Hall of Heroes, Battle of Hogwarts Gala

---

Robert had bristled when Khaat told him she had agreed to loan Remus's wizarding portrait to the gala so that Remus could join the other portraits of the fallen in the gala's Hall of Heroes, a display for this night only, to allow witches and wizards an opportunity to remember those who died in the battle. Khaat had reassured him that Michael had had a firm talk with Remus to keep it from allowing any other hero to dash into his frame or from revealing any current personal information about the Lupins or where they lived.

Still, he wanted to be sure that Remus understood the rules. With his drink in hand, he walked among the portraits until he found Remus.

"Drinking already, Oz?" Remus looked at him analytically.

"Don't nag," Robert replied.

"If you're here to see if I remember the rules, then let's cut the conversation short. I remember quite well," Remus said. "As long as you and Hermione intend to help everyone else put their demons to rest, then perhaps you should make peace with your own."

"And you need to stop pretending you know things when you don't," Robert narrowed his gaze at his brother's image. "You're a bloody mirage, and that's all."

"Still touchy? After all these years?" Remus asked him pointedly. He glanced to Robert's left. "Oh, hello, my dear. Your dress is most fetching." Robert looked to see that Khaat had caught up with him and was looking at Remus.

"Thank you," she smiled at Remus. Then she looked straight at her father. "I hope you didn't decide to antagonize him tonight. This isn't the night to discuss negative things. He needs to look his best." Robert scowled deeply at her.

"Oh, please don't tell me you're concerned about whether or not I upset the artwork," he rolled his eyes at her. The portrait laughed, and even after all this time, Robert still enjoyed hearing it, whether he wanted to outwardly admit it or not. A bigger part of him wished Remus was still here to enjoy tonight with everyone else, and not just an enchanted image.

There were two things Jack had been especially horrible at her entire life. They were not the only two, of course, as she also had a bad tendency to burn instant noodles, irritate coworkers, and escalate tense situations. But she very specifically had two failings that seemed to toss her from any sense of normalcy she managed to secure before any safeguards fell into place to protect her from herself.

Of course, the first was her usual failure to fit in. Having spent over a decade playing a team sport, it was a bit miraculous that Jack had not yet acquired the ability to relax into a group and find peace in numbers. It seemed somehow bred into her. She often wondered if being a muggleborn just made her more prone to feeling on the outside. But, tonight especially, she knew it had something to do with the history she had forged for herself. Present at nearly every skirmish in the past six years, leader of Potter's Army and the Order of the Phoenix, she had done everything she admired her heroes for... but there was one thing that would keep her always feeling on the outside. She wasn't actually one of them. She didn't have a mother or father who had stood up to Death Eaters. Her cousins were not the children of war heroes. She had bought Wheezes, she had led the troops, she had rubbed elbows, she had befriended Weasleys and admired Potters... But she was a Dyllan. And there were no Dyllans in the history books. She was not apart of this club. No matter the scars on her skull or the nightmares in her head.

But that was only one of her faults at work tonight. The other was a much more active agent of destruction, one she recognized and could have opposed. But as she saw the shimmer of a woman much more beautiful than she would ever be leave the main gathering, her feet obeyed those pernicious instincts that had failed her time and time again.

She approached the Lupins, all three of them, trying to keep her eyes on them alone. Because on the walls were the very people she longed to know, wished to have advice from and, if she were pushed to be completely candid, desperately hoped would have approved of the course of her life thus far. If there were anyone who might understand what it was like to live a life isolated and uncomfortable, all in the name of doing good for others, surely they would be on these walls.

But that wasn't why she was here.

She didn't know how either felt about her anymore. Her risky maneuver had been enough to upset Michael, and in her desire to be completely open-minded in her investigation, she may have put some of the blame of the Ilvermorny incident on her Minister's shoulders. Jack suspected Robert was smart enough to know that blind patriotism wasn't a desirable quality in an Unspeakable anyway, but it did not exactly endear herself to him either - evidenced by her brief suspension from the Department of Mysteries. But it had been months, and she had not spoken to Michael or any other Lupin since that time.

Surely, they were all good?

She cleared her throat, now that she had reached the pair. "I heard once that a memorial is closer to a celebration of life, rather than a mourning of death. I think the portraits were a nice touch. Give people a chance to see those lives, even if it's just a glimpse."

Robert turned when he heard a third person speak. It was Jack, and he was glad to see her. He hadn't seen her since. It had been several months. He certainly bore her no ill will. He expected Unspeakables to think for themselves. Jack certainly knew how to do that. She did not need to prove it to anyone.

The Hogwarts thing had been the last time he'd seen her. He got the feeling she'd been upset, and she had been entitled to be. Michael had been upset too but not for the same reasons. It had rattled Michael to the point where before Robert could suspend him as well, as he had fully intended to do, Michael had suspended himself as Robert was starting his speech to utter the words. The only thing it had saved was Robert having to discuss it with him. Robert had left the suspension stand, but he had not discussed Jack with Michael or vice versa.

So far as Robert was concerned it was only business, and it was water long under the bridge. He'd missed seeing Jack. He hadn't expected to see here, but he was glad.

"Good to see you, Jack," he smiled warmly. "I had mixed feelings about tonight, but perhaps you're right. The people in this hall have long been talked about in the history books for this act alone. It is far more important, though, to remember them as individuals and how they lived."

It was the only thing he intended to say as any way of an admission that Remus's death still was painful, and he hadn't actually been prepared to say that. He had given Khaat nothing but pushback when it had come to loaning the portrait for tonight. She had been the one that had defended Remus's right to be here with the others. Robert had not seen it as the portrait's right. It was, after all, just a spell on a picture.

Jack was right, though. It was a good way to acknowledge everyone and a powerful way to help people get a sense of realism that these were people who had tried to make a difference, who had tried to support the freedoms and the rights of all the things the majority of the wizarding world held dear.

"Hi, Jack," Khaat smiled. "You look wonderful. How have you been? How's your family?"

"Good to remember some of the realities, too," Jack said, turning to wipe the placard beneath a the portrait of a beaming boy with blonde hair and a camera clutched to his chest. "A visual reminder of just how young sixteen is."

Sixteen. The age when Vito and Chase had torn her in two, she had stepped into a leadership role, had set her sights forward. She had felt so old and tired back then, but so much had happened between sixteen and now. She felt like lifetimes had fit between the ages.

To have that stolen...

She turned her head and nodded at Khaat, grimacing a smile of sorts. She was nothing to Khaat, who managed this effortless glamour even when she wasn't dressed up. Jack, in black jeans and a blazer, didn't turn heads. Being alive and uninjured and unfrazzled was enough of a step up from her usual look, she supposed. "Thank you. You're a picture, both of you. No pun intended- Merlin," she said, shaking her head at herself. "I've been... well, you know. Usual. Busy. My dad's moved in with me while he sorts things out with my mum, or doesn't sort them out rather, so it's been a mix of helpful and... less than helpful." A small smile touched on her face. "Goose is at Hogwarts. He's doing really well in most of his classes." She figured they'd both like to hear an update. Sometime during the summer, she'd have to get him to visit the pair that had given him a chance. "How about you two? Not too overwhelmed, I hope."

(omg--i've lost a couple years with khaat's kids. i thought abbey was five. she's seven! holy cow!)

Khaat smiled, amused at Jack's unintended pun. She and Robert listened to the update on Jack's household.

"You're more than a little busy, then," Khaat agreed. "We don't have a quiet minute in our house either with seven kids--2 seven year olds, 3 five year olds, and 2 three year olds, and a ten year old foster girl for the summer. So far as I know, we're done with diapers for awhile, thank heavens. Other than that, it's just the normal routine at our place, I think."

"Oh, tell Goose well done," Robert smiled. "Really bright lad. You should bring the kids over to the estate for some fun this summer. Brian's built a treehouse, and it looks like I wish I'd had it myself when I was a kid."

"And if Goose is too grown for treehouses," Khaat said. "he might enjoy swimming or riding the horses. Can't count on the hippogriff being sociable, but the horses are."

"We'll have to get your mother to get those pesky pygmy puffs out of the barn," Robert rolled his eyes and then looked at Jack. "We're awash in them again--some sort of new random tropical colored business that I don't know how we got. We'll have to wrangle them or your kids are liable to go him with lots of those annoying little fuzzballs in their pockets." Khaat couldn't help a trace of amusement. Cute as the puffs were, her father always was annoyed by them because they reproduced with such ferocity.

"I hope things go well for your parents," Khaat said. "I haven't met either of them, but I know that has to be tough." She remembered well how painful it had been when her marriage to Rob dissolved. She couldn't imagine it was any easier for anyone else either. She and her father knew what blessings and challenges it was having multiple generations under the same roof. Robert and Kate hadn't spent much time on their farm in the last two or three years. They'd been pretty much living at the estate with Kate and Brian and the kids, and, for the most part, it was a blessing, particularly when it came to dealing with so many little ones.

"Jack, I'm not trying to meddle where I don't belong, but Michael misses you," Robert said. "Not sure why he hasn't reached out to you, but I'm not gathering from him that he has. It looks to me like he's either struggling trying to raise 2 three year olds on his own, or they make a handy excuse for his own discomfort. Take your pick."

"They're not even real people."

"Then you've no excuse not to come in. We can be quick."

Regardless of what Terry said to Michael, his heart was fluttering as he walked into the hall. He breathed deep and concentrated on his arms, and the sting that still lingered beneath a neat row of sticking plasters.

They needed to do this. Not to put their demons to rest; Terry's demons were too tenacious for such a simple solution to be viable, and he hazarded Michael's were too. Besides, what could a room lined with dead people do but set the slumbering beasts to clawing through his mind again?

They needed to do this because they owed it to the people in those portraits. They owed it to Colin, who was no Achilles, no Galahad, no Luke Skywalker, no matter how he might have wished he was. He was a sixteen year old without any choices and he needed someone to remember that. They all did.

Terry had expected to see people contemplating the portraits, speaking to them, even clustering around the likes of Harry and Dumbledore, but it seemed the Hall freaked out more people than just Michael. What drew his attention, therefore, was the small gathering near the end of the hall.  He somehow always managed to forget that Robert Lupin was Professor Lupin's brother.

Terry had liked Professor Lupin.  Remus, he supposed he ought to think of him now.  At Hogwarts, he had had a quiet yet calm demeanour that a shy and constantly anxious teenager could appreciate.

He forced an amiable smile onto his face as they approached the group.

"Hello-"

"Mr Boot," a familiar drawl addressed him from the other side of the hall.

Oh, no.

Michael felt Terry tense under his fingertips.  Two minutes ago, Terry had been the one saying they were only portraits, and now Michael wanted to remind him of the same thing.  He couldn't say anything, though.  If there was one thing that would make Terry even more anxious, it was other people knowing he had anxiety. 

Now that it had spoken, Michael realised it was foolish of them not to have known it would be here.  Harry had named his kid after him, for Merlin's sake. 

That particular sneering tone.  It was one Snape had always used when he was about to put a person down in the most humiliating way he could think up.  Michael was almost sure it was going to be something about how they were here together.  The Ravenclaws hadn't often been in Snape's firing line, but when they had, it had mostly been about how Michael was a vapid pretty-boy who was only friends with Terry because he was too socially inept to find real friends of his own. 

Michael knew portraits couldn't think far, but this one would be fucking thrilled if it put two and two together. He had no doubts at all that Snape had been exactly the sort of person who thought gay people were icky.  Or would be very vocal about thinking that, even if he didn't.

Terry turned.  He had thought about ignoring it - it was just a portrait, after all - but had just as quickly rejected that idea.  It was a portrait based on Severus Snape, with all of Snape's worst traits included.

"Professor," he replied.

Looking across the hall, it struck Terry how young Snape had been.  He had been prepared for Harry and Ginny and the other Dumbledore's Army members.  He knew some of the Order members had died when they were barely out of school.  But in his head, his teachers were all older, wiser.  Particularly the likes of Snape, who never let you forget it.

"Tell me, Boot, how is the potions industry?"

Terry's blood ran cold.  It didn't matter that the man in the portrait was twenty years his junior, he could still reduce him to a terrified teenager with one sentence.  

"I work in charms," he said haltingly.

Terry sounded like he was apologising and it made Michael wish Snape wasn't dead, so he could have the pleasure of punching him in the face.

"C'mon, Baby," he nagged.

Michael never called Terry 'Baby' and even if he had, he certainly wouldn't have done it where anyone else could hear.

"You said we weren't gonna be here long."