The man drew the tattered remnants of his cloak closer around himself, glancing around. No one here met one another’s eyes, as if their very presence in this place was a source of shame.

There was also the fear of recognition and peril; as well there might be, the man knew. Something powerful, something dangerous was taking hold of the exiles who united here by necessity. It was an idea.

The man also knew that ideas were hard to kill, especially when they spoke to the fears and resentments of an oft-persecuted minority. It was why he had been sent here, to try and undermine this idea, because this idea would only get them and innocents killed.

“Lupin!” a voice hissed, close to his ear. A few people looked up and then quickly away again, abashed at having broken the unspoken rules.

Remus looked over to see a woman he had become tentative allies with in the past few months, an Irishwoman by the name of Meagher (no one gave first names in a place like this) who was relatively old for a lifelong werewolf. Fifty-three and still fit, she saw too much of Oliver Cromwell in Lord Voldemort. No doubt the Dark Lord would be horrified at the comparison to a muggle, but Meagher could present similarities in their brutality and prejudices quite succinctly.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The five recent bites are back.”

He could tell from her tone that something had gone wrong. “Well? What happened?”

“They found a village,” she said.

Remus felt a shudder threaten to run down his spine, but she didn’t look as grim as she would have if someone had been bitten or killed, so he forced himself to relax. “A new one?”

“No, it was on our maps,” she said, beckoning him to follow her with a hand. She led him to the map room, where enlarged maps of counties across the United Kingdom and Ireland held markings unique to their community. She pointed at a tiny village, marked as barely a dot, on the west coast of Scotland. A fresh marking was inked onto the paper beside it, shining in the candlelight of the underground tunnel.

It was a shield, marking the place as Wizard Protected.

“Teenagers,” Snape scoffed when Harry told him about their conversation. Harry asked him for elaboration, but he merely shook his head and returned to his dinner.

“Anyways, I was thinking about what they said. About it happening again, I mean. If we hadn’t been here, lots of people could have gotten hurt. And you can’t say they wouldn’t have attacked if we weren’t here, because it was pure coincidence.”

Snape paused, then took another bite of rice to stall. Harry crossed his arms, trying to keep the pensive look off of his face.

“Muggles are not completely defenseless,” Snape pointed out finally.

“Do guns work against werewolves?”

“As much as they might against any other very strong animal. The silver bullet theory is a myth, true, but firearms can be very efficient weapons.”

“I don’t know if anyone around here carries a firearm, though. I mean, some of the fishermen have harpoons, and McAullife keeps his old Army rifle mounted on the wall of his store, but there’s not exactly a battalion of trained fighters to take down a pack of werewolves.”

Snape considered Harry. “Three teenagers took one down without magic or guns.”

“Because I knew what it was, and its strengths and weaknesses.”

Snape acknowledged this with a nod. “And now, so do two other residents.”

Harry let out a long breath. “That’s not the point. What can we do to stop it from happening again?”

Snape set down his fork. “I will set up stronger perimeter wards. I may add protections against other creatures as well.” His gaze turned distant. “Perhaps dementors, after this summer…”

Harry waited for Snape to come out of his intellectual reverie.

“But I cannot cast magic with you so close. Sending you to the beach was a stretch.”

“Desperate times, and all that.”

“Yes, yes.” He stared down at his plate, dark brows drawing together in thought. “Unfortunately, the Duncans are finished with going out to sea for the year.” Lacing his fingers together, he leaned forward. “Many of the village occupants are preparing for winter, so to speak. They’re taking final trips to the island to stock up on certain supplies before the seas grow too cold and stormy for the larger cargo-carrying boats to dock with ease.”

“I could stowaway on one for the afternoon,” Harry said, smiling. He was joking, but the thought did make him a little excited as he remembered daydreams originating from the cupboard under the stairs, where he snuck onto a pirate ship to escape the Dursleys and sailed the high seas.

“It need not be an illegal venture,” Snape said dryly.

“Since when did you care so much about the law?” Harry asked, pushing his chair back slightly as he regarded his professor. “We’re on the run from the law, if you’ve forgotten.”

“Hardly,” Snape retorted. “And as such, there’s no cause to draw any sort of official attention towards yourself.” He shook his head. “I worry about you sometimes.”

“Aw, it’s good to know you care,” Harry said, laying a hand over his heart in mock gratefulness.

Snape looked like he was considering the merits of tossing the dregs of his tea into Harry’s face. He settled for an eye roll. “As I was saying, perhaps I can loan out your services to someone.”

It was Harry’s turn to roll his eyes. “‘Here’s a reasonably able-bodied teenager to lug crates for you. Yes, I know, teenager. Still, he is intelligent enough to not drop it on your foot. His own, however…’ Yeah, I can imagine your offer.”

Snape smiled falsely. “I’m sure there’s some desperate soul out there, willing to risk their cargo by entrusting it to your dubious care.”

It turned out, Diane Harrison was just such a person. Francis had complained to Snape at work the very next day about how he hadn’t been able to get time off to help retrieve the boxes of furniture and decor Diane had ordered to remodel her bakery, and Harry could imagine how quick he’d been to offer to send Harry along to help out instead.

He reported, as instructed, to Diane’s bakery (Diane's Delectables) after eating breakfast. Snape had actually eaten with him, to Harry's surprise. The bakery was a narrow two-story in the middle of the southern half of the village. An outside-access staircase led up to the first story. The siding was painted an off-white, and the roofing tiles were a sort of mossy green. He stepped onto the front porch and knocked, ignoring the hammer and handful of nails balancing precariously on the handrail next to him.

“Oh! Hello!” The door swung open, and a rather breathless woman trying to smooth back her hair smiled at him. “You must be Henry.”

Harry nodded and followed her inside. There were paint rollers and tarps on the floor, and the interior walls were painted a sort of light orange-y color. It looked like the entire ground floor was made up of the shop itself. Harry guessed that she probably lived in the rooms upstairs.

“Everything’s finished, you know, but there’s a bit left to clean up. The boat doesn’t leave for another half hour.”

Harry started rolling up a tarp near him.

“You didn’t have to do that. Thank you,” she said, picking up one of the paint rollers and the tray it was resting on. “You can bring that back here.”

She led him through an open archway in the far wall to a kitchen area. She dumped the tray and roller in a pile by the back door, on top of her other recent cleaning efforts, and Harry followed suit.

They cleaned up the front room until it was completely empty, save the stool behind the counter, which she plopped down on.

“Thanks for helping me out today,” she said.

“No problem,” Harry replied honestly. “I didn’t mind a break from schoolwork anyways.”

She grinned back at him, then checked her watch. “Ay, we better get going.”

The boat ride to the island took about forty minutes. As they drew closer to the docks, Harry leaned against the rail, eagerly taking in the sights.

They docked, and Harry followed Diane’s lead as she walked down the docks and into the city. They went to a small garage, where Diane rented a truck for the day.

“I’ve already ordered everything over the phone from a catalog,” she said as they started down the road. “They should have it all ready to pick up. There’s three different shops, and I’ll need your help to load up the truck.”

“Got it,” Harry said, nodding.

They spent a couple of hours going from store to store. Diane would park, tell him to wait, and go inside. She’d come back ten minutes later and drive the truck around to the back, where Harry would help load up whatever boxes they needed. By the time they’d finished, Harry’s stomach was aching with hunger.

“Let’s stop and get something to eat,” Diane suggested.

Harry, not about to argue, was glad when she parked near a small cafe near the waterfront. They had soup and sandwiches, while Diane asked him about his life before he came to the village.

“My dad teaches chemistry to high schoolers. He was one of my teachers, actually. I had two close friends, Ron and Hermione. I really miss them.”

“Why don’t you go back?” she asked hesitantly.

Harry looked down, not quite sure what to say. “Back to what? Dad resigned after… and anyways, we already gave up the lease on the apartment. There’s nothing for us there.” He swirled his spoon in the soup, not liking how despondent his voice sounded at that last bit. It was absolutely true, although not in the way he was letting Diane believe.

As if sensing the truth in that, she didn’t ask any more.

“What about the village?” Harry asked to fill the suddenly awkward silence. “What made you set up a bakery there?”

“I lived there, when I was little. We moved to Glasgow when I was about fourteen, and I missed the peace of the village. My parents were constantly pressuring me to get my degree, but I didn’t want to go to university. Didn’t feel my life heading in that direction. So, as soon as I’d saved up enough, I came back here to open my shop. I like working here, although I wish certain ingredients weren’t such a hassle to get.”

Harry bobbed his head like he understood. Diane paid for their meal, and they left. Back at the boat, Harry unloaded the truck and started hauling boxes on board while Diane returned the truck to the garage.

By the time they reached the village again, it was early afternoon. He helped her unpack the boxes and arrange the items within to her satisfaction. There were several small café tables with chairs, and a couple of bookshelves that they assembled and placed behind the counter. She had a collection of antique teacups that she placed on the shelves, and Harry thought the place looked very nice. Diane appeared to think so too, as her lips curled into a satisfied smile when she looked around. “Thanks for all your help, Henry.” She handed him 20 quid. “The old supplies are out back, if you want to take anything home.”

Mildly interested, Harry wandered out the back door in the kitchen. Several mismatched, slightly battered tables and chairs of various styles cluttered the back garden. Nothing much interested him, although he did select a squat stool to serve as a nightstand next to his bed. Waving goodbye to Diane, he walked home.

Severus, after careful consideration, had realized that the only time he would be able to cast the wards around the village was during his lunch break. He’d eaten a good breakfast to make up for the upcoming missed meal, then gone to work after seeing Harry off to Diane Harrison’s bakery. Francis told Severus how grateful Diane was for “Henry’s” assistance, which Severus didn’t really care about.

“I’m sure Henry doesn’t mind the chance to get to the island. He hasn’t seen it yet, after all.”

“That’s true enough, I suppose.”

When the anticipated lunch break finally came, Severus made his excuses and hurried out. By this time, Harry ought to have been long gone. Still, he pulled his wand out with slight trepidation before casting strong muggle repelling and notice-me-not charms on himself.

Half an hour. He had half an hour to spread the rune stones he’d already prepared around the perimeter of the village, then cast various wards. After some deliberation, he had chosen repelling wards against werewolves, dementors, and inferi, as well as one to detect ill-intent and another to obscure tracking in case their pendants failed. He had considered adding charms to make the village unplottable, but he knew the werewolf underground would have marked the village as wizard protected (he had demanded it, after all) and didn’t want it to suspiciously disappear. Anti-apparition, too, he had decided against. As much as he disliked the idea of allowing an enemy to apparate into the village, he disliked the idea of being unable to apparate himself or Harry away in an emergency even more.

When he was finished, he saw that he still had a little bit of time before he had to be back at work. He ran to their cottage, where he placed several additional extra-strength wards on the property. With that finished, and feeling slightly weary from the excessive use of magic, he returned at a slower place to the fish shop after canceling the charms on himself.

“You rushed out of here,” Francis commented when he took up his station.

“Forgot to turn off the coffee maker,” Severus said blandly.