and that fucking nose of yours!"
Yes, that nose of his. It was true that, because of his lycanthropy, he could hear things and smell things a normal person would be incapable of. And Sirius had been correct to assume that was how he'd been able to tell James was cheating on Lily.
It was also how he'd been able to tell Lily was cheating on James.
Men don't wear perfume, and the man she'd been with hadn't worn cologne, so his scent had been there, crystal clear, masked by nothing. For months during that time, his senses had been assaulted with leftover arousal and lust every time they were in the same room, and he'd known that he wasn't smelling James.
Sirius had said he couldn't keep a secret—but he could. He hadn't said a word to anyone, not even to Lily herself. If James could be unfaithful (with more than one woman, in fact), why couldn't Lily be unfaithful with another man? Because she was a woman? To say she couldn't would be a shameless double standard, and if it made her happy, who was he to speak up about it?
But then, abruptly, he stopped smelling the other man, and something much more horrible took its place. He'd only smelt it to such a degree once before, when Severus Snape had been fleeing for his life away from the Shrieking Shack—terror. He hadn't been able to understand it then. What did she have to be afraid of? Impending parenthood?
No, that couldn't have been the explanation. The emotion was too strong in her for something like that.
He'd still been wondering nine months later, when Harry was born. Everyone said he looked so much like James, but he didn't really. He had dark hair; that was where the resemblance began and where it ended.
And half of Wizarding Britain had that color hair. Apparently Lily's lover had, too.
Sirius had said he couldn't keep a secret, but on July 31, he'd been burdened with yet another one. He was the only person who'd been able to tell that Harry wasn't James' child, the baby's scent was too different from his and too close to the other man's.
And for awhile, Remus had thought that he'd solved the mystery, that that was why she'd been so afraid during her pregnancy and still was. Having a child that wasn't your husband's wouldn't do anyone's reputation any good, and God only knew how James himself would react.
But, even after her husband and everyone else conceivable had, without a doubt, assumed it was James', her feelings hadn't changed. In fact, it had just gotten worse. Remus got jumpy just being in the same room with her, the fear was so overwhelming.
By the time Harry was about a year old, he'd decided he could safely rule out discovery being the source of the fear, but he'd never gotten a chance to solve the mystery. Lily was dead only a month or so later.
He had to wonder why Lord Voldemort himself had singled her out. Why had he personally gone after someone who wasn't truly important in the scheme of things . . .?
"And there you are! I've been looking for you for an hour! I mean, I know that old bitch was more insulting than usual today, but I've tried all sorts of spells and even turpentine and all it did was make her more angry—Remus, hello?!"
Remus steadied himself and turned around, forcing a smile onto his face. If it looked fake, Sirius didn't seem to notice, or maybe attributed it to the time of month. Harry had been right; it was near the full moon and he was very tired, his whole body achy as the wolf began to claw its way closer to the surface. He tried his best to be cheerful during those days, but sometimes he just couldn't be.
"Hi, Sirius," he managed, puzzled as he saw that Sirius looked oddly agitated. "What's wrong?"
Sirius began to explain as he grabbed his arm and started them off in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron, quickly dodging shoppers and vendors and animals running underfoot.
"As I said, I've been looking for you for all of two hours—we've got to get back to Grimmauld Place. There's been an emergency Order meeting called. McGonagall was the one who told me, she seemed upset—" Someone bumped into him roughly from the side, cutting him off mid sentence, and he didn't hesitate to snap, "Excuse you!" The witch paused to glare at him but hurried on her way when he glared right back.
Remus frowned deeply. He hadn't heard the words 'emergency Order meeting' since the end of the War, when meetings had to be held whenever the need arose, as the Death Eaters' activity fluctuated and new information became available. Since the fighting came grinding to a halt ten years ago, they met only once a month, and even then, it had changed over the years from preparing for another war to becoming something of a social. Talk of spies and battles and strategy had slowly morphed into 'oh-hello-cousin-Andromeda' and 'how-are-the-children-Molly' and 'it's-nice-to-know-you-still-hate-me-Severus'.
But now . . . what did this mean?
"Did anyone say what it was about?" he asked, finally voicing his thoughts.
"No," Sirius replied shortly, pulling him through the Cauldron's entrance and leading him over to the fireplace, ignoring the bartender Tom, who asked if he wanted his usual. He picked up a handful of floo powder. "But, we're about to find out. Number twelve Grimmauld Place!"
Remus watched as Sirius disappeared into the flames and reluctantly followed him, a feeling of dread building in his chest. He came out in familiar surroundings, the house's library, and could already hear Walburga screaming obscenities at someone in the foyer.
"Son of a mudblooded whore! How dare you disgrace the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black with your disgusting, inferior presence?!"
Remus grimaced and slowly patted the ash off his clothes.
"Why, it's nice to see you, too, Walburga. You always were such a good student, too."
Dumbledore. Only he could take the insults so calmly.
"Blood traitors! Mudbloods! Polluting my family home! How dare—?!"
"Oh, shut up, you old hag!" Sirius, of course.
"Don't talk to me that way you filthy blood traitor! I wish I'd never whelped you, you little—"
Remus shook his head, cursing whoever it was who had commissioned that portrait. He'd never actually met Walburga Black in life, but if her portrait self still had the same personality, it was quite shocking that someone would still want her around after death.
Slipping off his sooty shoes, he slowly made his way to the dining room and took a seat at the table, trying to keep his thoughts focused on the meeting and not on that boy. Lily's son.
He couldn't deny it, no matter how he might've wanted to. The boy had the same scent, the same eyes, the same color hair; he was the right age . . . there was no question. But that led to the matter of how he survived. Had he not been there in the house that night? Voldemort wouldn't have killed the parents and left the child alive, it wasn't the sort of thing he would do, but even if he had, the baby never could've survived the fire. Someone would've had to have come along right after the Dark Lord had left and taken Harry away without waiting around for help, and the chances of that were less than slim.
So, Harry couldn't have been there at all. Unless . . .
Remus felt his blood freeze in his veins at the unbidden thought that came slithering into his mind, taking up an unwanted place in his head. It was just . . . unconceivable . . . impossible . . . disgusting . . .
"We're all here," said Dumbledore, smiling in his usual dotty way and looking carefully around the table. However, he almost immediately turned serious. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I've called this meeting."
There was a murmuring of agreement and nods all around, except from Remus, who couldn't help but think about a time eleven years ago, when they'd spent all of four months meticulously planning a devastating attack on Voldemort's forces, a surprise attack, a secret known only by the Order members, only for—
—"They knew!" Sirius shouted, holding a bloody rag to the ragged wound down the side of his scalp. It had been inflicted by a cutting curse, but he had fared well compared to some of the others laying on the hospital beds, their voices hoarse from the pained screaming and moaning, or the ones being carried away on stretchers with blankets over their heads.
"They were prepared for us!" he continued, eyes wild. "We've got a spy, we've got to have a spy in our ranks! How else could he have known?!"
And then Lily was there, leading him off to a cot and casting healing spells and stinking of the other man—
"Looking back on it," continued Dumbledore, rubbing his hands together and lacing his fingers, "I should've told you sooner. But . . . what's done is done."
Everyone was looking a bit more concerned than they had before, Arthur and Molly Weasley trading glances and Mad Eye Moody leaning forward slightly.
Dumbledore continued: "We have a situation, one that first presented itself at the beginning of the school year. It was completely unexpected, to say the least—I, for one, was shocked."
Remus had always assumed that Peter had been the one to tell the Death Eaters about their plans, but looking back on it, he realized that Peter hadn't attended very many Order meetings for those few months, because he'd been off on holiday with his parents for the first two and preoccupied with classes for the next. Remus couldn't even remember anymore what he'd been studying at university, but by the time he'd been free enough to be around consistently, Lily had already given birth, and he'd spent a lot of time staring at the baby, hadn't he, staring with an odd expression on his face and then looking at Lily calculatingly . . .
"It seems that Lord Voldemort has decided to make himself known again . . . but, I must admit, in a rather unusual fashion. Though . . . an oddly fitting one, I suppose, after such a long absence."
Now everyone was visibly becoming upset, nervous gestures betraying each. Remus vaguely noticed for the first time that Severus wasn't present, but he couldn't bring himself to wonder about it because he was too busy remembering that he'd never smelt the other man on Lily ever again after that disaster of a battle, that the fear had come in almost immediately and taken its place—
—and why did Voldemort single Lily out?
"It seems that Voldemort has a son."
The Dark Mark had been hanging in the sky that night, over the house. Harry's body had never been found, and the Potters' deaths hadn't changed anything in the War. The murders were pointless, yet Voldemort had carried them out himself; he hadn't even been content with just killing James, the one Dumbledore had claimed would've been the higher priority—he'd hunted down Lily and murdered her, she'd been found in front of the crib, her eyes wide open.
And Harry had never been found.
And now there was a boy with Lily's eyes and Harry's scent running around, and Lord Voldemort had a son.
"I'm very disturbed about this situation, as I see that all of you are, too."
There was a long stretch of shocked silence, during which even Walburga was deathly quiet.
"But—but . . . how could he even produce children? Dark magic like that would've made him sterile, wouldn't it? That's always been a problem in my family . . ." Sirius had been the first—and only—one to regain his voice, but it looked like Dumbledore had been anticipating the question.
"I'm quite sure the boy is biologically Voldemort's, they look quite a bit alike and, well . . ."
At some point he had withdrawn a short strand of black hair from a vial in his pocket and laid it out on the table in front of him. He pointed his wand at it.
"Parentis," he shouted, and then there was light and words were forming, names, at an agonizingly slow pace. Remus watched with morbid fascination and dread, his hands twisting nervously on his lap.
Father was spelled out, one letter after the other, then Voldemort's real name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, then next to it, by father, 'mother' formed, then a name, one letter at a time—
L
i
l
y
—and even though Remus wished the spell would just stop, it kept writing until an entire name was spelled out:
Lily Elizabeth Evans.
The room erupted into disbelieving shouts, a flurry of motion as people shot out of their seats, a piercing stream of insults as Walburga was jarred back to life, a wild flurry of denials and outrage pouring from the mouths of all present—
But Remus Lupin was not surprised.