Rated PG for violence both physical and psychological.

Hestia looked up from the Lupins’ sofa as they landed. “Ariadne, what went wrong?”

Remus was bracing himself for Ariadne’s anger, but she only displayed an overwhelming sadness. “Another minute,” she said. “Could you not have made three or four Portkeys in a minute?”

“It takes concentration to make accurate Portkeys, and we didn’t have a minute. Regelinda could have turned an Unforgivable on you in only a second.”

Hestia closed Nigel the Knight Bus – with relief, Remus suspected – and handed Elizabeth back to Ariadne. “Tell me quickly,” she said. “Is Veleta safe?”

Ariadne was shaking her head, but Remus had cleared his head enough to assess the situation. “The Macnairs won’t do permanent damage to Veleta or her children if they can help it,” he said. “They want to use them alive, remember? But Regelinda isn’t always rational – she really might have done permanent damage to Ariadne.”

“Or to you,” Ariadne reminded him. “You’re right, she was in a killing mood.”

“Had you started the counter-spell when Regelinda arrived?” asked Ivor. He waved his wand at Matthew’s bricks, and they rearranged themselves from a steam locomotive to a turreted castle. “That’s the important thing, Remus. Did you leave behind any evidence of what you’d been doing?”

“We had completed the spell,” said Remus wearily. “I had time to pick up this – ” He showed the carved yew plank. “We left Ariadne’s cauldron behind, but I’d already cast a Scourgify, so they won’t know what she was brewing. We had already packed the spare potion ingredients in the rucksack, and the milk bottles that I brought to make Portkeys were just ordinary milk bottles. What worries me is the crystal phial that contained the blood. Regelinda won’t necessarily know what it is, but it’s large, and she’ll report it to her father…”

“That’s gone,” interrupted Ariadne. “I saw that just before we left. Some of Regelinda’s spells hit it, and it was destroyed – I’m thinking she threw a Reducto.”

“So we just have to wait!” exclaimed Hestia gladly. “You destroyed the Blood Magic, and the Macnairs don’t know what you were doing. Now we can choose our moment and take Portkeys to Veleta after all.”

Ivor had the opposite reaction. “The Macnairs may not know precisely what you were doing in Foss, but they won’t have any trouble tracing the cauldron to Ariadne. I imagine that will put them in a vengeful mood. Remus, Ariadne isn’t safe. I think you need to speak to your friend Madam Bones today.”

“The Macnairs will find out what we did,” said Ariadne. “Even if Veleta manages to keep silence, they will find out that the spell is broken. It will not be long before something originating in the castle harms a Macnair.”

Suddenly Remus saw a glimmer of hope. “Wait a minute. We didn’t break that part of the spell.”

They stared at him.

“Our counter-spell was about the restraining curse; it didn’t mention the safety charm. More importantly, the safety charm required murders in order to be cast, and the fact of murder would be a more powerful component than the preservation of the victims’ blood. I think there’s a good chance that we couldn’t break the safety charm without doing something equally dramatic – another murder, or perhaps a birth. What the Macnairs are more likely to notice is that Regelinda can suddenly take long walks outside the castle and that she’s become visible to strangers.”

“Perhaps they won’t notice for a while,” said Hestia. “If we try to meet Veleta soon…”

“We can try,” said Ivor, “if they’re giving her any freedom at all to move outside the castle. I imagine we’ve just given them good reasons to tighten their security.”

“Perhaps someone could meet her inside,” said Hestia. “A Portkey is powerful, and if we chose our moment well…”

It was only at this moment that Ariadne burst into tears. “But there is nobody!” she said. “Do you not see? Everybody who was ever known to be Veleta’s friend has been Banned, and nobody else is believing she should be rescued. If any of us tried to pass through the barrier, we would die in the attempt.”

Remus did not have to worry about Ariadne’s safety for long, because the following evening they Flooed to the Ministry of Magic, where Sarah and Joe were waiting for them in the Portkey Office.

“Goodness, Ariadne, did you bring only one suitcase for yourself and two children? Hide that label when we reach Paris – no Muggle woman is addressed as ‘Madam’. Matthew darling, you need to let Auntie Sarah look after your toy bus; put it in my bag so it won’t be lost on the way. Well, Remus, are you ready to let go of your family?”

Of course he wasn’t. In the last six years, he and Ariadne had scarcely spent twenty-four hours apart. Now he had to place her under Sarah’s dubious protection so that she could meet dangerous strangers in a foreign culture. However, he doubted the Macnairs would bother following her to France, so it was easier than he had expected to concede the point.

“One family Portkey to Paris authorised,” said the clerk.

Ariadne threw her arms around his neck. He clutched her tightly against him, breathing raggedly into the depths of her hair. Empires rose and fell as her heart beat against his ribs.

“We’ll be all right,” she whispered in his ear.

He settled his mouth on hers, and her fingers threaded through his hair, constricting on his scalp. She pressed against him, while planets collided and new stellar systems were born. When he finally had to gasp for breath, she strained him closer, and galaxies formed from chaos. It would be frivolous to beg her to stay.

“Have a safe and profitable journey,” he said.

“Be wise with the school bullies,” she replied.

He kissed the children, then stood back while the porter arranged them so that each luggage handle was correctly looped over a hook of the Portkey, which bristled like a hedgehog with all its appendages. Sarah helped Matthew to grasp one corner, while Ariadne shifted Elizabeth in her arm. Then Ariadne, the children, Sarah and the luggage all vanished.

Remus was left alone in the Portkey Office, staring at Joe. “I suppose we should Floo back to my house,” he said, feeling deflated. They had agreed that Joe would stay with Remus while the women were abroad.

Joe followed him to the hearth. Remus didn’t know how Joe managed to manipulate the Floo network non-verbally, but it was evidently possible, because Joe was soon stepping into his living room, carrying a canvas bag that was perhaps large enough for one change of robes.

Did Joe really require company? And would he provide any? Already, the house without Ariadne felt very empty. Remus found himself thinking that he must put the children to bed by himself, when he remembered that they had gone too. He had no-one to consider but Joe, who didn’t exactly require consideration.

Joe was pulling a flat box out of his bag. An hour later, Remus had discovered that there was one thing that Joe could do better than Ariadne. He was capable of playing a very smart game of chess.

“Remus, I’d like to hear your side of the story,” said the Headmaster. “What exactly did you say to Jacqueline Sutton yesterday afternoon?”

Remus knew Mr Cecil was angry with him, but he couldn’t imagine the nature of his crime. “I took her aside when the other children had gone out for the break and told her that I was concerned about the classroom atmosphere. I told her that this kind of note-passing wasn’t acceptable.” He displayed a slip of floral writing paper. The header, in Jacqueline’s handwriting, read:

Sign here if you agree that Terry Boot (a) stinks (b) needs to go to Wait Watchers (c) kisses Dolly Clott.

It had been signed by Charlotte, Jessica, Rachel, Natalie, Lauren and Autumn before Remus had intercepted it. “Jacqueline didn’t seem to understand what I was saying,” he explained, “so I told her that next time she deliberately set out to make a classmate feel bad, I would have to hold a conference with her parents.”

Harold Cecil scribbled something on his notepad. “That was unwise of you for a start. But continue.”

“Jacqueline sneered, and said, ‘My parents wouldn’t come, because I’ve already told them you’re a rubbish teacher.’ I ignored the rudeness and told her quietly that if the situation reached the stage where we had to involve the Headmaster, her parents might not have a choice about attending meetings or about the kind of action you might decide to take.”

Mr Cecil scribbled again, stabbed his pad, and sighed. “I wish you had consulted me before throwing my name around. Let me tell you now, I will not be initiating any conference with the Sutton family, and I certainly have no intention of expelling their children from this school.”

Remus reeled, wishing that he too were taking notes on this meeting. He hadn’t mentioned expulsion, either now or to Jacqueline – how had the subject arisen?

“I presume that is what you were implying,” said Mr Cecil curtly, “since it is the only form of disciplinary action that a headteacher may take without the cooperation of the parents. That aside… While Jacqueline’s words about your teaching skills were inappropriate, we have to allow that she only said them after you had threatened her.”

Remus knew now that he had committed some major gaffe. Keeping silent was the only way of discovering what kind of gaffe it had been, so he sat still and tried to look intelligent.

“Remus, it doesn’t speak well for your competence as a teacher that you threatened to involve a child’s parents in an ordinary classroom management situation that you ought to have been able to handle by yourself.”

Oh. “Mr Cecil, if you have some suggestions about how I should handle it, I’d be glad to hear them. I have been reasoning with Jacqueline Sutton all year, and it has had no effect.”

The Headmaster’s eyes narrowed. “Are you admitting this, Remus? Have you been on a continuous campaign of rebuking one child, even though that campaign has been ineffective? Then it isn’t surprising she doesn’t like you.”

Remus resisted the temptation to sit silently again. He knew he would never establish an accurate perspective on the situation unless he spoke out now. “Jacqueline Sutton has been continuously bullying the other children. This isn’t just my own observation; over the last six years, several other teachers have witnessed it too. They have tried reasoning with her, keeping her in at playtime, removing stars from charts, separating her from her friends, and all the rest, but nothing has resulted in a long-term improvement in her behaviour. It’s a situation I can’t allow.”

“I think you’re taking it altogether too seriously.” Mr Cecil leaned forward with an air that was clearly intended to be friendlier. “We clamp down on playground violence at this school, but that isn’t the issue here, is it? Jacqueline doesn’t attack her peers physically. She may be inconsistent in her friendships; she may tell exaggerated tales; at worst, she teases other pupils verbally. But she doesn’t do anything that amounts to breaking a school rule, and we can’t make it our job to correct every flaw in every child’s character. We adults have a few flaws ourselves, you know.”

Remus had a sickening memory of himself, pretending to cram for his exam, trying to ignore that James Potter was suspending Severus Snape upside down and undressing him while Peter Pettigrew was laughing hysterically beside them. Of course he knew that he had flaws.

“A deliberate campaign to humiliate another student is not a small flaw,” he said. “I won’t tolerate it in my classroom. If you can show me how to stop the teasing gently, I’ll be glad to take your advice. But at this stage, I intend to find an effective strategy, even if that means hurting Jacqueline Sutton’s feelings.”

Harold Cecil snapped off the friendliness. “Remus, I don’t want to lose a good teacher, but I don’t want to lose a good family either. If you called the Suttons in discuss Jacqueline’s ‘misbehaviour’, I think they would be devastated; it would damage their helpful attitude to the school, and they might even remove their children altogether. Think how harmful that would be to Carlton Primary’s reputation, to say nothing of its financial health. The Suttons have been very generous: the building fund, the library, the gymnasium, musical instruments… They’ve supported all our drives. Just consider how little we’d gain in exchange: Jacqueline, however she behaves, is in her final term, and we’ve never had any complaints about the conduct of her two younger sisters. Remus, it just isn’t worth upsetting this family about this relatively trivial issue. Ask yourself instead why Terry Boot has become a target.”

“He does stand up to Jacqueline more than most, but the truth is that she has targeted nearly every classmate – ”

“Rubbish. Terry has been a difficult child since Year Three, when he had some kind of religious conversion. Even his parents have been annoyed no end – it isn’t surprising that his classmates can’t stand it. Remus, if Terry makes such counter-cultural choices and then can’t learn to ignore a little teasing, don’t you think he comes close to deserving it?”

Remus gulped. The firmest way he could state his case without starting an argument was to ask, “Are you recommending that I take no further action?”

“Absolutely.” Mr Cecil stood up to open the door. “Perhaps you didn’t know that Justine Kidd, who taught this class in Year Four, was obliged to resign her post because she couldn’t stop interfering in the children’s private affairs. If you like working here, Remus, I suggest you concentrate on teaching maths and English.”

“It’s going well,” repeated Ariadne through the Floo. “We’re knowing where the werewolves live, and we’re knowing where to buy wolfsbane. I’m only sorry that I will not be able to brew for you this month.”

“Brewing for a whole new community is more important than brewing for just one person,” said Remus, hoping he meant it. Ariadne’s absence had left gaping, yawning holes all over his life. Joe’s quietness threw loud silences over his evenings. By night he tossed and turned in the too-large bed. After a week of exhaustion had taught him to sleep alone again, he found that he missed Ariadne’s comments about his work. He hadn’t realised how much he brought his work home with him: Ariadne asked after all his students by name, and being able to talk about them helped him plan everything from grammar drills to parent interviews. He missed the children too: bath time, story time, Saturday excursions to the duck pond, Elizabeth’s growing list of new words, Matthew’s endless chatter about buses. And, however self-centred it might be, he was going to miss his dose of Wolfsbane Potion.

“I’ll take good care to lock myself up properly,” he said. “Are you quite sure you’ll be safe from those French werewolves?”

“We’ll have a French apothecary with us,” said Ariadne. “Sarah says – well, I’ll explain when I write.”

Long-distance Floo calls cost a great deal of powder, so they could not protract the conversation. After Ariadne had disappeared from the hearth, the silence of the house threatened to engulf him. It seemed wrong to speak to Joe, who was staring at the rain with a closed book in front of him, so Remus switched on the Wireless in time for the evening news.

“… There are still no clues about the mysterious death of a Gringotts employee. Aurors were called to Gringotts Park at half-past eight this morning to examine a corpse. It is not clear whether the man died in the park, or whether his body was dumped there after death. There are no overt signs of violence, but details of any suspicious magical activity are being withheld. The man has been identified as Mr Ivor Cadwallader Jones, aged twenty-five, of Llangollen, Denbighshire – ”

Remus froze in his seat. Joe looked up from the window, and for the merest second, there was a hint of an intelligent reaction in his face.

“The Department of Magical Law Enforcement urges anyone who may know anything about this to step forward…”

Remus did not even switch off the Wireless. He stood up, and Joe stood with him. Without a word, they Apparated straight to Llangollen.

Kingsley Shacklebolt had arrived ahead of them, possibly in an official capacity, and he let them into the parlour, where Hestia was sitting white-faced on a lipwork armchair beneath her collection of lovespoons. Simba was purring in her lap, but Bast was mewing beside a cauldron full of daffodils.

“Everything was exactly as usual this morning,” Hestia was saying. “We know Ivor was in good health, because he had a Healer check-up just last week. He was in a good mood, too, because young Mr Weasley had just broken a major Pyramid Curse in Egypt, so he knew that gold would be entering Gringotts soon. There was no reason for… what they say…”

She waved Remus and Joe over to the settee. Kingsley glanced at her expressionless face, then explained, “The Aurors were trying to talk Hestia into a suggestion that Ivor committed suicide.”

It was at this moment that Remus really absorbed the information. Ivor was dead.

“But he couldn’t have,” said Hestia. “To turn an Avada Kedavra on himself… That might be possible in theory, but no normal person could hate himself enough to do it.”

Remus felt his jaw drop. Had Ivor died by Avada Kedavra?

“There was no mark of illness or injury on his body,” said Kingsley, “but the last spell cast by his wand was a Killing Curse on himself. Some of the Aurors gave Hestia a hard time, trying to dredge up reasons why Ivor might have felt suicidal. When she suggested that someone else might have Stunned him and then stolen his wand, that obliged them to ask her if Ivor had had any enemies. They wanted to talk about his goblin connections; as soon as Hestia spoke the name of Macnair, they conveniently decided that they had troubled her enough and would save the rest of the questions for another day.”

So we guessed wrongly. Remus was carried away on waves of shame. He had fussed and worried about Ariadne’s safety, even though she was protected by her Macnair blood, by Madam Bones, and by a web of other pure-blood connections. It had never crossed his mind that the Macnairs would target anyone else, although Ivor had been the first of Veleta’s friends to be Banned, and the Macnairs were perfectly capable of shooting him down as a deterrent to Ariadne.

Ivor had guessed wrongly too. He had expected to be punished for helping werewolves. But the Ministry had no reason to resort to murder when they had grounds for arresting him, and this murder certainly didn’t look like the work of Fenrir Greyback, who enjoyed cruder methods than wand-work. Remus agreed with Hestia’s assessment that this had nothing to do with the werewolf connection; it was a message from the Macnairs.

Suddenly Hestia crumpled. “They killed him, Kingsley!” The next moment, Kingsley had caught her in his arms, and Hestia was weeping dry, retching sobs onto his shoulder. “Ivor is dead, and we never had any children.”

“Terry, it isn’t your job to set the whole world right.”

It was five past four, but Terry Boot was still sitting at his table, stabbing at a scrap of paper with a blunt pencil. “My Mum says that,” he said, “but Jacqueline never learns. This week she wants everyone to hate Rachel.”

Terry was obviously angry. Remus drew out the opposite chair cautiously and sat down. “What exactly did Jacqueline do?”

“She called Rachel smelly; I told Rachel that she could be my partner for the geography project; so Jacqueline called Dolly a freak. That’s her way of punishing me – she’s nasty to someone else. Every day she makes someone cry, and the choice she gives me is either to ignore it or else to take the risk that she’ll hurt someone else even worse.” Terry scrawled a crude fish on his paper. “You’re the teacher, Mr Lupin. Can’t you make her behave properly?”

“Terry, I don’t think any one of us can make another person do anything. Did Jacqueline say anything to you?”

“Nah, not this time. She doesn’t usually bother with the boys; it’s the girls who care what she thinks of them. She had Dolly and Rachel crying today, and yesterday it was Katharine.” Terry drew a long cross, harpoon-style, through his fish. “I try not to get angry… try not to lose control… but one of these days, I really might end up punishing her badly.”

Remus remembered how Terry had once punished Jacqueline enough to send her to hospital. “Do you still worry about what happened with Silly Sammy?”

“I know that God forgave me for that time. But what if it happens again? What if I actually kill her? It’s as the Bible says, Mr Lupin – what you’re thinking on the inside controls what you end up doing.”

Remus didn’t have enough knowledge of the Bible to argue this point. “You can’t kill anyone with mag – I mean, with all these odd happenings – unless you seriously intend to. Terry, I know you don’t wish to kill anyone. Your accident with Silly Sammy taught you to keep it all under control, and you’ll never again make anything so dangerous happen.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because that’s the way it works. You might think you want to hurt Jacqueline, but all you really want is for her to stop hurting other people. You might have a few more accidents, but you won’t do any serious damage, just because you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to. Besides, it won’t be for much longer. You won’t be going to Jacqueline’s secondary school.”

“We’ll both be going to Carlton Comprehensive, like everyone else here,” said Terry.

“Terry…” Recklessly, he decided to anticipate the fact by two months. “I don’t think you’ll be going to Carlton Comprehensive. This summer, I think you’ll receive a letter about your education. It might seem a rather odd letter, but I can only urge you to take it seriously. You’ll meet your sort of people soon enough.” Harry Potter, he thought. And Morag MacDougal, Ernie Macmillan, Stephen Cornfoot, Padma and Parvati Patil… oh yes, Terry would certainly meet his natural peer group. “Terry, you’re always relaxed around the boys. The only thing that makes you angry is injustice. Control your frustrations for a few weeks more, then I think you’ll soon be making some very good friends.”

Terry laughed and scribbled the chai-rho emblem. “I can’t promise. Cruelty makes me furious. But thanks for knowing about how I don’t kill people.”

For the first week after Ivor’s death, the Daily Prophet headlines were full of the sensational mystery. Then, quite abruptly, the subject was no longer mentioned, not even in the back columns. Hestia was on tenterhooks, because the Aurors wouldn’t tell her anything. It was another fortnight before a column on page five was headed, “Jones Mystery Shelved”.

Aurors have now closed the case on Gringotts employee Ivor Jones, who was found dead in Gringotts Park on 19 April. Tests showed that he had died from an Avada Kedavra cast by his own wand.

“It is very unlikely to have been a suicide,” said Head of Auror Division Rufus Scrimgeour. “We believe some other person Stunned Mr Jones, then stole his wand in order to cast the Killing Curse.

“However, there are no clues to implicate any particular person. We have no witnesses, no fingerprints and no magical traces. We are not even aware that Mr Jones had any enemies, although there are many unstable people who might bear a grudge against a banker. Whoever committed this murder was clever enough to cover his tracks.”

Verdict: Murder by person or persons unknown.

Remus tried not to dwell on the fact that Auror Scrimgeour was Walden Macnair’s brother-in-law. This case was unlike Veleta’s: there really wasn’t any evidence.

Whoever had killed Ivor was going to get away with it.

A/N. Remus was just one year ahead of his time. After 1992 there was a widespread movement to reduce bullying in British schools. A report on the effectiveness of the school bullying policies is now part of OFSTED inspections, and schools can be sued for failing to protect their students against bullies. While it remains very difficult to take effective action to prevent medium-intensity psychological bullying, a modern headmaster would not get away with openly expressing the attitude of Mr Cecil. Nor, for that matter, would Dumbledore escape uncensored for his failure to check the Marauders’ behaviour to Snape, or Snape’s to his students.