Pastoral Symphony 3
Upstairs there was another room full of books and strange knickknacks. Harry ran a finger over a few of the nearest volumes, their elaborate leather bindings bearing such interest-catching titles as A Concise History of Lycanthropic Legends, Prurient Potions and Thaumaturgy Unveiled. As they left the room, he reminded himself to check a dictionary later to see what ‘prurient’ meant.
The bathroom was a good bit larger than his own room at the Dursleys and a great deal more elaborate. Under his feet were tiles in every shade of blue from the palest tint of an early spring sky to the wild darkness of the ocean. Above him was a mural of the sky, a silvery crescent moon and stars fading to a glowing sun in a blue sky tipped with clouds.
A large, claw-footed bathtub nestled in the curves of a bay window that provided a superb view of the garden below. Altogether, Harry thought it almost as impressive as the prefect’s bathroom at Hogwarts and said as much to Sirius, who admitted that other than the bathtub, the room had looked like that when he’d bought the house.
Harry’s own room proved no disappointment, either. Two canopied beds sat at right angles to a very ornate fireplace, their hangings embroidered with the same undulating decorations as the heavily carved mantle. To Harry, they looked like some ancient Celtic designs he’d seen in a book of Hermione’s. One corner held a wardrobe, its open door revealing his neatly folded clothing. Unsurprisingly, the other corners of the room featured heavily loaded bookcases. In front of the fireplace stood two comfortable chairs and a small table perfectly placed for chess or reading.
‘This is where you and Ron will stay. Do you like it?’
‘It’s great! Er. . . where’s Hermione going to sleep?’
‘The sofa in the library transfigures into a very comfortable bed. Remus thought it would save her the trouble of having to move to a different room when she was too tired to read.’
He shared Sirius’s amusement. ‘She’ll love that. But - where are you going to sleep?’
For a moment his face showed a look of. . .what? Apprehension? Worry? ‘I’ll be sharing Remus’ room, across the hall. I, ah, don’t really take to being in rooms alone anymore.’ Sirius shifted nervously, unconsciously running a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t always sleep well, either. If you hear noises at odd hours, don’t be too worried; it’s probably just me roaming the house.’
Harry nodded but decided to keep his own, similar problems to himself. Sirius had enough on his mind as it was, he was sure. At his godfather’s suggestion they started back down the stairs to the garden and Harry was able to get a quick look into the shared room. Admittedly, he couldn’t see every bit of it, but it did appear to hold only one bed and not a very large one at that. . . .
Hedwig swooped down excitedly as soon as they stepped out into the garden. Wheeling around Harry, she dropped a mouse at his feet before landing on his outstretched arm.
Scratching her on the back of the head, he nudged her gift with his right foot. ‘Um. . . thank you, I think, but you can eat it if you like.’
The large owl clicked her beak, retrieved her mouse and flew back toward the woods.
‘She seems glad to be here,’ Sirius remarked as he led them down a narrow path that wound through exuberant groupings of flowers and herbs that lay close to the house.
‘She is. I had to keep her cooped up at the Dursley’s house and neither one of us likes being kept inside at all.’
The late afternoon sun warmed the plants, making the air rich with the scent of them. Harry could smell the tang of mint and the sweetness of roses among a cluster of other scents he couldn’t name. Past this, a vegetable garden spread out nearly to the edge of the trees that lined the banks of the brilliant ribbon of creek that wound its way around the back of the cottage and off into the faraway green of the countryside.
‘No need to stay inside here! You could walk around all day and still be on this property.’
‘It’s really beautiful.’ It was. Harry was in awe of all the beauty around him; the foliage in the vegetable garden swayed like verdant waves in the soft breeze, bees buzzed carefree among the jewel-bright blossoms, birds drifted through the unblemished turquoise of the sky or called to one another from the nearby fruit trees and the farther hush of the woods. He thought of the sterile, contained patch of grass that served as the Dursley’s front lawn and Aunt Petunia’s anonymous clutches of anaemic flowers huddled in the back yard, feeling a sense of regret that anyone could live without the wild grace of that which now surrounded him.
Sirius showed him the wealth of edible items growing at his feet, admitting that he had very little to do with their success. ‘It’s Remus who knows how to grow things, I just know how to eat them,’ he joked, uncovering a clutch of tomatoes like little rubies. ‘He grew up in the country and his mother kept a lovely garden, almost as nice as ours. Maybe better, honestly, since she didn’t help it along with magic like we do.’
‘Why not?’ Harry asked, biting into a tomato that burst in his mouth with all the heat and the glory of summer.
‘She was a Muggle. That’s how I know how to use a stove and cook on my own.’
Startled, Sirius jumped and nearly fell into the plants. ‘For fuck’s sake, Remus, you have got to stop sneaking up on me like that! Oh, er, don’t ever say "fuck", Harry. It isn’t polite.’
‘You say it all the time,’ Lupin pointed out, using his wand to straighten the courgette that Sirius had come close to trampling.
‘I’m also not polite. In fact, I’m a terrible role model altogether and you should seriously consider trading me in for a new godfather.’
Harry chucked a half-eaten tomato at him. ‘I think you’re great! Both of you are, in fact. Other people might be appalled that you curse and drink whisky in the afternoon and let me drink whisky at all and one of you is a werewolf and the other escaped from prison and I’m sure there are plenty of objectionable things I don’t know about yet - ’ He paused for breath and caught the two of them sharing another one of their looks ‘- but I’ve been happier since I got here than I ever was with my aunt and uncle. People who act like they’re supposed to aren’t always good people. The Dursleys do everything to fit in with the idea of the perfect family and they’re just awful! Kids at school tease Ron because his family’s poor, but I think the Weasleys are the best family I’ve ever seen, and being rich hasn’t stopped Draco Malfoy or his father from being an insufferable pain in the arse. And Hermione - those prats in Slytherin are always taking the piss because her parents are Muggles and she’s a better witch than all of them put together! So - so just being different doesn’t make you any worse, and I don’t think you’re a bad person at all.’ He trailed off, running out of words now that his emotions had calmed. Not knowing what else to say, he gave his godfather a brief, fierce hug that he returned.
‘I hope you never think that living with your mother’s sister is preferable to living here,’ Sirius said in a rough voice that sounded full of unshed tears. Looking down at Harry, the mischievous gleam in his eyes returned. ‘But if you do want to stay here, don’t let Molly Weasley know we let you drink whisky because she’ll probably hex us both into next year!’
They stayed outside until the shadows grew long and twilight began to shade into dusk. Sirius had discovered a ball and a pair of old broomsticks in the shed and the three of them had played a Snitchless variation of Quidditch until it became too dark to see properly. Harry’s broom gave him a great advantage but Lupin’s deft flying and Sirius’ skill with the ball had presented him with more of a challenge than he would have guessed.
Back in the cottage, Lupin started dinner while Sirius and Harry went through a book of photographs. Lupin’s parents were there, their still images captured with a Muggle camera, his father looking somewhat perplexed and his mother looking like a slightly softer, feminine version of her son. Lupin appeared as a winsome infant, wrinkly and solemn in his pram, a cheerful toddler with a birthday party in full swing and as a small child standing with his parents in front of a tent somewhere wild and green.
‘This is the last picture of him his parents took until he started school,’ Sirius told him.
‘What happened?’ Harry studied the face of the exuberant, healthy boy and tried to reconcile him with the man that he knew.
‘He was bitten. It happened a few weeks after they went on holiday. The werewolf that bit him killed three other people, two adults and a child. Remus spent two months in hospital before he recovered; after that, his parents never treated him the same.’ Seeing Harry’s worried expression, he patted him reassuringly on the back. ‘It’s all right; I asked him and Remus doesn’t mind if I tell you. I know most people would want to keep such things hidden, but I don’t think it’s wrong to be honest. He is what he is through no failing of his own and acting as though being a werewolf is something shameful and terrible makes it seem as though he is something shameful and terrible as well, which he certainly is not. Do you understand what I mean?’
Harry though of Hagrid and of all the trouble that he endured just for being half-giant. He also thought of himself and of his notorious scar; to most people, it was something to admire, a mark of pride, but to him, it served as a constant reminder of pain and of loss that he didn’t want glorified in the eyes of others. It was no fault of Hagrid’s that his father had fallen in love, no fault of Lupin’s that he had survived being bitten and no fault of his own that he had been born who he was. ‘I think I do.’
His godfather smiled benevolently and they went back to the pictures.
A dark-haired, chubby baby wriggled in another picture, his grey eyes gazing charmingly at the camera as he rolled about in a very fancy crib carved like a Medieval throne. The same child, older, sat stiff and blank-faced in a formally-posed photograph, rough edges marking the places where his parents should be.
‘Why did you tear them out?’ Harry asked, fingering the picture’s uneven corners.
Sirius frowned.‘We never got along. No, that’s not right; not getting along implies some sort of relationship. Remus and his father didn’t get along. They were civil to each other, but they didn’t spend more time together than was required. Mine hated me almost as much as I hated them.’ The tension of suppressed rage shook his words although his tone was very matter-of-fact. ‘As you pointed out earlier, wealth and status do not a happy family make. My mother used to say that if she’d known how much grief I would bring her she would have drowned me in the Thames the day I was born and my father beat me for fun. Luckily, she, my father and my brother have all managed to die, so you’ll never have to endure the Black family experience, which I can assure you was almost as fun as being in Azkaban. Let’s look at some pictures of James and me when we were younger.’
So there were families worse than the Dursleys. At least Aunt Petunia had never threatened to kill him and Uncle Vernon’s threats of bodily harm were mostly just threats. Harry sat wordlessly as Sirius turned the pages to reveal a pair of boys standing in front of the Hogwarts Express and waving excitedly. Except for the messy hair and glasses on one of them they were nearly indistinguishable.
‘You look like twins,’ Harry said, tracing the edge of the photograph with a fingertip.
His godfather smiled fondly down at the photograph. ‘We may as well have been. James and your grandparents were more of a family to me than mine ever was. I think he liked the idea of having a brother of sorts as well, and I certainly liked having a family other than my own.’
A few more pictures showed just the two boys in their school robes, then the boys with Harry’s grandparents and a large Christmas tree, then the boys back at the train along with a third boy whose serious eyes and milky skin identified him as a young Remus Lupin.
He appeared reluctant to be in the picture, standing aside as Sirius and Harry’s father competed to get in front of each other.
‘He only looks shy and guileless, I promise you.’ Sirius brushed a finger gently across the image. ‘Don’t let his veneer of goodness fool you - that innocent-looking face got us into as much trouble as it got us out of! None of the teachers ever believed quiet, studious Remus Lupin could ever be responsible for anything as naughty as oh, I don’t know, managing to sneak fireworks into the Slytherin loos.’
‘No one except McGonagall,’ Lupin corrected him, walking in from the kitchen, smelling of chopped herbs. ‘She caught me on my way out. Didn't get there in time to prevent the explosion, though.’
Harry stared at his former teacher with a mixture of respect, incredulity and envy. ‘Really ? How did you get away with it?’
‘I didn't, not exactly, but as they'd sabotaged the brooms of our Quidditch team a few weeks before, Minreva decided I'd been provoked into what she called "a moment of uncharacteristic aggression" and only docked ten house points and gave me two weeks' worth of detention. It was worth it, especially as your dad had sent cakes laced with Laxativus draught to their table for lunch,’ Lupin recalled with a look of satisfaction that Harry found somewhat unsettling. ‘Dinner’s ready, by the way.’
At the table Harry stuffed himself full of baked chicken with rosemary, mashed potatoes, sauteed courgettes and trifle as Lupin and Sirius regaled him with stories of their days at school. After dinner he helped Lupin wash the dishes, then lost spectacularly to his godfather in a game of chess. With the fall of night came the evening cool of northern Scotland; Sirius built a fire in the small downstairs library and the three of them read books until Harry’s eyes were blurry and Sirius had fallen asleep on his end of the sofa. He rose, stretching, said goodnight to his dozing godfather and Lupin, who was still reading, and went upstairs to brush his teeth.
Curled up in the soft comfort of the bed, Harry reflected on his day. It had only been one day but he already felt completely at home at this house, with these people. Although the Weasleys claimed him as their unofficial eighth child and token non-redhead, he found a certain joy in knowing that Sirius had been his parents’ choice to be his family in their absence. He wasn’t quite sure how Professor Lupin fit, but it was obvious that he did. He smiled to himself in the darkness.
So I may not have the most average family, he mused, sleep beginning to steal over him, but I think I may have a very good one.