The Good Shepherd and the Ravening Wolf

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Good Shepherd and the Ravening Wolf

Friday 23 December 1983 – Sunday 18 March 1984

Kincarden, Inverness-shire; Hogsmeade, The Grampians.

Rated PG for unethical behaviour from our hero and references to lycanthropy.

A/N: Babel service here... "Mancunian" means "from Manchester".

Remus had time to read Switch's book from cover to cover over the next three days and to work through most of the puzzles, because there was no work for farmhands beyond the routine care of animals. The Macmillans had come to stay, so Ariadne was kept busy in the kitchen. She avoided speaking to him so pointedly that he was surprised when she sent him an owl – an owl to someone on her own property? The owlery was further from the house than the farmhands' quarters!

Dear Remus, all is well in the house, just very noisy and busy with so many of us. You're not banished forever. When the Macmillans leave, you are to enter the parlour and teach me more Transfiguration. Do not feel neglected. A.

P.S. I'm knowing you usually keep my letters, but do not keep this one. There are too many people asking too many questions.

He knew he was tempting fate, but he wrote back,

My dear pupil, can't you do a Chameleon Charm yet? Obviously we shall need long hours of study over the New Year. You definitely need to learn to enchant a page so that the words look different to different recipients. This page, for example, looks like a shopping list if anyone except you reads it. R.

He felt himself very much in disgrace when the owl returned in only ten minutes, bearing the words:

Cousin Steadfast could not believe his eyes – why would anybody exhaust a good owl just to transport a shopping list? And why was I wanting to buy fence wire? When he realised I could not actually read the shopping list, he teased me no end. He did not believe me when I said that it was from a friend wishing me a happy Hogmanay. It's lucky he did not recognise the messenger as a Kincarden owl.

But when the Macmillans had left the farm, and he was finally seated with Ariadne at the desk in the parlour, she did not mention the incident. Her anger was always so understated that it was difficult to tell, from writing, when she was really annoyed with him and when she was only teasing.

"Can you Transfigure the desk into a pig?"

She closed her eyes and moved her wand, and the desk turned into a ram.

Remus Stunned the ram before it butted them and asked, "Did you do that on purpose?"

"Of course I did not. I cannot imagine why it... "

"Ariadne, what were you thinking about when you closed your eyes?"

"I was thinking about how city people think of pigs as greedy and selfish and of sheep as sweet and vulnerable. Yet really pigs are intelligent and friendly, while sheep are mindless, and an angry ram can be dangerous... "

"Well, I think you produced an angry one then. So here's a challenge. Turn your ram into a pig."

She frowned furiously and the ram became a very small piglet.

"Were you thinking that you must only produce tame animals from now on?"

"I was thinking that your next idea would be to try the Animate to Inanimate Transfiguration, and I'd rather do that with a small animal than a large one."

"Just one fatal flaw with that plan. Your piglet is not animate. That arrangement of molecules looks like a piglet, but it isn't one. You need a real animal if you really want to practise the Animate to Inanimate – "

She shook her head expressively. "Oh, do not say – do not have new ideas now!"

He waved his wand, and the piglet reverted to a writing desk. "I was only going to say, begin with a small animal. A mouse. A canary. A goldfish. A bee. A ladybird... "

"Where will I find a bee or a ladybird at this time of year? Are you going to Conjure one for me?" She sounded ingenuous, but there was a mischievous glint in her eye.

The week they spent in the parlour was long and glorious. The weather alternated dismally between snow and rain, so there was nothing to do outdoors. When Mrs MacDougal told Ariadne that she was wanting a break from studying books, Ariadne practised charms from Mrs Skower's Housewitch's Hints, or experimented with her Potions practical, or read Beatrix Bloxsam's Toadstool Tales to Morag. Remus had to go outdoors, weather notwithstanding; his choices were between searching out tools and fences that needed repairs, and sitting in his own quarters watching William play with his new toys. He always timed Ariadne a careful three to four hours before venturing back to the kitchen to ask if she wished to continue.

The Christmas holidays progressed so smoothly that he was not prepared for the storm in January. It was literally stormy, with no day free from snow, and howling gales through the middle of the month. The full moon brought special problems, as Ariadne pointed out in a letter.

You're not saying what your plans are for the 18th. I'm expecting you will not be using the shepherd's hut since (amazingly) it will be under constant surveillance in preparation for shepherding. Tell me you've left it in good repair. If it comes to that, you will be needing to tend to the pregnant ewes – my father will not grant you time off when it's so close to the lambing season. And what is your alibi for the 19th? You've suffered from winter illnesses for the last two months; if it happens again, they might start noticing that your ailments are recurring monthly. Tell me your plan, or I will not be able to concentrate on my Transfiguration...

He had to admit:

I will look for a shed not occupied by animate life – perhaps the hay barn. The problem will be in getting out again. As for the 19th, I will have to plead influenza; and, given the weather we're suffering here, that's very likely to be the truth.

She found this plan completely inadequate.

Remus, are you planning to have yourself turned over to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures? Or will you settle for merely losing your job? If you spent the night in the hay barn, I'm thinking that not even you could produce a spell that would restore the hay the next morning. Go to the Shrieking Shack. I'll make sure you're back at Kincarden before you're missed. And try to have a fairly serious magical accident on the way home to explain your subsequent illness. Wizards are not supposed to catch the flu as often as you claim you do.

In the event, he had to go to the Shrieking Shack without any clear understanding of what would happen the next day. He reminded himself that anything was better than bursting out of an insecure barn, inevitably to scent out the sheepfolds and spend the night eating his employer's livestock; the image of chewing all that raw meat, complete with winter fleece, was revolting enough to harden his resolve. If ever he lived in his own house again, he would definitely become a vegetarian.

On the morning after, he awoke to the soothing sound of Ariadne's voice. She was in the Shrieking Shack, presumably looking for him, and she was talking to someone.

But she shouldn't be here! He leapt to his feet, dismayed by the broadening daylight. Since it was light, she ought to be at school. And who was her companion? He couldn't make out the words, and it took him a moment to place the unusually deep voice as Kingsley Shacklebolt's. A fist thundered on the door, and Kingsley was asking if he were in there.

Remus opened the door and retrieved his wand, wondering just how much Ariadne had told her friend. He also wondered about the friend. Ariadne had never said that Kingsley was anything more than a friend to her, but Remus began to wonder why not, for Kingsley was personable, clever and thoroughly decent. It struck him as a very uneven competition, between elderly persecuted werewolf and gallant young werewolf-rescuer. He had completed this thought before he remembered that it was a competition that no werewolf had any right to enter.

Kingsley helped him across the hall. "Are you all right, Remus?"

"Yes," he lied. It was a lie he had told Madam Pomfrey sixty-five times during his school days; she had never believed him. "You aren't, though. Why aren't you in school?"

"School doesn't start for another ten minutes. Hold on to me. I'm going to Apparate you home."

They landed outside the farmhouse, in a howling gale, with Remus feeling sick from the Apparition. Kingsley admitted, "I don't know the way from here. I've only ever seen this place in a photograph."

They hobbled towards the farmhands' quarters with Remus worrying so much about making Kingsley late for school that he didn't notice Kenneth MacDougal approaching from the opposite direction. He was furious.

"Remus, did you go drinking again?" he hissed. "What need was there to bring your despicable drunken companions here?"

"Beg your pardon, sir," said Kingsley, "but are you this man's employer? I found him lying on the path to this property. Lucky I was passing, he was half dead from hypothermia."

Since Kingsley was obviously not drunk, Kenneth nodded curtly and ignored him. "Dead drunk, more likely," he told Remus. "If you did succumb to hypothermia... but you're not looking as if you've been out in the cold at all hours."

"I'm all right now," said Remus to Kingsley. "Go about your business... and... thanks."

Kingsley nodded and Disapparated. Since the clocks were striking nine, and he still had to pull Ariadne out of Hogsmeade, it was probably the most sensible thing he could have done; but of course it immediately told Kenneth that Kingsley was a wizard.

"Lucky he was passing, did he say? Unlucky that he's not knowing the area well enough to realise that no Negroes with Mancunian accents live around here. Wherever you passed the night, I'd say that friend of yours was there with you. And you've been passing the night somewhere quite warm and comfortable, I'd say. Just not for quite long enough to sleep off that regular hangover of yours. Remus, this is the last time you insult the MacDougals with your immature hobbies. My father will be hearing of this scandal, and one more offence will cost you your job."

Kenneth might have said a great deal more if his mother had not emerged from the back door at that moment. She listened patiently to Kenneth's summary of the situation, cast an eye over Remus, and said, "However this happened, Kenneth, Remus is too sick to work today. Go to bed, young man, and we'll talk it over when everybody has cooled off."

It was difficult to imagine anything cooler than the biting Kincarden wind as Remus stumbled through the snow to his dormitory. The writing was on the wall. His job here was going to last exactly one more month. He would never see Ariadne again. The thought of being cut adrift in midwinter, when no farm in Scotland needed more unskilled labour than it already possessed, refused to enter his mind properly. He fell asleep thinking of Ariadne, and he awoke thinking of her too, because an owl was brushing a letter against his face. He was too tired to absorb it properly.

Dearest,

I'm sorry I handled this morning so clumsily. You have the right to be angry with me for involving Kingsley, but I promise you, he's not guessed the true story yet. His theory is that you had an errand to Hogsmeade and a magical accident; he was puzzled about how you "managed to owl me from the Shrieking Shack", but he accepted my suggestion that you must have taken a Kincarden owl with you for the errand. So no more about that.

I was going to suggest a cover story in which you felt sick in the night and tried to revive yourself with a brisk walk, but you collapsed instead. It's maybe simplest to stick to that story, because it explains the important points. My parents would have probably accepted that version if they had heard it from the first, but Kenneth's preference for a theory that involves alcohol might, unfortunately, sway them.

That is our real problem: my brother caught you. He has suspected you of drinking for some time, Remus, and it seemed dangerous to suggest to him that your problem is maybe of a different nature. Even if you can convince my father that you were sober today, Kenneth is now primed to place the worst construction on every accident. I'm not knowing what we can do about that.

Kingsley and I were only ten minutes late for our first lesson. We both have detention tomorrow evening – not wonderful for Head Boy! – but they are believing we were just late in the ordinary way; they are not knowing that we were actually out of bounds.

I've been practising the Chameleon Charm. I have Charmed this page to look like Ivor's favourite Martin Miggs cartoon to anybody except you.

Yours always,

Ariadne.

He was too tired to analyse why this depressing missive was comforting. He was able to snatch a page from his notebook and scribble back

I am never angry with you. R.

in full confidence that he had now addressed all the really important points in her message. After the owl had returned to Hogwarts, William entered their room and said, "Brraw barrry, it's Marratin Muggs!" He claimed the page without a thought that it might be someone else's property, so Remus never had a chance to re-read the letter.

When he awoke properly, in the evening, he had to deal with his employers. Mr MacDougal was very disappointed and asked, "Were you really drinking in work time, Remus?"

"I haven't been drinking, sir, but I've been unwell."

Mr MacDougal accepted this, but he gave a long lecture on how it would have been better to ask Mrs MacDougal for a potion than to leave himself to weaken, and without informing any of them, on a day when he knew how badly his labour would be needed around the farm. "At the very least, Remus, come and tell us next time you have a problem. Dilemmas that nobody can help arise from time to time, and in Clan MacDougal we work together to find solutions."

This was so exactly the way the MacDougals liked to perceive themselves, and so very far from the reality when there actually was a problem, that all he could think was, Ariadne has lived with these meaningless platitudes all her life, and for a moment, her problems seemed worse than his.

But it seemed his job would live another month, and the next day Ariadne really did come home. She worked outdoors, helping to check the ewes; she learned the basics of Dairy Charming from her mother; and when she and Remus were finally shut up together in the barn, they did not open a book.

"I'm not needing to," she said. "After your tutoring, and my parents' attitude to holiday homework, I'm yet ahead in every subject. I'm wanting to know about you."

"It's as you wrote, Ariadne. Your brother is primed to believe the worst, and the fact that Kingsley is so obviously a friend – was so obviously there by design – only alerted him that something suspicious was happening. I still have this job for now, but I can't afford another accident. If I'm lucky next month, that only delays the inevitable until the month after."

"And you're quite sure that it is inevitable – that you're now on borrowed time – "

"Ariadne, at this stage I don't think it'll take your brother longer than three months to work out the truth. He may tumble to it tomorrow. I don't know if I shall ever see you again."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew what he had said.

He stared at her speechlessly, not knowing how he could repair the gaffe, and then knowing that his own horror at his indiscretion was creating a second gaffe. If he changed the subject, she would be polite, but she would still know; and his mind was barren of any topic for conversation.

Her face did not change. She had taken his hands and was chafing them against the cold, as if he were a child. It wasn't really cold because they had Conjured a brazier and a fire to go with it, but inside he was as numb as if he had swallowed an iceberg. Her eyes were so blue. She seemed concerned, but not at all... surprised.

He would have rather her father know about his lycanthropy than that Ariadne know his heart.

She dropped his hands abruptly. "Sorry, that's against the rules too, is it not? We do not touch. And we do not speak of it. And we do not let anybody else think that we... Remus, what are the rules?"

"You've just given a pretty good summary." She knew. She knew. He should have known he could not hide from Ariadne. She always understood him so well. She might recognise that he didn't want to talk about his feelings, she always observed his limits scrupulously... but that did not mean she was blissfully oblivious to the whole situation. On the contrary, she had understood so thoroughly that she had understood the limits to be a rule, binding on them both.

Merlin, she knew.

"We're quits, Remus. We've broken one rule each in the last two minutes. Ready to play fairly again now?"

"Do you always know what people are thinking?" he asked.

"Like a Legilimens? Of course not. I'm generally knowing what people are feeling. That's not the same thing at all."

"What's the difference?"

"Morag was sad this morning. I did not know whether it was because Kenneth had rebuked her, or because Janet was too busy with Aidan to notice her, or because all the red in her paint box was used up. When she finally came to talk to me, I learned it was because her favourite kitten had died. I'd never have guessed because I'd not known about that. But I was right about her being sad. Whereas Kenneth's guess was wide of the mark – he was thinking she had a stomach ache and was suggesting a potion."

He wanted to ask: How long have you known that I love you? But that was a question that broke all the rules, one that would ensure he never did see her again. She knew, and she hadn't let it distress her. She knew, and she trusted him not to pursue her. She knew, and she still wanted his friendship. She knew, and the fact that he had only just realised she knew did not change the situation from her point of view. She knew, and she was still smiling at him.

The simple and obvious interpretation of this phenomenon was a possibility that he did not allow to cross his mind.

In February Kenneth worked out a roster so that each man took turns to sleep in the shepherd's hut, and Remus was indeed rostered for the night of the full moon. As he wrote to Ariadne,

What would your brother say if he knew he was loosing a real live unfettered wolf among his lambs? I will try to swap duties with William, but if your father finds out that we've swapped without telling him, he will call it "failing to work together", and I don't see him giving me a third chance. We knew all along that it could not end any other way, so you are not to incriminate yourself by interceding for me...

Remus had to use an immoral Persuasion Charm on William to arrange the exchange of duties. William agreed, with a dazed smile that suggested he was not quite aware of what he had agreed to do, and Remus Disapparated to the Shrieking Shack.

The next morning Ariadne brought a stranger to release him from the Shack, a shockingly good-looking young man who turned out to be her friend Richard. Remus was disturbed by Richard's being so well-favoured, even though Ariadne had written that he was going out with a girl in Hufflepuff. But Richard Apparated him back to Kincarden without any questions, and no one intercepted them, perhaps because sunrise was now an hour earlier than it had been last month. William reported that he had delivered a healthy lamb during the night, without complications, so the MacDougals never found out about the exchange of shifts; and Remus was able to plead illness with no worse consequences than a collective sigh at the inconvenience to the family.

Ariadne was home again that weekend. By this time Remus was back in favour because of his long hours in the lambing shed, and her homework had loaded up, so they were able to spend most of their time together. He followed her into the parlour, grinning like a Cheshire cat and not troubling to break eye contact. It didn't matter if she noticed; she already knew everything.

"You've relaxed," she said. "Is that because the Transformation went well the other night?"

No, of course not. I've relaxed because I'm no longer hiding anything from you. Out loud, he said, "Every criminal is glad to live another day." He remembered then that he was a criminal; that she tolerated his infatuation because he didn't impose it on her, and that he ought to behave more discreetly in front of her family.

She teased him for being cryptic and opened the book. A week later she sent him a photograph.

I'm sorry you did not recognise Richard the other morning. My pen-portrait was evidently not vivid enough, but here at last is a photograph of all of us. I'm hoping you recognise Joe, who is said to look very like Benjy, and Sarah is the blonde.

It took a while to organise this portrait. The camera belongs to Ivor, but he did not manage to Charm it to delay the Exposure for long enough to allow him to run around and sit down. After three misses he bribed a second-year to press the button for us. The boy – a very streetwise redhead named Bill – said that pressing camera-buttons was a very difficult and delicate business, and he could not do it for less than a Galleon. We were all so amused by his cheek that we gave him one. But then the sixth-years were wanting a group portrait too, so the next thing we knew, Bill was clearing us off the sofas, and arranging the sixth-years for a pose, and they paid him a Galleon too. For using Ivor's camera! Then the fifth-years were wanting a portrait, and none of them had a Galleon, so at this point Bill gave in and said, "I'm not really mercenary. You can have a picture for nothing." Using Ivor's camera yet!

You might notice something different about Kingsley. That's another story about Bill. He had grown his hair into a wee pony tail, and Professor McGonagall did not approve at all. Bill argued the point with his usual aplomb. "But, Professor, it's tied back. The school rules say that 'long hair must be tied back', and mine is." Professor McGonagall pointed out that this rule is for girls, and the boys' rule is that hair 'must not be longer than an inch below the ear' and that 'no boy may grow a beard'. Bill grumbled loudly that the rule was 'sexist', but he had to give in and cut it short.

Anyway, Kingsley felt sorry for Bill. Or the stress of N.E.W.T.s is maybe telling on him. In a show of solidarity, he said, 'Never mind, Bill, I'll cut mine too, and we'll see what McGonagall says about that.' And with a wand-wave and a Raso!, Kingsley divested his head of every single hair! Professor McGonagall was extremely displeased, but there was not a thing she could do about it because the uniform rules only say the maximum amount of hair anybody is allowed – there's not a word about a minimum. 'Now, Professor,' said Kingsley, 'if you had some unfortunate student who was dying of a terrible illness that made him bald, would you punish that student for breaking uniform rules? Or if an elderly teacher goes bald, are we so ageist as to accuse him of setting a bad example to the students?'

Hestia told Kingsley that he looked better bald, and Ivor acted very jealously about it.

It was Remus's only photograph of Ariadne, but he couldn't display it. It would look too odd for the farmhand to frame a portrait of his employers' daughter's schoolmates. He shut it up in the book she had given him and hoped William would never ask why he used a photograph as a bookmark.

On 10 March a Hogwarts owl brought him a book, Pinkstone's Vultures and Victims: Persecution Perpetrated by and against the Wizarding World, with a note from Ariadne:

You must be thinking I'm a very unimaginative gift-giver to resort to giving you a book again, but this made me laugh as well as cry (I'm in a rebellious mood at present). Happy Birthday.

He was certain he had never told her when his birthday was.

The March full moon fell a week later. Ariadne negotiated her way home again and spent all Saturday in the barn (she hinted to her mother that the house held too many distractions). A survey of the ewes indicated that none was likely to give birth that night, so Remus was able to transform in the shepherd's hut.

The door swung open at dawn, and Ariadne stood there, cradling a newborn lamb. "Thank goodness it's warm in here," she said. "Had you a comfortable night, Remus?"

He stared at the lamb she was placing down on the straw, and at the ewe that she had Charmed to follow her into the hut. "What happened, Ariadne? Yes, yes, I'm fine... but what happened?"

"We were wrong about the ewe, that's all; she gave birth in the night."

He sprang to his feet – then swayed, because he was too weak to balance alone. "Does your father know?"

"Of course he does not." She finished settling the animals and closed the hut door. "It's all right, Remus. You've spent the night here... exactly where you were meant to be. Yesterday evening I said good night in the parlour, then went out through the back door, so nobody knows that I patrolled the pen all night. I delivered the lamb and Conjured enough fire to keep it warm through the night... "

Appalled, he sank to the floor and said, "You must be frozen! And you can't have slept. What if there had been a complication with the birth?"

Her eyes were large and brilliant in a very sober face. "Then I could not have saved the lamb," she said quietly, "and we might have been found out. But if we had left the ewe to give birth alone, and she had been discovered outdoors in the cold while you were sleeping in the hut... then you would certainly have been found out. So it was a chance worth taking. As it is, the ewe has given you an alibi for today... you're needing to sleep because you were up all night delivering her. I do know, Remus, that when we're caught, we're caught. But it's not happening this month."

"I meant if I'm caught I'm caught. There's no need for you to be in trouble for colluding with me."