FIC: Scars, Part 7b

[geri_chan]

Title: Scars, Part 7b

Rating: NC-17 overall

Pairings: Snape/Lupin, Ash/Tsubasa; also a little Theodore/Blaise, Dylan/Hermione, and Aric/Takeshi

Author's note: {} Indicates character's unspoken thoughts; [] indicates song lyrics.

Disclaimer: Based on the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling; song lyrics are from "Scars" by Papa Roach. No money is being made off this story; consider it a little wish fulfillment on my part.

Warning: AU. This story contains a character from Half-Blood Prince, but does not follow the HBP storyline.

Sequel to: Always, Summer Vacation, For Old Time's Sake, Three's a Crowd, Return of the Raven, Phoenix Reborn, Phoenix Rising, Aftermaths, The Revenant, Ash's Story, and Summer Vacation III.

Summary: Most of this chapter deals with the meeting between Ash and Laura, but Lukas enlists Lupin's help to discover what is troubling Ash, and Lupin is more than happy to indulge his Gryffindor penchant for meddling.

Part 6b, Part 7a

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Laura ran sobbing from the Physical Defense classroom. She had imagined that her reunion with Ethan would end in tears, but she had thought they would be tears of joy, with she and her long-lost brother embracing at last. She had thought that he would be happy to go back home to his family.

She had never in her wildest dreams imagined that he would tell her horrible stories about her mother having a child out of wedlock, or about a vicious, cruel stepfather who seemed nothing like the stern but loving father that Laura knew. And yet...she didn't believe that Ash Randolf was lying, at least not deliberately. Laura was no mind-reader, but the pain in his eyes when he had seen the book of fairy tales, and the anger in his voice when he had shouted about his stepfather had seemed genuine.

Surely this must all be some kind of misunderstanding! Laura couldn't picture her father brutally beating and nearly killing a child, even if Ethan hadn't been his real son. But it was difficult to imagine how Ethan/Ash could be mistaken about such a thing; the scars on his face and his body were certainly real, and proof that someone had hurt him. If not Father, then who...?

Laura desperately tried to come up with some plausible explanation that would not make her father a monster or her brother a liar. The monthly transformations caused temporary insanity in werewolves if they didn't take the Wolfsbane Potion, and it had only been invented a few years ago. Maybe the initial attack and the subsequent transformations had traumatized Ethan and caused him to believe that Father was somehow to blame.

Only...Professor Lupin was also a werewolf, and he didn't seem to suffer from any similar delusions. Or maybe someone had cast a Memory Charm on Ethan to alter his memories and make him think that Father had hurt him. But that sounded pretty far-fetched, like something out of one of Ariel Zoltaire's adventure novels. Who would want to alter Ethan's memories and turn him against his own family? Mother and Father didn't have any enemies that Laura knew of; Father had a few business rivals, perhaps, but no one who would go so far as to attack his children. Laura didn't know what kind of enemies her brother might have made as Ash Randolf, though. The werewolves had fought against the Death Eaters, but the Death Eaters were all dead or in prison, and anyway, a Death Eater would be much more likely to use a Killing Curse to take revenge than a Memory Charm. There were other people, like Amos Diggory, who might have grudges against the werewolves, but again, she couldn't see why they would have used a Memory Charm instead of something more destructive.

And even if someone had altered Ethan's memories, that still didn't explain where his scars had come from. Laura thought that perhaps they had been inflicted by the werewolf who had turned him, then remembered that Professor Lupin had told his classes that werewolves usually healed wounds quickly, without any scars forming. Although she had a vague recollection that wounds inflicted by silver weapons were difficult to heal...

Without really thinking about it, Laura had instinctively headed towards the Hufflepuff dorm when she fled the Physical Defense classroom. Her vision still blurry with tears, she was running through the halls half-blindly when she suddenly ran into something warm and solid--or rather, someone.

Laura tumbled to the floor, while the person she had run into staggered backwards, uttering a startled but blistering curse. Just her luck; of all the people in Hogwarts to run into, it had to be Professor Snape!

Snape managed to reach out and brace his hand against the wall to keep his balance, although he dropped some packages that he had been carrying. He glared down at Laura, who still lay sprawled out on the floor at his feet, and snapped, "Five points off Hufflepuff for running in the halls, Miss Madley!"

Her nerves already frayed from the confrontation with her brother, Laura burst into tears and started sobbing again.

"Miss Madley?" Snape asked in a milder voice, sounding annoyed but also a little concerned. "Are you injured or ill?" Laura shook her head. "Then stop that caterwauling, you stupid girl!" the Potions Master snapped, his voice shifting back from concerned to fully annoyed. "There's no need to make such a fuss about five measly points!"

"I'm s-s-sorry, Professor!" Laura barely managed to choke the syllables out between sobs. "It's n-not that."
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Snape glared down at Laura Madley, then heaved a sigh of exasperation. The day was turning out to be a very trying one for the Potions Master. First, one of the second-year students had managed to accidentally blow up a cauldron in the middle of Potions class, and several students had suffered minor burns. To make matters worse, the culprit had been a Slytherin, Patrick Parkinson, and Snape had been forced to take points from his own House. The idiot boy had been showing off, trying to impress his pretty Ravenclaw classmate, Gabrielle Delacour. Snape cursed under his breath; he'd known that her veela blood was going to cause trouble, but he had hoped that the trouble wouldn't start until she and her yearmates were in their teens. However, the boys were already beginning to vie for her attention at age twelve, and he hated to imagine what things were going to be like when she was fifteen or sixteen.

And now to top it all off, he had an hysterical Hufflepuff girl sobbing at his feet. If Lupin found him here with the girl wailing like this, he would never hear the end of it. He would have to endure a sanctimonious lecture about how he didn't need to terrorize the students in order to keep discipline, and it was completely unfair because--at least in this case--he hadn't done anything to deserve it. All he'd done was to take five points from her; Miss Madley was usually a sensible girl and not the sort to burst into tears over something like that. In fact, she was normally too well-behaved to be running in the halls in the first place.

"Is something wrong, Miss Madley?" Snape asked cautiously. If it was something silly like a fight with a boyfriend, he didn't really want to hear about it, and he doubted that she would want to confide in him, anyway. He began to wish that Lupin was here, after all, since he was much better at comforting distraught students than Snape was.

In response, the girl started crying even louder, which made Snape feel like an ogre--again, undeservedly so. He wondered if he ought to take her with him to the hospital wing, but since she wasn't showing any indication that she was going to get up off the floor of her own volition, he'd have to physically haul her there, and if Pomfrey saw the girl in this condition, then she, like Lupin, would automatically assume that Snape was to blame, and he'd have to endure another lecture.

He glanced down the hall, half-hoping to see Lupin so that he could pass this problem on to someone else, even if it meant receiving an undeserved lecture. He did spot someone, and although it wasn't Lupin, his eyes fell on her with relief.

"Miss Avery!" he snapped imperiously, and Serafina Avery came to a halt in front of him.

"Yes, Professor?" she asked politely, not seeming at all curious or perturbed by the fact that there was a student lying on the floor at Snape's feet, sobbing her heart out.

"Miss Madley seems to be in some distress," Snape replied. In a way, this was even better than running into Lupin. Serafina was one of his Slytherins, so he could dump his problem in her lap without being questioned or lectured, and Serafina, who was calm to the point of almost being emotionless, wasn't likely to be bothered by Miss Madley's hysterics.

"Calm her down and escort her to the Hufflepuff dormitory," Snape ordered. "I need to deliver some healing herbs and potions to Madam Pomfrey." He picked up and examined his fallen packages. "Fortunately, nothing seems to be broken."

"Yes, sir," Serafina replied obediently, and Snape gratefully fled in the direction of the hospital wing.
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"Are you all right?" a dispassionate voice asked, and Laura wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked up to see Serafina Avery gazing down at her. Serafina's face was bland and expressionless as always, as if she did not find it at all strange that Laura was lying on the floor, weeping. Then again, the sight of Snape driving students to tears was hardly an unusual one at Hogwarts.

And the Slytherin girl did indeed seem to assume that Laura was crying because Snape had yelled at her. "Don't take it personally," Serafina said almost kindly, although her voice was still calm and remote. "The Professor's in a bad mood today. One of the second-years managed to blow up a cauldron and make a mess of the Potions classroom, so he's been docking points from just about anyone who crosses his path."

"It's not because of Snape," Laura sniffled.

"Oh," said Serafina, sounding only mildly curious. She knelt down on the floor beside Laura and offered her a handkerchief. Laura cautiously took it and wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Serafina had a reputation for being strange; she had few friends, even among the Slytherins, and her violet eyes were always cold and emotionless. She didn't go out of her way to bully or harass people like some of her housemates did, but people who crossed her tended to become the victims of nasty hexes, although there was rarely any evidence to prove that Serafina was to blame. One of those victims had been a Hufflepuff, but to be fair, the boy had provoked her by hexing a bottle of ink to explode at her desk. The incident had occurred during Laura's third year, the year that had led up to the final battle between the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters--and between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Tensions had been running high, and Serafina was the daughter of a known Death Eater, while the Hufflepuff boy was a half-blood whose Muggle-born uncle had been killed during the first war.

So although Serafina wasn't completely to blame, the Hufflepuffs had regarded her warily ever since then. But the Slytherin girl didn't look as if she intended to hex Laura; she had offered Laura a handkerchief, which was a kind gesture, and she was waiting patiently for Laura to compose herself.

"Thank you," Laura finally said, when she had finished drying her eyes. She tucked the sodden, crumpled handkerchief into her pocket and added, "I'll wash this and return it to you later."

Serafina just nodded indifferently, as if she didn't care whether the handkerchief was returned or not. She stood up and held out her hand to Laura; Laura took it and allowed the other girl to help her to her feet. "Shall I take you to your dorm now?" Serafina asked.

Suddenly Laura realized that she didn't really want to go to the dorm, after all. None of her friends but Rosie even knew that she had a brother, so she couldn't really talk to them about what had happened. Her first impulse was to cry on Rosie's shoulder, but she knew that her best friend hadn't really approved of her search for her lost brother. Rosie was too kind to say "I told you so" out loud, but she would probably be thinking that Laura should have left well enough alone and accepted her parents' explanation of her brother's death.

Laura shook her head, and Serafina asked in a calm, logical voice, "Well, what do you want do, then?"

That made Laura stop and think. What did she want to do? Well, she wanted to find out if Ethan's...if Ash Randolf's story was true. Or, to be honest, she wanted to find proof that it was false, and that he had somehow been misled into believing those horrible things about their parents. But how could she possibly go to her mother and ask if she'd given birth to an illegitimate child, or ask her father if he'd beaten his son?

"How can I find out the truth?" Laura wondered.

She had been thinking out loud rather than speaking to Serafina, but the other girl replied, "Well, it depends on what kind of truth you want to find out, but I'd suggest that you do some research."

"Research?" Laura asked, startled.

Serafina nodded. "What exactly are you trying to find out?"

Laura hesitated. She needed help from someone, and she didn't want to ask Rosie. Serafina had been kind to her, but she was reluctant to entrust her secret to someone she barely knew. "Will you promise not to tell anyone?"

Serafina paused to consider the question, then answered gravely, "I won't repeat what you tell me to anyone, so long as doing so will not cause harm or dishonor to myself, my family, my House, and my friends."

That wasn't exactly a definite promise of secrecy, although with the way she had worded it, it was difficult to object. Still, the fact that she had placed conditions on her promise seemed to indicate that she intended to keep it as long as those conditions were met. If she had intended to break her word, she probably would have blithely and carelessly promised not to tell.

Laura didn't see how her family's secret would cause any harm to Serafina, but she decided to err on the side of caution and not mention any names. "How would I be able to find out if...um...a certain person had a child before they married their current spouse? And how would I find out if that child was the spouse's natural child or if he--or she--had been adopted?"

Serafina raised her eyebrows, a spark of curiosity flaring in her violet eyes. But she did not press for more information and merely replied, "For a formal adoption, there are papers that have to be filed with the Ministry of Magic."

"But I can't just go to the Ministry and ask to see them," Laura said, crestfallen. "I can't leave Hogwarts, for one thing."

"And even if you could, they wouldn't show the forms to you without the proper authorizations," Serafina agreed. "But marriage and birth announcements are printed in the Daily Prophet. Adoptions aren't always publicized, but sometimes they are, especially if a child is being adopted as the heir of a clan, the way that Professor Snape adopted Theodore."

Yes, of course! She could go to the library and look up back issues of the Daily Prophet--there would surely be a wedding announcement for her parents, and if Ethan was their real child, there should be a birth announcement some time after the wedding. And then Laura realized that she didn't know the exact date that her parents had gotten married. It had never seemed very important, since her parents never celebrated their wedding anniversary, but she vaguely knew that they had been married for several years before she was born. Well, if Ethan had been twelve when he had supposedly died, about a year before Laura's birth, that would make him about twenty-eight now. She could start from there and work either forwards or backwards.

"Thank you, Serafina!" Laura exclaimed gratefully. "Thank you so much!"

Serafina gave her a bemused smile in return; she was actually very pretty when she smiled, something Laura had never noticed before. "You're welcome," Serafina replied. "Professor Snape said I was to take you to your dorm, but since you seem to be feeling better, I suppose there's no harm in going to the library instead."

So Serafina insisted on escorting her to the library, although Laura said that she would be fine on her own. She got the impression that the Slytherin girl wanted to follow the intent of Snape's orders, if not quite obeying them to the letter.

"Will you be all right?" Serafina asked when they arrived at the library.

"Yes, thank you very much, Serafina," Laura replied. As Serafina turned to leave, Laura asked, "Aren't you going to ask who I'm doing the research on?"

Serafina shrugged indifferently. "What's the point, since you obviously want to keep it a secret?"

"It's just that most people would be curious about it," Laura said. She knew that if her Hufflepuff friends were here, they would be pestering her to tell them her secret. Hufflepuffs tended to believe they ought to share everything with their friends, because of the loyalty that was their House trait. And Laura did trust her friends, but this was something that she wasn't ready to share with anyone just yet.

"I am curious about it," Serafina admitted. "But either you'll tell me or you won't, so there's no point in making a fuss about it."

Serafina Avery might be a little odd, but Laura was beginning to like her very much, and she felt a little ashamed that she had so easily believed the gossip about Serafina's sinister reputation. Professor Lupin had told the students many times that they should be more open-minded and not judge people by their Houses, and Laura tried to follow his advice, but it was easy to slip back into old habits. She was friendly with a few Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, but her best friends were all Hufflepuffs. And she had no friends at all among the Slytherins; a few of them had made disparaging remarks about her Muggle-born father when she first started going to Hogwarts, but for the most part they ignored her, and she did likewise. Even if they didn't call her names or insult her directly, it was difficult for a half-blood like Laura to feel friendly towards people who generally believed in pureblood superiority.

But the Slytherins had grown slightly less snobbish when Professor Lupin had moved in with their Head of House, and Serafina had certainly been nice to her today. So Laura smiled shyly and said, "I can't tell you about it right now, but when I'm able to, I will." She was still hoping to reconcile her brother with her parents, and if her efforts were successful, there would no longer be any need to keep his identity a secret.

"All right," Serafina said amiably, then left without further comment, and Laura went to look through the newspaper archive in the library. The huge stacks of yellowed newspapers were rather daunting, but Laura determinedly went through them, starting about thirty years back, figuring that her parents would probably have been married for at least a year or two before their first child was born. However, there were no marriage announcements, and no birth announcements, either, not even when she reached the year that Ethan would have been born. Finally, she found a marriage announcement for her parents in a paper printed twenty-two years ago, which meant that Ethan would have been about six at the time. Which also meant that unless her parents had delayed getting married after their child was born for some reason, Ash had been telling the truth about being her father's stepson.

She numbly continued flipping through the newspaper, and found the proof of it in the very same issue, buried in the page of legal notices that printed things like changes of names, changes in ownership of land or property, and notifications of lawsuits being filed. There, in small print near the bottom of the page, was a sentence that Laura nearly overlooked amidst all the other notices: "The Ministry of Magic hereby grants Alden Madley's petition to adopt Ethan Parker, who shall henceforth be known as Ethan Madley and be granted all the rights and privileges of a legal son."

So it was true, after all. Ethan wasn't her father's son. And since his surname had been the same as their mother's maiden name, he probably had been illegitimate, as he had claimed. If Mother had been married and then widowed before meeting Father, there would have been no reason for them to keep that first marriage a secret. A divorce, on the other hand, would have been more scandalous, and they might have wanted to hide the knowledge of a failed first marriage, but in either case, Ethan should have been using the surname of his father before his adoption.

And if Ash...Laura's train of thought drifted off for a moment as she realized that she was thinking of the adult werewolf as "Ash" instead of "Ethan," because he did not fit the fantasy image of the brother she had created in her head. And maybe that wasn't Ash's fault, but she felt as if she had lost her brother a second time, in a way that was somehow even more painful than believing that he was dead.

Anyway, if Ash had been telling the truth about his birth, was he also telling the truth about the way that Mother and Father had treated him? Laura wanted to weep, but she felt too numb and drained, as if she had already wept so much that she had no more tears to shed.

She skipped ahead about six years, and eventually found a small article saying that a boy had been killed by a werewolf in her home village--or actually, it said that the boy was missing and presumed dead. The boy's name had not been released by the Ministry, at the request of his family, but Laura knew that it must be Ethan. At least, she thought to herself bitterly, her parents had told the truth about that. They might have lied about everything else, but it did seem that everyone had really believed that Ethan was dead.

The article said that the werewolf had been apprehended in the next county, and the amount of blood on his clothing left little doubt that his victim was dead, even though the body had not been found. The werewolf claimed to be remorseful, and freely confessed to attacking and killing the boy. At least, that was what the Ministry reported to the Daily Prophet. Laura wondered, with uncharacteristic cynicism, if the Ministry had applied pressure to "encourage" the werewolf to confess. In any case, the werewolf had been given a life sentence in Azkaban for his crime.

Laura had learned all that she could from the newspapers; if her father had abused his son--or his stepson, rather--he would hardly have reported it to the Daily Prophet. So she put away the newspapers, making sure to stack them neatly and in order so that Madam Pince wouldn't scold her. She was acting mainly out of reflex; she didn't particularly care at the moment whether a teacher yelled at her or gave her detention.

She knew that Rosie would tell her to drop the matter, to just forget about Ethan and Ash. But she couldn't just forget about her brother and pretend that everything was normal, no matter how much she would have liked to. If Ash had been wronged by their parents, she had to find some way to make it up to him, although she had no idea how she would do such a thing. And part of her was still hoping that this was all a terrible misunderstanding and that her parents would say that of course they loved Ethan and wanted him to come home.

So quickly, before she lost her nerve, she wrote a letter to her parents explaining how she had met Ash and what he had told her. She didn't mention what John and Rosie had told her about Ethan, of course; she said only that she had found the photo and the book of fairy tales in the attic, and that she had guessed his identity from the picture. She begged them to tell her the truth, and to reconcile with Ethan/Ash so that they could all be a family again. Then, because she didn't have an owl of her own, she went to the Owlery and sent the letter off with one of the school owls.

Laura had been so absorbed in her research and her troubled thoughts that she didn't realize until she left the Owlery that it was dark and she had completely missed dinner. When she got back to the dorm, she found that Rosie was frantic with worry.

"Where have you been?!" her friend cried. "I've been looking all over for you! I got so worried when you didn't come to dinner!"

"I'm sorry," Laura said dully. "I was working in the library and lost track of time."

Rosie looked at her more closely, and her expression softened, although she still looked worried. She took Laura by the hand and led her to their bedroom; fortunately their roommates were out and they had the room to themselves. Rosie said quietly, "I've been waiting to hear how your meeting with your brother went. Your eyes look red, so I guess it didn't go so well?"

And suddenly, Laura found herself able to cry again, and she wept on Rosie's shoulder while her friend held her and tried to comfort her. When she calmed down, she explained what had happened, and Rosie was sympathetic up until the point where she had sent the letter to her parents.

"How could you do that?!" Rosie shouted, looking horrified. "You promised you wouldn't tell your parents!"

"I promised that I wouldn't say anything until I found out whether or not Ash Randolf really was my brother," Laura reminded her. "And he is, even if he doesn't want to be."

"But they'll fire Dad if they find out that he and I talked to you about Ethan!" Rosie cried frantically.

"Of course I didn't mention you or your father," Laura said indignantly. "I promised that I wouldn't, and I would never break my promise to you. I told them that I found Ethan's picture in the attic and did some research in the Daily Prophet. There's no reason for them to think that you told me anything."

"But what if they figure it out?" Rosie fretted, not looking at all reassured. "And I don't understand why you're writing to them, anyway. This Ash says that he wants nothing to do with your family, so what's the point?"

"He's my brother," Laura said stubbornly. "That's the point. He's family. I have to find some way to make things right between him and my parents. Surely Father couldn't have been so cruel, even if Ash wasn't his real son. There must be some kind of misunderstanding."

"Oh, Laura," Rosie sighed, looking both sad and a bit exasperated. "Sometimes you're so naive."

"Well, do you think my father could have beat Ash...Ethan...and cut his face open?" Laura demanded.

Rosie turned away, not meeting her eyes. "No," she mumbled, not very convincingly. "But if Ethan was his stepson and not his real son, maybe they didn't get along. They might not want to reconcile. Not every story has a happy ending, Laura."

"This one will," Laura said, with more desperation than true belief. "It has to."

Rosie sighed again and shook her head. She picked up a small cloth bundle from her desk and handed it to Laura, saying, "Here, I saved some food for you since you missed dinner."

Laura unwrapped the napkin, which was filled with rolls split and stuffed with slices of roast beef, as well as an apple and a slightly squashed cupcake. "Thank you, Rosie," she said, touched by the gesture although she didn't have much of an appetite right now.

"You're welcome," Rosie replied, managing a small smile, but her eyes were still sad and anxious.
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Lupin did not start meddling right away, which he felt showed admirable restraint on his part. Instead, he tried to gauge Tsubasa's mood at dinner. The new Professor did not seem at all upset, and chatted pleasantly with the other teachers during the meal. But then again, as Lupin had told Lukas, Tsubasa had good control over his emotions, and he wouldn't necessarily show it if he was upset--he would probably be good at Occlumency. And come to think of it, Lupin had no idea what Tsubasa had studied at Salem besides Transfiguration; for all he knew, the crane man might really be an Occlumens.

He did notice that Severus seemed to be in a bad mood, which was not at all surprising. "I heard about the incident in your second-year Potions class," Lupin told his lover sympathetically.

"That idiot Parkinson was showing off for that veela girl," Snape grumbled.

"She's only part veela," Lupin reminded him.

"Thank Merlin!" Snape growled. "It's bad enough as it is; I'd never be able to get the male students to concentrate in class if she were a full-blooded veela."

"Well, most of the male students, anyway," Lupin conceded with a smile. "I imagine that there are a few who wouldn't be affected by Gabrielle's veela charm." The Potions Master just scowled at him in response, and Lupin patted his hand and said soothingly, "Perhaps you should give out a few detentions, Severus. It might cheer you up."

"Then he should be quite cheery already, Remus," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling mischievously. "He's deducted a record amount of points today, so I hear, and given out several detentions." Snape glowered at him fiercely, but the Headmaster just chuckled good-naturedly and winked at him.

"You could help me with my research tonight, Severus," Lupin whispered into his lover's ear. "Perhaps that would help take your mind off unruly students."

"Yes, your research tends to be rather...distracting," Snape agreed in a dry voice, his scowl easing into a sardonic smile. "Very well, Lupin."

"You've been working very hard on your book, Remus," Dumbledore said, his eyes still twinkling.

"I think it's important for a textbook to be well-researched," Lupin said demurely.

Snape rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, "This will probably be the most well-researched book in the history of the wizarding world."

After dinner, Lupin decided to have a word with Tsubasa. "Go on ahead, Severus," he said as everyone started to file out of the Great Hall. "I'll meet you in a few minutes; I just need to ask Tsubasa something."

"Meddling again, Lupin?" Snape asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, but this time I have permission," Lupin replied with a grin, and hurried after Tsubasa, leaving the Potions Master staring after him with a rather perplexed expression on his face.

"Excuse me, Tsubasa," Lupin called out, and the other man stopped and turned to face him.

"Yes, Remus?" Tsubasa asked politely.

"I happened to be talking with Lukas in his office when Ash left, and we couldn't help but notice that he seemed to be upset about something," Lupin replied. "I know that it's none of my business, but..."

Tsubasa sighed, a bit wearily. "Why do people always say 'it's none of my business' when they're about to pry into your business anyway?"

Lupin smiled at him apologetically. "Yes, well, normally I wouldn't," he said as Tsubasa gave him a skeptical look. "But you see, Lukas is protective of all his pack members, and Ash in particular, and he was worried--"

"Why does everyone assume that it's my fault Ash is upset?" Tsubasa interrupted, sounding rather offended.

Lupin suppressed a smile of amusement; so Professor Tsubasa was in a bad mood, after all. In a way, that was a good sign, because it was the people that you cared about who were able to get under your skin and annoy you the most. Arguments with people you were indifferent to weren't nearly as vexing. Or maybe it was just that Lupin was used to living with a quarrelsome Potions Master, so he'd come to associate irritability with affection.

"Actually, I think it's more the other way around," Lupin said placatingly. "Lukas said that Ash doesn't have much experience with relationships, so I think he was assuming that Ash was probably at fault."

"Oh," Tsubasa said sheepishly.

"So I don't know exactly what's happened between you," Lupin continued, "but I hope that the two of you will be able to patch things up. Again, it's none of my business--" He grinned impishly, and Tsubasa smiled slightly in response. "--but if there's anything I can do to help..."

"I thank you for your good intentions, Remus," Tsubasa said, with another weary little sigh. "But I am afraid that there's nothing you can do. Ash has to work this out for himself. And by the way, it's not what you think."

"Excuse me?" Lupin asked.

"I mean that Ash is not upset because of me," Tsubasa replied. Then he reconsidered and admitted reluctantly, "Well, perhaps a little. But that's not that main reason."

"Then what is?" Lupin asked curiously.

"If you want to know that, you and Lukas will have to ask Ash," Tsubasa said firmly.

"Can't you just give me a little hint?" Lupin wheedled, flashing his most charming smile at Tsubasa.

However, the other teacher was unmoved. "Sharing something that Ash told me in confidence without his permission would be a betrayal of his trust," Tsubasa said, sounding a little annoyed.

"Of course I wouldn't want you to betray a confidence," Lupin said, hastily. "But Lukas really is worried. Perhaps if you could just give us an idea of how serious this mysterious problem is--"

"Remus," Tsubasa said, in a tone of patience sorely being tested; Lupin found it familiar because Severus used it on him quite often, although his voice usually had a much more scathing ring to it than Tsubasa's. "With all due respect, this is none of your business, so please butt out."

"Um..." Lupin said hesitantly. He wasn't familiar with that last phrase--an Americanism, he assumed--but its implied meaning was certainly clear enough.

"To put it in British terms," Tsubasa said in an exasperated voice, "bugger off, Lupin!" Then he turned on his heel and stalked away.

"Oh!" Lupin exclaimed with a startled laugh, more amused than offended. Most of his Japanese acquaintances were exquisitely polite, and even when they expressed disapproval, they tended to be subtle and indirect about it. Tsubasa must have picked up his bluntness during the years he had spent living with the tengu, or perhaps from his human classmates at Salem.

Lupin felt a little guilty that he'd upset Tsubasa, but again, he thought it was a good sign, because Tsubasa wouldn't be so touchy about the subject if he didn't care for Ash. But Lupin wondered what was troubling Ash if it wasn't a lover's spat.

Lupin headed to the dungeon, lost in thought. Well, since the direct approach had failed, he'd have to go the indirect route. Sirius and Harry often had lunch with Ash at the Ministry, so maybe they might have noticed if something was bothering him. In fact, it was possible that the problem could be some incident that had happened at work; there were many people who were opposed to having a werewolf on the Ministry staff. He decided to contact Sirius through the Floo when he got back to his quarters. And he would have to apologize to Tsubasa and try to smooth things over with him tomorrow. Fortunately, he didn't think that the crane man was the type to hold a grudge.

"You certainly took your time, Lupin," Snape said in a low, sarcastic drawl when Lupin arrived at their dungeon quarters. "Are you meddling in things that are none of your concern again?"

"But Lukas asked me to," Lupin protested innocently.

"Lukas asked you to play matchmaker for one of his wolves?" Snape asked skeptically.

"No, he asked me to find out what's bothering Ash," Lupin replied. "I was hoping that Tsubasa could help me with that."

"I see," Snape said. "But don't forget that Tsubasa is a master swordsman. Is Lukas going to protect you if the crane gets a bit testy and decides to lop off that Gryffindor nose of yours because you stuck it where it doesn't belong? Or any of your other appendages, for that matter?" Snape's eyes slowly traveled down Lupin's body from head to toe in a deliberately lewd manner, resting their gaze pointedly on Lupin's crotch for a moment before moving on. "Because I believe that I prefer you with all your appendages intact."

Lupin decided that he could wait until tomorrow to talk to Sirius. "Why Severus," he said coyly, batting his eyelashes playfully. "Sometimes you say the most romantic things."

"This isn't romance, Lupin," Snape purred, with a wicked gleam in his black eyes that made Lupin forget all about meddling and matchmaking. "This is research."

"And what should we research tonight, Severus?" Lupin murmured, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around his lover.

"How about the length of time it will take a certain werewolf to beg me to ravish him?" Snape whispered into Lupin's ear. "Or perhaps the length of time it will take to make that werewolf howl?"

The answer to the first question was approximately three minutes. It took somewhat longer to make the wolf howl, but by then, neither of them was counting.

Part 8