Pilgrimage (1/2)

[rosie_rues]

Title: Pilgrimage
Author: rosemaryandrue
Rating: PG-13
Words: 15,158
Disclaimer: i) As usual, anything you recognise from the books is not mine ii) All the places mentioned are real and can be found on a map, but the inhabitants are made up.
Prompt: For the shacking_up Minimalist Challenge. The Downs, they go up for imochan
Summary: It would be very quiet, up in the snow-shrouded hills.
expositionary and mizzmarvel, thank you.



And if ther be any thyng that displese hem, I preye hem also that they arrette it to the defaute of myn unkonnynge, and nat to my wyl
– Chaucer’s Retraction

In December 1981, on the morning after the full moon, the third Sunday in Advent, Remus found himself in the Chapel of Our Lady Undercroft below Canterbury Cathedral. He wasn’t quite sure how he had got here or what else had happened since the click of the lock in the cage door at dawn. Time had been like that for a long time now, elastic and unpredictable, never enough, or too slow to bear.

Yet here he was, alone in the quiet of the vault. Chill light spilled down into the crypt but did not touch him.

In the cathedral above a service was taking place. He could hear the occasional roar of shuffling feet and the uncanny, sweet echo of the choristers.

He had his wand and his wallet. He could apparate back to London, back to their- his flat.

He hurt. Each time the wolf tore him open and restored him the old scars returned. Unmade, remade, he was still less than whole.

It was not as bad as the last moon, he supposed, and worse than the next would be. At least this time he had not woken to Alastor Moody’s grave, newly old face and the news of the Longbottoms’ deaths.

Who was left to lose?

His breath formed clouds in the shadows.

Above him the service ended.

Remus closed his shaking hands around his knees. His fingers seemed very white in the darkness. He had never replaced the gloves he had lost last winter, the ones knitted for him by-

It was very cold.

Perhaps, if he just stayed here in the corner, as quiet as a mouse (not a rat), nobody would notice him.

He waited after the thought, expecting someone to rage at him.

His shirt was stuck to his back, the faint tug keeping him away from the cold comfort of his thoughts. Another scar, then.

Eventually there was a step on the stair and the sound of a young, merry voice caroling lightly, “Gaudete! Gaudete!”

Remus couldn’t bring himself to smile at the irony. Instead he stood, slow and stiff, and made his way out of the cathedral.

It was snowing heavily, the ancient roofs already white. Remus shoved his hands into his pockets and ambled out into the precincts of the cathedral. The giftshop was closed, but he lingered a few moments to look in the dark windows at mugs and tea towels lettered with scraps of Middle English.

The sky was grey and heavy above him, and it was beginning to get dark. The snow was getting thicker. Silently, Remus made his way through the storm in search of somewhere to stay the night.

in helle is no solas ne no freendshipe – The Parson’s Tale

He was the only guest in the youth hostel, and they gave him a room to himself. He lay awake, aware of the empty beds around him, as the wind rose, hurling snow at the windows. Just after midnight, the landlady knocked on his door and invited him to join the family in the kitchen. They huddled around the stove with the radio crackling on the worktop.

The coldest night of the century, said the man in London, BBC-voice making it unremarkable.

Through the next day the gales rose, though the snow stopped. As the cold lifted the radio told of floods coming off the hills and the sea rising in the west, washing the coast with cold reproach.

Mists crept through the city, rolling off the Downs. Remus, who could have Apparated away, lingered in the kitchen, listening to the talk roll over and around him, like the gale.

That night he slept, though he woke too often, turning to speak to an empty bed.

Ne nevere in al thy lif ne shaltou speke.
Thus shal men on a traytour been awreke;
Thou and thyn ofspryng evere shul be blake,
Ne nevere sweete noyse shul ye make,
But evere crie agayn tempest and rayn
- The Manciple’s Tale

The next day the storm began to abate, so Remus paid his dues, and wandered into the town. It was snowing again, slow, wet flakes from a dull sky.

He did not know where to go.

The cathedral tower loomed over him, so he returned, although he was no pilgrim. No saint, however cantankerous, could unweave the past.

He was not penitent, either. He, of them all, had been absolved. Living, he was proven innocent.

He had missed the moment when he could have saved them all. It had passed, swift and sly, whilst he had been too busy living, laughing, loving.

The shops, decked out in red and gold, did not appeal.

For a while, he wandered through the shadow of the cathedral. In a garden in the precincts, a snowman stood, draped in a choirboy’s purple cassock. Remus imagined the outraged echo of a housemaster’s voice, and hurried on.

He hurt, still smarting from the moon. The cold made the breath come shallow in his lungs.

At last, he turned into the shop. He could buy a postcard; send it to-

His mind was blank.

Hagrid. Yes, Hagrid would like a postcard, though possibly a less genteel one than these views of old stone amongst summer flowers.

They had always bought a postcard, wherever the Order sent them. To make it seem like a holiday - that had been the phrase.

There was no one else in the shop - just him and the volunteer behind the till, who was chewing her pen and squinting down at her Christmas cards. As Remus wandered along the aisles, his fingers throbbing in the sudden warmth, she began to peer at him suspiciously.

He looked down at the postcard, feeling obscurely guilty. He always thought that the longer he stayed in a shop, the more money he was obliged to spend there.

What the fuck do they care? had always been the response. They still get paid bugger all. Hurry up, Moony.

He stumbled to the stand of books at the end of the shop and pulled one off at random. He could feel the hard weight of it in his hand but couldn’t see the cover.

It wasn’t until he had paid, and rushed back out into the cold, that he fumbled it out of the bag to see what he had bought.

The cover showed hills, green under a summer sky. It was a walking guide, for the Pilgrim’s Way.

Snow fell onto the glossy cover, melting into a wet blister.

The Pilgrim’s Way began at Winchester and ended here, he knew that much.

It would be very quiet, up in the snow-shrouded hills.

It was a bloody stupid idea.

In a teashop with lace tablecloths, he began to flick through the book, letting the names of villages and rivers sink into the quiet spaces of his mind. Stour, Medway, Darent, Mole, Wey. Kent, Surrey, Hampshire.

He was a wizard, wasn’t he? The cold need not touch him.

Yet, in part, it was the cold that drew him. There, away from the city streets and the people who thronged them, the snow would stay white until it melted. Cruel, but clean.

He warmed his fingers on the cup, and sipped the last, cooling dregs of Earl Grey.

It was madness.

He had empty years before him in which to be sane.

The day was already growing grey. He should wait another night and set out in the morning.

Instead, he began to limp his way towards the Westgate. Henry II had passed this way, his guidebook told him, barefoot and weeping, to seek atonement for the murder of a good man.

He would be glad to turn his back on Canterbury.

Past the church of St Dunstan, patron of the blind, and now the road rose before him.

Ahead of him, through the snow, he could just see the grey bulk of the Downs, looming like shadows.

His steps were short. If he stretched too far, he pulled at the tears on his thighs, legacy of the midwinter moon.

This was madness.

If he looked back, would he see blood in his footprints, proclaiming guilt?

He did not look back.

By the time he reached the top of the hill the streetlights were glowing orange. The falling snow, invisible elsewhere, shone like flames around them. The whole world seemed hushed with it.

He could turn back to the city to find a hotel. He could Apparate home. He could walk on through the night.

Instead, he traced his way through the houses. What he had thought from a distance to be a church, he discovered to be the remains of a leper hospital. Smiling at the irony, he spelled the chapel open and settled down on a pew, murmuring a warming charm.

It was very quiet behind the solid walls. He hesitated for a moment, before he shrugged and helped himself to a candle. He was, after all, a pilgrim, of sorts, and he didn’t enjoy the dark very much these days.

The floor was sloped and uneven. He sat awake long enough to soften the base of the candle and stick it firmly upright on the rough stone. Then he rolled himself into his coat, and slept.

His sleightes and his infinite falsnesse
Ther koude no man writen, as I gesse,
Though that he myghte lyve a thousand yeer.
In al this world of falshede nis his peer
- The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale

In the churchyard was a well dedicated to the Black Prince. Remus stood in front of it, gazing down at the frozen, murky water, and felt something bitter rise through him.

It frightened him.

He had been quiet so long, since before Halloween, before the war, before Hogwarts, ever since a summer night so long ago he remembered only the nightmares afterwards when the moon bled black.

Why was he angry now, in a silent country churchyard, as dawn whispered behind him?

He stumbled back onto the road, pressing uphill. It was no longer snowing, though the ground was covered. Each step was an effort, and by the time he reached the hilltop the sun was high in the sky.

He was hungry.

Miles from anywhere, up to his knees in snow, and with nothing to eat. Stupid.

Then again, he was the man who had trusted Sirius Black.

Now he had thought the name, he could not take it back.

He had trusted Sirius Black. Trusted him, and reassured those who doubted. After all, who knew him better?

So they had doubted him instead, and they had died: Dorcas Meadowes, Benjy Fenwick, Edgar Bones, Marlene McKinnon, Caradoc Dearborn, Gideon and Fabian Prewett, James and Lily Potter, Peter Pettigrew, Frank and Alice Longbottom.

Peter had said once that he didn’t think any of them would survive the war. James had laughed and clapped him on the back - Don’t be daft, Wormtail. Sirius had rolled his eyes and snapped, So? Lily had changed the subject.

And Remus had thought that Peter was the only one who would survive.

He didn’t know where the path was beneath the snow. He just fell and scrambled through it, tears cold and bitter on his lips, crashing into trees.

When he fell onto the lane, his palms were bloody. He pressed them into the snow, choking.

They were all gone.

Yet he was, alone in the snow, whole, if not hale.

His fingers hurt, a slow numbing pain. He should give up – Apparate back to London, to a flat still heaped with Sirius Black’s belongings.

Or he could just lie here. The snow in the lane was unbroken – no one would find him.

It was tempting, but he knew he would not do it. The wolf had not, despite his expectations, torn his heart out at the last moon.

He shoved to his feet, and began to stumble down towards the village. To his dismay, there was no church, but he found the pub and settled into a corner with a glass of lemonade, trying not to attract too much attention from the elderly men perched around the bar.

They were talking about the war, and, for a wild, disorientating moment, he thought they meant his war. Then he remembered that this was the Muggle world, and no one knew the extent of his failure.

The Daily Prophet had printed a final list of the dead. His name had been on it. No one had written in to correct them.

He thought he understood. It was tidier that way.

At last orders, he cast a Disillusionment Charm and curled into his corner as the old men wandered, grumbling, into the cold. The landlord dimmed the lights behind them.

Remus heard the creak of the stairs and turned to gaze out of the window. The world outside was white. It reminded him of Hogwarts, of mornings after the moon, full of secret exultation at the game they had played.

Or for she whitnesse hadde of honestee
And grene of conscience, and of good fame
The soote savour, lilie was hir name.
- The Second Nun’s Tale

The next day he woke early, before the light. He raided the pub kitchen for food, stuffing sandwiches into the big pockets of his coat. Then he left a fiver on the counter and slipped out into the morning.

The wind was high again. There had obviously been a scattering of snow overnight, for the footprints in the road were half-filled. The sky was still dim, but there was enough light to see his way, climbing through woodland towards the railway.

It had snowed like this last year, though not so heavily. He had been stuck in the flat, laid low with a curse only the moon would reverse, when Lily had descended on him, the baby trussed in a sling on her back, so well wrapped Remus had only been able to see the tip of his nose and sleepy green eyes.

She shouldn’t have been there, not alone, and he had told her so.

She had snorted and ordered him out.

Walking around Green Park, she had said, eyeing him from below her hat, Sirius not looking after you?

No, Remus had replied, hunching his shoulders. Lily, go home.

We’re going into hiding, she had said. I don’t know for how long. I want Harry to see snow. Shall I set James on him?

It won’t help, Remus had said and tossed a handful of snow at her, half-hearted.

It can’t harm, either, she had snapped.

Remus had shrugged.

Her snowball had hit him square in the face, and her peal of laughter had made baby Harry rouse and gurgle at them.

He had so many memories of her laughing, at her wedding, dancing in James’ arms, bright with joy; at Gideon and Fabian, who had always tried to enliven Order meetings; as barely more than a child, when her first Cheering Charm worked perfectly.

He also remembered Sirius swinging on her, snarling, You’re why, alright? Because you’re worth a thousand Narcissas, and they want a world where nobody would even see that. So, leave me alone, alright, Evans?

It had always been a competition, though Remus hadn’t realised it then. Only the strong survived.

He supposed that meant he was the strongest of them all.

The thought made him laugh and hurry his step down into the next village for lunch.

He made good time that afternoon and ended his day in the little church of St Laurence on the banks of the River Stour. He could hear the river in his sleep that night, sighing steadily through his dreams.

Allas, ye lordes, many a fals flatour
Is in youre courtes, and many a losengeour,
That plesen yow wel moore, by my feith,
Than he that soothfastnesse unto yow seith.
-The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

The next day the path led him along the edge of woodland. The signs by the path called it a forest, though it did not suit his idea of one. It was too tame and too open. No monsters lurked beneath the dark conifers and bare chestnuts.

He did not count himself as a monster. They had given him that much.

A flicker of movement caught his eye, and he turned in time to see a deer bounding away, its antlers lifted like praying hands. His breath caught in his throat, and it was a while before he made himself think, Too small, too dark, too quick.

He had been walking through snow for three days. No one had yet thrown a snowball at him, or scrubbed his face in a drift, or stolen his scarf to drape around a Hagrid-sized snowman. It almost didn’t feel like winter at all.

In their first year, James, who had never encountered lasting snow before, had gleefully abandoned Quidditch in favour of skiing. They had inexpertly transfigured themselves skis from a collection of mops and brooms pinched from Filch’s cupboard.

A small slope wouldn’t do, James had explained firmly. They needed momentum. So they had climbed to the top of the hill behind the castle, above the young Whomping Willow and Hufflepuff’s snow sculpture gallery.

Remus had looked down at the bits of wood strapped to his feet and said, doubtfully, Are you sure this is a good idea?

It’s a bloody stupid idea, Sirius had said. It had been the time when he still only spoke to them on good days.

James had glared at him, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. Chicken, Black?

No, Sirius had snarled back and pushed off.

He had headed down the slope with increasing speed, arms wheeling. James had whooped and gone after him, and Remus, who had already worked out it would end in disaster, had followed.

Behind him, Peter had suddenly howled, Jaaaaames! How do I steer!

Meanwhile, James and Sirius had discovered that steering was not the only problem with homemade skis.

I’m going to hit the Willow! Stop, you bastard things! Impedimentaaaaargh!

Peter had come sliding past, legs in the air and whooping with laughter.

Remus had closed his eyes and abandoned himself to fate.

In the aftermath, James had sported his sling like a badge of honour. Sirius’ black eye had lasted weeks, until Remus caught him in the bathroom with a pot of ink, his tongue caught between his teeth as he painted the bruise on.

He was smiling as he came out of the woodland and began to scramble down the hillside towards the farm huddled in the lee of the hill.

The sight of a stranger brought the farmer’s wife out. She shook her head at his stumbled explanation and marched him into her kitchen to warm up. Despite his protests, she fed him and scolded him for recklessness. Remus, terrified he might be undone by a stranger’s kindness, bolted when she went to fill the kettle.

He went down the lane at a run, his feet skidding, and came out in a wider road. It had been salted, and it crunched beneath his feet as he crossed over and followed the path across the slopes of the hill towards another church and the houses around it.

James would probably think he was mad, too. Of course, that probably wouldn’t stop him from coming along.

Except that James was dead, and hadn’t trusted him.

After he was bitten, his family had stopped going to church. It seemed a shame. He would have liked to have denounced religion now, when the gesture might have helped. It didn’t seem quite fair to curse a god he didn’t believe in.

Yet it seemed too cruel that mere, random chance had led him here. There should have been a reason why he, who had least of them all to lose, should be the only one to live. If it was foreordained, then someone, somewhere, bore the guilt and shame of it.

Someone other than him.

He could almost feel James clouting him for that; almost hear him boom, You daft wanker, Moony.

There were no ghosts, though, save those he created from his own memories.

The sky was greying towards dusk, and the nearest building was a hotel that looked well beyond his means. There was a church tower ahead of him and a gleam of water.

The church by the lake, when he reached it, turned out to be a ruin. Its roof had collapsed, bringing the walls down with it. The tower still stood, but Remus eyed it uneasily, unsure of its stability.

A quick wander around the churchyard, however, revealed nothing that would offer more shelter, save for a large, ancient tomb on which he stubbed his toe. Some conscientious soul had walled up the remaining entrance into the tower and side-chapel. Remus settled into the shelter of the west wall, and turned all his attention to constructing some sort of charm to keep the cold out.

He finished the last of the bread from the pub and dug out his guidebook to find out where he could buy food tomorrow. The book was far more forthcoming on church architecture than corner shops, but he managed to glean that he would pass above a village. He also learnt that the monument he had tripped over in the churchyard was for Richard Plantagenet, the teenage son of Richard III, who had fled his dangerous inheritance to live out his days here, as a bricklayer.

Remus snapped the book shut and thought seriously about going home.

The ghosts there were just more obvious.

There was fog gathering over the frozen lake, as grey as smoke, making the ice seem dark. It made him think of cold seas and dark rock.

He forced the thought away and gazed up, trying to see through the clouds to the moon, constant and unrelenting.

All that showed was a faint and distant glow.

I wol biwaille in manere of tragedie
The harm of hem that stoode in heigh degree,
And fillen so, that ther nas no remedie
To brynge hem out of hir adversitee.
- The Monk’s Tale

The dawn woke him, and he was in the village of Westwell by mid-morning. It wasn’t until he stepped into the little shop that he suddenly became aware of how grubby he was, pungent and unshaven.

The women chatting by the till fell silent as he came in and watched him, birdlike, as he fumbled along the shelves for a loaf of bread and a paper.

As he left, clutching the thin, striped carrier bag tightly, one of them laughed, a deep, husky sound that reminded him of Alice Longbottom.

He carried the sound with him as he climbed back to the crest of the hill. He kept forgetting that Frank and Alice were gone too. The other four were a constant emptiness, but every time he remembered about Frank and Alice it was a new shock.

The last time he saw Alice – no, not the last time, not afterwards, but the time before – that time, she had been yelling at Dumbledore. She had had a fag in her hand, and was trailing smoke as she gestured, reminding Remus, even through the numbness of loss, of an indignant dragon.

Damn it, Albus, I promised Lily! We promised each other. The war’s over, and I want Harry!

Dumbledore had murmured something soothing.

Alice had snorted. Family? That shrivelled up old prune? You said the Order was family, remember? I told Lily – I told her that if anything happened, I would- I would-

She had swallowed, clenching her fingers. Dumbledore, without his usual twinkle, had said, There are good reasons, Alice. Not all of Voldemort’s supporters have been found.

Then don’t leave him defenceless, Alice had snapped. Are you telling me that, if it had been the other way round, you wouldn’t have let Lily take Neville in? Even though we’d agreed it?

My dear, Dumbledore had said, and Remus had known he would not be moved. The point is moot. Harry will remain with his aunt.

Remus had tried to be tactful when he wrote to Petunia. Yet the letters he sent by Muggle post came back marked Not Known At This Address and the owls had returned ruffled and annoyed, still clutching his carefully worded notes.

The weather was better today, although clouds were building dangerously on the horizon. Once he had walked the stiffness out of his limbs, it was easy going, along the clear track through quiet woodland. The air tasted clean.

He tried, conscientiously, to think of happier times. That had been the whole point of coming up into the hills, hadn’t it?

He remembered Alice, in the kitchen of the Order headquarters, seven months pregnant and complaining of the heat.

Do you know what I’m going to do as soon as I drop this sprog? she had demanded.

Remus had shaken his head, though he’d heard it before.

Alice had grinned at him. I’m going to have a fag. And it’s going to be beautiful.

Poor, neglected little Dulcinella, Remus had said, measuring out tea.

She had looked at him sideways. If Andromeda Tonks thinks that being godmother will let her inflict her taste in names on my baby, she, and you, can go shag a Clabbert.

He’d better not shag a Clabbert without me, Sirius had remarked, wandering in. Morning, Alice. Little Dionysius kicked you in the bladder yet today?

He had still been snorting slugs out of his nose the next morning.

Remus had lunch in Charing, and then hurried on. He tried to think about the walk, and nothing else, and was surprised at how much faster he went. He arrived in the village of Lenham early enough to buy a razor, and find somewhere to stay the night. The village inn was more expensive than he would have liked, but he had barely spent any money in the last week. The luxuries of a bath and a shave and a warm bed for the night were worth the price.

Werre at his bigynnyng hath so greet an entryng and so large, that every wight may entre whan hym liketh, and lightly fynde werre; but certes what ende that shal therof bifalle, it is nat light to knowe. For soothly, whan that werre is ones bigonne, ther is ful many a child unborn of his mooder that shal sterve yong by cause of thilke werre, or elles lyve in sorwe and dye in wrecchednesse.
- Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee

He woke to dim light, and the warm weight of the duvet. Drowsy and unsure where he was, he rolled over, seeking a warm shoulder to press his cheek against.

He was alone in the bed.

Then he remembered that everyone he loved was dead, or taken from him, and could sleep no more.

It was snowing outside, and he could barely see beyond the end of the road. There was a thin fur of it on the windowsill outside his room, and when he went downstairs the landlord was trying to thaw the milk and swearing at the smoking oven.

Remus fixed that with a surreptitious swish of his wand and asked whether he thought the road to Hollingbourne would be passable.

The landlord, a voluble Welshman, described the idea as a bloody slow way of committing suicide.

Remus protested but found himself overruled. Offered a free night’s stay in thanks for fixing the oven, he reluctantly agreed.

The landlord turned out to be a chess fiend. Remus had never been up to Peter’s standard but he could hold his own, even with pieces that didn’t move themselves. By lunchtime, he had heard all about Owen Davies’ past life as a taxi driver in Port Talbot and his decision to move south to be near his younger daughter and his widowed sister’s disapproval of the pub.

By dinnertime, the pub was filling up, and Remus was left to himself. He nursed his pint and watched people gather, groups forming and reforming with loud good humour.

It was a good pint, and it made him think of Frank Longbottom. Even Alice hadn’t understood Frank’s passion for real ales, though he had still tried to convert the rest of the Order. James had been the only other one who sympathised, though Remus suspected he had let the side down by asking what was wrong with Firewhiskey.

He remembered, too, how Frank could defuse a quarrel with a few quiet words. Only Sirius had refused to be soothed by him.

Last Christmas, when things were only beginning to fall apart, Frank and Alice had danced together at the Order’s Christmas party, faces bright with laughter. The babies were being passed around the room, and Professor McGonagall’s paper hat had slipped back and was dangling off her bun as she bounced Neville on her knee. Sirius and James had been busy charming the baubles on the Christmas tree to swear loudly every time someone walked past.

Moody had been waiting for him, after the November moon, sitting in the waiting room in the Werewolf Registry, making the clerks nervous.

Remus hadn’t expected to see him, and the dread had already been curling in his stomach when Moody had looked up and said simply, The Longbottoms.

For a few days, when he could think past the overwhelming, still disconcerting shock, he had felt a strange sense of immortality. He would be next. With death inevitable, he had barely bothered to look twice when he crossed the road, or to concentrate when he Apparated.

Yet it was now seven weeks since Halloween, and he was still alive. He was beginning to understand that real life didn’t have such tidy endings.

He didn’t drink any more but merely stared out of the window, watching the snow falter and cease. After last orders, feeling guilty for his free stay, he helped Davies clear up, and then went upstairs to his empty bed.

He priketh thurgh a fair forest,
Therinne is many a wilde best,
Ye, both bukke and hare,
And as he priketh north and est,
I telle it yow, hym hadde almest
Bitidde a sory care.
- Chaucer’s Tale of Sir Topaz


The next morning he set out into the snow with Owen Davies’ best wishes, and a sturdy rucksack full of food (I’m never going to be using it again, boyo, so don’t you argue with me).

The snow was heavier than it had been for days, and by the time he got back to the top of the hill he was sweating. His breath huffed out in clouds, blurring the air before him. Suddenly he felt, with absolute certainty, that if he turned round Peter would be puffing up the hill behind him, refusing to take another step before he’d had a fag.

He didn’t turn round.

He didn’t want to think about Peter. If he did, he would have to think about what Peter had done, and if he thought about that, he would have to think about why Peter had done it.

How many times had he teased Peter for being afraid? Not as much as the other two, to be fair, but they were dead, or better off so, and his conscience must serve for them all.

It had been exasperation, he told himself. Nothing more. He would have erred on the side of caution himself, had he not been called upon to mediate between recklessness and fussiness, between Peter and-

This wasn’t getting him any further along the road.

The hills sloped steeply above the lane, and he found himself glad of the bushes along the verge. It gave him something to hold onto when his feet slipped out from under him.

A train moved along the valley, a slow, blue caterpillar, heading towards London. He saw it stop at the next village, and wondered how many passengers it carried and whether any of them looked up here, rather than down at their books and magazines.

By lunchtime, he had only got as far as the road down to the next village. He leant on the signpost and eyed the slope down. He’d never get back up again. No one was in sight, so he cast a warming charm and ate his sandwiches standing up. His feet were beginning to ache. His shoes, old and tatty enough to be comfortable, weren’t quite up for snow.

He muttered a charm at them anyway.

Why hadn’t Peter Flooed him? Why hadn’t he asked for help? If there had been two of them, they might have been able to stop it all – to find out what had gone so horribly, horribly wrong.

Peter probably hadn’t trusted him either, in the panic.

He’d probably been right. Remus probably wouldn’t have believed him, or been able to summon enough ruthlessness.

Would it have mattered? If he had gone, and failed, a dozen Muggles, and Peter, would still be alive. James and Lily weren’t going to come back just because the man who had betrayed them was locked away.

And that attitude was exactly why Peter hadn’t Flooed him.

Wasn’t that something to be proud of? That Remus Lupin – can’t trust him not to be a traitor, can’t trust him if he isn’t. And everybody dies.

By the time he made it to the top of the ridge, his breath was catching in the back of his throat and his nails were biting into his palms, spikes of heat against his cold skin. He stopped to get his breath and looked down on the valley. The sky was beginning to darken again, and the snowy slopes seemed grey.

He’d always been the only one to appreciate a view. The others had always been too busy living to pause for a moment.

Just as well, really.

The blood was thrumming through his veins, and he couldn’t quite hold back his memories – couldn’t organise them into the boxes where they belonged. He willed the cold to sink into him, to numb everything so he wouldn’t look at grey skies and see wide eyes, or feel the wind brush his cheek and imagine it was fingers.

When his mind was blank again, he continued along the ridge towards the next village. The calm wouldn’t last long, not past the first dream of the night, but, for now, it would suffice.

Mordre wol out, certeyn, it wol nat faille
- The Prioress’ Tale

He slept badly and spent an hour lingering in the village. The waiting room at the station had a battered heater, so he sat in there with a cup of tea, and a roll from the bakery, and watched the London trains go out. Christmas music was pumping out of the radio in the ticket office, and a limp strand of tinsel was dangling off the corner of the timetable board.

He passed the village hall on the way out of the village and heard the excited shouts of children through the windows. In the car park behind the hall, a man in a Santa suit was sitting in the front seat of a Volvo, fingering a packet of cigarettes wistfully.

Remus, who had been bullied into a similar chore last year, shot him a sympathetic smile, and kept walking.

It had been Lily’s idea, though Alice had backed her up. He’d tried his best to explain that he approved in principle, and, yes, a party for all the children would take everybody’s mind off things, no doubt of it. He just didn’t see why he had to be involved.

Somebody has to play Father Christmas, Alice had said firmly, bouncing Neville on her hip.

But small children don’t even like me! he’d protested. Can’t you find someone they adore?

Lily, who had obviously guessed precisely who he meant, had crossed her arms. Sirius can’t do it. They’d all recognise him.

Arthur Weasley? he’d suggested. Dumbledore – he’d love it. Peter – what’s wrong with Peter?

He had lost the argument. The afternoon of the party had found him in the cloakroom of a Muggle church hall in Raynes Park, miserably aware that the padding of his costume was only secured by a few safety pins and a sticking charm. Bill Weasley, who had been, much to his indignation, sent along with his younger brothers, was leaning against the door into the hall, smirking.

Your beard’s crooked, he had said.

Remus had given him a sour look, and jerked it round. Now what?

Nym’s going to give us a signal. He’d shuffled along so Remus could peer through the crack of the door. She said she’d do something dramatic.

Oh, hell, Remus had muttered.

Father Christmas shouldn’t swear.

Remus had ignored him to gaze in at the chaos in the hall. On the far side, Lily had put up a barrier, and had been happily ensconced behind it with a rugful of babies. All else had been mayhem, unleashed in its purest form. There had been children running everywhere, all screeching and screaming. Most of them he’d never seen before, but he’d recognised the middle Weasley, who had seized hold of one end of a toy broom and had been locked into a vicious tug of war with a sturdy boy in a Puddlemere United shirt. A slightly larger Weasley had been pursuing a curly-haired girl back and forth across the hall, flapping his arms and roaring. A pink-cheeked toddler with an alarming resemblance to Amos Diggory had been quietly working his way around the edge of the hall, towards the table full of cakes.

In the midst of it all, Sirius had stood, waving his wand like a conductor’s baton, an identical red-haired toddler attached to each leg.

Remus pulled himself out of the memory, shaking. Damn it, damn it, why did all his thoughts come back to that man? By the time of that party Sirius – no, not Sirius, but Black – had already been betraying them to Voldemort.

He spent the rest of the day trying to think of anything that didn’t involve Sirius Black. By the time he got to Detling at lunchtime, he was mentally translating the lyrics of Imagine into runes.

After lunch the path led him up into woodland again. The trees arched over him, branches crossing to enclose the path. In summer, it would have been green and close. Now it made him think of prison bars.

For a moment the wind rattling through the trees sounded like waves crashing on a pebbly shore. Remus had to clench his fists and drive his nails into his palm to make himself carry on.

By dusk he had worked through the entire oeuvre of the Beatles (including their solo careers to date but maintaining his pretence that Wings had never existed), the Rolling Stones and Blondie (Peter had always done the best Debbie Harry, but Remus wasn’t going to let that stop him) and was butchering Dancing Queen, rather hoarsely. He was quite relieved to settle into the village pub and soothe his throat with a pint.

The landlady, unfortunately, was sharp-eyed, and he was forced to depart with the others at last orders. The church, however, was quite comfortable, and the side-chapel was small enough that even his ineffectual warming charms made a difference.

He’d never been much good at managing a warming charm that would last all night. He’d always relied on Sirius’.

He’d have to learn now.

For to his herte it was a greet plesaunce.
Thus been they knyt with eterne alliaunce,
And ech of hem gan oother for t' assure
Of bretherhede whil that hir lyf may dure.
- The Shipman’s Tale

His dreams were a jumble of ice-grey eyes and warm hands, angry voices and quick laughter. He woke shivering and shaking with some passion he couldn’t bear to define.

His warming charm had run out.

It was still dark outside, so he renewed it and stared up at the shadows. A dim light came through from a streetlight on the road, making everything faintly orange.

He didn’t want to be alone.

There was no one who would take him in for his own sake, rather than the Order’s. There was nowhere to go but back to London, to continue with his life as if it had never held Sirius Black, as if he had always been friendless and broken.

He closed his eyes, but it didn’t help.

At last a dim light signalled dawn, and he sat up long enough to put together a sandwich. Owen Davies had given him a knife and a small pot of strawberry jam, and he let the sweetness settle in his throat.

He hadn’t eaten strawberries for years. Sirius had been allergic to them, and it had been easier not to buy them than to deal with cleaning up so thoroughly after he’d eaten.

This coming summer, he would eat them until he was sick.

He was stiff when he did start moving. When he stepped out of the church he was shocked to find the village green swathed in fog.

He didn’t see any reason why it should stop him. If he got lost he could always Apparate back here.

He dug his book out of his bag and kept his finger in the page that showed the photocopied map.

He stomped along the snowy path, anger sending ripples of heat through his limbs as the cold air made him cough. When he reached an underpass under the main road, he glowered up at the only car that was passing. Bloody Muggles should try authentic travel one of these days. Nothing like having your balls freeze solid whilst walking, or risking leaving them behind when Apparating, or trying not to fall off a bloody motorbike which had not been designed to deal with fucking turbulence.

It wasn’t until he was under the road that he realised he was thinking about Sirius again.

He stopped dead.

Whichever way he looked, there was fog closing in the ends of the tunnel. A car rumbled overhead, shaking the ceiling.

What was the point of going forward, if he couldn’t leave his ghosts behind?

If you don’t know what to do, James had said sagely once, after a few pints too many, just do something.

Lily had rolled her eyes and said something rude, but they had all known what he meant.

Do something. Grand.

It was bloody cold down here. Better start walking again. That was something.

What a philosophy to live the rest of his life by. Do something.

His book, when he consulted it, told him that he was surrounded by ancient monuments. He couldn’t see them through the fog, and he wasn’t going to stop. He was doing something. He was walking the bloody Pilgrim’s Way, all the way to bloody Winchester, and that was something.

As he came down from the hills, the fog began to lift, and he found himself in marshland, bleak and stinking. The shells of buildings rose from the marsh in places, and he could glimpse the stern, angular shapes of factories through the fog.

The snow was thin here, crusted over the marsh, half-hearted.

It suited his mood.

When he reached the river, his path ended. There were still the remains of a ferry port, but it was obvious that no ferry had crossed the Medway here for years. Annoyed, he began to follow the bank of the river north, looking for a bridge.

It was three-quarters of an hour before he hit the outskirts of Rochester. A main road crossed the river, and he scrambled up onto it, cursing his guidebook, the weather, the war.

Lorries rattled past him, disappearing into the fog on the other side of the river. He ignored them, hunching his shoulders into his coat.

The Sirius he had thought he knew would have lost his temper by now and Apparated them both back to London. He would have snarled and slammed his way around the flat whilst Remus snapped at him, and it would have ended with an exchange of shouting. Then one of them would have made tea, and the other would have gone out for a takeaway, and they would have spent a long night curled around each other, letting touch heal the wounds words left.

Remus kept walking.

That Sirius had never existed. It had a lie, a way for him to survive seven years in the wrong house. And when he left school, he had, like a snake, shed his Gryffindor skin, and followed his blood.

And none of them had noticed.

Sirius had killed Peter. Sirius had betrayed James and Lily. Sirius had been the spy. Sirius, who had so blatantly, so carefully, suspected him.

Because Sirius had suspected him, so had all the others.

And Remus had still loved him. He had tried so hard to convince him that he was still loyal, still true, still human. Nothing had worked, and now he knew why.

Sirius could have thrown suspicion on anyone. He could have hidden his own betrayal in any of a thousand ways. Yet he had chosen Remus.

It made sense, if you looked at it coldly. The easiest person to throw suspicion on was the one he knew best. It was easy to betray a lover, if you had the cruelty to do it.

Off the bridge now and back upriver. He couldn’t see the eastern bank. The fog hid the path he had walked before.

Perhaps there were kinder explanations. He refused to consider them. If there had been a point where Sirius really was a Gryffindor, where he really had loved Remus, there had been a point where he could have been saved.

Which would mean that Remus had missed the chance.

It was all his fault. However you looked at it – whether or not you believed Sirius had ever really turned his back on his family, it was Remus’ fault. If he hadn’t loved Sirius, it would not have been so easy for Sirius to sow distrust; to turn them all against each other. By loving Sirius, he had led to the destruction of them all.

He was on the outskirts of a small town now, some ugly industrial place with an ugly industrial name.

It was already mid-afternoon, and his stomach was clenching with hunger, so he stopped for the best part of an hour. He bought a paper, and hid behind it as he tackled a bowl of soup.

It was only a small town, but the streets were busy with shoppers. It made him think of London, which made him think of the flat, which made him feel sick.

Sirius had been so excited when he moved in. Had it really only been for the opportunity it offered?

He almost ran out of the town, along the main road and away from the marshes.

He stopped with the dusk, in a village that seemed to contain more warehouses than homes. He found an old church, padlocked shut, and broke into it carelessly. A plaque inside told him it had been deserted at the time of the Black Death. Somehow, that struck him as hilarious, and he laughed until he sank to his knees, choking into his cold palms.


Part Two