Albus Dumbledore's knuckles rapped against the large red doors of the sanctuary in Iceland. He noticed the red paint was desperately in need of a new coat and wondered why Remus hadn't used magic to do the repair as he knocked a second time. The door creaked as it opened ever so slightly, dark eyes peering out from the shadow within.

"Good afternoon," Dumbledore said, smiling through a pause during which the sentiment was not returned. "I have come to see Mister Remus Lupin."

The door opened further and a very large, very muscled man stepped out onto the steps where Dumbledore stood. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Mr. Lupin is not available, but you're welcome to talk to me and I'll pass along the message," the man said, looming large over the old man's frame. He glowered down, his eyes squarely focused.

Dumbledore nodded and reached into his pocket. "Lemon sherbet?" he asked, producing the bag.

The man's muscles tensed. "No."

Dumbledore popped one in his mouth. "I am Albus Dumbledore," he said in a jovial tone as he rocked from his flat footed stance to the balls of his feet and back again.

"And you," Dumbledore said, sucking the sweet as he spoke so that it clicked against his teeth, "Are Storm Lyson, if I am not mistaken. Second to Mr. Lupin." His eyes glimmered merrily and a smile played on his lips as Storm bristled at being recognized. "Mister Lupin has told me a great deal about you, Storm. He is quite proud of you." Storm's face grew hot in spite of himself. "Now," Dumbledore said, "I am here to visit with your Alpha about the acquisition of Fallengunder castle, which he came to Hogwarts just last week to petition me for. I come with good news."

Storm still hesitated, but he slid his palm to the dagger in a scabbard at his hip and he stepped back, allowing this Albus Dumbledore to step through the doors of the church into the mahogany-and-crimson foyer. "This way, sir," Storm gestured to the thrown-wide double doors of the main sanctuary.

Dumbledore's eyes moved around the high walls and vaulted ceiling, roaming over the exposed rafters and the colored glass that made up the windows in various Christian-religious images. Christ with a foray of children - the last supper - hanging on the cross - the glowing resurrection tomb. Dumbledore's boots clicked over the stone floor as Storm led the way down the center aisle toward the pulpit and the Priest's quarters beyond, stepping through into the privacy of the area that Remus had been using as his quarters.

Storm directed Dumbledore to sit at the corner of the front-row pew. "Wait here," he said sternly and Dumbledore nodded, sitting, his magenta robes with their silver stars standing out garishly compared to the dark velvet of the seat cushions. Dumbledore watched Storm walk up to the door and knock.

Another man - who Dumbledore knew was Spencer Stewart - poked his head out and listened to Storm for a moment before his eyes darted to Dumbledore in the pews and he hurried across the pulpit toward the old wizard.

"Mr. Dumbledore, sir, I am sorry. Storm is - he's new around here and hasn't yet learned who is granted immediate passage and who must be kept at bay."

"Oh it is quite alright, I appreciate the knowledge that Mr. Lyson has the common sense to protect his Alpha during times such as these. Not every kind face can be trusted - no matter how old and wizened they may appear," he smiled.

"Kind face or not, your kind can change your features to hide your identities," Storm rumbled. "How are we to know you truly are Dumbledore?" He eyed the old man.

Spencer flushed.

Remus Lupin appeared in the door way of the sanctuary.

"Storm has an excellent point, Stewie," Remus said as he emerged, walking across the pulpit with one hand shoved into his trousers pocket, his jumper hanging over his wrist. He tried not to notice as Storm gave Spencer an almost gloating smirk and Spencer scowled in reply. Instead, Remus's eyes slid over Dumbledore's magenta robes and long beard and his lips twitched in amusement. In a challenging voice, he said, "In my third year at Hogwarts, I was employed by Albus Dumbledore for a specific task and payment. Might you recall for us what that task and it's payment were?"

"Ah - very wise, Mr. Lupin, testing the memory of an old man to confirm his identity! I daresay it is a good thing that I have retained all of my faculties throughout my elder years, if this is to be the way we verify such things." He cleared his throat and said, most regally, "In your sixth year, Master Lupin, you created detailed drawings for my dear friend Nicholas Flamel. These illustrations were created for the low, low cost of one muggle stereo system in time for an event which was to take place on November the 3rd, I believe."

Storm looked confused, as did Spencer, but Remus smiled, having finished crossing the pulpit without pause, and he reached out an arm, embracing Dumbledore before taking a step back. "Good to see you do hvae your wits about you. Although I question whether your got your money's worth, given my poor skillset."

"Mr. Flamel uses your drawings to this day, Mr. Lupin."

"Have you come with news of Fallengunder?" he asked.

Dumbledore nodded, "Yes, indeed - indeed, and good news at that. You are welcome to use the castle - although Mr. Scamander warns it is in a bit of a state of disrepair at the current time and may be in need of reparations."

"It will give us something to do in our spare time," Remus said.

Maybe in need of reparations had been the understatement of the century, Remus thought, as he poked his way through the entrance hall at the castle.

The grounds had been overgrown with brambles and knee-deep grasses that shifted in the wind that whipped off the cliffside and there were crumbling bits dotting the one smooth exterior, the white paint giving way to show the uneven rock beneath. The roofs were missing some of their shingles, the turquoise pieces shattered on the cobbled walkway leading up to the stairs. There were climbing vines beginning to overtake some of the castle walls, and some overgrowth he pulled Storm away from, recognizing it as dormant Devil's Snare, which lay across the path, twitching as though in a deep sleep and snoring in a plantish manner.

If the outside had been bad, the first steps into the entrance hall had been horrid. Remus stood on the plaster-dusted carpet that ran from the heavy wooden doors to the grand staircase, up the steps to the first landing, and came to a stop directly in front of the sheet of fabric covering the massive portrait that hung on the wall, protecting it from dust for all these years. His fist closed around the fabric, pausing, his heart pounding: did time do anything to portraits? He tore the sheet away with a skip of a beat to his heart and stepped back as it shivered down, showering him in dust it had kept from the portrait's face for the past decade and a half. Remus's breath caught and he stared up at the sleeping figure in awe.

There were footsteps behind him - Spencer and Storm coming to a stop to stare up at the portrait as well. Silence fell over all three of them as they waited with held breath.

The portrait was asleep, head bent forward, chin against his chest... The beard bunched at his neck, his long hair hanging thick around his head. He had always looked wild, always had an untamed glint in his eye, lines in his face that were from laughter as well as scars... Remus watched the familiar face twitch from sleep to waking, eyes blinking open, head lifting up, and the mouth parting in a gigantic yawn.

Storm stared with wide eyed excitement.

Ned Veigler was smiling, looking over the three men before him. He seemed about to speak to them when his eyes raised up to look over the entry hall of the castle, to see the state of the needed repairs... the smile fell from his lips, tumbling off him. "Oh my," he murmured. His voice was low and rough, unused in so long. "It's worse than I remembered. No wonder they tossed that dust cover over me."

Remus hung his head, ashamed he'd allowed it to happen, ashamed he'd been gone so long without coning to fix the broken things... The state of Fallengunder was so much like himself, like his own interior, his heart, rotting away and filled with ghosts and shadows.

"We are here to restore it," Storm said, taking a step closer.

Ned's voice held surprise, "Storm Lyson!"

Remus looked up in surprise.

"My, how you've grown!" Ned's voice rang with pride.

Storm chuckled, "As little boys do."

Remus felt Ned's eyes land on him, assessing him, too, but when he looked up it was to see the jovial light in Ned's eyes had dimmed and a look of concerned sorrow had entered into them.

"Remus," Ned said.

So much sympathy and sorrow hung in Ned's tone that Remus's eyes filled with tears at the sound of it. He felt the weight of it, felt the unspoken question of where have you been and how could you let this happen, let it stay like this when it did? And his stomach turned at the implication such questions lay down - even if the words were unspoken: why did you let me down?

Remus shook his head. He had no excuse, no good excuse. He'd allowed himself to fall into disrepair as much as he'd allowed Fallengunder to. Breaks and cracks and trashed interiors and all, Remus had been laying in ruins since 1981.

He had no excuse besides the tired one, the one he'd used again and again and again - my world fell apart, bit by merciless bit - but why hadn't he tried to rebuild in all these years? Why had he spent so long running and hiding and letting the ruins get worse, wallowing?

"I'm sorry," he choked the words out and moved, stepping around a large chunk of the wall that lay in the way of the passage into the corridor to the left of the stairs. Spencer glanced at the portrait and Storm, then hurried after Remus as he disappeared down the corridor.

Everywhere.

The mess and ruin was everywhere. Every room. Every corner Remus turned seemed to get worse, and he came to a stop in the library, where the books lay broken, torn pages and snapped spines, covers without interiors and guts without covers lay sprawled about everywhere. The piano was missing keys, and one of its legs, sitting at an angle, the sun lighting it through broken glass.

Remus's knees hit the carpet, hot tears on his face.

Spencer Stewart was silent as a wraith as he came up beside Remus, kneeling beside him and laying a hand on his back.

Remus looked over at him, letting out a gutted breath of air, his eyes red and face sopping.

"We will repair it," Spencer said firmly.

"What if I'm too broken to repair?" Remus asked.

The Freudian slip, unnoticed by Remus's own ears, cut deep into Spencer.

"We will repair it," he repeated, because there was nothing more to say.

Storm watched them go, then looked up at Ned Veigler's portrait. "It seems Fallengunder is not the only thing which needs restoration here," he murmured.

Ned Veigler frowned, unable to see where Remus had gone.

Storm drew a deep breath, then said, "The Alpha has undergone a lot of pain and sorrow. I can feel it in my bones, how heavy he feels, how much he's been through. But he's here - he's trying - and that takes more bravery than most people possess in a lifetime."

Ned Veigler's tone was gentle, encouraging, "He is lucky to have a strong hearted second to help build him back up."

"Yeah, Spence is a good guy," Storm said, eyes flicking back to the corridor the two men had gone down.

Ned's eyes crinkled at the corners, "I meant you."