Dudley jumped, the wire he was using on the lock skittering across the hall. Remus scooped it up.

"This operation is quite a bit easier with a key," he said, opening the door and gesturing Dudley inside. "I hope you were only looking for school supplies. Otherwise, you may be in for something of a disappointment." Remus sat down behind his desk.

Dudley stood resentfully in the doorway, but made no move to leave.

"Did you perhaps want help with your assignment?" Remus opened his briefcase and took out the files for Dudley's class. "I note that you didn't choose a topic for this week's essay. Did you want a suggestion?"

No answer.

"I'm told that our electronic equipment is somewhat sub par, though I can't vouch for that--"

Dudley's eyes narrowed.

"I know, it's a bit old-fashioned, not to be familiar with these things, but there you have it."

"You people think I'm stupid," Dudley said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I know it's in here somewhere. Or do you carry it in that ratty briefcase of yours?"

Remus felt suddenly cold. "Mr. Dursley, do you need to see the school nurse?"

"You people think I'm stupid," he said again. "You. Harry. That woman last year. You think I'm stupid. That's a mistake."

"What woman last year?" Remus asked, his weariness disappearing into sudden, almost hyper-alertness. "Who do you mean, Dudley?"

Dudley glared at him, but didn't answer, apparently deciding that Remus was only pretending not to know, for some nefarious reason of his own. "I'm not stupid," he said, and turned to go.

"Mr. Dursley?"

"What?"

"I don't appreciate the attempted pilfering of my office. Detention. Three days, starting Monday."

"I have boxing practice."

"I'll speak with Mr. Baden. I'll see you in class tomorrow, Mr. Dursley."

Dudley frowned impressively. "You think you're so much better than we are, don't you?"

"No."

"Ten of you wouldn't be worth Mr. Levinson."

"Dudley, I don't know what you mean. And I'm not trying to replace Mr. Levinson, except in the most technical sense of filling his professional position."

Dudley just stood there for a moment, blinking. "You don't belong here."

"Dudley--"

"Don't worry. I never say anything."

With that, Dudley left, a queer sort of dignity about him.

You and Harry... and that woman last year...

That Dudley might guess that he himself wasn't what he seemed--and even that he was in some obscure way related to Harry--was disturbing enough in itself, and he would have to consult with Dumbledore about it. But "that woman last year"?

Who on Earth had Dudley spoken to? Molly Weasley had sent an odd letter to the Dursleys last year (according to Ron's account of Harry's account--he had given Remus the relevant information on the Dursleys' home before they'd gone to rescue Harry--it had caused something of a stir), but surely that wouldn't account for such a level of resentment. Hermione, for reasons not entirely clear to Remus, had never visited. Arabella Figg?

Perhaps. She was a bit dotty, and she'd been there immediately after the Dementor attack--but that had been last month, not last year.

What other witch might he have met? Even little Ginny Weasley hadn't joined her brothers for any of their forays into Surrey.

Remus considered just Apparating to the Leaky Cauldron from here--Dora was on duty and wouldn't be able to drive--and catching a bus to Grimmauld Place. Allan Garvey led some sort of after school program that involved dressing in medieval armor and playing games, so he wasn't going to return to the office suddenly. If Dudley hadn't woken him up so thoroughly, he might have done it. But he was awake now, and a moment's thought convinced him that it would be a bad idea. Too much magic around Smeltings would be noticed, and furthermore, as Dudley had reminded him, people weren't complete fools. If someone took note of the fact that he left a closed office without opening the door, questions would be raised.

So he gathered up his things and walked to the spot in the woods that he'd chosen to Apparate from, and moments later, he was in the quiet corner of the Leaky Cauldron that had been set aside for the purpose. He got a few chilly looks from people who knew who he was--that werewolf who was sacked from Hogwarts, as they whispered before they bothered to see if he was out of earshot--but he ignored them, going out into the street and catching Muggle transportation across town.

When he got to Number Twelve, Sirius was engaged in a battle with his mother in the front hall. It had deteriorated into nothing but mutual name-calling--where it was as likely as not to have started, Remus supposed--but he still had to wait through several volleys before Sirius grabbed the other curtain and helped him shut the old bat up.

"Tell me the truth, Sirius," he said.

"What?"

"Did you actually open those curtains deliberately?"

"Don't you ever just want to have a good old-fashioned row with someone?"

"Not especially."

"Liar."

"You do realize that you're not actually going to change the portrait's mind about anything? It's somewhat frozen in time."

"So was Mum." Sirius shrugged. "It's just too quiet in here all day, after you're off to Smeltings. Dora comes by to set up your Potion, but she can't stay long."

Remus grinned. "You could always talk to Phineas Nigellus. I remember how well you liked sharing a room with him as a child."

"Right." He sniffed dismissively. "Would've been nice if Mum and Dad had got around to having a portrait of Regulus done. There's someone I wouldn't mind a row with. I'd tell him a thing or two, stupid little git, getting himself killed..."

Continuing to mutter about his younger brother, more than ten years in his grave, Sirius wandered off toward the kitchen. Remus followed.

While they were cooking supper, Mundungus Fletcher happened by, and before they'd set it out, Kingsley Shacklebolt had joined them. Delighted, Sirius set out more places, and the four of them spent the meal discussing the situation at the Ministry, the so-far fruitless attempt to flush Voldemort into the open, and the sad lack of Molly Weasley's cooking at unplanned meetings.

Dung wasn't cleared to know about the Smeltings assignment, so Remus wasn't free to talk about it until after the pudding, when Dung ran off, claiming an important business arrangement. As soon as he was gone, Kingsley looked at Remus. "How have things been going?"

"Dudley Dursley suspects I'm a wizard."

Sirius pulled a face. "Dudley Dursley? Harry and the Weasley boys all say he's a dimwit."

"I'm not entirely certain that's true. Not after speaking to him. He's not as bright as Harry--next to Harry, he's a dimwit, and I'm certain it didn't take either of them long to figure that out--but I'm not convinced that he's objectively stupid."

"It's unfortunate," Kingsley said. "There are always Memory Charms, but trying to monitor immediate Muggle relatives is too complex an operation. We'll simply have to trust in Dudley's aversion to discussing it. Which, to be honest, is magically enhanced."

"And the likely disbelief of his friends," Remus said. "But he said something else that concerned me. He said that there was a woman, last year--someone who he grouped with Harry and me."

Kingsley swore under his breath. "I thought the issue of the Dursley boy was just playing it safe."

"I thought we were assuming it would be Peter," Sirius said.

"Well, there's Polyjuice Potion," Kingsley said.

Remus shook his head. "It's possible. But I think we should take into account the possibility--probability--that anything Peter knows is open to anyone in Voldemort's hierarchy. Harry didn't see any women in the graveyard, but we know there were women involved."

"Bellatrix is still in Azkaban," Sirius said. "Where I hope the Dementors are treating her to their very best nightmares twenty-four hours a day."

"She wasn't the only one. We never identified any of the others, but you know as well as I do that there were too many witches mentioned by witnesses to all be accounted for by Bellatrix." Kingsley rubbed the pate of his head and looked at the fire. "And according to Harry's story, Voldemort only mentioned two of his supporters in Azkaban, even though we know of at least fifteen who still appear loyal, ten of them quite vicious. So he wasn't accounting for everyone."

"Do you have anyone in mind?"

"There is, of course, the possibility that he's been recruiting. It couldn't have been someone young enough to be in school, if she was approaching Dudley during the school year, but other than that... I wouldn't limit our search to known associates."

"What about my cousin Narcissa?" Sirius asked. "I can't imagine her letting someone put a great, ugly tattoo on her pretty arm, but her opinions on the matter aren't exactly a well-kept secret."

"It's a thought. But you needn't suspect your family of every evil done in Britain." Kingsley stood up. "Which reminds me--not the evil part, but the family part--Tonks gave me these to give to you. Said you'd enjoy them. I did." He grinned and tossed a heavy paper envelope toward Sirius. It opened on the table, and several glossy photographs tumbled out of it. He waggled his eyebrows at Remus. "I must say, as tired as she was today, I was hoping for a somewhat more interesting story."

"I'm not even going to dignify that, Kingsley."

Kingsley pulled one of the photos from the stack. "I knew Tonks could act when she needed to. Didn't know it was one of your skills." He grinned and flicked the photo over to Remus. It landed on the table, face-up.

It wasn't one of the many posed pictures. It was the one Sirius had snapped of them when she'd woken him up.

Remus just blinked at it, not quite comprehending it. He hadn't looked into a mirror while Dora was standing nearby morphed, and he hadn't realized just how neatly she'd fit herself to him. They looked like...

Like...

He put the picture hurriedly back in the envelope.

He would have to have a long, serious talk with Dora Tonks.

Friday was unremarkable.

The second form class, following Daniel Morse, got sidetracked into a discussion of the bubonic plague, which Remus finally had to cut off in order to get back to the Renaissance, which they would actually need to master this year. First form went more-or-less as planned. Daniel came to Remus's office during his free period, full of gory plague stories that he'd found and been unable to share in class.

"Your classwork is actually after the plague," Remus prodded.

Daniel waved a dismissive hand. "I'm doing that as well, but I didn't know how interesting this was last year!"

"Really?"

"Yes. Mr. Levinson wanted to make sure everyone talked, so I didn't get to talk as much. It wasn't nearly as much fun. I like you. It's more fun when I can tell someone what I know."

"Well, you do need to let other people talk from time to time."

"They talked today!"

"True. Why don't you start a club where you could talk about all of this?"

Dora arrived with his noon Potion and invited Daniel to stay for lunch, but the boy's entirely girl-free atmosphere got the better of him, and he bolted at the thought of eating in front of a woman. Dora laughed and set out the meal, his Potion in an innocuous thermos, and ultimately prevailed on Allan Garvey to join them when he returned to the office.

After lunch, he went on to teach his fifth form class. Dudley stomped into the classroom like a rampaging erumpent and glowered through class, but did nothing overtly disruptive. Keeping Daniel's statement in mind, Remus observed the way the boys alternated their speaking, looking at one another to judge whose "turn" it was. He could see the brighter boys, like Paul Freehof and Stephen Wells, chafing with a desire to answer, but they raised their hands only once each.

And yet, boys like Dudley or Piers, who might never have spoken in class at all, had taken the trouble to do their assigned reading, and, because they expected to be called on, had at least made an attempt to not look like fools.

Had Levinson "traded" Paul Freehof and Stephen Wells for Dudley Dursley and Piers Polkiss? Or were Paul and Stephen also learning an important lesson about fairness?

Remus rejected the last--there was nothing fair about being asked to disguise one's own gifts.

It was a tradeoff of some sort.

A club, he thought again. I'll get the bright ones an extra club.

He sighed in the middle of Piers's confused recitation of the incidents leading up to the Hitler's first arrest. It was pointless to start thinking of this position in the long term--he wasn't here to change the culture of Smeltings, but to look after Dudley Dursley. A club for bright students to discuss gory tales in history (and undoubtedly, given their age, any mildly off-color tale they could find as well) was all well and good, but it was time he wouldn't be able to promise them for long, or with any degree of reliability even now. And that would also be unfair.

He clarified a few points with Piers, then the bell rang. It was his last class of the week (and the last of this moon, he reminded himself with distaste), and he went straight home after it.

Dora and Sirius were in the kitchen at Number Twelve when he got back, a pile of her paperwork stuffed into her satchel and sitting on the floor beside her. The photos were spread around them, and they were holding them up to a handful of plain frames that Sirius had apparently found somewhere in the house.

"I'm on desk duty today," Dora explained. "I asked Kingsley if I could take it home. He pushed a pile of nonsense on me and told me to read it, as he thought there were clues on Sirius's whereabouts."

"Apparently, I've been spotted in Jakarta, Buenos Aires, and Boston this week," Sirius said, slipping a photo behind the glass of a heavy silver frame. "First thing after my name's cleared, I'm going to every place they've said I've been seen. Buckbeak could use the exercise."

He turned the frame around. "I think this one should go in your office," he said.

Remus blanched. It was the one Kingsley had showed him last night.

"I don't think so," he said. "It's not even one we were posing for."

"That's the point," Sirius said. "Look at the ones where you're posing. They look about as natural as Nymphadora's hair."

Dora stuck out her tongue.

Remus looked at the other pictures spread on the table. Most featured him standing beside Dora with his hands on her waist. She had crossed her arms and leaned back into him with a glittery smile.

"A lot of Muggle pictures are quite posed. We can be a couple uncomfortable with the camera."

Sirius wrinkled his nose. "This one looks like the pair of you. The others could be anyone."

"No," Remus said. "This is just me waking up groggy."

"And not thinking about it," Dora said. "That's the point."

Remus took the picture and looked at it. Dora was leaning comfortably over his shoulders, her arms stretched out on the table in front of them. His own hand was raised slightly, the back of his fingers brushing the shallow cup of her elbow (it was this, somehow, that bothered him most). She'd just kissed his temple, and her face was still very close to his.

"We're not generally quite this cozy," he said.

Dora took the picture impatiently, then put it down and shook her head. "Remus, I hug and kiss you all the time. We're quite that cozy. And even if we weren't, if we're playing at being a happy couple, a picture that implies it--to anyone not sitting in this room, anyway--is a good thing, not a bad one." She put the picture in his briefcase and started clearing the table for supper.

Remus surrendered. He could always put it on the shelves behind his desk, where Allan Garvey could enjoy it at leisure, and he himself wouldn't need to look at it often, though he suspected he would do so at first.

"So, tomorrow," Dora said. "Do we know where we're going?"

"Hmm?"

"The Garveys?"

"Right. Yes, I have Allan's address."

"Good. I'll borrow Dad's car and pick you up somewhere neutral." She smiled apologetically. "Aunt Narcissa's taken to coming over. She's sure Mum has an idea where Sirius is. Mum thinks it's better if we don't give her any clues."

"Narcissa is actually visiting Andromeda?" Sirius asked, incredulous.

"Out of the pure love in her heart," Dora said blithely. "The concern she shows... why just last week, she told Mum that it wasn't too late--she could still walk away from us and be accepted in decent company again."

"I'd wager that went over well," Remus said.

Dora laughed. "Oh, it got Mum in a fine temper. She threw Aunt Narcissa out. But she'll be back. Mum hasn't given up on her yet." She shrugged. "She says she gave up on Sirius and it turned out to be a bad idea, so she's not going to give up on anyone else. Ever."

"Sirius was actually innocent of the charges. Narcissa is what's she's always been."

"A spoilt harpy with all the compassion of a watersnake?" Sirius asked.

Dora grinned. "That's about right. I think Mum's also trying to throw suspicion off of the Order by keeping it on herself. She's anxious to see you, you know. But they watch her very closely."

"Lucius and Narcissa?"

"When it's not them, it's the Ministry. Kingsley can't control the entire search, and it would be pretty obvious if he dropped surveillance on your favorite cousin. And he can't very well assign me to do it, for obvious reasons." Dora shook her head and affected a deep sigh. "Ah, they'll never trust the Tonks women! You'd think we'd a habit of cuddling up with dangerous fugitives and vicious monsters or something!"

"People do have mad ideas from time to time," Sirius agreed.

At eleven-forty the next morning, Remus was leaning against the wall of a Muggle bookshop in a neighborhood two miles from Grimmauld Place. He didn't know the shop or the neighborhood, and Dora had only been here once or twice, which had made it seem like a good neutral meeting ground, but as he checked his watch for the third time, he wondered if she had managed to forget her way here.

Then again, she was only ten minutes late. For Dora, that was very nearly on time.

Two taxicabs trundled by, and Remus idly wondered how much it would cost to take one to Allan Garvey's, then a horn blasted and he looked down. Dora was leaning across from the driver's side of Ted Tonks's car, pushing the passenger door open. Remus ducked inside.

"Morning, Remus," she said, readjusting the rearview mirror, which she'd managed to hit with the top of her had as she sat back up.

"Morning, Remus," someone else said.

Remus turned. Ted Tonks was sitting in the back, his hand raised in a vague greeting. His black hair was only beginning to be threaded with gray and his face was largely unlined. Despite being four years Remus's senior, he actually looked considerably younger.

"Ted," Remus said. "I wasn't expecting you."

"Andromeda wanted to talk to her sister alone," Ted explained. "Which generally means that she expects to lose her temper and doesn't want me there for it."

"Is it wise to leave her alone with Narcissa?"

Dora gave a snort of laughter. "Mum can take Aunt Narcissa. For one thing, Aunt Narcissa is bound in our house. Of course she doesn't know it."

"Bound?"

"If Aurors present would start humming?" Ted said, and Dora obligingly did so. "Unlike Sirius, Andromeda learned a thing or two from her parents. She used a blood spell to bind her sisters within the confines of the charm. It doesn't work for any distance--or for anyone who's not a close blood relative--but it's reasonably effective in the house, on spells directed at Andromeda and Dora. Or, in theory, any they direct at Narcissa or her boy. It's not exactly on the approved list of security charms, of course. Human blood and all."

Remus digested this. He had known Andromeda Tonks for the better part of thirty years, and it had never occurred to him to wonder if she'd studied the Dark Arts her family was so well known for. Sirius had disdained them with a certain amount of rebellious glee, and he supposed he'd just assumed Andromeda had done the same. Blood spells. Literal blood spells, not just the kind of familial tie business that Dumbledore had used with Petunia Dursley. Human blood, worked into charms. He shook his head.

"Anyway," Dora said, dropping the tune she'd started, "Dad took off with me. We'll drop him at the British Museum. He can waste a good handful of hours there. Meanwhile, he wanted to have a look at his white-haired son-in-law. Shocking, isn't he?"

"It takes a fair bit more than that to shock a Seer," Ted said gravely.

"Dad, you've predicted a Chudley championship for ten years now."

"And I won't be at all shocked when it happens." Ted actually was a fairly accomplished Seer, or as he preferred to call it, "a right good guesser." The difference between Ted Tonks and Sybil Trelawney was night and day--Ted found nothing at all mysterious about his work, considered it the most fallible discipline, and often called the talent "the most uselessly amusing thing I own." While Andromeda worked at St. Mungo's, helping people with permanent injuries, Ted worked there in a rehabilitation laboratory, scrying out possibilities for them. He thought it rubbish to predict "the future," but could often see several paths that a decision might open up for a patient, as well as any potential dangers. Beyond a bit of scrying, he said he mainly used common sense advice. But when it came to nonsense like who would win the Quidditch championship, his guesses were never any better than anyone else's, so he always uttered them in a deep, faux-mystical voice that made Andromeda laugh.

He leaned forward between the seats. "So, Remus... you realize I'm going to have to hate you now. Sacred duty as a father, you know."

"Naturally."

Dora frowned. "Dad, Remus doesn't like those jokes."

"I note that it hasn't stopped you," Remus said.

"I don't say I'll hate you. You do know Dad's joking, right?"

"Yes, Dora."

Ted laughed and rolled his eyes in Remus's direction. Dora had nurtured a crush on Remus for several years of her childhood, and this sort of thing had always been a joke among the three of them. "At any rate," Ted said, "I actually came along instead of just Apparating because Andromeda's worried about Sirius. She wants me to pass on her concern to as many people who of course have no contact with him whatsoever as is humanly possible."

"Well, I'll be sure to tell the thin air in the house I live in alone when I get home this evening."

"Joking aside, Remus, she's desperate to see him. And I'm telling you as a Seer--I don't know what's happening with Sirius, but it can only be helpful to him to make stronger connections with people who are around him now. The world... it's like a safety net, you know, holding us all up. But Sirius only has a few strands to keep him steady."

"I know."

Dora rounded a corner onto Great Russell Street and pulled up to the edge of the street. The entrance of the British Museum was quite crowded with tourists, and Ted shook his head as he got out of the car. He leaned through the driver's side window and kissed Dora's cheek. "Well, love, I'll see you for dinner tomorrow. Remus, I don't suppose you'd join us? You had Sunday dinners with us so often in the past, I don't think anyone would look askance."

"Full moon tomorrow," Remus said.

"Right. I forgot. See you on the other side of it." He disappeared into the crowd.

Dora pulled into traffic. "Well," she said, "we're off."

When Remus looked over, she had morphed into Dora Lewis, her brown eyes twinkling out from under a sheaf of thick gray hair.

They turned into the Garveys' drive at one o'clock, and Dora reached under her seat and pulled out a shapeless cloth hat with a plastic flower sewn to the band. "I borrowed it from Arabella Figg," she said, putting it on. "What do you think?"

"Fetching."

"I saw it and I thought it perfectly dotty for your tweedy wife on a day out."

"Do you really think I don't know that you just wanted to wear the funny hat?"

She stuck out her tongue at him and reached for the door handle.

"Dora?" Remus said.

She turned. "What?"

"Thank you for doing this. I know I've been a bit difficult, but I do appreciate it. It helps a lot."

"Well, you know it's a trial for me to spend all this time with you," she said lightly, and kissed his cheek.

There was a tap on Remus's window, and he turned to find Alan Garvey leaning over, grinning. "Were the two of you planning to come inside?" he asked. "Or shall I just find a privacy screen for you?"

"May I have a moment to think about that?" Dora asked, then made a lie of it by getting out of the car immediately and throwing her arms around Alan's neck.

After a surprised second, Alan hugged her back, and patted her squarely on the bottom.

Dora jumped back and shook a playful finger at him before Remus got over the idea of someone doing such a thing. "I'm a married lady," she scolded.

"And I'm a married man," Alan said, "which works out well, as long as we're all here. Raymond, go on in and tell Anna I've run off with your wife." He grabbed Dora around the waist and dipped her in an overdramatic dance move.

Dora slipped on some loose gravel and fell soundly on her backside. Laughing, she dusted it off. "I'll take that as an omen," she said. "No joking about such things." She reached up with both hands, and Remus pulled her to her feet, as he had for countless spills she'd taken since her childhood. Generally in the past, however, she had not kept hold of his hand once she was upright, and this time, she did. To Remus's surprise, he could feel her pulse racing. On the surface, there was no way to tell she was nervous.

He patted her hand, and they followed Alan into the house. A plump, bespectacled woman with a cloud of curly gray-brown hair met them in the entrance hall, her hand outstretched. "Anna Garvey," she said. "You must be Raymond and Dora Lewis. I'm so glad to meet you both."

Dora took a deep breath and let go of Remus's hand, shaking Anna's with enthusiasm. "I'm glad to meet you, too. It's always a bit of an adjustment when there's a new job to take into account--it's kind of you to invite us."

"Nonsense," Anna said hooking her arm through Dora's and leading her into the front room. Remus and Alan followed. "It looks like it will just be the six of us today. The Smythes are visiting their grandchildren in Tipton this weekend."

A woman rose from the sofa near the window and smiled wearily. Her hair was fully white and she was very thin, and she looked like she hadn't been sleeping a great deal. "I'm Miriam Levinson," she said, and pointed at the man beside her. "This is my husband, Joe."

Remus squinted into the sunlight streaming through the window, and got his first look at Joe Levinson. Most of his hair was gone and he was frail with whatever illness was consuming him, but his eyes were alert and friendly and his smile far less weary than his wife's. He held out his hand. "I'm pleased to meet you," he said. "I'd get up, but--"

"You stay down," Miriam scolded. "I'm sorry. Doctor's orders, you know."

"Of course," Remus said. "I've been hearing a lot about you," he said to Joe.

"Really? So... how are my boys?"

Miriam laughed and moved aside, indicating her spot on the love seat. "He's been so anxious to talk to you. I half expected him to go to the school this week just to find out how you were doing."

Remus smiled at her and sat down. "I know how you feel," he told Joe. "It's a wrench, leaving them. You always want to know how they've come out."

"I hope they haven't been giving you trouble."

"Well, they're very loyal to you. I think Dudley Dursley imagines I'm single-handedly keeping you out of the school."

Joe laughed. "Dudley's a character," he said, then sighed. "Unfortunately, he's also a walking example of why they call overindulgence 'spoiling.' He's just starting to come out from under his parents' smothering. The pair of them ought to be caned, I'll tell you."

"I'll do it!" Dora volunteered.

"Oh, you'll fit right in," Miriam said. "And here we thought about holding back on tortures we imagine inflicting on Smeltings parents for fear of frightening the Lewises."

Anna brought out a tray of sandwiches and Joe brought beer and soft drinks, and they sat comfortably in arm chairs, eating lunch and comparing stories of parents they'd had to deal with over the years. Remus didn't need to lie. Even in his spotty teaching career--a bit here and a bit there over the years--he'd fielded more than one unreasonable parent. Agatha Goyle had written him no less than ten times during the course of his year at Hogwarts, complaining that he'd graded Gregory unfairly because of family ties and "unfounded rumors." That Gregory had put no effort into his homework and consistently failed to know the material on tests and quizzes could not, apparently, be the cause of his low marks. He cut only the magically related parts of this, and received sympathetic nods from everyone in the room.

"I've been spending some time with Daniel Morse," Remus said, as Anna brought out dishes of ice cream. "He would have been in your first form class last year?"

Joe nodded. "I remember. Whip-smart, that one. He always had the answer first. I finally had to tell him that other boys needed a turn as well. It's a pity really--I think he'd do well in a class full of students as bright as he is, where occasionally one of them might simply beat him to answer."

"I was thinking about a club..."

Joe frowned skeptically. "I doubt they'd go to a history club."

"Oh, I'd make it sound amusing. Find all the naughtier bits that they leave out of the textbooks..."

Joe laughed. "Well, they'd come to that, but the parents would have your old white head."

"Still, it's a shame that we can't give boys like Daniel a chance to really shine. Boys like Dudley have boxing and other sports."

"I know."

"At the same time, it's good to see Dudley talking in class. That's quite an achievement, as I understand it."

"That got started last year," Joe said. "I don't know what happened to the boy the summer before this, but he came back to school a different boy in a lot of ways. Very determined. I'd never paid him much attention, except when he was bullying the others, but last year he started going out at dawn to run. I'd see him in the gymnasium lifting weights. He must have lost forty pounds of fat in four months, and I don't think that's safe. So I started him boxing. He's a damned fine fighter, and the discipline seemed to help him in his schoolwork. He wanted to impress me, so he learned history. And his friends followed along. It was a beautiful thing. I thought he'd finally grown up."

"Finally, at fourteen?"

"When a fourteen-year-old has habitually had the self-control and discipline of a four-year-old, yes." Joe stirred his ice cream thoughtfully into a milky soup. "It's not easy to like Dudley," he said. "But he accomplished something remarkable for himself last year. I don't want that to be lost."

They spoke of less consequential matters as their ice cream melted. Miriam and Anna apparently went to see films together quite frequently (along with Regina Smythe), and invited Dora to join them. Remus raised his eyebrow at her to keep her from enthusiastically accepting--she did have some time restraints. She grinned and said, "Perhaps, from time to time--we do like to spend our weekends together, you know."

"The two of you seem to spend quite a lot of time together," Anna marveled.

"Isn't that normal?" Dora asked. "We are married."

"Are you newlyweds?" Miriam asked.

Dora gave her a puzzled look. "Not at all. We've been together for fifteen years. My parents have been together"--she caught herself quickly and appeared to pretend to do math--"well, were together, of course, for nearly forty years, and they spent as much time as they could with one another."

"Only fifteen years?" Joe asked.

"We married late in life," Remus said.

"Oh... no children?" Miriam smiled in a sympathetic way when Dora shook her head. They'd worked out most of this back in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. Dora had been keen to invent children and perhaps a grandchild, but it was the one issue both Remus and Sirius had put their feet down on--there was quite enough room for error without suddenly being expected to produce photos of non-existent children. This was Dora's first really complex prank; Sirius and Remus had experience, and knew perfectly well where in the story the holes were likely to open up.

Anna sat back in her armchair. "How did you meet?"

"Don't be nosy, Anna," Alan said.

"Oh, pish-posh. All women love to tell their love stories."

Dora laughed. "I was walking my dog in the park," she said. "Just playing. And suddenly, this charming gentleman pulled my hat from my head and tossed it for Snuffles to fetch. Snuffie loved him, so I reckoned I'd let him stay."

Anna laughed. "Oh, that's lovely! Alan and I met at a Renaissance Fair. I was a bard. He was a fool."

The Levinsons laughed at this obviously old revelation, though Remus had no idea what to make of it, so he merely smiled. Renaissance Fair?

"Well," Anna said, "I should clean up. And so should Alan."

"Let me help," Miriam offered. "Dora and Raymond can keep Joe company, and we'll be done in a flash."

"Oh, I'll help!" Dora suggested. "Let the old teachers have a nice long talk."

Remus smiled thanks to her and tapped his watch discreetly, hoping she would take the hint to draw out their conversation in the kitchen so he could have longer with Joe. She nodded subtly and dipped into the kitchen after the others. A moment later, he heard her launch into an involved story about a fabricated holiday they'd taken on the walking trails of Wales.

"Quite a lady you have there," Joe said. "Must be like holding fireworks in your hand. Or a moonbeam, as the old Rodgers and Hammerstein song would have it."

"She's nothing at all like a moonbeam," Remus said. "She's purely herself. I can't think of a thing to compare her to, actually." He took a deep breath. "Joe... would you mind telling me what happened? With your health? I don't mean to pry..."

"It's not environmental," Joe said, waving a hand. "I doubt you'd have anything to worry about from breathing my old chalk dust."

"I--" hadn't thought of that was the original sentence, but of course it at least gave a way into the question, albeit one that painted Raymond Lewis as being paranoid about contagions. "That's reassuring," he said. "I was told no one knew what was causing it."

"Not a damned idea," Joe said. "One day, I was in a pub fight, the next, I came up sick. Just a passing fever, but it left behind quite a few surprises."

Remus bit his lip, tempted to simply ask his questions straight out and do a Memory Charm. He opted not to, as he didn't especially approve of the practice, but that did mean he would simply have to pry. "A pub fight?" he repeated. "Isn't that--"

"A bit against the rules of employment, yes, but it was defending a student, so Smeltings wasn't terribly upset with me."

"Defending a student?"

"Yes... your friend Mr. Dursley, as a matter of fact."

"Dudley?"

"Yes. We were away from the school for a match with St. Adrian's. The boys decided to sneak away from their rooms and see who was willing to serve them. I found him with a woman three times his age, told her to leave him be--she'd slipped him something, I'm sure of it; a pint's not enough for the state he was in. She told me to stay out of her business, I told her to stay out of mine and keep her hands off of my students. Then a little fellow told me to sod off and picked a fight on her behalf. I knocked him cold, I'll have you know. But I was burning up by the end of the night. I thought maybe one of them had slipped me something, but my blood work was fine--nothing strange. Must have been a coincidence."

Remus frowned. Was the little fellow Peter? And who was the woman? And what spell had they used? And...

But those were questions that couldn't be asked without a charm. Raymond Lewis would have no reason to express interest in such a level of detail.

"Has it got any better?"

"It hasn't got any worse," Joe said. "Not since I left. But no. No better." He squinted out the Garveys' front window, then looked earnestly at Remus. "I want to go back," he said. "I miss them. I miss my classroom. I didn't want to leave. You understand that, don't you? Alan--he's a good fellow, but he's a teacher because another career didn't come through for him, not because it's what he wants more than anything. He doesn't understand it at all."

"I do understand it," Remus said. "More than you think."

Joe nodded and turned back to the window, quietly watching cars go by on the quiet road. Remus watched with him.

Five minutes later, the rest of the group returned from the kitchen. There was a bit more talk, then the Levinsons announced that they needed to leave, and Remus took the opportunity to suggest that he and Dora should do so as well.

"Did you find anything out?" Dora asked as she started her father's car.

Remus nodded. "There were two people involved in whatever happened to Dudley, and whatever it was also marked the start of Joe's illness."

"Any idea who?"

"I'd guess the man was Peter. The woman... I don't know. Nor do I know what she did. Perhaps I can talk to Dudley when he comes for detention on Monday."

"Be careful, Remus."

"Right."

They arrived back at the bookshop at four-thirty, and Remus got out of the car and leaned down to the window and did a quick Sound Bubble Charm. On a busy London street, no one would notice that they couldn't really hear what two people were saying beside a parked car. "I'll have to leave for the country tomorrow morning to get everything set for the moon. It's been awhile since I used this particular shack, and I don't trust it."

"You could just transform at Grimmauld Place, Remus. The Potion should control the urges. You did manage to drink it on the way to the Garveys, didn't you?"

"Yes. But I'm not going to risk it. Never again. Too many people are in and out of there who aren't animagi."

"Still, these shacks..."

"It's an old network. They're far from anyone, and I can magically reinforce them, just in case."

"All right. I have to go to work now," she said. "The Potion is over the kitchen fire for tonight and tomorrow morning. I'll see you Monday."

"Good."

"I wish you'd let Sirius transform with you. He could guard."

"No chances."

She nodded and turned the key. "Watch yourself, Remus," she said, and pulled away.

Remus took Muggle transit back to Grimmauld Place, his mind focused on last year's attack on Dudley and Joe. Who had done it was really a secondary question compared to what precisely had been done. He thought he would pose the question to Sirius, and let him apply his mind to it during the full moon. Sirius would be glad for something useful to do.

Unfortunately, he didn't remember to ask. When he returned to Grimmauld Place, he was met in the entrance hall by a snowy owl, which nipped his ear lightly and alit on his shoulder.

Sirius was sitting on the stairs, his eyes blazing with excitement. In his hands was a letter from Harry.