Storm's broad shoulders barely fit through the door to the small private quarters in the back of the church where Remus Lupin was living. Storm had to angle himself and duck his head to get through - and he seemed too big to be real once inside. Some might find it intimidating, having such a hulking werewolf before them, but Remus knew that it took more than physical stature to loom large in power.

"Tea?" Remus asked.

Storm shook his head, sitting in the chair that Remus indicated. Unlike many leaders, the chairs in Remus Lupin's sitting area were magically adjusted, so that regardless of who sat in them, the occupants were all of equal eye level once seated. Storm watched as Remus drew his wand and set a kettle to boiling before conjuring a tea cup on the small table beside the chair that he himself settled into.

Remus crossed one leg over the other, resting his right ankle on his left knee and studying Storm for a moment as the kettle roared in the hearth. "So. How are you, Storm?" he asked.

"Well," Storm answered shortly, his eyes following as the kettle lifted off from the hearth to meet a couple flying lumps of sugar, a spoon, and a ceramic cow filled with milk to assemble Remus's tea cup by magic. Remus paid no attention to it, and from the outside it seemed entirely effortless, astonishing Storm - just as Remus had intended for it to do.

"And to what do I owe your visit?" Remus asked, sipping carefully from the cup as the spoon laid itself down on the saucer.

"I volunteered to assist you on your trip to visit the Blackburn Pack Family," Storm reminded him. "And you'd asked to meet with the newly appointed leaders of the families. I figured that it would be best to do that sooner than later, as you certainly must intend to visit Blackburn before the full moon?"

Remus nodded slowly, then lowered his tea cup back onto the saucer at his side. "I see. That's very intuitive of you - excellent." Remus looked the boy over. "You said you're Carl's boy, yeah?"

Storm nodded.

"I remember your father quite well," Remus said, nodding, "He lived with Greyback's pack family in the Great North Woods when I first met him, ages ago. He'd been turned some time prior to that, during the 1970s, by Greyback himself, during the time when Druella Black lived with the werewolves there."

Storm nodded again. The interest in his eyes betrayed that he had few details compared to what Remus was sharing about his father. 

"Carl was a good man - and I can't say that about most of Greyback's pack leaders back then.... Carl was one of the first to join with me during the divergence," Remus explained. "He was by my side in the Battle at Blackburn against the Dark Lord of the Wizarding World, during the first revolts. He was the only one that I trusted to care for the packs in my absence during some weeks I spent away early on... Carl was a good, loyal man, with a heart of gold." Remus smiled, pausing, and then his smile melted away and he grew a serious expression. "Are you like your father, Storm?"

"I should like to believe that I am in many ways," Storm answered. He paused, too, looking Remus over. Storm leaned forward. "I know what you're really asking here, Remus," Storm said, straight-forward, "I know what you're really asking is about my fealty to you... to the pack."

Remus nodded, submitting to the truth of his motives.

Storm said, "My father spoke as highly of you as you just have of him. I remember sitting at his knee in awe of the latest story he had brought home to us about the great leader, the great Alpha of the new Pack. You were a hero in our house - and I remember playing at being you when I was young, pretending to be the big strong Alpha leader. I dreamed of growing up and pledging my loyalty to you and living out my days in servitude to a leader that we believed in and counted one of our own..."

Remus was surprised by this.

Storm continued on, "But then one day you just... left. You left our Pack, you left the Families, and you just... you were gone. The great hero never returned. You didn't come 'round to check on us, to distribute food and clothing and hope as you'd once done, you didn't come with your potions and your magic to heal and the tight knit loyalty of the Pack started to wear and crack... The giving nature of the Families became more greedy. Families like the Vanes became more poverty-stricken while the Haddocks and the Sterns grew richer and soon the families were alighted only in politics and show, but divided in every other way. No longer did the Haddocks help the Vanes with food and the Blackburns refused to sign treaties to protect the Blackpooles... We had no one stronger than a steward left in your stead who supposedly sent messages to you... but you never came."

Remus felt his heart ache at the thought of it and he opened his mouth to apologize, but Storm stopped him.

"Now you show up," he said lowly, darkly, "Just as the Wizarding World enters another war - just as they were doing when my father swore loyalty to you the first time... Is it a coincidence that you are here just as you need our help, just as you did in 1980?" Storm raised his eyebrow. "I am like my father, Remus. I am loyal and willing to fight beside whoever I swear my fealty to, just as my father did before me... as ferociously as I need to... But I ask you this: are you the leader he served then? Or are you the shadow that has refused to come back to help us during our times of need, when we were not needed by the Wizarding World? One of those men I will serve... but the other can go fuck himself."

Remus felt a pang of guilt slice through him as Storm gaze upon him. He drew a deep breath, "It is one of my greatest regrets that I let down the pack," Remus replied honestly. He ran a hand over the back of his neck. He thought about how to continue on and Storm's eyebrows raised, waiting. "I have a lot of regrets about the past decade and a half - the things I've done (or not done), the people I've let down... When I left... I left most everything in my life behind. Or it had left me, rather... was taken from me." He leaned back in his chair, contemplating. "Storm, if I was strong back then - it was because of my family. They made me strong. But in one night I lost everything - that war took my entire family and I was the only one left and I was broken, and weak, and there was nothing left of me to offer to the pack."

Storm absorbed these words, looked down at the table, away from Remus. After several long seconds, his eyes rose again to meet Remus's. "We were not a part of your family?" he asked, then added, in a hurt tone, "You were always a part of ours."

Remus felt his heart swell and clench it seemed at the very same time. He felt pained, he felt guilt, and regret - an undeserved appreciation, yet also... love, coming from a source he hadn't ever expected, stronger than he'd ever realized. Tears filled his eyes and he reached across the table, laying his hand on Storm's wrist. "I did not deserve the love that you lot gave me then, and I certainly do not deserve it now, Storm." Remus shook his head, and honesty poured from him, "I am a Monster. Not because I am a werewolf - no. Werewolves are not monsters. You're not a monster. But I am because I have taken for granted people who I ought never to have taken for granted. I've been... a poor example, a poor leader... a bad example of what it means to be a family, while this pack has needed me, I have thought only of myself and my own troubles all these years." He hung his head.

Storm stared at Remus's hand on his wrist, then looked up at Remus's eyes.

"Yes, it's true, Storm, that I have returned now because of the murmurings in the Wizarding World, because of the war that is likely brewing. There are only whispers now, but things... things are happening that have us all concerned, stirrings and solicitations that point to the unthinkable. I did come at a time most convenient to me, just when I have heart to believe that I may soon need you..." Remus sighed heavily. "I was no hero then, and I'm no hero now... Storm, the purpose of a leader is not to be looked upon with awe, but to support the ones who are heroes in truth. Your father was the hero of his time, and likewise shall you be. Do not swear fealty to me or to any other single leader, do not give your loyalty to any man whose actions and choices can let you down in time as I have let you - and your father and the pack families down. Swear your loyalty to your cause, to the change that you wish to see come among the pack... Swear your pact and keep it, unlike I did."

Storm nodded, studying Remus, reading his sincerity like a book upon his face.

Remus continued, "And if you and the rest of the Pack will continue to follow me... I cannot promise to be the hero you once believed in me to be... but I can promise that I will live the rest of my life swearing loyalty to the dream of seeing you - my family... the pack - happy and whole."

Storm's face was unreadable to Remus for a moment as the words hung between them, Remus's pledge seemed so small and weak, and Remus absently ran his thumb over the underside of the gold band that tied him to Sirius Black - the strongest symbol of loyalty in Remus's life. Not his own loyalty - but rather Sirius's. The most loyal man that had ever breathed upon the earth.

Storm drew his hand back from Remus's touch and Remus's nerves tightened, waiting for the rebuttal, for the telling-off.

But instead, Storm shifted in his seat, and after a moment, he bowed his head, a smile crossing his face. "There's the man my father served," he said quietly, and he reached out a heavy arm and clapped it onto Remus's shoulder heartily.