Dinner by Moonlight

CHAPTER THREE

Dinner by Moonlight

Wednesday 31 July – Saturday 17 August 1985

Old Basford, Nottingham.

Rated PG-13 for more references to conjugal love.

She had not expected sleeping alone to be so uncomfortable. She had slept alone for fourteen years – ever since the day her teddy bear had been relegated to the top of her bookcase – and slept soundly. Only once had the privacy of her sleep been invaded, when Morag, terrified by a nightmare, had crawled sobbing into her bed, and Ariadne had held her through the night. Morag had fallen asleep, but Ariadne had found that allowing another body into her bed had caused lumps in all the wrong places, and her eyes had not closed again until dawn. Sleeping alone was easy; it should have been natural to revert to the habit of a lifetime.

Instead, the bed seemed large and cold. For only twenty-five nights she had fallen asleep in Remus's arms, yet already she could not lie still without him. She thought of him, directly below her in the garage, yet her arms were seeking him in the bed beside her. She had asked him if it hurt to Transform, and he had admitted that it did, so now her ears were straining to hear him, even though she knew that the garage had been sound-proofed. She tried to tell herself that he was long since Transformed, was probably sleeping himself, but she could not settle. She reminded herself that Professor Jigger would require her full concentration in the morning, but she couldn't make herself think about potions. Even when she tried to think about sleeping draughts, she only remembered that they had none in the house, and that she ought to have set up a basic stock of medicants... if only she were not so tired when she arrived home in the evenings...

She tossed and turned and finally kicked off the covers and wandered downstairs. On her left, the door to the garage was locked, and Remus – or the creature that had somehow stolen his mind and his body – was lying behind it. Presumably sleeping. On her right, the door to the living room was open, giving a broad view to their normal life. Remus had ripped out his hard-earned savings to connect their hearth to the Floo network so that she could travel to work easily; opposite was the shapeless, stuffing-leaking sofa on which he had proposed to her. The kitchen table, still rickety, and its mismatched chairs were actually not in the tiny kitchen, but beside it, in front of the French windows that looked out on the overgrown garden. The garden was quite large, but it had not been loved for seven years. The full moon threw ghostly light on the uncut grass, the uncurbed weeds, the half-dead bushes. She wondered if Remus would let her do anything with the garden.

In fact, now she thought about it, the whole house had an unloved look. She never thought about the house when Remus was with her, because he was always so much more interesting than their surroundings. But now that she walked through the house alone, she saw it as Hestia in her professional capacity might – the house that nobody had bothered to make into a home. Remus had invited her to live in his house, but was it now her house? Would he let her change anything? Would Professor Jigger allow her to take the time? Would it cost any money?

At the very least, she ought to be able to plant enough horseradish and poppies to mix her own Pepper-Up and sleeping draughts.

But the kitchen, even with its wizarding cooking range, was not really large enough to support a home-brewing business along with normal meal preparation. And of course if she was going to manufacture anything dangerous, there was the possibility of cross-contamination. What she really wanted was her own laboratory – and that in addition to control of the garden!

The garage would have made an ideal laboratory, but the wolf needed it. The only other space in the house was the "spare bedroom" – the room where Remus had slept until this month. His old bed and that horrible orange wardrobe were still there, in case of visitors; she wondered if she could convert it into a laboratory instead.

She sat down in front of the garage door, and said to it, "There's no reason why not, really. We can squeeze in visitors anywhere if ever they come. But I'll be wanting a laboratory nearly every day."

Converting that room to a laboratory meant they would have nowhere to put their bairns, if ever they came. But Remus, she quickly reminded herself, believed that werewolves should never have children.

"That's another thing I have not told you," she said to the door. "There's no need to mention it for some years yet."

For Ariadne had never intended to be childless.

"If you hated bairns," she said to the barrier between them, "I'm thinking I could not have married you. But it's a nonsensical hypothetical, because you'd not then be yourself. The fact is, you're a child-lover who is duly cautious about real dangers, which is a very different proposition."

She pushed away the thought that there seemed to be a great deal that she didn't want to tell the man she trusted, and lay down on the hall floor. He was there, on the other side of the door. This was as close to him as he would let her come. "He is there. He is there," she told herself.

Knowing he was there, she came close to sleeping.

* * * * * * *

At half-past five in the morning she tore open the door. He was lying on the garage floor and his eyes were open. "Did you not sleep?" she asked.

"You should be asleep," he murmured, trying to sit up.

She helped him to his feet. "Sleeping alone is not seeming to work any more. I kept thinking of you, in there by yourself. Did you sleep?"

"I think the wolf had a bad time," he said, "but I don't really remember."

They climbed the stairs and collapsed together into bed. She knew at once that she would sleep now. But somewhere in the back of her mind was the self-preserving thought, "Jigger..."

Remus shifted beside her. "You need an alarm charm." He moved his wand tiredly. "Evigilo hora septem riginta. Try not to dream about Jigger."

She moved herself closer to him and his arm closed automatically around her. She kissed his forehead, and then his mouth, and then lay still.

Both were asleep before either was conscious that Remus now knew the answer to yesterday evening's agonised question.

* * * * * * *

The fire crackled, the flames turned green, and Morag's head appeared in the hearth. "Aunt 'Radny! Are you home?"

A voice behind the bairn gently corrected, "It's 'Aunt Lupin' now, Morag."

"Aunt Looping," said Morag, "are you there?"

Ariadne put her copy of Five Hundred Vegetarian Recipes down on the sofa and slid out from under Remus's arm until she was kneeling on the floor. "We're here, darling, and the Floo is connected."

"Grandmamma said you might be yet on holiday. I've been on holiday. Papa took us to Fife, but it rained all the time."

"Did you see St Andrew's museum?"

"I did not; Mamma just took us shopping. But we did see seals on the beach one day. Did you go on holiday, Aunt Looping?"

"We have not been on holiday because we've had to work," said Ariadne.

Morag's head snapped out of the fire rather abruptly, and was replaced by Ariadne's mother. "Darling, I see you're connected. Are you all right?"

"Everything is fine, Mamma. Is everybody well at Kincarden?"

"Of course everybody's well. Ariadne, you look tired. What have you been doing?"

Ariadne was aware that Remus, behind her, had put down A History of Education and was paying full attention to the fireplace. "Professor Jigger keeps me busy, Mamma. But we are both well. We were reading when Morag Flooed."

"But surely Professor Jigger could have given you the day off on such an important occasion. Why were you not at the wedding, dear?"

Her mind blanked. "I was not invited to any wedding, Mamma."

"Of course you had to be invited. Perhaps the owl was lost. Or the invitation was buried under the wrapping paper from your own wedding presents. But surely you knew that your Cousin Letitia was married today?"

"Mamma, I was not even knowing that Cousin Letitia was engaged." Sheer curiosity pushed out of her mind the important question of why nobody had informed her. "Who is her bridegroom?"

"Claud Greengrass. You know, the greengrocer's son. They announced the engagement a month ago and sent the invitations the next week – I'm expecting you were on your honeymoon then. But you have to have the invitation somewhere."

Ariadne looked at her mother steadily. "Mamma, have you not forgotten that Cousin Lucius has disowned me? I doubt I'll ever be invited to Wiltshire again."

"That's ridiculous, dear; whatever he said in anger, he would not snub you like that."

Ariadne could not hurt her mother's feelings by contradicting this assessment of Lucius Malfoy's character. "I am glad that Letitia invited you and Papa. But even if I had been invited, Professor Jigger would not have allowed me to go. You understand, Mamma, that I cannot compromise my apprenticeship if I am to become an apothecary."

"Dear, I'm sure Professor Jigger appreciates how hard you work. You look too exhausted. Is that your sofa? It looks as if it needs a good Consuo charm. Tell me truthfully, Ariadne, are you really happy?"

Ariadne wondered what her mother expected her to reply, given that Remus was so obviously within earshot. "I'm very happy when I'm not tired, Mamma."

"Do you have a laboratory of your own?"

"Not yet, Mamma."

"And what work is Remus doing at present?"

Ariadne replied that Remus had a job with an orchard, but she felt that the questions were somehow unfair, as if Mamma were expecting unsatisfactory answers. "And is Papa – ?"

"Your father can hear what we're saying. He is well, and he did a good job of protecting the barley from the rain." Mamma briskly dismissed Papa from the discussion. "We are both quite concerned, dear, about your talk of orchards and long hours and no laboratory yet. You have to be having considerable trouble setting yourselves up."

"We have no trouble, Mamma."

"Dear, it's brave of you to say so, but there's no need to struggle so. Your father wants you to have this." Mrs MacDougal extended an arm through the hearth and handed something through. Ariadne took it before she realised what it was.

Money.

A leather purse packed with Galleons.

Everything inside her chest dropped to the floor like a stone. It was all she could do to bend her mouth into a smile and thank her mother.

"It's no sacrifice, dear; families should help one another."

"It was kind of you to be thinking of us." She said the words despite a pounding conviction that it had not been kind at all. "Have a pleasant evening, Mamma."

"You too, dear. Good night!"

Her mother's head vanished; the magical flames flared green and then disappeared. Ariadne picked herself up and hoped she would not cry in front of Remus. But she wanted to cast a Reducto on the drawstring purse.

Remus put his arms around her without saying a word.

"You're angry too," she said.

"Furious," he agreed.

"I'm wanting – " She was rigid with rage, but she knew now that she would not cry.

"Yes?"

She spoke very softly. "I'm wanting to explode that purse! I'm wishing I'd thrown it back through the fire and sent the coins rolling all over their kitchen floor."

"Why didn't you?"

"My parents would be very hurt if we refused their help."

"If not hurting people matters that much..." There was an edge of doubt in his voice. "... We need not tell them we are refusing it."

"So you'll agree to throw away the money?"

"It might be more constructive," he temporised, "to donate it to St Mungo's."

"Fine. Whatever you say." She pulled away and forced herself to speak sweetly. "What do we have to do to convince my parents that we can take care of ourselves?"

"If I knew that I would have done it by now."

The conversation went around in circles for several minutes before Remus said, "This isn't only about your parents, Ariadne. We do have to talk about money. Your mother is right about one thing – we don't have much."

"We have enough."

"Enough to live on the breadline, perhaps." He was trying to sound stern, but she could tell that he was less worried about starvation than about her possible reaction to the prospect. "My total savings are down to four hundred Galleons. That will keep us for, perhaps, six months."

"I have three hundred. That will keep us until you finish exams next summer. After that, there will be nothing for it – we'll have to live off my earnings."

"Do you want to be our sole source of income?"

She knew this bothered him. "It seems fair enough, since you've supplied the house. We can live very well off fifteen Galleons a week, and I'm earning twenty. Even if we allow that you'll need books – by the time you become a teacher, I'm believing we'll be a thousand Galleons in the black."

"Ariadne, have you any idea how frugal we shall have to be? Did you really do the sum?"

"Of course I did. I added up our accounts before we were married. Remus, I'm knowing it means we cannot take holidays or buy new clothes or improve the house or – or whatever else people do." The truth was, she did not really understand how other people did spend their money. "But you can have whatever books the college prescribes, and I'm hoping that I can have..." Her voice died away; there was always the danger that he would decide to give her whatever she wanted and then finance it by finding a Muggle job and abandoning his teacher training forever.

"What do you hope?" he prompted.

"A garden. I mean, I know we have one, and that you're not wanting it, but I'm wanting to plant it out properly with herbs. And I was thinking we could put my cauldron in the spare bedroom, and use it as a laboratory."

"That won't cost anything. Of course you can use the third bedroom as a laboratory."

"Remus, it will not cost much, but setting up a herb garden for the first time probably does cost a little more than you're thinking it does. Not as much as a thousand Galleons, but – well, if we both keep finding things that we want, we'll end up completing our education with no gold left in our Gringotts account. But I'm telling you now, if I have a garden and a laboratory, I will not want much else."

"And you're quite sure," his eyes slid round to the rejected leather purse on the floor, "that you don't want to regard this garden as your parents' gift?"

It was a second before she realised he was joking. "I'll take the gold straight to St Mungo's on Monday morning," she affirmed.

* * * * * * *

Ariadne spent every evening the next week casting Eradico charms over every green shoot in the back garden, sending the ripped-up weeds to the hearth to be destroyed in blue bonfires, and mulching over the soil with bladderwrack that she had bought in Diagon Alley. The dragon-hide gloves rarely left her hands. Remus helped her divide the garden in half by building a low lattice fence with a gate (he said he had learned how to combine magic and carpentry when he was pretending to study for his Muggle O.W.L. in woodwork). The half nearer to the house was sown over with grass and destined to be ignored; Ariadne said she could manage a simple lawn with Secto charms.

On Sunday morning, when she planted out foxgloves and fennel, comfrey and catnip, poppies and parsley, she warned Remus, "Promise me you'll take this garden seriously. Always remember that herbs can be poisonous."

"I was always terrible at herbology and I don't remember what any of those plants are. Of course I promise not to touch what I don't understand. Seriously. I solemnly promise not to touch that innocent little green leaf in case it's a rank poison that slays on touch."

"Actually that innocent little green leaf is parsley and you'll be seeing it on your dinner plate one day. But that is indeed the principle. Some herbs do indeed slay on touch. So do not touch the garden, or me while I'm working with it."

"Why are there so many spaces? Are you expecting more plants?"

"I've ordered some bushes, but before I plant any of them, I'm wanting to leave space for a few that Sarah and Hestia are bringing over."

"Why are Sarah and Hestia bringing us bushes? Are they presents?"

"They are not. They already belong to me – I was growing them in the window box in Diagon Alley. They're too large for the window now, so Sarah said she'd bring them over sometime. Maybe next Saturday. Remus, do you feel up to inviting our friends to dinner next weekend?"

He seemed surprised. "Yes – yes, I suppose we could. I'm not used to the idea that I have enough friends to invite to a dinner party. I didn't ever expect to become so... so normal."

She thought he had never more frankly admitted that his old life, the life that had died with James and Peter, was over and replaced.

* * * * * * *

Ariadne escaped from Jigger at three o' clock on Saturday. She barely paused to exchange her laboratory overall for the one she wore in kitchen before she began grinding hazelnuts and washing lettuce. When Remus came down from the study – she had forgotten to silence the knives for the Frendo charm – he said, "You had a delivery this morning."

"A letter?"

"No, a huge tawny owl carrying a big bag of something – plants, I suppose. Is this evening going to be a planting party?"

She drew a deep breath before answering. The last thing she wanted was other people – even her closest friends – walking all over her garden and asking what she was growing. She tried to sound casual as she told him, "It is not; I'll be doing all the planting. The shrubs that Sarah's bringing over are poisonous, and I'm not wanting to spoil a dinner party with trips to St Mungo's."

But her hands shook as she mixed the nut-loaf, and she was almost too excited to concentrate on cooking. Her seedlings had finally arrived! She wanted to race outside and plant them immediately, but Remus would only ask questions...

Remus had his arms around her waist from behind. "Sweetheart, you seem so preoccupied. I've asked you twice what I should do to help."

She forced herself to be practical. "Sorry, I was thinking about the plants. Most helpful would be some chopping. Carrots, cucumber, radishes, onions, tomatoes. Or – do you know how to make saffron rice?"

"You could teach me."

It seemed a long, slow afternoon before the hazelnut loaf was in the oven, the tomato soup was simmering over the stove, the saffron rice was bedded on a china platter, the mustard vinaigrette was poured into a jug, and the green salad and clotted cream were stacked in the froster beside the dessert that she had made yesterday. But finally she was able to unwrap her parcel and – and stare. Gloat. Not mere seeds, but sprouting plants, which would yield a small harvest within a matter of weeks.

She had only meant to look. But suddenly she snatched up her parcel and her gardening gloves and was raced to the gate in the lattice fence. She didn't know how long it had been since the seedlings were packed; they might wilt and die if she didn't plant them immediately.

When she returned from the garden, Remus had performed a Dilato on the living room, making it twice its usual size, and he had Transfigured their ugly formica table into a handsome Sheraton-style dining suite (the chairs Conjured). He had also Conjured two extra sofas, but he had carelessly made them exact replicas of the existing sofa, complete with the leaking stuffing, and was earnestly asking, "What spell did your mother say that our sofa needed?"

Ariadne hastily ran the Consuo, but the sofas still looked threadbare, so she Summoned some rugs from upstairs, none of which matched the others. She waved her wand to make them all at least the same colour – a deep periwinkle blue. Remus had laid the table – the cutlery now looking suspiciously like silver, their cheap glass tumblers mysteriously transformed into crystal goblets – and she didn't dare meet his eye when he Conjured up candles and a bowl of roses.

"You forgot the damask tablecloth," she said.

He produced one.

It was all she could do not to request gold napkin rings and a centrepiece-statue of Cupid. "How long will this stuff last?"

"You do the sum. If I started at six o' clock, and I used a spell with a force of three thousand ergs, and I Conjured up a mass of – "

She was saved the trouble of having to calculate by a crackling in the fireplace. Sarah, cradling a pot of blue-flowered shrub, had arrived in their hearth. "Hestia's right behind me," she said, "and you'll never guess who's now leasing your old room. Sorry we're early – but I daresay we know you well enough."

Sarah stepped aside for Hestia, who was followed by Ivor, and then Joe, all carrying similar pots. Ariadne led them out into the garden and had them put the pots down next to the fence. "My herbs," she said briefly. Fortunately, her friends were taking no interest in the gaping spaces in her garden, or in the tender seedlings that she had just planted. "I'm expecting you'd like a tour of the house."

There wasn't much to show; Remus's study, and even her laboratory, were "too much like school," as Hestia frankly put it. Sarah didn't seem to notice anything because she was too busy explaining about her new tenant. "Kingsley's new girlfriend has moved in with us. Or else the new flatmate has started going out with Kingsley; I forget which came first. Anyway, he's bringing her this evening. We hope that's all right, because it's someone whom you know very well."

"Quite all right," said Ariadne, chancing a glance at Remus as he hastily Conjured an extra Sheraton chair. Emmeline Vance rang the doorbell at that moment, exactly on time, and the tour of the house had to be repeated for her. By the time they had poured out the drinks (provided by Ivor and Emmeline), Horatio and Glenda had arrived, fashionably late, with Sturgis Podmore at their heels. Glenda admired the Sheraton suite profusely, not realising that she was looking at a visual joke.

As they were completing the third tour of the house, the doorbell rang again, this time unfashionably late. Richard explained that he had been watching the Arrows thrash the Wasps, and was launching into a full description of how Bagman had smashed a Bludger into Ilkley's broom-head and spun him head over heels by the time Kingsley arrived. Despite Sarah's hints, Ariadne hadn't known whom to expect as his companion, but the mysterious lady turned out, harmlessly enough, to be her cousin, Mercy Macmillan.

"But now we are thirteen at table," said Sarah. "I hope no-one takes Professor Trelawney's prognostications seriously!"

Ivor picked up a fork and said, "No hallmark. Ariadne, your husband Conjured this."

Ariadne countered, "We're liking a change of pattern sometimes," and they all laughed.

Richard's account of the Quidditch match, and Mercy's story of how she had met Kingsley, and Glenda's request for Hestia's expertise on the subject of home furnishings, and Sarah's report of what was showing at the Muggle theatres, carried the conversation through to dessert. A dull red sun was low on the horizon, and a crescent moon clearly visible above it, when Ariadne began slicing up the summer pudding, and Sturgis spoke into a lull:

"Do you people want to hear the latest news about Veleta Vablatsky?"

There was instant silence. Joe's face puckered into its usual frown that suggested that speaking of Veleta was not entirely good taste.

"Walden Macnair is about to spend a year in Korea," Sturgis continued. "I had to stamp the passports. He's organised International Portkeys for every member of his family – but they aren't taking Veleta."