Chapter 1:

And Then There Was One

"Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day...
The last tie was broken. Man and the claims of man no longer bound him"
~ Jack London

Romania, Year Twelve

The old man emerged from the train station looking dazed, only stopping when a small battered black car, spewing thick exhaust, nearly ran him over. He wore knee pants and flowered suspenders, sporting knee-length socks above hiking boots. A brown cap perched on top of his snowy white hair; it cascaded down his back, matching the beard falling similarly across the front. He looked like a ragged entry in a yodeling contest for octogenarians. In his hands he held a knobbly walking staff and a large purple suitcase which seemed to be very light as he swung it out of the way of the careening Trabant.

Perhaps I am getting too old for this, he thought to himself. He blinked in the late-summer sunlight and looked around. Bucharest had changed since he had last visited. How many years ago? He couldn't even guess. Unfamiliar monuments rose up around him; they were incredibly ugly to his eye, featuring almost exclusively a short, stocky man with a shiny bald head, a neat pointed goatee, and a fatherly smile. Here a nose was broken off or there, a statue without a head. Why the Muggles did not seem to care about this, he could not fathom.

Many of the spires and castles he remembered had been replaced by gray buildings, featureless and identical, sprouting everywhere like dusty fungi.  The only splashes of color came from the flags, an odd mixture of colors -- orange, green, yellow -- flapping in the crisp breeze.  The old man had lived long enough to see many changes of Muggle banners, and it did not occur to him to wonder what conflicts and upheavals had led to the display of these particular ones.

The people hurrying by on the street seemed somehow gray and featureless, too, and they evaded his warm smile and attempts at eye contact with something that looked remarkably like fear.  The old man knew he looked foreign, with his unusual costume and his blue eyes, and he thought this must be the cause of the mistrust.  Certainly the Muggles hadn't guessed he was a wizard: although it seemed odd, more than odd, that he should be standing on a street in downtown Bucharest and not see a single other member of his kind.

Things had changed, he reflected.  When he was a boy -- so very many years ago -- most Muggles knew that witches and wizards existed, and had a respectful if inaccurate idea of their powers.  Now the Muggle world was the only world, expanding into the farthest reaches of Transylvania with motorized vehicles, squat gray buildings, electricity.  All in all a strange concept of progress, one which made these ancient streets unfamiliar to him.

He stopped a group of young people emerging from the train station, their momentary wariness dissipating when they heard his fluent Romanian. Their closed looks returned, however, as he inquired about landmarks that had ceased to exist long before they were born.  As they turned their backs on him and strode swiftly away, he thought of his own students, off enjoying their holidays. He had a responsibility to them and he wasn't getting anywhere standing in this gray square breathing Muggle pollution.

After wandering for nearly an hour, he found the quarter of the city he sought. The little wizard neighborhood looked just the same as he remembered, tiny stone houses crammed together like books on a shelf, barely the width of a door. Inside, he knew, things were more spacious.

He stopped at the yellow door with a brass number seven set above a swan-shaped doorknocker. Producing a wand from somewhere, he tapped lightly on the swan. For perhaps ten minutes nothing happened and the old wizard hummed softly to himself, seeming unconcerned. Then the door opened a crack, guarded by a youngish man whose dark, liquid eyes darted suspiciously over the old man on the doorstep.

"Is Marina at home?" inquired the old man softly.  "I wrote to her and told her I would come."

The younger man grunted and opened the door slightly wider, enough to admit the old man. His purple suitcase, although twice the size of the opening, squeezed through easily. Without another word, he led the way toward the back of the ground floor of the house, navigating through a maze of furniture that did indeed occupy more space than was obvious from the outside.

Pushing open a set of French doors, he ushered the old man into a back garden with roses climbing the high brick walls, winking red, pink, and violet in the dappled afternoon sunlight. An old woman, older-looking even than the visitor, sat in a chair with an emerald green blanket over her lap. She appeared to be dozing, her wrinkled face at peace. Hearing footsteps, she looked up with sparkling dark eyes and a broad smile rippling across her wizened cheeks.

"You've come, then, Albus."  She sighed and motioned for the young man to bring a second chair. "How delightful to see you after so long. And in such dress!"

"Marina, it is lovely to see you as well," he replied with good humor as he set down his staff and suitcase. Before sitting, he pointed to his knee pants and hose. "My tourist get-up, you know," he chuckled. "I'm trying to blend in with Muggles, but I don't think it worked." Everyone on the train had been wearing oversized boots and what Muggles called running suits, although they weren't suits and none of the passengers showed the least desire to run in them.

"Radu, please bring tea and then leave us," the old witch addressed the young man.

"Ah, Radu, is it?" Dumbledore beamed up at the younger man. "Minerva told me that I might meet you. She sends her regards and begged me to tell you that she will be sending an owl soon. I believe she has a question about something she'll be teaching next term."

The previously sullen Romanian broke into a smile. "Yes. I worked with her during a year I spent in England at your Department of International Magical Cooperation some time ago. She is a most accomplished witch. I will be pleased to hear from her."

Crisply nodding to both, Radu backed out of the garden and closed the French doors with a sweeping gesture. When he had gone, Marina said, "I don't suppose either of us wants to count how many years it has been since we last met, my old friend. What brings you to our little part of the world? Your letter was shockingly cryptic, even for you."

The old wizard settled into the chair, taking in the garden for several minutes before answering. He seemed to be engrossed in inspecting each rose individually. At last, he turned his attention back to the woman who regarded him with kind patience.

"I am looking for a teacher," he said simply.

"You are still teaching, then? I thought you must have given that up years ago, when You-Know-Who was defeated."

"Ah, but the children must still be educated," he said with a surprising edge to his voice, "lest they fail to recognize him when he comes again. Last year Voldemort did reappear -- in England, at Hogwarts."

She gasped and clutched the blanket with stiff, clawlike fingers.

"He was banished, although not defeated by any means," he replied quickly, responding to her distress. "I am much afraid he will be back, and sooner than we might expect. We have great need for someone who can competently teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. This past year we made a disastrous mistake and hired -- " he broke off and shook his head, then continued, "In any case, our students are dreadfully behind. Ateneul Bucuresti was one of the best schools for wizards in Europe, Marina. I have come hoping that you might know of someone competent -- no, skilled -- in this subject."

The old witch gazed at her friend thoughtfully, but shook her head sadly, "I have been retired for many years, Albus. So many wizards left when the Muggles began grinding our beautiful country into dust. Ateneul Bucuresti has been closed for thirty years. I used to take on an occasional student, but I've not done that for� let me see� ten years, at least. Now I live here with only my great-grandson, Radu. I would not know how to begin to advise you on this matter."

The younger man reappeared with a tray of tea things, teapot, cups, and a plate with cakes, which he set on a low table. The old pair was silent, each lost in thought, as he poured tea for them.

"Milk, but no sugar, if I remember correctly," murmured the witch and the old wizard nodded his head pleasantly. Teacups were handed out and Radu silently held out the plate of cakes to each. He set down the plate and made to withdraw, but the witch called out to him, stopping him at the door.

"Radu," she said abruptly, "are there still rumors of a wizard living in the mountains, near Rosu as I recall, a wizard who could drive out Dark Creatures?"

The younger man stepped softly toward his grandmother, standing before her and bowing slightly. "I have heard there is a wizard who has rid the Carpatii Merodionali of vampires."  He shivered as he spoke the word. "They say he is not afraid of werewolves or other creatures of Darkness�" He stopped and searched his memory, blinking and nodding to himself, as if to free information long since filed away, unused. "I have not heard of him in several years. My cousin Stefan says he was rescued from a rock demon in the mountains by this same wizard, but that was four years ago."

"Do you know the name of this wizard or where I might find him?" Albus asked immediately, his eyes brightening.

"His name was," Radu closed his eyes and tugged hard at memory, "Lupeni. That is the name he gave to my cousin, in any case. As to where he lives� Tales of this wizard come from many places in the mountains, but I believe that Stilpescu is the place to start. He told my cousin to look for him there, if he got in trouble again."

"Stilpescu is a small village near Mount Negoiu," the old witch said wistfully. "Quite isolated, but it used to be a lovely place, a place where Muggles and wizards lived together as they often did in the mountains of our country. How the village has fared during the last forty years -- for I am sure I have not been there since -- I cannot say."

"Well, it is a place to start," said the old wizard cheerfully. "Tomorrow I shall be off in search of this Lupeni, then."

_______________________

Late summer was always the busiest time, and the new moon made it even busier.  The Csernais came seeking a feverfew potion for their attack of ague.  Mrs. Antonescu would have her baby before next month, so she needed her lavender, St. John's Wort, and sumac today.  There were also routine chores: the rye was ready to harvest, the apples needed picking, and there was a Boggart in the granary.

Even with magic, it was too much for one old man.  Stretching his aching back, Laszlo Virag bade goodbye to the most recent of his visitors, and went inside his blue wooden home for some refreshment. Although a graduate of Ateneul Bucuresti, the only thing he'd ever really been good at was Herbology.  After graduation he'd lived in the city for thirty years, gardening from pots, preparing tinctures of dried herbs he'd bought at the chemist's or the farmers' market, but his dream had always been to afford a cottage nestled into the foothills of the Transylvanian mountains where he could provide his services to one of the few wizarding communities left in Romania.

This home had come to his attention in an unpromising fashion. As wizards deserted their traditional Eastern European cities because of Muggle wars and unrest, they were in turn driven from remote rural hideouts by magical creatures: Dark wizards, vampires, and werewolves had occupied Transylvania. The few who chose not to flee found their lives proscribed by cautions and don'ts. Children were not allowed to walk to school, or even fly broomsticks; they were taught at home under the watchful eye of their parents.  No one went out after sunset, certainly not when the moon was full.  The mountains, in particular, were regarded with horror, and the owner of this cottage and its small farm had fled to Bucharest to do Muggle labor rather than live in fear. His dream never far from his mind, Laszlo had bought the place for a pocketful of Knuts, but never imagined that he'd be able to move in.

Then came the stories that the castle was inhabited again. The castle was five miles from here -- but it was five miles straight up over jagged granite, two thousand feet higher in elevation than Laszlo's cozy little knoll between two menhir-shaped rocks.  Only four or five days a year did the mist clear from the peaks enough to give the herbologist a glimpse of the stone tower.  No one had known exactly who or what had decided to live there, or whether it boded ill or well for the villagers; there were rumors of vampires, of a love triangle in which not all the members were alive, of bloodsucking orgies and marauding werewolves.

But then, slowly, the rumors began to die out, as did the real events that terrorized the village of Stilpescu for so long.  Young girls were no longer found bloodless with puncture wounds in their necks. Waders were no longer strangled in streams, livestock driven to rampage by terrorizing spirits, or babies abducted from their cribs.  By the time Laszlo severed his ties with the city and came here to live his dream, it had been five years since anyone received a werewolf bite.

He moved in, fixed the place up, started crops.  With the aid of some of the local teenagers, who were bored with no wizarding school to attend, he built a chicken coop and a stable.  His magical garden soon contained every herb the sub-alpine climate would allow, and the villagers began to know and trust him.  All was peaceful for two years. On rare occasions, he had visitors from the castle: two men, hidden under cloaks and hats and speaking in monosyllables, buying magical plants but little food.

Then, one autumn evening, came the conflagration.  A magical battle that lasted two nights, beginning at the full harvest moon, its fires and shrieks seen and heard by every inhabitant of the village.  It ended with the castle in ruins, and all was silence for many months.

One day a man showed up at Laszlo's farm.  Leaning on a walking stick, smiling cheerfully, he said he needed some ingredients for potions -- oh, and some apples, too, if they were for sale.  He was bareheaded, making no attempt to disguise his face, but the herbologist had little trouble in recognizing him as one of the reclusive inhabitants of the castle.

Vampires didn't eat apples, or in fact much of anything else, so it was clear that the man was alive.  Was he the sole survivor of the clash?  Was it he who had been banishing  the Dark creatures that had plagued the Transylvanian mountains?  He was reluctant to tell, but clearly he was lonely and starving, and a wizard with such powers would be welcomed here.

It was also clear that the man was a foreigner.  His thick, slightly wavy hair was a light brown that would even be called blond in these parts. Although his Romanian was perfect, a skilled wizard could acquire any language in a month with a Polyglot Potion: and his speech was bookish and occasionally archaic, as if he had come to Romania as a Latin scholar rather than as a chattering schoolboy.  He knew no Hungarian, which was the language of the proud Transylvanian minority and of Laszlo's parents.

Perhaps he had something to hide, something from which he was running in his home country.  This was none of Laszlo's concern.  He gave him food and herbs in exchange for killing a school of kappas in the stream by his garden, and told him he should go into the village and make the most of his reputation. If nothing else, he could show the local wizards how to defend themselves; since Ateneul Bucuresti had closed for lack of students, it had become exceedingly rare to find a young person with any knowledge in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

The foreign wizard was hesitant, but he obviously didn't want to take advantage of Laszlo's kindness without repaying him.  So, once a month, on the new moon, he would pay the herbologist a visit, and wander into town to teach the children spells.  Whatever the villagers paid him, he gave to Laszlo, taking with him enough flour, sugar, and fruits and vegetables to sustain his solitary existence for the next four weeks.

Sometimes, stories from neighboring areas trickled third- and fourth-hand to Stilpescu, rumors that this wizard had come to rescue them from demons, vampires, and especially, from werewolves. Lazlo did not heed such gossip, but what he witnessed in their own village just last year convinced him that the castle-dweller was indeed a powerful foe of Dark magic.

He waited for the traveler now, pulling fresh loaves of bread from his stone oven (it was fueled by wood; yes, apart from Herbology, Laszlo was not much of a wizard).  The castle-dweller always arrived ravenous, preferring to walk rather than fly down the treacherous path from the mountain, and Laszlo could at least have fresh rye bread and butter available.

"Good afternoon," said a pleasant voice at the door.

It was him.  Dressed in the costume of the mountains, where the wizards' hats had narrow brims and earflaps to keep the fierce winds from whipping them away like kites, he was hot down here in the valley. He removed the hat and freed his long hair, held at his neck with a large and ornate gold clip, and hung his fleece-trimmed cloak on the edge of a chair before sitting down at the table with the herbologist.  They exchanged a few pleasantries, but all the while the hiker eyed the bread hungrily.

"Help yourself, eat," Laszlo urged.  "I've been having some trouble with a Boggart in the granary; scares the cats, spills the rye, you know the story.  Perhaps you could -- "

"Certainly.  Can it wait until after the lesson?  I promised to be in the village at two and seem to be running somewhat late."

"That works for me," said Laszlo, noticing that the foreigner paused to think for a second at this colloquialism.  "I will probably be tied up with requests for herbs all afternoon, anyway."  He didn't ask why the stranger never rode a broomstick, nor if there was any significance to his always appearing when the moon was new.

They spoke little, either because the guest was foreign or because he feared revealing something he mustn't.  After the simple meal, he picked up his hat and cloak and started down the winding dirt path into the little village.

Coming from the bare, cold mountain, the richness and warmth of the harvest season almost overwhelmed him.  He stopped to sniff flowers, to pick a wild apple, and even to stroke the face of an inquisitive sheep peering out at him from behind a rickety wooden fence.  The threatening mist in the hills, the hints of orange in the poplars, and the sharp roofs of the cottages all spoke of a climate where winter came early and hard, but this August afternoon was sultry.  There was a scent of thunder in the air that stung the nostrils and made cats nervous.

The village was mostly fields and trees, the few dwellings nestled into hollows so that only the red church spire proclaimed human habitation. The deep green of the pines was interrupted in spots by the silvery shimmer of aspen and birch, highlighted by the long rays of the afternoon sun filtering through the clouds.  On the outskirts of the village, tall weeds and toppled wooden gates bore witness to the fear that had kept people from straying too close to the wilderness, but further down, the groves and lawns were groomed and neat.  A wide creek ran through the side of town opposite the church; its burbling, the croaks of frogs, and the tinkle of bells on sheep were the only sounds that greeted the monster-hunter's ears until he drew near enough to the church to hear a group of laughing children.

There were nearly a dozen of them, from ones just old enough to read to burly adolescents, all eager for their lesson.

"Lupeni, guess what?" cried a little boy of eight or nine.

"What is it, Nicolae?" the wizard replied kindly.

"I saw a Hinkypunk!  In the swamp over there, when I was looking for frogs.  And then do you know what I did?"

The man smiled, mingling among the children who were just starting to emerge from the indoor prisons the Dark Arts had confined them to. With their second-hand wands, their home-grown potions, their lack of a schoolhouse, they would preserve magic in Transylvania for the next generation. "You did just as we practiced, didn't you, Nicolae?"

"I did!  And I got away, and I -- "  he stomped his little foot -- "squelched it!"

"Nicolae has learned his lessons well, Lupeni." A young woman emerged from a shadowed doorway of the church, whose basement served as a schoolroom for witches and wizards in the village. She smiled warmly at the man who nodded politely to her in return. "Now if I could only get him to study his letters with as much enthusiasm."

"Have you been listening to Madam Viteazul, Nicolae?" asked the man, ruffling the small boy's hair. "She is your teacher, you know. I just visit occasionally and distract you from your other lessons."

The boy flashed a grin and the man almost grinned in return. The woman began to herd the children toward the open door, falling into step with the man as she did. She looked up at him, her searching, dark eyes framed by blue-black hair, her pale cheeks and red lips striking in contrast. Her face held concern, and perhaps something more.

"We are so grateful to you, Lupeni," she said softly. "How would these children ever learn to protect themselves without the things you teach?"

"I do what I can," he replied curtly, not eager to continue the conversation.

"If you could perhaps come more often�"  She hesitated. They reached the door leading down to the basement, but did not go in. "There is room for you to stay in the village. Many people would welcome you into their homes."  Her cheeks colored as she spoke.  Her pallor was not an unhealthy one, nor was it unattractive; she was a woman of the mountains who rarely ventured into the weak sunlight.

He looked away from her down into the makeshift classroom, where the children were starting to sit on large rug in the center of the room. "I'm not -- " he began sharply, then checked himself. "I do what I can. Please don't ask more of me."

He left her at the doorway to walk down the stairs and into the classroom, threading a path through the chattering children.

"Lupeni," she called out as she followed him into the basement, "There was a man, a stranger, looking for you this morning. He said something about a job."

"Oh?" He seemed unconcerned. "Another one needing my services, I suppose. I can see him after the lesson."

Turning his attention to the children, the visitor draped his cloak over the back of a chair and felt for something in one of its fleece-lined pockets.  "We've done creatures of the fields and creatures of the water," he began thoughtfully.  "Would anyone like to guess what we haven't discussed?"

"The sea," cried out a little boy, though he had never seen the sea and probably never would.

"The sky," suggested a slightly larger girl doubtfully.

"Very good, Veronica."  The wizard was as warm with the children as he was reticent with adults.  Something of childlike eagerness and curiosity in him mingled with a quiet melancholy, suggesting that he had never truly been a child.  He found what he had been searching for in the pocket and knelt down before the assembled children, their eyes wide as he handed it to the class to examine: a rounded object, nearly a hemisphere, with jagged edges at its broken surface. It was a dull ivory in color and speckled with blue.  "Does anyone know what this is?"

"An eggshell," several children guessed at once.

"A baby bird came from it."

"A big baby bird... Is it a Dark bird, Lupeni?"

"I have never seen the bird to which this egg belongs," said the teacher solemnly, sitting back on his heels.  "Nor, I expect, have any of you, in this village. It is the egg of a Turul Bird."

"The Turul Bird appears at occasions of great happiness and celebration," a girl blurted out.

"Excellent, Zsuzsa... And then do you know what it does?"  They all shook their heads, listening intently.  "It bewitches those who see it," the teacher told them, "especially the happiest and most joyous among them.  They climb up on its head: and then the bird flies high in the air and the riders plunge to their deaths.  It isn't known whether victims of a Turul Bird are seized with despair at the moment of flight, or whether their intense happiness causes them to be unaware of the dangers of the jump."

He stood up without taking his eyes from the rapt expressions on the children's faces. "No one," he informed them in a quiet voice, "has survived to tell us."

"They jump up on purpose?" wondered Nicolae skeptically.  "Maybe the bird pushes them off!"

"All you have to do is not climb up on its head," Veronica suggested.

"Right again, Veronica... But it is, as I'm told, a difficult spell to resist.  The charm I am going to show you -- "  But the words died in his throat as a movement from the back of the room caused him to glance up. His gaze fixed on a pair of eyes, only the second pair of blue eyes he had seen in twelve years.

The old man who emerged from a shadowed corner had been watching him for a quarter of an hour.  No longer sporting the outlandish garb he had worn in Bucharest, he was now dressed in simple robes, his hiking boots gouged and dusty after many days of travel.

A flash of recognition passed between them, and both faces registered a mix of emotions long hidden but never faded.

Those clear blue eyes had been the last familiar look the castle-dweller had seen before he'd abandoned human society for good.  His first rush of feeling, surprising even to himself, was one of warmth and trust. The bearded old man, so full of energy despite his years, was expert at inspiring confidence.

Soon, however, other memories crowded in, and the children watched inquisitively as their teacher's face darkened with a mixture of rage, betrayal, and shame.  Why was the old man here?  In order to trick him again, to make him feel accepted when he was truly rejected and scorned, to convince him to live a life of lies?

"Professor Dumbledore," he croaked, unable to use his first name even so many years after his school days, and stepping back as the old man approached him for a closer look.  "What brings you here?"  He spoke Romanian.

"I am looking�" began Dumbledore, also in Romanian, taking in the other's wild hair, the robes torn almost to pieces by journeys over sharp rocks, and the look on his face proclaiming that past wrongs were not forgotten.  "Looking for someone skilled in Defense Against the Dark Arts.  I should have suspected that a wizard with a reputation like yours could be no other than our former best student."

"What is it that you need from me?" the teacher asked coldly, obviously pained by the reference to the past.

"I am looking for a teacher."  Dumbledore smiled.  He was seemingly unaffected by the suspicious looks from both his former student and Madam Viteazul.  "The best wizarding school in the world has been without lessons in the Dark Arts for two years."

Madam Viteazul appeared distressed at any suggestion that Stilpescu would lose Lupeni.  "We needed a teacher, too, and we found one," she told Dumbledore.  "Stilpescu would be lost without him.  If he hadn't killed that werewolf last year -- "  She shuddered.

It would be impossible to describe the expression that crossed the monster-hunter's face at this statement, but suffice to say it was not one of pride. He pushed past them, the children, the old man, the confused Madam Viteazul, and fled outside.

Dumbledore followed, his great age never an impediment to brisk or agile movements.  He stood beside the younger wizard, and addressed him in the native tongue he had not heard in almost four years. "It is good to see you again, Remus."

Remus Lupin did not reply, looking up instead at the towering granite mountains.  He was trying to banish all thoughts of another place, another time, but the very stones surrounding him called forth a memory of another landscape with jagged granite cliffs and a building of the same solid stone.

The last time he'd seen Albus Dumbledore�

_________________________

Britain, Year One

The stone courthouse perched on a windswept, treeless cliff in the Scottish Highlands, its gray blocks blending with the gray of the sky and its towering front doors facing the sea.

A gateway, as it were, to Azkaban.

The four Marauders had glimpsed it once, cracking jokes as they swooped down on their illegal dragon, trying to guess what crime would be serious enough to warrant a trial there.

It hadn't been used since 1942, when the defeated Dark wizard Grindelwald was sentenced to death by disembowelment. Perhaps Dumbledore had been there that time, too, as he was here now, but Remus didn't dare ask.

He followed his former Headmaster through the iron gates, both checking their wands with the guard goblins. The crowd was immense but quiet, the gravity of the situation affecting even the reporters from Witch's Weekly who were there, no doubt, only to take photos of Sirius at his most handsome for readers to sigh over.

Subdued whispers became a roar in the great hall of the courthouse, where the high, curved ceilings, so like a cathedral, echoed and amplified every sound. The floor was bare stone, the temperature five degrees cooler than comfortable, and the somber décor in the flickering candlelight gave the impression of an underground cavern.

The wooden doors that led from the main hall into the courtrooms themselves were of cedar, varnished to a deep violet. Purple, too, were the robes of the guards flanking the entry to the room where Sirius Black would be tried. Only direct witnesses to the crime itself, and the prisoner's closest friends and confidants, would be admitted to what the Daily Prophet called the trial of the century.

Clusters of showy, bell-shaped flowers -- also purple -- grew at the courtroom's entrance, appearing out of place with their lush cheeriness.

Remus gave Dumbledore a sharp look.

"Ah, yes," said the Headmaster apologetically, "the wolfsbane� It's customary, you know, to keep all Dark influence out of the courts; you'll see they have garlic, as well -- "

"I don't care about the garlic," Remus hissed through clenched teeth. "I am his best friend; am I not going to be allowed to testify?" He turned his head to look full into Dumbledore's eyes. So strange to see the Headmaster solemn, dressed in black, without the usual comic touches that made the great wizard so approachable.  "Or are you saying that my testimony counts for nothing?"

"Not at all, not at all," Dumbledore said gently, his gaze never wavering. "But certainly my testimony will include all of what we both know." His voice dropped from a whisper to the softest of murmurs, so there was no risk of any of the thronging, curious crowd catching onto the loaded words he would speak next. "I will, of course, have to tell them that Sirius was the Potters' Secret Keeper."

"Mistrust" and "Dumbledore" were two words that Remus could never have imagined stringing together, even in his mind, but he was devastated that no one seemed capable of entertaining the slightest doubt that Sirius was guilty.

It wasn't that he thought Sirius had to be innocent, far from it. But there were several details that didn't fit, ones everyone seemed to be choosing to ignore, even suppress, in order to bring the horrific situation to a clean close. Remus had a bad feeling, one he couldn't explain to Dumbledore -- an animal instinct, if you will -- but because he was an animal, no one was going to listen to him.

A bubbling rage welled inside him, like some noisome potion, as he turned his back on Dumbledore and the courtroom to shove his way with the rest of the crowd towards the observation chamber.

In contrast with the rest of the courthouse, the rectangular room where the trials were broadcast to the public was stark white marble, as aseptic as the Muggle emergency room where they had once taken Sirius after�

�But it wouldn't help to think about that. Remus focused on his anger to drive away the grief and the memories, watching as the scenes from the courthouse began to materialize on the enchanted marble wall. The image they were given was more than life-size, so it was easy to believe that the participants in the trial could see and hear them. Remus watched as Dumbledore entered the room, was scanned for hexes and Confundus charms, and was then ushered to his place near the front. Two other Hogwarts professors, McGonagall and Flitwick, were already there.

Would Sirius see that his best friend of nine years was absent, and think he had abandoned him?

Remus whirled on the others in the room -- some talking without bothering to hush their voices, one eating crisps, a pair of teenagers playing Gobstones on the marble floor. "A man is on trial for his life here," he said icily. "The least you can do is show a modicum of respect." He turned back to the scene, not expecting a response, or for anyone to listen to a shabby professor from a third-rate school whom no one recognized as the best friend of Sirius Black.

He never seriously considered searching for someone with the authority to remove the wolfsbane. Seven years of Professor Binns' lectures had taught him that without all of the precautions against Dark Arts in place, the outcome of the trial would be questioned: something no one wanted in an event of this magnitude. He should have expected it to be there, of course... he'd just unconsciously hoped that maybe Dumbledore --

Grow up, he snapped to himself.  You should have learned long ago that Albus isn't omnipotent, and you can't expect him to protect you all your life.

Besides, the two of them had spent the past two weeks trying to persuade faceless, bored bureaucrats to bend more minor rules, and to no avail.

They had asked for ten minutes alone with Sirius; then for ten minutes with Sirius and any men or beasts of the court's choosing, so long as they were not Dementors; and finally Remus had offered to settle for the ten minutes, with the Dementors, as long as he could bring a simple bar of chocolate to keep them from reducing Sirius to a babbling monologue of tears and self-recrimination.

Despite his carefully-worded arguments and appeal to legal precedent (what a kindly and trusting scholar he had become! It was nauseating), he was refused. And now he couldn't testify, to say the one thing that he knew for sure argued against Sirius' guilt: before they'd given him to the Dementors, Sirius had denied everything.

Remus Lupin knew, as no one else on earth knew, that Sirius never denied his crimes; Remus was also the only living soul who had experienced first-hand Sirius' fear of the Azkaban guards, and would swear on his life that no confession he made in their presence would have any meaning.

The one blessing of the trial was that, for a few brief hours, it kept Sirius away from the hooded soulless creatures. He was being led in now by a pair of trolls -- club-wielding and hairy, but positively cute next to Dementors.  Those nearest the defendant's bench, Dumbledore included, wrinkled their noses; fortunately the enchanted marble didn't transmit smells. Remus tried to read the expression on Sirius' face, but the prisoner's eyes were downcast.

A hodgepodge of disconnected memories whirled in his head as the trial began, and his rage mounted as the testimony progressed exactly as he had dreaded: no one brought up Sirius' protests of innocence. The trial of the century would take no more than two hours; it was an open-and-shut case.

All the times that Sirius had taken the blame, while Remus and James and Peter and Lily got off scot-free. The time they'd crashed a Muggle airplane and nearly killed the pilot. The time they'd disrupted the Quidditch World Cup by turning the Bludgers into ravens.

The dozens of nights they'd nearly been caught while transformed, Sirius always coming up with an imaginative scenario that implicated only himself.

Their first feeble attempts at the Patronus Charm, together in the old History of Magic classroom at Hogwarts. Sirius was good at the charm, as he was good at everything, but even the fake Dementors they conjured from shape-shifting spirits left him with a lingering horror. It had been the first time any of them had ever seen Sirius afraid.

And throughout all those school years, Sirius never wept. Not the death of his father, not his numerous unjust punishments, not threatened expulsion. None of these could call forth tears. But he had wept last week, blaming himself for Lily and James's deaths, and Remus wept, too, for now what he saw in the presence of Dementors were images of Sirius. Sirius, the boy who never stopped laughing, who when he met Remus swore to make him happy and did, was now empty of everything but sadness and guilt.

Remus realized just now that, complete as his self-recriminations had otherwise been, Sirius had never mentioned Peter. Something wasn't right. Something didn't fit.

He wasn't trying to reverse the sentence; he only wanted the truth. Why did everyone stand in his way? Was there someone, somewhere, who wanted to see Sirius blamed for the betrayal? Were there traitors higher up, paying off the court, the guards, that horrible judge with the empty eyes who could say "Life in Azkaban" the same way Remus said to his classes "Two rolls of parchment"?

Although the moon was waning crescent, when he heard the sentence Remus thought it was a good thing they hadn't let him in, because he would damn well have bitten the judge.

He got as close as possible to the marble for the last moments of the trial, wanting to see intelligence and sanity in his friend's face for the last time. When another spectator tried to push him out of the way, Remus snarled at him and used foul language.

"Pox on you, you soul-sucking son of a Dementor," he spat. "Sirius is my friend."

This made them all back off a little, and he continued to watch the marble. Sirius's face had always been so expressive: Remus could see the anger and dismay in it now, mixed with a dash of surprise and maybe just a hint of resignation.

No, not resignation. Not Sirius. Please.

He had to turn his back when the trolls stepped in to take him back to his cell for delivery to Azkaban, jostling and tugging him as if he were something�

�Less than human. An experience Remus knew about all too well, which made it so much more painful to see it happen to someone he admired.

Well, he hated humans now, and he wasn't going to pretend to be one any more.

Growling at the tactless observers with their gossip and their crisps, he pushed his way out of the room and ran through the still-empty hall and through the front doors. A light rain was falling, smelling of moss and wetlands, refreshing and pure after the filthy miasma of human society. He had to get out of here before there was a huge line at the gate of witches and wizards retrieving their wands, before Dumbledore showed up and made him tell the lie that the testimony had satisfied him, that he believed in the guilt of Sirius Black, that justice had been done.

He'd come all the way from his little school in Nowheresville on his broomstick (used to belong to James, don't think about it), but he didn't trust himself to fly right now; he could barely walk. Vision blurring with rain, tears, or both, he ran swiftly from the courthouse to a farm where he knew there was a portal to the Muggle world. He would catch a train, figure out what to do now that he was the only one left.

The Muggles on the way to the train station threw him hard, cold stares to match the rain: a weeping man in a peaked hat and long black robes, carrying a broom. He finally shrank his broomstick to the size of a quill and stuffed it, the hat, and the robes into his case. It was chilly in the cotton shirt and jeans he had on underneath, but clearly wizards were rare in these parts. He had to remind himself again that this courthouse had been used only three times in the past two centuries.

Just out of sight beyond the waves lay the fortress of Azkaban. With a shudder, he realized that the Muggles didn't even know that. Could they see the prison? He knew they couldn't see Dementors, although they could feel them. No one was immune from Dementors. His face grew bitter as he reflected that the local Muggles probably thought tears were as much a part of typical wizard costume as pointed hats and broomsticks.

He bought a ticket and was soon traveling south on a nearly empty train, a train from nowhere to nowhere, back to his third teaching job in as many years.

He was sick of all of that crap, too. Sick of having to lie, and hide, and sneak around, travel twenty miles to a shack in the country every full moon night rather than get to rest. And for what? For the privilege of teaching half-Squibs how to give themselves brain damage with Cheering Charms.

What did it matter whether he killed people every month or was the most reliable, even-tempered wizard around? The results were the same: hatred, lying, and scandal when they found out, and they always did.

His suffocating rage grew even further as he thought of his first two jobs, and now of this one. They had never had a Hogwarts graduate teach at Pufflepod Academy, and the Headmaster was quite willing to acknowledge that yes, Professor Lupin's work required him to travel a lot, and so the staff could expect periodic absences�

It was hard to decide whether it would be worse if they were lying to themselves, or if they were genuinely too stupid to figure it out.

And being so far out in the middle of nowhere had kept him from seeing Lily and James often enough to know how serious the threats to their lives had been.

Smart, loyal Lily� Brave, kind James� and poor, mousy little Peter, Peter who --

Why hadn't Sirius thought of Peter? There were so many gaps in this horrible story, this overnight tragedy that had destroyed the eternal friendship of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, leaving�

�Just Moony. Moony, the werewolf. Well, dammit, if he was a werewolf maybe he'd be a real one for a change.

His hatred and fury grew rather than ebbed with the train ride, so when he finally arrived at the academy on foot, the ramshackle stone buildings offended his every sense. It was long past dark, the students were asleep, but Remus wasn't waiting another minute.

Dashing up the stairs to his room, he packed hastily, stuffing his meager clothing -- barely more than his teaching robes and traveling cloak -- into a suitcase. His furious motion stilled for a moment at the sight of the briefcase sitting up top of the wardrobe, still almost new. Where would he find a use for it in this backwater? He could teach off the top of his head all that his poor students could absorb. No need to carry volumes of material in a useless case.

Professor R.J. Lupin proclaimed the shiny gold letters on its edge. I won't be needing this again, he thought bitterly, and turned toward the door.

He stopped as he saw in his mind's eye the station, King's Cross, where he stood nervously waiting to board the train for his first job. Sirius, laughing and joking beside him on the platform, suddenly grew quiet and oddly nervous. "I -- we -- uhm - thought that you should have something�." Hastily, he shoved an ill-wrapped package into Remus' surprised hands. "Better get going, Moony, you'll miss your train."

Only later, on that long, frigid ride to the first in a series of small towns and even smaller schools, did he turn the shiny leather case over in his hands and run his fingers over his gilded name. From Sirius?

He would take it, he resolved. How much of Sirius was he destined to lose? What would remain?

He left, slamming the door and caring little whom he woke. Then he went to see the Headmaster, pounding rudely on his door and pushing it open without being invited.

"What is it?" inquired Professor Bumblesnore. He was trying to balance an eel on his nose.

"I'm resigning," Remus snapped.

Bumblesnore dropped the eel and sat up straight, stammering a bit. "You, Lupin, resigning? And may I ask why? You never -- "

Remus got control of his temper, though he couldn't stop a wry smile from tugging the corner of his mouth. "Well, you see, it's like this -- I'm a werewolf. And I feel an urge to move to Romania and eat people right now." Tossing a piece of parchment -- his resignation letter -- on the desk, Remus stormed out of the office and took off into the air.

Childish, perhaps. It was something Sirius would do.

But now he had to be Sirius for both of them.

_____________

A/N:  Usual disclaimer: any people, places, things from the Harry Potter series are the property of J. K. Rowling and her publishers.

This piece was written before Goblet of Fire was published. We now know that Sirius Black did *not* have a trial before being sent to Azkaban. However, we so enjoyed writing the trial scene here, that we hope you will forgive us...

Please tell us what you think, and watch the chronology carefully because it might get complicated!  Is it obvious who we are?

{Corrected version posted 10 July 2001}