Chapter 13:

Life Rolls On

The Half Moon

Half bitterness we know, we know half sweetness;
This world is all on wax, on wane:
When shall completeness round time's incompleteness,
Fulfilling joy, fulfilling pain?-
Lo, while we ask, life rolls on in fleetness
To finished loss or finished gain

~ Christina Rossetti

Romania, Year Twelve

"For the love of Selene, I wish you'd just admit to yourself -- "

"You'll have to watch that swearing, Bela, when you're around students," Remus cut in sleepily. They had been over the same ground many, many times. What Bela lacked in logic, he made up for in vigor. He had the ability to keep Remus arguing with him long past a sensible hour.

Which was why they found themselves still sitting in the great hall, with dregs of tea in their cups, but with little resolution of the issues dividing them. Blearily, Remus took note of the color of the sky and realized that they had talked themselves right into dawn.

He was spared the need to attempt a rebuttal to his son by the entrance of Albus Dumbledore, looking like a pleased spider who has caught not one, but two flies in his web. The old wizard was dressed for traveling in simple brown robes and a dark green cloak, not like the more resplendent robes he would be wearing to the Great Feast at Hogwarts in little more than a week. A large purple suitcase attended the headmaster, floating behind him like a pet parrot.

"You two are up early," Dumbledore beamed. "Is there perhaps a bit of tea left?"

Remus rose heavily and mumbled, "I'll make some more, Headmaster."

He seemed to be moving in slow motion this morning, as he located another mug and dumped the cold leaves out of the empty tea pot. Maybe the lack of sleep caused this sensation, or maybe the reluctance to bid goodbye to Dumbledore.

"I do need your answer, Remus," the headmaster reminded him simply.

Remus, his back to both of them, dumped new tea leaves into the pot and caused water to boil in the kettle. When the tea pot had been filled once more, he turned around to contemplate the sight of the placid old wizard, standing expectantly with hands folded in front of him, and his son, seated at the table and running his fingers wearily through his shoulder-length hair.

Bela glanced swiftly up at Remus and then turned to Dumbledore. "Of course he'll take the job, Professor!" the young man laughed with an edge of sadistic triumph in his voice, having beaten his father to the punch.

"I must -- " Remus stopped himself as he set the teapot on the table with a heavy clunk. He did not need to apologize for Bela's behavior any more. He must make his own way in the world, as the night-long discussion had made abundantly clear.

"Yes," he began anew, "I would be pleased to accept the position."

While Dumbledore surely must have suspected the answer he would give (days ago, in all probability), the old wizard nonetheless clapped his hands together once and broke into a delighted smile, his legendary blue eyes twinkling merrily.

"Although," Remus continued seriously while looking down at Bela's smirking face, "I cannot imagine how I shall teach classes without this one to speak for me."

He flashed a momentary grin at Bela, who muttered "mad dog" and laughed out loud, a bit too loudly perhaps, but both of them were punchy from lack of sleep. Sharing a joke with his son felt good, particularly after some of the harsh words they had exchanged during the course of their all-night discussion.

Last night, after clearing and washing the dishes from roast chicken stuffed with garlic, Dumbledore had taken himself off to bed. Bela, however, showed no signs of tiring. In fact, he went on the attack as soon as he was alone with Remus, pacing in front of the hearth while his father stacked clean dishes on the table.

"You're not going back, are you? I always knew you were crazy, but ...."

"I am considering it," Remus mused in a more serious tone. "I'm not certain any more what I'm -- I don't know if I have much more to teach you here."

"That's for sure," snorted the young man derisively, "you've already made sure that I've been chased by just about every monster or demon that ever existed."

Ignoring the taunts (which would lead down a too familiar path to a full-blown battle), Remus continued, "And working with Radu will give you a chance to become a great wizard, as well as to help bring magical education back to the country."

"Sounds pretty noble, all right, assuming he's going to accept a werewolf for an apprentice. Yeah, and assuming the students of this school will want a werewolf for a teacher." He stopped his pacing and leered at Remus, challenging him to respond.

What could he say? His son voiced some of his own fears for which he didn't have a clear answer. He pulled out a chair and sat at the table, absently tracing the pattern of the oak grain with a finger.

"And what about your students?" Bela jeered. "Term starts in a week, you say?  Well, you could start off with a bang -- `Class, I'd like you to meet me on the edge of the forest at sunset.'"

"Kindly don't be horrid," said Remus, who had been thinking the same thing.  Fortunately, September first would fall on the evening after the full moon; Bela didn't know this, as werewolves rarely needed calendars, and the "first of the month" meant that one special day.

"How do you teach Defense Against the Dark Arts without mentioning us?"Bela wanted to know, bluntly putting forth the issue they had been skirting.

He enjoyed his role as Remus' conscience, but by then the English wizard had experienced about as much guilt as he was capable of.  "You pick a textbook where we're the very back chapter, and conveniently don't get around to it," he said, with a very Sirius-like laugh.

Bela wasn't amused. "Did that stuff -- that purple smoky stuff you drank that time -- really make you think like a human while you were transformed?"

Remus had to think about this.  It had been four years since his first and only experience with the Wolfsbane Potion, and it was hard to say that his thoughts had been fully human, fed as they were by the wolf's senses.  "I didn't want to bite anyone, at least," he said, recalling his surprise at that fact.

"OK, then," Bela suggested.  "Meet your class by the forest and show them you're harmless.  Teach them that they can defend themselves against us without killing us."

The thought both horrified and pleased Remus.  The former, because he knew he wouldn't dare, that it was easier to lie because he knew he could.  But it pleased him that, on some level, Bela was even more idealistic than he was.  "I might someday have the courage to do as you suggest," he said quietly.

"But instead you're going to let them be ignorant?  Why not tell them we have pointy ears and turn into vampires, while you're at it?"

I shouldn't have brought The Dark Arts: Faces of Evil to the cottage, Remus thought, but it has such a good chapter on Hydrae.  "No, I won't do that," he declared.  "I did enough of that as a student."  This time they both laughed.  "Honestly, though, Bela -- it's of little importance to learn about werewolves in Britain.  Most of my students will never meet one -- "  He was about to correct himself, to add "transformed," for instance, but Bela's snort of derisive laughter interrupted him.

"I knew it!" the young man cried triumphantly.  "You don't think you're one of us, do you, mad dog?  You think you're -- just another human except for that one night."  He shook his head in disbelief.

"You are wrong," said Remus quietly, his obvious emotion making the Romanian stop chortling and listen.  "My friends -- my dead friends -- accepted not only my human side, but learned to understand what that night means to us.  They took part in adventures that were as remarkable as any of our pack's.  It is they who made me believe understanding is possible, and it is in their name that I will go back and continue their fight."

Shaking his head, reluctant to go delve further into those memories, Remus rose and murmured something about making a pot of tea. As he carefully spooned out tea (uncharacteristically, since he usually dumped it into the pot straight from the tin), he said firmly, "If I can help prevent the return of Voldemort, and your generation suffering the same fate as mine....well, I'm willing to live a lie because some things are more important."

Remus turned, holding the tea pot which now steamed with boiling water, to see Bela regarding him suspiciously, only half-believing him. Remus sat down again at the table, staring up at the Romanian through tendrils of steam rising from the teapot.

"I'm not suggesting that you do as I have done," he said slowly after several minutes' pause. "In many ways you are better than I am -- a better wolf, certainly."

Bela looked away.  "You know, as soon as you're gone, Pack Five will go back to biting people.  Mum is still... loyal to you, that's the only reason she hasn't asked me to perforate the wards."

This was something Remus had been trying not to think about.  "And will you do it?" he asked, in a neutral tone.

"I don't know."  Bela glanced at him, knowing that was not a satisfactory response.  "Not around Stilpescu, I suppose, since it wouldn't do to devour my students."  The last words were spoken with dripping sarcasm.  "But towards the west... We need to bite people.  You know that!  I'm the second youngest in the pack, and I'm old!"

Part of Bela's difficulty in planning the future, Remus reflected, was that he came from a culture where no one expected to live past thirty.  Remus, now thirty-six, was a year older than Vlad had been when he had finally been killed -- the oldest werewolf in the Alps, who still thought of himself as the irresponsible teenage Marauder.  Not nearly wise enough to be the guardian of a young adult, and certainly not to sit at the head table at Hogwarts with Dumbledore and McGonagall, or stop students prowling the grounds and Forbidden Forest by night.  "We don't need to, you know that.  You could find a nice witch, and -- "

"Titans smite us!"  Bela tossed up his hands in disgust, slapping the table.  "And what?" he wondered dangerously.  "Say `get married,' and I swear I'll howl."

"I'm not quite as bad as that," Remus smiled vaguely, trying to imagine what Liszka would have done had he brought up the subject.  Bitten his nose off, probably.

Bela rolled his eyes until they vanished, something Remus used to tell him not to do because they might get stuck.  "How can someone like you even exist?"

"Well..." Remus shrugged and forced a laugh.  "Even a chihuahua is Canis lupus, you know."

"Fine, but I'm not a chihuahua -- and can you imagine me having this discussion with Radu?  Because I won't lie, and I won't pretend to believe that `cooperation' means accepting human terms or being killed.  He will compromise with me, or he'll be running back to the city with his tail between his legs -- not that he has one," Bela added in disgust, as though humans ruined everything, even metaphors.  "And the students?  Well... I won't tell them to play in the forest at the full moon, but I will tell them that I'm happier now than I ever was down there, in the village."

"Really?" Remus wondered, gratified in spite of the fact that he knew this had little to do with him, and was probably merely the Curse speaking.  Still... he had to hope, somehow, that his clumsy attempts at parenting might have provided a few fond memories.

"Yeah, you know..."  Bela noticed Remus' smile and snarled, stubbornly refusing to provide any specifics.  "And I'll make them visit our territory, and talk to us -- "

"These are wonderful ideas," Remus exclaimed, unqualifiedly proud.

"But they WON'T WORK," Bela reminded him, teeth clenched.  "At least you, Mr Chihuahua, people look at you and think 'Sure he's a werewolf, but he went to the best wizards' school in the world.'  I'll just be a wild dog to Radu, someone out to corrupt and bite the students -- and, in a way, he's right.  And you have Dumbledore to stick up for you," he added in a mutter, having experienced in the past week the headmaster's unshakable trust that dispelled suspicion like magic.

"And if I leave, you won't have anyone to stick up for you," Remus stated flatly. "That's it, isn't it?"

"I can handle him," growled Bela. "You think I can't?"

"You can't take things too fast, or hate humans for not accepting us overnight," replied his father dryly.  Even James, he recalled, had been reluctant to leave the Shrieking Shack for several months.  "But you are a very talented wizard; that will be as obvious to Radu as it was to Professor Dumbledore.  You already have better training than some Hogwarts graduates -- as much as I could teach you, anyway. Any competent wizard could see how much you know and how good you are."

Bela stomped angrily in front of the huge fireplace. Bright yellow flames cheerfully danced behind him, throwing shadows across his face, a shifting landscape of emotion which was almost grotesque. For one frightening moment, Remus did not recognize his son, but saw in the flickering firelight the twisted and contorted face of Vlad, his former rival. No, that must not come to pass, he thought with a shudder.

He blinked and in an instant saw only a scared boy wrestling with new responsibilities and with unaccustomed praise. Bitterly, Remus realized the harsh burden he'd laid on Bela, expecting him to be better than human because he was a wolf.

Grigore came into his mind all of a sudden; here was another from whom he had expected much. Grigore had not been strong enough to lift that burden, Remus now understood, but he felt sure that Bela was. Did that justify it?

Remus knew then that he would be leaving the mountains of Transylvania, that continuing to stay would only frustrate Bela and hold him back in some ways. As the night wore on and the tea got cold, he tried to convince Bela of this, never knowing if he had succeeded or failed.

When morning came, they had talked themselves around in circles. Now, sitting with a hot mug of tea between his hands after accepting the job at Hogwarts, Remus felt a sleepy sense of relief. He had set Bela (and himself) on a road whose end was uncertain and unknowable. Regrets had to be laid to rest, because the journey called.

"You'll be wanting to get started, Headmaster," he said as he stood and stretched. "Bela and I will walk you down the mountain, as we have some business in the village."

"We do?" The comment caught Bela off guard, dozing over his mug of tea, and he sat up suddenly.

"Yes. The things we found in the cottage need to be returned to their owners, if possible." Remus laid a hand lightly on the young man's shoulder and continued, "And I must speak to Madam Viteazul."

"You don't need me for that," he protested.

Remus increased his grip slightly, saying, "She should be told about Radu's desire to start a school. And I will introduce you to her and to the children."

Bela jumped up, shaking off Remus's hand and turning on his father angrily. "Oh, no, you won't. You don't even know if -- if this Radu's going to show up. Why not wait until then?"

"Marina assured me in her letter that Radu would set off immediately once he received my reply. And that, I have just sent," Dumbledore interjected mildly. He held out one of his hands to show a small, fresh scratch. "I think I did quite well, actually, in escaping serious injury from the eagle owl. I advised her that Radu would do better to wait until after the full moon and that he should send you a response directly."

Bela gave Remus a desperate, pleading look, but the latter simply shrugged.

"You can stay until after the First, right? It's only another week," Bela said, trying to sound as if it didn't matter one way or the other.

"I will stay for the full moon," replied Remus carefully, trying not to let different methods of timekeeping confuse him, "but I will have to leave as soon as the moon sets; I must be at Hogwarts that evening."

Bela gave him an exasperated look, but one which showed that he understood his foster father's stubbornness once his mind was made up.

"Yes," Dumbledore clucked cheerfully, "We shall be expecting you at the Feast on the evening of September the first." With that, they all trooped out of the castle for Dumbledore's final journey down the mountain.

No rain accompanied them as they picked their way along the tortuous path; the storm which had been tormenting the mountain had gone, leaving the upper elevations swathed in clouds. They spoke little in the mist, each concentrating on finding the path. The silence gave Remus plenty of time to contemplate the decision he had just announced at the castle. Looking back on the past week, he couldn't decide what it was that had changed his mind, or even when it happened. Now it seemed that he had been ready for days to embark on the journey back home, if he could call it that.

And what sort of welcome awaited him?

Minerva McGonagall would be happy to see him, at least. Yes, perhaps Hagrid and Madam Pomfrey, too. Snape would be none too pleased, especially since Dumbledore said that he would ask him to make the Wolfsbane Potion on a monthly basis. One did not refuse these sorts of requests from Albus Dumbledore, but unless Snape had changed greatly in the last twelve years, Remus would be lucky if he weren't poisoned.

Part of the way down, they descended below the clouds and were greeted by waves of birch and aspen clothing the mountainsides in green with a mere hint of yellow, the lurking autumn color, buried in summer's tapestry. He would miss the explosion of yellow when the leaves began to turn here in a month's time. The Forbidden Forest, with its stately oaks and pines, would provide some color. It would have to do.

Not that he would have the chance to roam the Forbidden Forest. Those days were long gone, as were his companions. Except one. Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban, he heard Dumbledore say in his head.

That piece of information still hurt, after a week of dreams and reminiscences voluntary and involuntary. He still couldn't reconcile his memories of Padfoot and of the Marauders' monthly adventures with the grim reality of Sirius' betrayal. It was as if he were asked to juggle fire and ice -- the two simply could not coexist. Trying to put them together in his mind sent him into dizzying spirals of confusion. When fire met ice, there was only the empty hiss of steam and then, nothing.

In all probability, Sirius would be caught and returned to Azkaban before term started, Remus thought, trying as he had all week to think about Peter Pettigrew's weeping mother and the little orphan Harry, instead of about rolling in the snow with Padfoot.

Even after descending out of the clouds, the trio of wizards was unusually silent. Dumbledore made occasional comments about some animal or plant glimpsed along the trail, but the other two made little attempt at lengthy replies. The sun peeked through the clouds, lighting up parts of the meadows and mountains at random. Soon they came to the upper sheep pastures near the village where they could see flocks scattered across alpine meadows like cumulus clouds on a fine summer day.

Shepherds waved to them cheerfully; Lupeni was well known and respected around Stilpescu. Dropping still lower, they passed the farm of Lazslo the herbologist. Now the trail became a wagon track lined with neat fences; small wooden houses appeared behind the fences, their late summer gardens bursting with tomatoes and colorful flowers. Finally, the conical red roofs of the church with its tall spires came into view.

"An exceedingly pleasant walk," remarked Dumbledore as the crossed the small stream which led directly into the village of Stilpescu, "but now I must not delay any longer. I wish that I could spend several more days walking in these lovely mountains, but much remains to be done before term starts."

The old wizard stood in the middle of the track, sunlight glinting off his half-moon spectacles, and regarded his hiking companions warmly as he extracted a large number of timetables and maps from his purple suitcase. He buried his nose in schedules briefly, then looked up at them.

"I shall take a Muggle airplane in Budapest and I might suggest that you do the same," he addressed Remus, thrusting the sheaf of papers at him. "I have not found the transportation from Bucharest to be particularly reliable, you see. It is a bit of a ride to Budapest, but perhaps the most expedient route over all."

Bela watched in fascination as Remus unfolded Quality Quidditch Supply's flight map of Eastern Europe.  Landmarks blinked and waved along the selected route, rivers flowed, and there was even an optional feature that warned of the approach Muggle aircraft.  The little figure on the broomstick could be made to ascend by turning it to the right, or descend by turning it left, causing all of the map's features to change perspective.  The maps used to litter the dorms at Hogwarts, and it took the interest of a wild young Romanian to make Remus appreciate the navigational tool.  He had not actually considered how he was going to get to Hogwarts in a week's time, his mind fixed on the things that remained for him to do here in the mountains.

"You should arrive at Heathrow Airport in plenty of time to take Muggle transportation to Scotland, in case you are too tired to fly," the headmaster remarked pleasantly enough, without explicitly mentioning the fact that Remus would be traveling on the day after the full moon. Digging into an inner pocket of his traveling cloak, Dumbledore produced a sheaf of paper money.

"Here is some Muggle money, for the airplane. It's German, which I find that most Muggles will accept without too much difficulty."

He handed the bills to Remus who tucked them away next to the timetables; Bela continued to examine the map. Here was another thing he hadn't considered: Muggles had a large number of different currencies (unlike the comforting Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts of the wizarding world). He had no wizard coin, not even a Knut, and certainly had not given thought to how he might pay for passage across Europe. The headmaster was quite correct in assuming that he would have difficulty flying the nearly 2000 miles from the Carpathian Mountains to Hogwarts Castle on the day after the full moon.

Dumbledore grew uncharacteristically solemn for a moment, and seemed to be deciding about whether or not to speak. Making up his mind with a sigh, he addressed Remus directly.

"There is one more thing which I feel that I must tell you, but it is not something to make you happy, by any means."

"Please, Headmaster," replied Remus promptly, "if something troubles you, I'd like to know how I might help."

"Ah, how might you help. That is a very good question, indeed," Dumbledore mused thoughtfully, a hint of sparkle in his blue eyes. "I have told you of Sirius Black's escape from Azkaban." Bela gave a small start, perhaps worrying that he or Remus had let slip that Sirius was Padfoot. Remus' old friend might well have been a dog, from what Bela knew of him, and it would be too easy for either of them to forget that this was a secret.

But the old wizard continued solemnly, "The Ministry has information indicating that Sirius planned on coming to Hogwarts even before he escaped; they suspect that he means to harm Harry, based on this evidence."

Remus was stunned into silence. He had lost a lover, a mentor, and a former friend in Romania, betrayed twice in one night by those he had thought incapable of such an act: a woman he'd thought was more like himself than any other; and a wolf, his own packmate, one who could scarcely pronounce the word "traitor."

He understood now that Sirius could have been corrupted in some way by Voldemort, promised some rich reward (though he had not yet come up with anything plausible) if he would turn his friends over to the Dark Lord. At least, most of him believed it.

But even twelve years in the wilderness, years in which he had seen more cruelty and betrayal than he could have possibly imagined as a naive young Hogwarts graduate, could not make him believe that Sirius would seek revenge on an innocent child.

"No," he murmured to himself, then stated more forcefully as he searched the headmaster's face, "No. I cannot believe that of Sirius."

"I confess that I have a hard time believing it, too," sighed the old wizard, "but the Ministry believes it. Fudge, the current Minister, intends to bring Dementors to Hogwarts when term starts. He has talked about stationing them at the gates and perhaps even on the Hogwarts Express."

As he spoke, Remus could hear the anger rising in the headmaster's voice and saw his eyes flash darkly. "I shall not allow them to enter the grounds. But I am not certain that I can prevent them boarding the train before it gets to Hogsmeade." He shook his head regretfully. "Of course, we all fear for Harry's safety, but exposing the students to Dementors without an adult present is very irresponsible and short-sighted."

"Are you suggesting that a teacher be present on the train?"

"It is not usual, I know," Dumbledore answered carefully, "as normally the train ride is quite uneventful. Well, one expects exploding sweets and an argument or two, I imagine."

"...but not Dark creatures," finished Remus forcefully. "I shall endeavor to be on the train, Headmaster."

Dumbledore nodded simply and seemed to regain more of his usual cheerfulness as he said, "Thank you, Remus."

He then turned to Bela, extending a hand to the Romanian, and bubbled lightly, "Bela, my dear boy, it was a distinct pleasure to meet you. I look forward to hearing about your progress. Do keep Remus informed."

The young man shook the headmaster's outstretched hand, after being nudged by his foster father to do so. Bela might never be comfortable with human courtesies, but at least he could learn them. Remus wondered if that would be too much to ask of the young werewolf. He, too, shook Dumbledore's hand, promising to arrive at Hogwarts in time for the Feast.

Dumbledore extracted a broomstick from his case, which was much larger inside than it looked, and promptly shrunk the purple suitcase to the size of large apple. After tucking the small purple case into a pocket, the old wizard mounted his broom and, with a cheerful wave, launched himself up above the treetops. Both men were silent for a few moments as they watched the tiny dot in the sky shrink to nothing and vanish, swallowed up by time and distance instead of by magic.

"Let's get moving." Remus clapped a hand on Bela's shoulder and broke the silence. The younger wizard set his feet in motion, stumbling slightly, owing to drowsiness or perhaps to a reluctance to complete the task at hand.  Dumbledore's departure made him ill at ease -- either because he now had to face the future Remus had rather abruptly forced on him, or maybe because of the sudden loss of the feeling that all would work out emanating from the deceptively powerful headmaster.  He cast nervous glances in the direction of the village as if it were inhabited by dragons or chimerae instead of witches and wizards.

Remus didn't notice Bela's skittishness, caught up with logistics of his travel.  So he would be riding the Hogwarts Express, which meant he had to be in Britain on the morning after the full moon.  At least it would be easy to get to King's Cross.  He could Apparate from Heathrow directly to Platform nine and three-quarters; he'd done that once before, not long after receiving his Apparition license. Would he see Harry on the train?

Morning was well underway in Stilpescu as they entered the village proper. The people they met greeted Remus respectfully. Most knew Lupeni by sight and by reputation, even if the monster hunter rarely spoke to them. Remus led Bela around the little church, with its triple red conical roofs and long, narrow stained glass windows. In the back, tending to his flower garden, they found Father Florescu. The rotund, bald little man was eclipsed by the tall, pink hollyhocks in his garden which towered above him. His round, brown head resembled a large walnut, particularly when he smiled upon seeing Remus, sending wrinkles rippling across his old, weatherbeaten face.

"Ah, Lupeni," he beamed, "What a pleasure to see you!" The old man's eyes traveled quizzically to Bela, who lurked uncertainly at the margin of the garden and tentatively smelled some of the colorful flowers, and back to Remus. When the monster hunter did not respond, the priest set down the spade he was holding on the rim of the little well in the center of the colorful garden and scurried over to greet him.

"Nothing is wrong, I hope?" he puzzled. " This is not the time when you usually teach class."

Where to begin? Remus asked himself as he brought out the heavy bag he had carried down the mountain. He let it fall on the ground with a thump and squatted down to open it up.

"I have not come to teach, no," Remus began, looking up at the priest's concerned face. "Do you remember all the robberies that took place until... last year? There were victims killed and robbed here in Stilpescu and in some of the nearby villages." He was reluctant to come right out and say that these had involved a werewolf consorting with a vampire, but he did not have to mention it as the little man did it for him.

"The werewolf, yes?"  The priest clucked his tongue thoughtfully and shook his head, "Such a terrible, terrible thing... and with a vampire, too."

The words bothered Remus hardly at all, and he noticed with only mild concern that Bela seemed to be trying to hide behind him.

"Right, then," he said hastily. "We were, er, cleaning up that man's old house and we found this." He opened the bag and metal glinted from inside. "It probably belonged to the victims. I thought that you could perhaps see that it was returned or that the money -- there is a considerable amount -- is put to good use."

Kneeling beside Remus, the round little priest inspected the contents of the sack reluctantly, making small gasping noises occasionally as he poked through the metallic hoard.

With genuine sadness in his voice, he said, "So much taken, yes. I recognize a few pieces, although some of the victims were from other villages, were they not? Well, I can also talk with Father Petru in Albimare about all -- " he broke off at the sight of something in particular. After a moment's silence he pulled a small object out of the bag, spreading his palm to show them a thick gold band with oak leaves, cast in relief, running around it.

"I recognize this," the old man said heavily, "I married them only a year ago." He shook his head gloomily, staring at the ring, and then looked at Remus directly. "This belonged to Nikita Viteazul."

Remus plucked the ring from the other's palm, weighing it in his own hand. One of the last robbery victims in the village had been the young man who dreamed of setting up a school for the undereducated children of Stilpescu. Now his widow carried on the task by herself. And soon she would lose the monthly lessons taught by Lupeni, although perhaps in time more and better education would come to the mountains.

"Please take all this, Father," he said, startling the priest as he stood up abruptly. His hand closed around the ring, which he kept, as he said, "I must speak with Madam Viteazul this morning. I will return this to her."

"Yes, yes, of course. I believe she is down there already."  He gave Bela another inquiring look, not an unfriendly one but one of slightly embarrassed pity, as though he suspected he was a disturbed or retarded child whom the kindly monster-hunter allowed to trail after him.  Remus practically had to drag him down the stairs, still not paying him much attention, as the ring gave him further reason to dread his leave-taking from Madam Viteazul.

The basement of the church served as the school room for the village; here the children were taught their letters and some meager amount of magic.  The teacher sat alone at a small desk, her dark head bent over a stack of papers. Squares of sunlight from the small, windows set above eye-level in the walls illuminated the top of the desk and splashed onto the floor. At the sound of scuffling feet on the stairs, she looked up and her face broke into an immediate smile, which melted quickly into concern.

"Lupeni! It is a surprise to see you. There is nothing wrong?"

"Madam Viteazul, I have some things that I wish to discuss," he began in the pleasant but professional tone of a teacher. "First, I would like to introduce someone to you." He knew that he was putting off telling her bad news, but argued with himself that it was common courtesy to introduce his companion.

"This is Bela -- " He motioned for the young man, hunched over and leaning against the door frame, to come forward as the teacher rose and walked around the desk toward the two men.

"Nice to meet you," she said pleasantly enough, though something -- was it recognition? -- darted across her face, and she peered at him as they attempted to shake hands.

"Right hand," Remus reminded Bela.

Bela wordlessly extended first one hand and then the other to the teacher. He flinched at her touch and withdrew his hand quickly without ever meeting her curious stare. With a soft, but unmistakable growl he retreated backwards until he bumped into the wall.

A perfectly ordinary mannerism for a nervous werewolf, and Remus would have thought nothing of it had they been in Liszka's cabin, but he realized how strange it would look to the villagers.  He had unconsciously learned to switch between both worlds, as easily as he did between English and Romanian; somehow, equally unconsciously, he had expected this boy who hadn't interacted with humans since he was nine years old to be able to do the same. He wondered what had frightened Bela so: did he recognize Madam Viteazul?  Or did he simply remember how he had been treated the last time he was in Stilpescu?  Remus didn't know what had happened to make Bela's parents turn him out, or if the other villagers were involved, and he cursed himself for his ignorance.

Madam Viteazul's gaze followed  the young man who now squatted next to the door, staring down at the floor; she had apparently come to about the same conclusion as the priest.

"Please excuse my foster son," said Remus firmly.  "He is quite an accomplished wizard, just rather shy."

The young teacher looked doubtful, and they were both uncomfortable, wanting to end the conversation as soon as courtesy allowed.  "Please tell me your news, Lupeni; that old man --?"

"He has just left," he said, wincing inside at the cheerful response on her face. She would not be happy to learn that he intended to follow the old wizard soon. There was another piece of unpleasant news to deliver first, though. Taking a deep breath, he held his hand out in front of her and displayed the ring. He did not need to say anything, for at once she gasped and reached out, tentatively at first, to touch it, as if the metal might burn her.

"Where did you...find this?" she sobbed as she snatched up the ring, clutching it tightly and looking up at Remus with moist eyes.

"I found some things that the robber had taken. Ursule," -- for that was her name, he remembered, although he had never addressed her as such before -- "I am very sorry."

She shook her head vigorously, blinking and trying to drive away the tears. After looking away for a moment, she said quietly but firmly, "Please, Lupeni, you of all people need not apologize. I am happy to have this back, to have something..."

Her clenched fist opened slowly and she stared down at the ring for a minute or two. The quiet in the basement room weighed heavily on Remus. Catching the man responsible for the robberies had been enough of a trial, but now one of the victims stood weeping before him. He felt a great sense of relief just to hear her speak, freeing him from the oppressive silence.

"Thank you," she sniffled as she put the ring gently in the pocket of her skirt. Wiping her eyes with the back of one hand, she met Remus' concerned gaze with an attempted smile. "What is it you have to tell me?"

As gently as possible, Remus broke the news that he would be leaving Transylvania for Scotland in just over a week. Ursule showed more than professional disappointment, but she was reassured by the promise of a school at the castle. She'd heard of Marina Verdeza, as had everyone, and the mention of Radu delighted her.

"A school for monster-hunters, then?" she wondered, peering briefly at the figure in the corner.

"Er, no," Remus clarified, "for all sorts of magic. Radu is actually an expert at Transfiguration; he was a colleague of a former professor of mine." Who will be my colleague in a week, he thought with amazement. But how can I leave Bela?

Madam Viteazul sighed, with some dreamy words about how much she'd miss him that made Remus turn a bit pink. "The children will miss you, too. You've made such a difference to them, making it safe for them to play," she reminisced. "The mountains were so dangerous for so many years. I hope Radu and his students -- " she glanced once more at Bela -- "will continue to kill vampires and werewolves as you have done."

Bela growled, quite loudly this time, and tore from the room, up the stairs, and out of the building.  Remus ran after, to find his son already halfway up the hill to Laszlo's, the baffled priest yelling after him until Remus assured him that neither he nor Madam Viteazul had been attacked or bothered by the strange youth.

He briefly considered Apparating after Bela, but changed his mind, turned around, and returned to the classroom instead. He and Madam Viteazul exchanged a quick glance, and she looked nervous, not entirely aware how what she had said had sparked the animal-boy's flight.

Remus knew he'd never be able to face his son again if he let the matter drop.  "I do not hunt werewolves," he said firmly, causing her eyes to pop open as if she'd forgotten she'd ever mentioned them. "They are people like you and I." He held up his hand as she was about to protest.

"Grigore -- that... man I killed," he said with effort, "was responsible for your husband's death. Not because he was a werewolf, but because he was a bad person." He took a deep breath. "You deserve to know the whole story..."

________________________

Romania, Year Eleven

As the eastern sky turned from black to darkest blue, Remus gave up on finding any more vampires, and took the winding mountain path from the eastern caves past Stilpescu.  It had been a productive evening; he had only one stake left, and a fresh vampire heart hung in a bag at his belt.  With it, the last hole in the castle could be covered with an Allios Charm.

Castle Arghezi was now as well defended as it had ever been.  Partly in memory of his teacher, partly to give himself a task when the days were long and lonely, Remus had continued to set and maintain the protective wards for the three years since the conflagration.

It wasn't entirely an intellectual exercise.  Nasty wizard vampires still prowled the region, including one who, after drinking from his victims, strangled them and stole their money and clothes.  This particular one never fed from the same person twice, which meant Remus had few clues about where to begin his search.  He had hunted by night, hoping to catch the prowler in action, and by day, hoping to interrupt his sleep: all to no avail.

One night a victim of this vampire was found as far south Albimare; a week later a body would be found over the mountains in Rosu; and at the last new moon he had passed by Stilpescu and murdered a young man, Nikita Viteazul, who had just been married and had stayed out in the evening to put a roof on the old house he was fixing for himself and his bride.  The young man had been a wizard carrying a wand, and burns in the house and on his body showed that he had dueled and lost.

Killing and robbing was unusual enough behavior for a vampire that Remus had done some research on the subject, hoping to find out whether he might be dealing with one of the endless varieties of foreign Undead--a Bulgarian krvoijacor a sampiro from Albania, perhaps, both types that had evaded him and Alexandru by being impervious to garlic and sunlight.  A homeless, nomadic vampire might have reason to steal money: to buy himself a plot of land or a house, where he could sleep unmolested.  The clothes and jewelry were less easily explained, unless he hoped to sell them -- or unless he had a human accomplice.

Suddenly, he caught sight of movement up ahead and froze.  Careful not to rustle the undergrowth, he left the road and ducked behind a tree, waiting.

There was no more noise or motion for a long while, marking his target as something warier than human.  This, of course, could just as easily mean a lynx or a deer as a vampire, but still he waited patiently.

Then the figure moved again, standing upright on two legs as only one non-feathered animal did.  He finished stuffing something into the pocket of his coat, then, with a piercing glance over his shoulder, started towards Stilpescu.

Remus followed, occasionally ducking out of sight as the man turned around.  He seemed too fast and too alert to be human, yet if he were a vampire, why didn't he transform into a bat if he thought he was being pursued?

When he came to the spot where he'd first seen motion he found, tucked into a shallow ditch at the edge of the road, a body.  The victim had been drained and strangled, his pockets emptied, and his shirt and jacket removed to leave him naked to the waist.  A thin trickle of blood ran from his neck down his white, hairless chest, smeared at the end by the tongue of a vampire.

Heart pounding, Remus took off after the swift figure, stealthy and silent as a pack leader.  As they reached the outskirts of the village, the man began to run.  There was no longer any question that he knew Remus was there, so rather than trying to keep up with him on foot, the wizard risked the noise and wind to Apparate to a spot just beyond him.

Weapons ready, he peered at the mysterious stranger through the pre-dawn twilight -- then started in so much shock he almost dropped his wand and garlic.  This face was as familiar to him as any other in Romania, and it didn't belong to a vampire.

"Grigore," Remus whispered, unable to point his wand at someone who had been his friend, unwilling to believe what his mind told him he must.  "I thought you were dead."

The old Beta, missing for three years, stared back in an expression of frozen terror.  "D-don't kill me," he stuttered, holding his hands up like in a Muggle movie.

Those words told Remus that he had not been mistaken.  In addition, as the sky lightened he could see the shirt and jacket his old packmate was wearing -- hastily donned, a few sizes too big, and still stained with a few drops of blood at the neck.

He remembered the morning when they had first met, after his first full moon in Romania had left him lost and cold at dawn.  Grigore had been starving, abused by Vlad and terrified of humans, yet he had shared with crazy foreign Remus everything that he had.  How could that boy have come to this, robbing and killing for things?

Taking a step forward, he touched the bloodstain on Grigore's collar.  "There has been a vampire around," he said lightly, though his heart sank at the realization of who this vampire must be.  "One who drinks from his victims, then strangles them.  What do you know about this?"

"N-nothing..." stammered Grigore.  His face brightened with an idea.  "I just found that guy on the road, so I said hey, he's already dead, right?"

"And last week?" Remus barked.  "Where were you then?"  He raised his wand, very slightly.  "Turn out your pockets, please, Grigore."

The scared werewolf opened his mouth as if to object, but with a glance at Remus' wand, complied.

Remus pretended to inspect the coins and jewelry, but he wouldn't recognize anything; he was bluffing, and hoping the Beta was foolish and cowardly enough to fall for it.

"This particular vampire has been evading me for some time," he said coolly, holding up a gold watch with what he hoped was a knowing look.  "Much as another vampire did many months ago... thirty months, would you say, Grigore?  Thirty-two, perhaps?  About the time that you... disappeared."

In the village of Stilpescu people were up at dawn, and today was no exception. Unnoticed to either participant in the quarrel, villagers had begun gathering to watch.  Small boys, first, who quickly spread the word to their parents, who then came trickling up the hill to watch the garlic-draped monster-hunter, with his stake and his wand, confront a man who cowered on the hillside.

"It's not -- it wasn't -- it's not my fault," blubbered Grigore.  "He threatened to kill me... he made me do it..."

Remus scratched his head, pretending to think.  Or maybe not pretending -- there were many details he certainly didn't have, though he had little doubt of his former friend's guilt.  "Let me get this straight," he said calmly.  "Cuza has been using you to help him rob and kill people.  He gives you money and you give him...?"

Grigore flinched upon hearing his tormentor's name.  "It's not like that..."

"No?  There's a problem here, at any rate."  Remus juggled some of the stolen coins in his hand, watching the Beta cower.  "Just a minor detail."  He lowered his voice to the softest murmur.  "And that is that I killed Cuza!"

"But... no... you don't understand."  Grigore brushed a strand of hair, soaked with sweat, off of his pale face.  He wasn't as thin as he used to be, Remus noted; eating well on vampire gold.  "He... he pulled it out!"

"The stake?"  Remus raised his eyebrows.  "Hmmm... I haven't heard of that happening," he said with scholarly interest.  "Maybe--you pulled out the stake, Grigore?"

It was a wild guess, but from the other's reaction, Remus knew that he was right.  Grigore choked and sobbed, finally telling what had to be the feeblest lie Remus had ever heard.  "I just... I just wanted to see what would happen," he said.

"Indeed," said Remus.  "The most powerful, evilest vampire in the mountains, and you pull the stake from his heart just to see what will happen?  Well... all right... what did happen?"

Grigore's eyes got big, and he lay down heavily on the ground.  Remus looked at him suspiciously, but he was just pantomiming the event -- or his version of it.

Grigore slowly rose to a sitting position, hands over his heart.  "He... sat... up!  And he looked at me with those eyes -- with no whites, and no pupils -- and..."

He looked around.  Remus hadn't noticed the growing crowd, but it had not escaped Grigore, who smiled serenely at the thought that he was safe surrounded by witnesses.  "...and he threatened to kill me if I didn't help him," he finished, unimaginatively.

"The last I checked, you were not a prey animal," said Remus dryly, "and you should hardly allow yourself to be mesmerized like a bunny.  Did you call for me?  Scream?  Howl?  I was there," he insisted, "killing vampires."

"I tried -- " Grigore gasped, but Remus interrupted.

"No, you didn't call for me... because you didn't pull out the stake to see what would happen.  You did it because, even before the conflagration, YOU WERE WORKING FOR CUZA!"

Grigore winced again at the name, but this time, he was less cowering than accusatory as he pointed at Remus' wand.  "You're going to kill me!  He told me you were going to kill me!  He was right!"

"Before the conflagration, Cuza said I was going to kill you?" Remus inferred, and Grigore nodded.  "And why would that be?"

"Because... he called me a... " Grigore whispered the word.  "Traitor.  Because I said some things to Vlad, about the castle, I didn't mean it -- about the spell on the gate -- "

"The Jupiter ward," sighed Remus, "yes, I figured that.  You'd really believe I'd kill you because of that?"

Grigore looked immensely relieved.  "You're not -- ?"

"But it still doesn't fit," Remus mused.  "He threatens that I'll kill you over a small infraction.  Forces you to give him more information, maybe?  Then I kill him... and you bring him back to life?"  He shook his head.  "No, that doesn't make any sense.  He wasn't just threatening you, was he, Grigore?  He promised you something -- what was it?"

"My -- my own pack," Grigore managed -- then looked up at Remus with a disgusting mixture of haughtiness and fear.  "Far away from you, with your wards.  It's you who are the traitor!  Living in the castle... protecting humans..."

"A traitor?  Perhaps," said Remus mildly.  "But what does that make you, allying yourself with Death?  Where is your pack now?  Certainly not committing highway robbery and butchery in the company of a vampire!"

"Ah, so what, they're just humans," Grigore shrugged.  "The enemy."

"Nikita Viteazul was a teacher," said Remus.  "No one's enemy. He and his wife set up the only schoolhouse in the village, so that the children here might have a future. And you're human yourself, Grigore."  The look of disbelief that greeted that phrase made him scowl.  "Or you were, before you met Cuza.  Where is he?" he snapped suddenly.  "Where is he hiding?"

He hoped his commanding tone would re-awaken Grigore's old instinct to obey, but it didn't work.  He looked at Remus stubbornly, like a toddler who doesn't want to surrender the lollipop he found on the floor.  "Not telling," he muttered.

"Do you know, or are you lying?" Remus demanded, watching a glint of malice dance over the other's face.  "Tell me!  By the gods, I will have that vampire!"

"You won't," Grigore taunted.  "I'll warn him, and he'll get away again, just like the first time -- "

As he turned to run, before he knew what he was doing, Remus raised his wand and cursed him.

All those lessons on how to recognize and kill werewolves, all the essays he'd written and books he'd read and furious rants he'd subjected his friends to -- he never imagined it would be as easy as a single curse.  Maybe it was because it was the new moon, or because Grigore wasn't much of a wizard, or just because Remus had been very, very angry, but the body on the ground was not going to get up again.  He stared at the corpse of his first Romanian friend, and superseding any guilt was the thought that he must find Cuza.  Grigore had been killed by Cuza, he told himself, as much as if he had been made a vampire.

But before he could go, he had to deal with a shocked crowd.  It seemed as if the entire village of Stilpescu had gathered to watch their favorite monster-hunter curse an unarmed man.

Remus turned his back on the body, addressing the crowd in a low, dull voice.  "This man was a human accomplice to the vampire who has been killing people for miles around," he began.  There were murmurs; he couldn't tell if they were on his side or not.  He cared little.  "Arrest me, take me to jail... but you must find and kill this vampire.  The vampire Cuza.  Three  years ago he killed Alexandru Arghezi, and last month he slew Nikita Viteazul!"

There were gasps in the crowd.  They knew Nikita, Remus thought, and he continued to explain Cuza's history in a detached voice, paying no attention to the target of the whispers and pointing.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something floating through the air -- dipping down occasionally, making people look up as it brushed their heads -- but he paid it no mind as it vanished behind him.  He also ignored the faint hiss that he heard at his feet, only noting that the crowd seemed less than interested in the story.  When the audience suddenly grew silent, Remus did too, not sure where they were directing their gaze.

Suddenly there was a cry from behind the corpse.  "He's a werewolf!" -- a cry that was suddenly echoed and magnified by the crowd.

Remus turned very slowly, registering no emotion.  He wasn't sure which of them the villagers meant, and he honestly didn't care.  When people moved forward to seize him, he stood unflinching -- only to find that they were patting him on the back, laughing and smiling.

Looking from the pointing fingers down at Grigore's body, he saw a large, shiny object -- a cross, studded with rubies -- clutched in his right hand.  Even in death, the metal burned his flesh, making his fingers grasp the handle as the skin seared and the tendons contracted.

"It's silver, see?" someone whispered to someone else.

"Lupeni did that, didn't he?" someone else wanted to know.

"Clever, old boy," a man slapped him, making him scowl.  "Didn't need to tell us, did you?"

"Haven't seen a werewolf in years," a fourth voice commented.  "Not since -- "

A woman hugged her children close.  "Well, that's one less monster for us to worry about."

Remus tried to protest -- to say that the silver proved nothing (but the villagers weren't that naive), or even to claim that Grigore was a vampire.  No one listened, and as they began to talk about a celebration, Remus decided he'd had enough.  He picked up Grigore's body -- if he couldn't be human in life, at least Remus would give him a human burial -- and Disapparated.

There was hardly time for a proper funeral at the cottage, or even for pangs of regret, because the first thing Remus saw as he pushed open the door was the sleeping Cuza.

He was as prepared as a vampire-hunter could be.  Wearing garlic, carrying a stake, a sunstone (a new one, not as powerful as the first) in one pocket, he was still barely a match for the ancient wizard.  The fresh vampire heart allowed him to put an Allios Charm on the door, so even as a bat, Cuza could not escape; but this made the task more dangerous, as Remus would now have to win the duel or be killed.

____________________________

Romania, Year Twelve

"I have only ever dueled with one other wizard who showed such power," he told Madam Viteazul now.  "...And that was in fun."  Somehow it eased the pain to talk about Sirius to this Romanian who didn't care, for whom Azkaban and Voldemort were pictures in textbooks that she might yawn over when preparing for a quiz.  He told her of a few of the young Sirius' exploits, and then of his escape from the inescapable fortress.  "He is... one of the reasons I must return to Britain," he explained, shaking his head to return himself to the story at hand.  "How Cuza came to be so powerful, I do not know... I have not been able to find out who he was in life, or even the century in which he was born."

Madam Viteazul looked half-satisfied, like someone who's had only the first course at an expensive French restaurant.  He didn't know what was going through her mind as she sat in a chair before him and examined her husband's wedding band, then looked questioningly into his eyes.  "Why?" she said at last, a few tears leaking out despite her efforts.  "Why Nikita?  And why kill him?  I thought vampires just -- ?"

"It isn't usual for vampires to kill," explained Remus, who had a tendency to become dryly pedantic in the face of grief.  "But Cuza wanted to avoid detection at all costs... He was a Dark wizard, I believe, as well as a vampire.  That's all I can tell you, I'm afraid. I don't believe Alexandru Arghezi knew much more..."  His face darkened.  "But I shall never know, as he too was killed by Cuza -- with Grigore's aid.  They were both his victims."  As was Lamia, he thought, suddenly imagining Lamia, Grigore, Alexandru, Sirius and Peter all crowded together as ghosts, quarreling.

Madam Viteazul's sharp question drew him away from the imagery.  "Would you expect any more from a werewolf?  We're glad you killed him, he could have bitten us as well as... followed that vampire."

Remus' brain was spinning from lack of sleep, grief over losses old and new, and a pile of worries about the future of the next generation in Britain and Romania, so that he scarcely heard his own next words.  "I did expect more of Grigore," he said quietly.

"You knew him?" she gasped, as if realizing for the first time that Remus was on a first-name basis with the monster.

"Quite well," Remus admitted.  Years of lying brought to mind any number of easy replies: I hunted him for years, I knew him before... But the lie didn't come, pushed away by his anger at the way werewolves were treated in this country, a place where they lived among humans and yet were feared and misunderstood. "...Do you remember when Laszlo first came to town, how the river was filled with kappas and grindylows?  And I and my... friends would come to hunt them?"

She stood up, growing angry.  "One of them was a werewolf?"

Remus had to smile, if only because yes, it was strictly true -- one of them was.  As were all the others.

"I can't believe you'd associate with..."  Her voice trailed off, and her eyes roved towards the corner where Bela had tried to hide.  She gasped and sat back heavily in her chair, hand at her throat.  "That boy... that boy in here... just now... You wouldn't.  With the children!" she cried, though there were no children in the classroom today.

She went on gasping and yelling for a minute, and Remus tried to let her wear herself out, but he was beginning to be angry himself.  "I found Bela wandering around the forest when he was nine years old," he exclaimed at last, indignation winning out over common sense.  At least he didn't mention in what form he'd first seen him.  "His parents -- your villagers -- had just let him loose into the mountains to fend for himself.  Is that right? Can you imagine what that would be like for a child?"

She didn't seem too bothered by this story.  "His parents didn't mean him harm.  These hills... these forests... they're full of his kind."  She shivered.  "They'd find him, and... and then they all live somewhere, I guess, in caves or something.  Like savages.  I don't know too much about it," she admitted, "no one dares to go into the forest."

"I didn't know, myself, when I first came here," said Remus quietly, then more forcefully, "but I have raised Bela like my own son, seen that he had food and shelter, and educated him as best I could."

That only made Madam Viteazul more stubborn.  "And you see!" she cried.  "He's still -- despite your efforts..."  she lowered her voice, as if the werewolf could be spying on them, "...just a beast."

Remus forced himself to speak calmly, his words coming out clipped and tense. "He was frightened just now. He knows how hu-- how people in the village hate and fear werewolves. He is wizard, a good wizard at that -- "

He was searching for more words when there the sound of a struggle outside, and Bela, looking very sullen, was dragged down the stairs by a tall bearded man  -- the rye farmer, Andrei or Artur (Remus couldn't quite remember at the time).

"Father Florescu says this here's your boy," said the man triumphantly.  "Trying to run away from you, is he?"

Both Remus and Madam Viteazul leapt up in surprise, but for very different reasons.  Remus strode over and thanked the farmer, who left with the reluctance of unsatisfied curiosity; he could be heard chatting with the priest up in the garden.

Then Remus laid his hand on Bela's shoulder, determined to show Ursule the way they normally interacted.  "Did you forget your wand, then?" he asked.  "I thought you'd have Apparated out of here."

"Left it at the castle," Bela grumbled, looking fearfully around at the teacher once again.

Remus stepped back, and looked between the two of them.  "Splendid," he said, with a cheeriness he didn't feel.  "I would like the two of you to have a chance to become acquainted.  You don't have to be friends, you don't have to share secrets, but -- Ursule, Bela is the finest young wizard in this area and he is going to be Radu's apprentice."  He ignored the teacher's melodramatic intakes of breath.  "And Bela, Ursule may be willing to work with you if you give her a chance."

He thought his little speech wasn't bad, and was going to suggest they meet another day, when Madam Viteazul lost control and began to scream.

"No!" she yelled, holding up her fist, waving her dead husband's ring at Remus.  "I grew up in these mountains!  I spent my childhood indoors, protected by spells and wolfsbane, terrified every time the full moon rose.  Just as we thought things were safe, I was widowed by a monster.  You, Englishman, will never understand -- "

Meanwhile, Bela was checking the doorway to see if the burly villager had vanished so he could make a run for it.

With every meter they stepped apart, Remus felt his role of peacemaker was disintegrating.  "Listen to me," he exclaimed.  "Both of you -- "

Bela snarled. Ursule shrieked.

"I will not work with a monster," she screamed, "or expose the children to one!"

Remus could hear the priest in the garden drawing near the basement windows, no doubt wondering about the commotion.  "Ursule," he said quietly, "you've been doing so for the past four years.  Why do you think I only come into Stilpescu when the moon is new?"

Sound and movement ceased. Ursule Viteazul could only stare at him, her hands hanging slackly at her sides, in one of those everything-you-know-is-wrong moments that can change a person's life forever, although not always for the best.

When the initial shockwave had dissipated somewhat, he was pleased to note that Bela had turned from the door and was waiting with interest to see the great liar's confession.  Remus was furious with himself for not having listened to the young man when he insisted he wouldn't be able to get away with hiding his identity.  Why hadn't he believed him?  He remembered, now, their only trip into Bucharest, where Bela had bitten someone... but Remus hadn't seen it happen, and had assumed the other was equally at fault.  He wondered if he'd ever get a chance to apologize to Bela for being so unfair.

But right now he was determined to salvage something of this apparently disastrous situation.  He mildly but firmly disabused Madam Viteazul of the silly notion that he had been bitten recently, in some heroic act of monster-hunting derring-do.  "I've been this way since before I can remember," he said, still standing in the middle of the room trying to split the distance between the two pressing themselves against opposite walls.  It was a ridiculous position, but he'd had this role many times before.  "We're rare enough in Britain that I could live most of the time as any other person -- " the "person" was deliberate -- "but I left because the ignorance and prejudice became too much.  That, and... I'd never met another of my kind.  So I came to these mountains to live among, as you say, the savages -- "

" -- We're not savages," Bela broke in.

"Good," Remus praised, hoping his son would demonstrate that he could speak in full sentences.  This was about as hard as trying to teach a Squib to face a Boggart; but all of Remus' professorial instincts seemed to have returned with the thought of the Hogwarts job.  "Please," he said, as if to a reluctant student, "elaborate."

It took Bela a few minutes, and neither he nor Madam Viteazul could look at each other, but he finally managed, "Well, we live in houses.  And most of us have never bitten anyone."

"Do you remember when I came into the village to tell everyone about the moonwards?" Remus asked, waiting for Madam Viteazul to acknowledge him with a nod.  "I built them, and they work."

"Yes, they do," she admitted.  "We never hear howling any more, and no one has been bitten since -- "  Her eyes strayed to Bela once again, and this time they didn't dart away as she allowed herself full recognition.  "Are you... you are... the Muscatura's little boy, aren't you?"

Bela looked at her through narrowed eyes, but Remus nodded to tell him it was all right even though he had his doubts.  What had Bela gone through in the year between being bitten and being left in the forest?  Did he know Ursule; had he heard her talking about him, arguing with his parents --?  It was a world Remus couldn't understand.  All his preaching about working with humans rested on his own experience in Britain, he saw now, on years of lying and hiding and swallowing bitter emotions like poison. He had no right to presume to dictate Bela's behavior or to judge him.

"Yes," Bela admitted at last.  "... I was."

"And you -- " Ursule looked at Remus, her face filling with terror that meant she could only be thinking one thing.  "You're not the one who -- who -- ?"

"Who bit him?" Remus smiled easily.  "No.  But I found him in the forest, and -- "

"--and promised not to eat me if I did my homework," Bela broke in wryly.

The teacher looked puzzled, as if jokes were the last thing she'd expect from a monster.

"Bela will continue to maintain the wards after I am gone," Remus persisted, beginning to wonder whether keeping their two kinds apart had really improved matters, though he saw no possible alternative.

"But..."  The teacher searched for an objection, and Remus hoped he hadn't been preaching to a hopelessly closed mind.  No, he told himself, even Mihail was friendly at the end.  He still sometimes sent an owl.  "But why?" Madam Viteazul asked at last.

"Why the wards?  A gesture of peace, I suppose, although I was too cowardly to tell the villagers that. `We must not be in total separation from another, let alone pitted against another,'" Remus added, and although it was a quotation from a Muggle, they all recognized it.  Playing Gorbachev to the werewolves, he thought.  "And even though Bela is currently standing in the corner like a whelp, you must believe me when I say he is the best young wizard in the region."

The mild chastisement made Bela step out of the corner, but that caused Madam Viteazul to back up even more.  "You trust that... to... ?" she gasped.

Remus had had enough of standing in the middle of the room, and went and put his arm around Bela's shoulders.  "Of course I trust him.  He is my son."  He took a deep breath, summoning all of his self-confidence -- and to his surprise, it was sufficient for the task.  "You know me, and you know what I've done.  Has any of that changed in the past half hour?"

Madam Viteazul remained skeptical, not to mention terrified.  "But you're different..." she tried weakly.  "A foreigner..."

"But still a creature of Darkness," Remus reminded her, with a small smile.

"Just the sweetest creature of Darkness you'll ever meet," Bela snorted, disengaging him from Remus' arm.

Remus went back to the center of the room -- always the peacemaker, always caught in the middle, never sure what either side expected of him or each other.  He spoke again, although he feared he'd already said too much.  "I regret having to leave before the school is established, before Radu arrives, but you understand the circumstances that call me back.  I am asking you -- each of you -- to take the first step towards cooperation."

Bela took one step from the wall.

Madam Viteazul took one step, shielding herself with her desk.

There were still four meters between them.

It's a start, thought Remus, and led Bela out of the church and up the road to the castle.

_________________________

There is no time to a dog, so Moony passed his last night in the mountains of Transylvania with the same sense of instant-is-eternity that he'd spent on the first and on the more than one hundred and fifty in between.  It was still summer, so all the nocturnal creatures were out enjoying the warm weather.  Pack Five took part in a fruitless deer hunt -- the yearlings were wise to them, and the wolves weren't hungry enough to risk being kicked or stabbed if they got too close.  After tiring themselves, and the deer, they loped off to the creek for a swim.  Although even in Transylvania the creeks and rivers didn't lead to magical places, as they sometimes did in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, Moony loved to swim.  He remembered the sights and smells and sounds of magical adventures that would always remain hidden to his conscious mind, and he tugged at Liszka and Bela, ducked them under, and sent them after floating objects the way he'd done with Padfoot.

(What was Padfoot?  A Newfie, a Lab, the physical incarnation of a Grim?  Remus and Sirius had discussed it tirelessly without ever reaching a conclusion.  The giant black canine was a dog, at least, that famous Man's Best Friend who just that year had been reclassified by Muggle scientists into the same species as the wolf).

But it would not do to mention Muggle scientists without drawing attention to one in particular, who figures peripherally into Moony's story.  Busy enjoying the water and each other's company, bellies full with Liszka's famous garlic lamb chops, the werewolves didn't notice the faint scent of the enemy that drifted across the creek whenever the wind shifted. Not a hunter, but a scientist (scientist-in-training, actually) stalked the wolves.

Mike the ex-physicist was a rather clever chap, so he knew enough to keep upwind of the animals he was studying for his PhD thesis.  Dead to physics, blacklisted after abandoning his experiment in Romania, he had started a graduate program in Zoology.  He was two and a half years into his studies, though it would be four more before he actually received his degree.  He knew, now, that wolves would never attack humans -- but he still stayed hidden lest he scare the innocent creatures away.

On page 92 of his thesis, entitled Hunting and Social Behaviors of Romanian Large Carnivores, he would attribute the attacks at the caves to hungry animals who had mistakenly eaten aconite, and who were troubled by the high frequency noise of the apparatus.  On pages 137-139, he explained the behavioral and observational artifacts that made it seem as though there were twice as many wolves in Romania every full moon night.

This part was boring and full of equations, so nobody read it.

Instead, readers all flipped to the very last page, 394, to see a lovely black-and-white photograph of a wild Transylvanian wolf.  This large male was Mike's favorite, and the zoologist never knew what happened to him.  He just disappeared one day, but not before Mike got the picture of him peering out from behind a tree in the moonlight.  Mike used the picture to illustrate the slight physical differences between a wolf and a German Shepherd -- it was in the snout, mostly.

Fortunately, the wolves' thirty-mile-an-hour gait was too much for the aspiring scientist, or he would have been treated to the sight of five animals disappearing into the undergrowth and emerging five minutes later like rather bleary and scratched-up nudists.

Remus saw the sun rising over the large cabin the pack had built at the northernmost edge of their territory, watched Liszka and Stef help Bela inside, everyone enjoying the wind on their bare skin after this last full moon of summer. He saw the long white scar on Liszka's tan flank and remembered how he'd run his finger along it, marveling that this strong and beautiful woman shared what he had thought for so many years was his own private shameful secret.

His kind. Were they?  Not really.  He was something bizarre, a freak, though he had learned to accept that as well... the only surviving member of that odd genus, Canis hogwartis.

But no.  There was one other in that category -- and that was why he had to go back.

With a big yawn, unable to comprehend how he was going to get all the way across Europe before eleven o'clock British time, Remus entered the cabin and looked for the things he'd brought from the castle yesterday evening.  He'd thought it would be easier to sort and pack in the morning, but as usual hadn't reckoned with the exhaustion that followed the transformation.  There has to be a cure for that, he thought.  Not the Wolfsbane Potion, which made it, if anything, worse, but something else --

As he came into the cabin, still naked, yawning, with a wistful look on his face, he was greeted by laughter.  Liszka already had his case out, and she brought him his robes, which he took but didn't put on.  The instant he was dressed he would cease to be a wild animal and become... a Hogwarts professor, and he tried to prolong the transition for just a few more minutes.  He touched her gently on the neck, on that spot where the muscles were always tense and sore the morning after, and she gave a low, amiable growl.

Remus got right to sorting his things, telling them all that they could visit but knowing none -- not even Bela -- would consider it.

A jumbled pile of books, clothing and other things lay on the floor, peeking out from the blanket in which he had wrapped the whole lot yesterday. The collection was surprisingly small for twelve years, but much had been lost in the conflagration.

Books first. Bela had declined to keep them, saying that Remus should have them for teaching, and besides he was going to have a new teacher soon who might insist on other texts. The books were worn from being pawed at by a teenaged Romanian werewolf, but still readable. A few bulged with things stuffed inside: pressed flowers and leaves in the herbology book, scraps of paper covered with Bela's large loopy scrawl in the astronomy text, and something lumpy in Romanian Revenants (the only book remaining from Alexandru's library).

Squatting next to the stack, Remus shook the book and a squashed, ropy circlet fell out. That it was wolf hair was immediately obvious. Was this something Bela had made? As he turned the gray and white braid in his fingers, he smiled in recognition. Liszka had made this years ago (ten? eleven?), braided together the hair they shed one spring into bracelets, one for him and one for her.

Liszka now stood next to the fireplace, sleepily arguing with Stef about the placement of drainage ditches while stirring porridge. She was the least sentimental person he knew and he didn't think she would care much about this. Still smiling, he put the bracelet back between the pages of the book.

The case, in which he now began putting books, was as tattered as the volumes themselves, having been dragged about by Bela on many of their collecting expeditions. Amazingly, the gold letters on the edge were still readable. Professor R J Lupin. He was to become that person shortly. Students would address him as "Professor Lupin" in clipped, British accents instead of as "Lupeni" in the softer Romanian tones he had become accustomed to over twelve years. Except for the past week, he had not heard or spoken English for four years, not since the summer which had changed him in ways that he still struggled to understand, not since he had plunged into an alien world in which Muggle science collided with creatures of Darkness, not since she had bid him goodbye.

No. That was not quite correct, for her final words to him had been in Romanian, the language of her childhood. I love you, she had said, and Death will not change that.

Pushing the full case aside, he searched through the pile for something else, hastily turning over dragon claws, eggshells, and bones until he saw the glint of gold. His fingers closed around the familiar shape of the large, ornate hair clip, Lamia's gift to him... although at the time he didn't know that this was to be the only physical trace of the enigmatic Romanian vampire.

Yet her presence never left him entirely, maybe because he still did not understand who she was, or who he was when they were together. He had loved her -- he knew that much -- and gradually it stopped hurting so much to admit that to himself.

A gentle nudge in the back dragged Remus out of that much-trodden track of memory. Liszka glared down at him, her face screwed into the mild scowl she reserved for his insane behavior, like drinking Wolfsbane Potion, or living in a castle, or sleeping with a vampire.

"Eat," she growled, thrusting a bowl of porridge at him. Hastily, he tucked the gold piece into the case and stood to take the steaming mush from her. He attacked it ravenously, and she broke into a knowing smile. Liszka never stayed angry at him for long.

"Packed?" she asked less harshly and jabbed a toe at the bulging case.

"Mmmm," he swallowed the last spoonful of porridge and handed the bowl back to her. Appraising the condition of the battered case, he said, "Can I have some string and a knife?" He knew she kept string in the cabin for training the beans in the vegetable garden.

"Sure you need all those books, Professor?" Bela called sarcastically. Having gotten dressed and put on his boots, he could saunter across the room casually and stand over the pile of things, packed and unpacked.  Washed, shaved, grinning, he looked no more tired than any teenager after a night out.  Remus never ceased to wonder how he did it.

"Get him what he needs," Liszka said shortly. Bela returned momentarily with a ball of string and the large cutting knife, the one that Liszka used for chopping onions and boning lamb.

Remus cut several long pieces of string and knelt, laying the huge knife down carefully. He wrapped the string around the case many times, tying each circuit neatly with a knot. The case had a long journey ahead, as he did, and he wanted to guarantee it arrived in one piece. The books and other things inside it were valuable, some more than others, but the case itself had come from Sirius, long, long ago. He could not abandon it for some reason, another indication of his fondness for lost causes.

When the case was secured to his satisfaction, he rose and handed the string back to Bela. He kept the knife, balancing the weight in one hand and regarding it thoughtfully. He should be getting dressed, but there was one thing to do first.

Grabbing his hair at the neck with one hand, he reached up swiftly with the sharp knife and cut it off. The hair that remained tickled the back of his neck and shoulders; his head felt oddly light, as if it might float away without the rest of the hair as an anchor.

"Wha--" Bela huffed in surprise. "What'd you do that for?"

Liszka turned to look at him and merely shook her head with a smile; Lupeni's madness never disappointed her. "You want that?" she asked, pointing to the mess of hair he held in one hand. When he shook his head, she took it from him. "Hmph. This'll be useful for the vegetable garden; it keeps the deer away."

Remus laughed out loud. She was the least sentimental person he knew, but it didn't make him love her any less.

There was nothing more to do but dress: tunic and pants, robes (newly mended this week), and traveling cloak. His hair probably looked a fright (Bela kept sniggering at him for that reason), but he would trim it before he arrived at school. Hefting the case with one hand and picking up his broom with the other, he walked heavily out the door and into the light of morning.

Intense gray battled with blue overhead, making cracks for the sunlight to escape from the heavens and cascade toward the ground. The cabin still lay in shadow, but the nearby hills shone with color. Remus spent several minutes surveying the slopes and peaks of the surrounding mountains, committing the scene to memory in case he did not return.

Meanwhile, all of Pack Five spilled out of the cabin to say goodbye. Setting down his burdens, Remus hugged each one in turn; no one spoke, perhaps because it was the morning after the Change or because there was nothing that words could add.

Little Egon, at sixteen the youngest member of the pack, gave him a brief and tentative embrace. Stef's bearhug nearly crushed him, but Stef was a bit like Hagrid in his inability to know his own strength. Bela grinned and stuck out a hand, shaking Remus' own vigorously before throwing his arms around his father and hugging him tightly. Liszka nipped his nose playfully and linked her arms around his waist. He buried his face in her hair, nuzzling her neck and hoping he would remember how nice her skin smelled.

As he mounted his broom (having reduced his case to a manageable size and weight), he looked at them all. He thought he ought to say something, so he cleared his throat. He never got the chance to find out what he would have said, because Liszka suddenly threw back her head and howled.

Remus shivered to hear her baying echo through the hills; the rest of the Fives immediately joined in. He kicked off smartly and shot into the air, the cries of the pack below amplified by the mountain canyons. It seemed to him that he heard the echoes of their howling long after the cabin had been left behind.

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