A Runny-Nosed Little Twit

Chapter 6

Sunday, continued: A Runny-Nosed Little Twit

At Remus' insistence, we went back to the hotel so I could take a nap. I tried to protest, but found I lacked the energy to make a fuss about anything just now.

"Don't tell me you're not exhausted," he said, pointing to the bed with an air of finality not unlike my own this morning. Remus' version of therapy came in the form of foot rubs, and before long I was out cold. By the time I awoke, it was early evening.

We went to the hospital, arriving just as his nurse was putting Billy back to bed after a twenty-foot forced march down the hall. The Billy Mitchell of this evening was a stronger and louder version of the man I'd bathed this morning. If the cursing was any indication, he was feeling much improved.

"Damn hospitals!" he muttered weakly. "They take away your clothes and your food, cut your chest open, and then expect you to exercise and be happy about it!"

I grinned at the nurse, who surely faced this abuse on a daily basis and looked utterly unfazed by it. In my own job at London Heart Hospital, I worked in the Post-Anesthesia Suite, a fancy term for the Recovery Room. The patients there are either unconscious or next to it, and therefore unable to vent their outrage yet.

His nurse laughed aloud as she left the room. "You should be proud of yourself, Mr. Mitchell. I bet you'll be ready for forty feet tomorrow."

Billy sighed and sank back on the pillow.

I approached the bed and leaned over to kiss my grandfather on the cheek. "You look even better than this morning, Grandpa."

"Wish I felt better," he grumbled.

"That'll come. I brought Remus and Hermione tonight," I said, motioning to the two of them behind me.

"Good to see you again, Billy," Remus said, stepping forward. "You're definitely looking much improved."

"Thanks." Billy was suddenly sheepish. "You'll have to forgive me, son. Last night was kind of a blur, and I don't remember you so well."

"Then I get to make a good first impression all over again," Remus said with a wink, and my heart swelled with appreciation for this man I'd married.

"And this," I said, motioning for Hermione to come forward, "is Hermione Granger, Billy."

Hermione smiled politely. "How do you do, Mr. Mitchell?"

"I've been better," Billy said, startled.

"I'm sure you'll be up and about in no time," Hermione continued.

Billy didn't answer immediately. Then his eyes became moist, and his voice cracked when he spoke. "I'm sure I will," he managed.

Hermione looked at me questioningly, but I had no answers to give her.

"Grandpa," I began, but Billy held up one hand while he dabbed furiously at his eyes with the other.

"I'm sorry. You'll have to forgive me. It's just hearing your lovely accent. It reminds me so much of my wife."

I understood immediately. No wonder Billy had reacted this way: he'd heard Hermione and thought of Marvy.

I felt for him, but during the brief time we'd been on U.S. soil, I'd run the gauntlet of emotions myself and wasn't ready to take on one more round. I squeezed Billy's hand. "Did you see the doctor this afternoon, Grandpa?" I asked, deftly changing the subject.

"Yeah, he stopped in," Billy said, sniffling briefly and wiping his eyes one last time. "Said I could go home by Friday if I keep my nose clean. How about you all take a seat? I hate lying here and having people stand and stare at me."

He had a point. The three of us settled ourselves on the various chairs surrounding the hospital bed.

"So," he continued, "I know you didn't come all the way from England just to visit me or the fabulous Holiday Inn in Rockford, Illinois. What else do you plan on doing?"

"It's the Marriott," I corrected with a smile. "And now that you're on the mend, we'll be going into Chicago to see some of the sights."

"Good for you," Billy said. "Now, what's this business about the wizards in England not letting you back in the country, Remus?"

Remus and Hermione automatically glanced around to make sure the door was closed, while I double-checked the intercom light over the bed. Then Remus explained the story in detail. By the time he finished, Billy was shaking his head.

"Idiots," he muttered. "I'm real sorry about this. If you hadn't come here on account of me, this would never have happened."

I was indignant. "Grandpa, don't say that!"

"Well," he argued, "am I wrong?"

"This is not your fault," Remus said firmly. "I'm here because Kailin needed me to be here. Even if I had known the flight manifests were being monitored, I wouldn't have chosen differently."

Hermione looked thoughtful. "I wonder how long they've been doing that. Of course, wizards don't use Muggle transportation all that often, even if they're traveling out of the country."

"You don't suppose they've bugged your phone, do you?" Billy asked. "Maybe they overheard you making your plane reservations."

It was a chilling thought. I looked to Remus for his opinion, but he was already shaking his head.

"That's not something wizards would do. They just don't tinker with Muggle electronic things," he said, then added, "except for Arthur Weasley, of course."

Billy grunted as he tried to readjust his position under the covers, and I leaned forward to help him. "So they want to get rid of you because you're a werewolf, huh? Kailie says that when the moon's full, you just take some medicine and go to bed. How's that supposed to hurt anybody?"

Remus swiveled his head to look at me as I resumed my seat. From the expression on his face, I could see that my abbreviated summary of Wolfsbane Potion and Its Applications had amused him.

"Well, that's the gist of it," I muttered to him. "And just so you know, I was a bit more thorough than that."

The corners of his mouth twitched, and I grinned in response.

I knew full well that lycanthropy was not a laughing matter, that point having been driven home with the Great Wolf Shirt Incident in March. But last month, I spotted an item in a catalog and simply had to have it. Remus was puzzled when the box arrived and I'd whisked it away without opening it.

The following week, when the moon was full, I hung my new purchase on the door of the spare bedroom before Remus locked himself in for the full moon.

"What's this?" Remus halted in his tracks when he spotted the plaque hanging there.

"Crazy in love," I retorted, tapping the door with the fingertips of one hand. "Rest well, R.J."

"The only reason that werewolves could be considered dangerous in this day and age," Remus said now, turning back to Billy, "is because the Ministry of Magic works to keep us impoverished and desperate. Some are driven to extreme measures just to stay alive."

"What a stupid system," Billy muttered. "And since when is it a crime for you to disagree with the people in office?"

"It's a crime if the people in office are on Voldemort's side," Hermione pointed out indignantly.

"Voldemort?"

"The Dark wizard. The one who's trying to seize power," I reminded Billy. The list of things I'd been slow to tell Billy about included the wizarding war; I think I'd broken that little tidbit about two weeks after I told him about Remus' lycanthropy.

"Yeah, I know." Billy was puzzling over something. "Wasn't he the one causing all that ruckus a few years back? Marva would get letters every so often from an old school chum of hers, telling about it."

"Back in the late seventies and early eighties," Hermione added helpfully.

"Oh. Yeah, time flies like that, doesn't it?"

I sat up straighter in my chair suddenly. "Remus, Marvy graduated from Hogwarts in 1941. What year did Tom Riddle graduate?"

"Nineteen forty-five," Remus stated, and my eyes grew huge.

"They might have known each other!" I said.

"I suppose it's possible, although it's not at all unusual to be unfamiliar with students from other houses, especially if they're not around your year."

Hermione was nodding. "He's right. You tend to hang around with a certain group and not interact much. Except for when we formed the D.A. last year: I really got to know a lot of people I didn't know before. It was quite nice."

Meanwhile, Billy was muttering. I strained to hear. "What's that, Grandpa?"

"Tom Riddle... I know that name." Billy was frowning. "Who is he?"

"That's Lord Voldemort's real name," Hermione told him.

"So Marva went to school with this Dark Lord guy who was really Tom Riddle?"

"Apparently."

"Excuse me, Billy," Remus interrupted, "but how have you heard the name Tom Riddle?"

Billy stared the ceiling for inspiration, his brows furrowed. "If I remember correctly, Marva had a distant cousin – Leona or Lenora, or something like that – who was a few years behind her at that school of yours. They sent letters back and forth to each other for a spell after we got married. Apparently Leona was crazy about this Tom Riddle guy, but Marva couldn't stand him. One day, she was real tickled when she got Leona's letter, 'cause come to find out, she and Riddle had a fight and he told her to get lost. I only remember the name Riddle because Marva used to say it was a riddle what Leona saw in him."

My jaw dropped. One of my distant relatives had wanted to date Lord Voldemort? Hermione was looking at Billy in awe, and Remus had a bemused expression on his face.

"In fact," Billy continued, "as I recall, Marva said that Tom Riddle was a runny-nosed little twit who'd sooner pull wings off flies than be nice to anybody. She couldn't figure out why Leona thought he was such hot stuff."

The thought of Voldemort being described as a 'runny-nosed little twit' plunged us all into an abrupt silence.

"Well," Remus managed finally, "I think he had a way about him."

"Did she use those exact words to describe him?" I asked, amused.

"Oh, I don't know," Billy shrugged. "Something to that effect."

"Did she say anything else?" Hermione asked eagerly. She was evidently looking for something, some clue missed in Britain, that might give the Order an edge in their struggle.

"I don't know," Billy repeated, a grimace of discomfort on his face.

"Are you okay, Grandpa?" I wanted to know.

"Yeah, but I'm gonna need a pain pill soon, I think," he muttered.

"We should be going," I said. "Let you get your rest."

Billy made a face. "I'll rest when I'm dead. Listen, you all start your sightseeing tomorrow and forget about me. I'm fine here. You don't want to sit in a hospital room and listen to me whine. Anyway, Roger'll be stopping by."

"I know. But I think I can spare a few minutes to drop by and listen to the whining," I said dryly, reaching out to pat his arm. The mention of Roger reminded me of the fruitless trip to his house, and now I was curious. "Grandpa, Roger mentioned that there was a trunk of Marvy's in your attic. I know you said that you hadn't seen Marvy's wand in a long time, but I thought maybe it was in the trunk, so we went to your house."

"Don't tell me you were silly enough to go up in that blast furnace of an attic," Billy said, appalled. "Not to mention that there's enough stuff up there to keep a junkman happy for years."

I smiled wanly. "You're not kidding, and yeah, we were silly enough. And we found the trunk, but it was locked."

"Couldn't you pry it open or something?"

"It was magically sealed," Remus explained.

"Oh. Well, you're welcome to hack it open, if that's what you want. I doubt that the trunk itself is worth anything, so I wouldn't worry about damaging it."

I could picture the three of us heaving axes at Marvy's trunk, along with the caption When Wizards Become Desperate.

"I don't think that would work," I said, although I wasn't quite sure why I thought that.

Remus was nodding agreement. "It's probably charmed so that it's unbreakable as well."

I already knew what Billy's answer would be, but I had to ask the question. "Are you sure that you haven't seen the wand anywhere, Grandpa?"

Billy looked mystified. "No, sweetie, I'm sorry. Not for years and years. Why do you want it so badly? Oh, of course: you said they took your wand away, Remus."

I nodded. "If we had a wand, we could change the passport and ID and get him back into Britain under a different name," I reminded Billy.

"I wish I could help," Billy said regretfully. "You're welcome to search the house all you want, honey."

"We might do that."

"Speaking of the house, how is it? When I went for that stress test, I didn't know I wouldn't be going home afterwards. There's no telling what shape it's in."

"It's fine," I assured him, trying not to think of the overgrown garden, the dust, the general unkemptness.

"Roger's been talking about getting a repairman in there. There's a lot of things that need fixing. Of course, some of them have been going on for ages."

"That happens with an old house." Remus was sympathetic. "Seems like there's always something that needs to be repaired."

"You're not kidding. I had to get a plumber in just last month to fix a leaky sink in the bathroom. Plus there's always water gets in the basement if it rains hard. And the windows leak cold air pretty bad in the winter. And some of 'em are sticky, you can't hardly raise them, while others slide shut as soon as you open them. We thought about getting those vinyl replacement windows one time, and I wish we had now. The cost seemed too high back then, but at least it'd be one less thing to worry about."

This was a good place to end the visit, I decided. Billy was tired and hurting, and the rest of us were still out of kilter from jet lag. I made sure that his nurse brought in some pain medication, then we said our goodbyes.

It had been a hell of a day, and I was glad it was finally over.