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The Lupin House


The Lupin house was a mess indeed. The front yard was overgrown so badly that the grass was tall and sort of wavy and a branch had come down from the big tree out front and left a bit of a hole in the roof of the front porch. A window shutter hung loose on one hinge and somebody had thought it quite funny to graffiti on the front door - some rune that looked familiar to Remus, who had been reading some of Ned Veigler’s ancient runes textbooks in the library room at Fallengunder, but he couldn’t quite recognize it.

Ned stood in the mouth of the gate, looking around, “Merlin’s beard,” he muttered, seeing the disarray about the place.

Remus stared up at it. “Wish they’d burned this place to the ground.”

Sirius reached out and squeezed Remus’s hand.

Remus drew the courage he needed out of that squeeze and looked at Sirius to thank him for it, then too a step forward and pushed open the gate.

The gate came off its hinges in his hands.

He stared at it in surprise.

“You dunno your own strength, Moony,” Sirius said, smirking.

Remus laughed in spite of himself, then leaned the gate against the stone wall. “I guess not. Oh well, what’s one more thing to fix?”

Ned Veigler muttered, “That’s the spirit.”

They walked up the stone walk way, which was dotted with weeds poking through the stones, to the porch and Remus was careful not to step on any of the fallen plaster from where the tree had struck. He stepped ‘round it gingerly and reached for the door, which was actually hanging slightly ajar. His eyes swept over the runes on the door again - closer, he could recognize them as two separate runes.

Ned stared at them.

“Wolf,” Remus murmured, recognizing the first of the two runes. He traced his hand over the triton-like shape of the rune with nervous eyes. Sirius stared at it. “What’s the second one, Professor?” he asked, looking back at Ned Veigler.

Ned Veigler hesitated. “Hater.”

Remus’s throat ached.

“Wands out, just in case,” murmured Veigler, “I’m guessing a jaded werewolf’s been about here recently.” He breathed the air slowly, analyzing it, but he couldn’t smell anything.

All three of them drew their wands and Ned stepped between the two boys to pushed through the door first. They followed, each jostling to get into a protective stance over the other. The house was dark, of course, and there were a good deal of cobwebs.

“The electricity’s no doubt been shut off,” Remus murmured, “Mum insisted we use electric lamps. We’ll have to replace those.”

“Lumos maxima,” said Veigler, holding his arm over his head and his wand lit up the entire room as bright as day.

Sirius looked around at the thick layer of dust on everything - old empty pub chicken containers still littered the coffee table and floor. There was a heavy smell in the air and Remus felt like he might throw up - his nose in it’s sensitive pre-Full-Moon phase and he pulled his shirt over his face quickly, gagging.

Veigler did the same.

“Merlin’s nutsack, that’s potent,” Sirius complained, and he went and looked through the cluster of containers on the coffee table, searching for the smell. “Dead rat,” he muttered. “Very dead,” he added, making a face at the tiny rotting body. He carefully used one container to knock the decomposing rat into another of the containers. He made face, then, because there was nothing else to do with it, he put the rat-filled container back down on the table.

Remus looked around. His voice was muffled by the shirt over his nose. “Well. I s’pose we should start, then.”

Ned said, “I’ll do the outside if you boys do inside.”

“Alright,” Sirius nodded, and Ned turned for the door, clearly thankful to be able to lower the shirt from his nose and breathe again as he stepped into fresh air outside.

Remus and Sirius set to work at magicking the room clean, using their wants to rid the place of dust and putting the containers into rubbish bags that they disappeared and Remus took the family photos off the mantel because he didn’t want them there anymore - they made him uncomfortable. The only one he left was the one of Hope and Lyall when they got married and they were happy. Remus went to throw them away, but Sirius wouldn’t let him and instead made him put them in a trunk. “Someday you may want them, Moony,” he said gently. Remus did it, but he doubted he’d ever want to see those photos again. They hurt far too much.

They moved on to the kitchen next, which was, ironically, much cleaner than the living room, mostly just dust, and Sirius did the floor because Remus had wanted to do it by hand the way Hope always had, “We don’t have time for that,” Sirius had said. The stairs were creaky, but there wasn’t much to be done about that. The knool post was loose, so Remus repaired that as they went on to the bedrooms.

Sirius had never been in Remus’s old bedroom before. When they pushed open the door, he felt as though he were going into hallowed grounds. He looked around, interested to see who his Moony had been before he’d come to Hogwarts. It was a relatively basic room with beige walls and carpet and he had a patchwork quilt - obviously homemade, created with what looked like patches of baby clothes. There was an old teddy bear on the bed with one ear that had been chewed on and frayed, nearly all the fur worn off the bear’s body. The desk had a lamp with a bendy arm and there were loads of drawings, sketches and coloring book pages spello-taped all over the wall before it, a mess of crayons and coloured pencils littered the desk top and a thick book titled YOU CAN DRAW 2! lay on the corner of the desk. There were little by way of toys about - a small wood train set in the corner, and a bookshelf filled with children’s books of all shapes and sizes...

Sirius went over to the bed and ran his palm over the blanket and picked up the teddy bear as he sat down, looking about.

Remus went over and sat, too. He took the bear and looked it over.

“What happened to his ear?” Sirius asked.

“I used to bite on it, leading up to the full moon when I was a kid, my jaw used to hurt and I chewed on things. My dad used to yell at me for chewing on the sofa cushions.” Remus ran his hand over the bear’s ear. “He was mum’s when she was small, too. His name is Ruxbin. She named him.”

Sirius asked, “Did she make this quilt?”

“My grandmother did. Her mum. I only met her once.”

“Are these your baby clothes?” Sirius asked, running his fingers over a square with tiny blue flannel with yellow duckies.

“Yeah.” Remus stared down at the patches.

Sirius got up and went to inspect the pictures on the wall. Remus put Ruxbin back down and got up to look out the window. He could see Ned Veigler degnoming the backyard.

“I love these,” Sirius said.

Remus turned to look. Sirius was shuffling through a handful of drawings on the desk. There were loads and loads of drawings of the moon through the window with the trees cutting before it. Every moon phase. Remus came over and looked over Sirius’s shoulder. “That was my moon calendar. I made it. It was so I could count days between moons. I’d leave the current moon phase on top and change it everyday. I was afraid of turning in my bed and eating my parents,” he explained. “I did everything I could to ensure it wouldn’t happen.” He pushed the door closed and waved his hand at an array of locks on the door. “I was always in the bomb shelter outback long before it was time, just to be cautious of it, but… I locked these every night anyway.”

Sirius frowned.

Remus opened the door again and stepped into the hallway.

Sirius tucked the moon calendar into his jacket pocket, then followed Remus into the hall. They pushed open the bedroom door for Remus’s parents and spent sometime cleaning up in there, and then dusting the ever empty guest room at the end of the hallway and the bathroom.

When they were finished, Ned was just coming in from the backyard, wiping sweat from his face with a handkerchief. “It’s hotter than hell itself out there, by Merlin,” he muttered.

Remus got him a cup of water.

“We made alright time, I think,” Ned commented, “It looks good in here, boys. Good job.”

“We’ve had practice at it, thanks to Fallengunder...” Remus said as he looked around. He wasn’t sure he could ever be really comfortable in this house without his parents there.

When Ned had finished the water, they headed back to St. Mungo’s, tired and dirty from the day of cleaning. The reception witch cowered when she saw Sirius, but he didn’t pay her any mind this time, and he went on ahead to the waiting room to find Lily Evans, expecting her to still be there waiting for James. But she wasn’t there.

He looked about at Remus and Ned.

“Maybe he came down already,” Remus suggested.

Sirius frowned, “Or she went up.”