Remus was still on the sofa when his Self-Waking Charm kicked in at seven sharp. He opened his eyes groggily and found the parlor rather than his own sparse bedroom on the third floor, and was, for a moment, disoriented. Everyone else was gone, and the sun was streaming through the windows. He hadn't been in this room in the daylight for quite some time, at least since Sirius had decided to give up on the sodden, formerly-doxy-infested drapery altogether. It lay in a dispirited pile under the bureau, and the windows were open to the eastern exposure. Sitting up, Remus thought the room looked like it was recoiling from the exposure.

It also looked horrifically bare. So much of the Black family's property had been taken away or sealed off that, in full light, the room looked like it was simply waiting for movers to come along pull out the furniture as well. The old things hadn't done Sirius much good, but this new situation...

Remus frowned.

This state of permanent temporary-ness, of interrupted transience, was actually disconcerting in itself. He decided to talk to Andromeda; dealing with the kinds of mental scars Sirius had was, after all, her profession. She would know if a confusing environment really was harmful, and perhaps could suggest a few things, though of course the Fidelius Charm would render her totally unable to offer any specific suggestions for Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

He made his way up to his room to get dressed, marveling that the only aches and pains he felt were the ones from sleeping on the sofa. He felt... well. What a difference an hour of unconsciousness and nine hours of sleep had made.

Of course, he could hardly make a habit of it.

By the time he'd finished getting dressed and doing his appearance Charms, he could hear Sirius mucking about in the kitchen, human again, to judge by the occasional sound of cursing that drifted up. There was little more in the way of conversation when Remus went down; Sirius had involved himself in an argument with Kreacher, who had apparently been hoarding flatware in his den. Neither of them took much notice of Remus grabbing two slices of toast as a quick breakfast, and a distracted, "...day" was all he got as far as a farewell went. He supposed it was "Have a good day," but wasn't entirely sure.

The walk to Smeltings from his Apparition point was pleasant and refreshing, the last kinks working their way out of his muscles. A vague but pervasive sense of well-being seemed to settle in. This wasn't uncommon during the first week of the waning moon, once the soreness and weariness wore off. He didn't know if it was a physical after-effect or just the knowledge that he was as far from the next transformation as it was possible to get.

When he got to his office, Alan was at his morning debates about people who never existed, and gave him roughly the same greeting that Sirius had, though in this case, it consisted of "...bloody Tuesday..." rather than simply "day." Remus could make neither heads nor tails of what he'd grumbled on either side of it.

He was settling in to start reviewing today's lesson plans when there was a knock at the door, followed (without waiting for a response) by the entrance of a piebald man who looked somewhat familiar.

"Mr. Lewis?" he said.

Remus smiled and stood up, offering his hand and gesturing to the empty chair.

The man shook his hand in a cursory way and sat down. "Well, how has it been going? We haven't spoken since your interview."

Blythe. The headmaster. Remus made a mental note to remember this particular face in the future.

"I've been enjoying myself," he said. "It's good to be back in the classroom."

"Yes, yes," Blythe said in a distracted way. "I sent you an e-mail last week, regarding your curriculum plans."

"I, er..."

"Hasn't a clue how to get into his e-mail," Alan said. "Hullo, Roger."

Remus blushed furiously, but Blythe just laughed. "Oh, I never even thought to ask. I'm sorry. I've got used to the damned thing now. You'll need to, really. I'd wondered why you hadn't answered."

"Well, as Mr. Garvey said..." Remus sighed. "What did you need to know about my curriculum plans?"

"Oh, not much. I just wanted to have an approximate idea of the syllabi for your classes--assignments, quizzes, and so on. It helps to know that sort of thing."

"Of course." Remus took a folder from his desk drawer, and handed it across to Blythe.

Blythe glanced at the syllabi briefly, nodded here and there, and handed them back. "Looks quite decent. A bit ambitious, but quite decent. You'll need to type those up and send them to my secretary. She prefers them either on a disk or sent by ftp, so she can work with the files without retyping them."

"In other words..."

"In other words, Mr. Lewis, you are, by all reports, a marvelous classroom teacher, but we'll need you to join us in this decade, administratively speaking." Blythe smiled in a friendly enough way. "Don't worry. You're not the only teacher on staff who's hesitant."

Remus looked over at Alan.

Blythe followed his glance and laughed. "Oh, don't let Garvey give you the wrong impression. He was trying to sell us on computers back when they would have taken up the whole office. The rest of us are on a rather steeper learning curve." He stood up, shaking Remus's hand in a somewhat better humor. "There are classes available. Teacher, teach thyself."

"Right," Remus said, looking suspiciously at the dusty computer that had been sitting, totally unused, on a table to the side of his desk. It was covered with some sort of plastic drapery and looked like an arcane idol in a museum. "I'll do that."

Blythe laughed again, and left.

Remus slowly pulled the coverings from the machine and stared at it without any idea where to begin. There was a switch under the blank screen, but it didn't seem to produce much more than a slight crackling sound.

"You have to turn on both parts," Alan said, kindly enough. "The screen is just the monitor. The computer switch is in the back, on the right. Beside the cord."

Remus reached back tentatively and found a switch by touch on the back of the lower box. He flicked it, and the computer beeped at him loudly.

"I could teach you later," Alan said. "Really, it's less complex than people make it out to be."

"Perhaps." Remus flipped the switch and turned the machine off.

"You, er, shouldn't do that. It needs to go through its shut-down procedure."

"Oh."

"The boys think that people who don't use computers are just being stubborn."

"The boys use these?"

"Yes. Well, not these particular ones. But most of them have computers in their dormitories. It's a great improvement over having to read teenage handwriting." He shrugged. "You might ask that second former who likes to come here to show you. They love to teach their teachers something, Lord knows why."

"It makes them feel competent," Remus said, an idea growing in his mind. True, he could ask Daniel Morse, and would enjoy learning something from him, but it wasn't Daniel he was meant to get close to.

He wondered how much Dudley Dursley knew about computers.

Remus's fourth form class got a bit heated arguing about Colonialism, but other than that rather minor incident (which Remus couldn't say he minded), the morning went by peaceably. Dudley showed up of his own accord to ask where he was expected to come and do nothing when he should be at boxing practice tonight, and Remus told him to come to the office instead of the classroom. Dudley lumbered away sullenly.

Daniel Morse came during his free hour, now burdened with books on the late Middle Ages (he'd chosen to do his first paper on the transition to the Renaissance, so he could make use of it all). One of them, which took Remus by surprise, was titled European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300-1500. Daniel went on about it for some time, astounded that people had ever believed in such a thing. Alan Garvey--who had come in to get his lunch--said that he thought in five hundred years, people would be equally astounded at things believed now. He and Daniel got into a rather spirited discussion about what Alan called "urban legends," with Daniel insisting on the truth of one involving spiders exploding from a plant of some sort, and Alan rolling his eyes at it. Remus, who thought it sounded suspiciously like a Spitting Arachnochae--an illegal blend of plant and animal designed as a weapon in Germany during Grindelwald's reign--kept his mouth shut.

After Daniel left, Remus told Alan of his plan to have Dudley tutor him on the computer.

Alan gave him a suspicious look. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"Joe wanted to make sure that Dudley didn't slip through the cracks."

"It's hard to imagine Mr. Dursley quietly slipping through any crack."

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Don't you think that's exactly what was happening? The weight, the bullying, no one stopping it?"

"That's what Joe said." Alan shrugged. "I think the Dursley boy is a lost cause. I don't say that about many of the boys--I complain, I suppose, but I like most of them. But Dursley doesn't think there's anything wrong with him, and he has no reason to want to change. You and Joe are fighting a losing battle with that one."

"It's possible."

"Well, let me help you set up your password. You don't want Dudley to see you fumbling with that. He'd have access to your computer whenever he wanted to."

Joe turned on the computer and guided Remus through the process of changing his password from the random string of characters assigned to him by the office to something he would remember ("But not something anyone would guess--if you use 'Dora,' I'll personally ransack your files"). After some thought, Remus chose alohomora. Any witch who wanted to could probably break in if he realized a wizard had chosen it, but Remus had no intention of putting Order-related information on the machine and didn't care if a dark witch or wizard happened to see his class schedule.

His A-level classes in the afternoon turned out to be interesting, and a seventeen-year-old boy named Keith Tavist drew his classmates into a fascinating conversation about the ethics of the Cold War and its various flare-ups. It spilled a bit beyond the end of class, so by the time Remus got back to his office, Dudley was already waiting there, looking at his watch in a scornful manner.

"I'm not staying longer than an hour," he said when Remus reached the door. "And I've already been here for ten minutes."

"I'm sorry I'm late," Remus said, without an excuse. "Please come in." He opened the office door and gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Sit down."

Dudley took a seat, his arms crossed over his chest, his small, watery eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What's it to be today?"

"I thought I'd give you a choice."

"What sort of choice?"

"Well, I could have you do another essay. Last night's was not especially inspired."

Dudley looked at him dully. "Or?"

"Well, it seems that I'm supposed to learn to use these things"--he gestured at the computer--"and if you'd prefer it to the essay, I would appreciate it if you could show me how."

"You want me to teach you how to do your job?"

"The computer is part of my job, Dudley, but it is not my job. My job is teaching."

"And mine's supposed to be learning."

Remus nodded. "Fair enough. You may sit at my desk to write your essay. Five hundred words on the Reichstag fire we talked about in class."

He switched to a lower chair beside the computer, and Dudley came around the desk to sit more comfortably while he worked.

With some trepidation, Remus reached behind the computer, flicked the switch, and turned it on. It beeped and hummed, then the letter C appeared, followed by a colon and an angular brace.

Remus took a deep breath, reminding himself of how Alan had got in this afternoon. "Win," he muttered under his breath, then glared down at the mad keyboard and found the three letters, no where near where any of them should be. He typed w-i-n. Nothing happened.

"Enter."

"Hmmm?"

"Enter," Dudley said through clenched teeth. "You have to hit the enter key. The big one off on the right."

"Oh," Remus said, embarrassed. "Right." He hit it. The screen went totally blank.

His first thought was that Dudley had misled him, but Dudley wasn't laughing (or paying attention). Then his thoughts started circling around the mix of magic and electronics, and he thought, I'm using my appearance Charms. I've broken it. I--

The screen went white, then an abstract picture appeared, with four colorful squares that appeared to be a waving flag. The picture identified itself as "Microsoft Windows, Version 3.1."

Right. This had happened earlier. He just hadn't noticed how long it had taken, because he'd been thinking of what password to choose. The prompt to type it in came up, and he entered it. The screen changed, and several small pictures came up, each with a description beneath it. One showed a boxy little computer and was labeled "Xterm." Another had what looked like a pen and said "Word 6.0." Another, with an incomprehensible picture, said "Excel." There were a few more, including one that looked like a king in a deck of cards, labeled "Solitaire."

While he strongly suspected that the last wasn't going to be helpful in keeping track of his classes, he wasn't at all sure what the others would do. There was a dotted line around "Xterm." He pressed "enter" experimentally and a white box appeared on the screen, with "Smeltings" written out large, the letters formed by diagonal slash-marks. At the bottom of the screen, the word "Username:" appeared.

Remus licked his lips. Alan had said the system was set up so that he would have the same username and password for everything, unless he changed it. He typed "rlewis," and another line appeared, asking for his password.

It didn't work.

"Oh, come on," he said.

Dudley made a noise.

Remus ignored him and tried typing "Alohomora" again, thinking that he had hit the wrong key.

"Did you change your Windows password?"

"What?"

"The one that got you in."

"Yes."

"You have to change it in your mail as well. They start you off with the same name and password for everything, but you have to change them all when you go in."

"Oh. Thank you." He took the line of gibberish and typed it in, checking over his shoulder to make sure Dudley wasn't looking. The screen scrolled by very quickly, then there was a list of numbered items (PINE mail, News, Bulletin boards, Lynx, Exit), with a prompt to choose one of them. Remus had no idea what he wanted to do, so he chose "Exit." The box disappeared entirely.

Dudley made another sound.

Remus smiled to himself. He thought he could probably figure this out on his own--now that he was in and looking at it, it seemed needlessly complex, but not entirely incomprehensible--but learning to use the computer was only a secondary goal.

He frowned as deeply as he could and leaned forward. "Word," he muttered. "What the devil..." He poked at the keyboard a bit, hitting the arrow keys mainly (they moved the dotted lines around, making different pictures active).

After about five minutes of this (Remus was about to give up in boredom and just try something), Dudley finally slammed down his pen and said, "Oh, bloody brilliant!" He turned the desk chair around roughly and leaned forward. "Use the mouse."

"The what?"

"The mouse. The plastic bit with the tail there." He pointed at the input device with the roller ball. With quite a lot of imagination, Remus supposed it looked like a mouse.

Remus rolled it experimentally. An arrow on the screen moved in a jerky fashion.

"Put the arrow on top of whatever you want to open."

This was a harder thing than it sounded. The arrow didn't especially want to go where Remus wanted to put it. He kept over shooting, or stalling midway.

Dudley frowned. "Give it here," he said.

Remus did, watching him curiously.

Dudley turned the mouse over in his large hand, twisted something on the bottom of it, and dumped the roller ball out of it. He handed it to Remus.

Dudley put his smallest finger into the hole where the ball had been and started picking at something. "There's a bit of something on the rollers," he said, his voice less combative than usual. "I told Mr. Levinson he shouldn't eat here, but I think he did. Bits of sticky stuff, you know."

"Oh."

"You're not supposed to do this. There are special things to clean it out. But you can usually clean it like this."

"May I see?"

Dudley held the open mouse out. There were two small roller bars off to the sides, and each had a sort of wrapping of gray dust. Remus reached his own small finger in, but before he could touch it, something seemed to sting him. He pulled his hand back.

Dudley was looking at him dully again, then went back to cleaning out the mouse. "Give me the mouse ball," he said after he'd pulled out three or four curls of hardened dust.

Remus handed it to him.

Dudley gave it a dubious look, then put it in, and snapped the little plastic ring back. "Try it."

Remus took the mouse. The arrow moved easily now. "Thank you."

"I think it's better if you don't open anything up," Dudley said. "You lot short this sort of thing out, don't you?"

Remus didn't answer.

"What do you know? You can fly on broomsticks, but you can't clean a mouse ball."

"Dudley, where are you getting this from?"

He didn't answer right away, and just looked at Remus with distaste. After awhile, he said, again, "You don't belong here." This time, though, it was simply a statement of fact, not the accusation it had been last time.

"Why do you say that?"

"You can't even type. Even the old teachers can type. But you lot use quills, don't you?" He didn't wait for Remus not to answer this time. "And you wander about looking like you're on holiday taking a tour of some foreign country. You look down on us."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do. Do you think I don't know it?"

"Dudley, in case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit lost here. I'm not looking down on anyone."

"Right."

Remus sighed. "So what do these things do?"

"Xterm gets you to your e-mail and suchlike. And some of the Usenet groups."

"What's a Usenet group?"

"People who are interested in something who go to talk about it. I go to r-s-b."

"R-S-B?"

"Rec-sports-boxing. Rec-DOT-sports-DOT-boxing. We talk about boxing. Which is what I should be doing instead of giving my teacher lessons."

"Well, I don't imagine I'll be participating in that."

"Yeah, I doubt they have alt-freak-wizard."

"I'm really running out of patience with you, Mr. Dursley."

"So are you going to pull your you-know-what on me, too?"

"Well, this sounds like an interesting conversation."

Remus turned.

Dora was leaning against the doorframe, smiling. "Thought I'd drive you home today," she said. "It's about that time."

Remus checked his watch. Dudley's detention had, in fact, melted away while they wrangled over the computer. "You're free to go Mr. Dursley. I'll see you tomorrow."

Dudley stood up and went to the door. Dora stuck her hand out. "I'm his wife," she said. "And you're--?"

"A student," Remus told her.

Dudley glared at her and said, "You know who I am," then stormed out.

Dora drove her father's car with a casual grace that she couldn't seem to duplicate when she was walking. A flick of the wheel here, a tap of a brake there, talking all the time, watching the brief fringe of countryside around Smeltings disappear into the rapid onslaught of urban London. "...Kingsley had me on paperwork all day," she said. "You'd think he was on the other side, punishing me like that."

"I somehow doubt that was the point."

She shrugged and maneuvered the car casually between two lorries. "He says it has to be done. You'd think there'd be a spell to take care of that dull business by now. Some Charm to just record what you're doing as you're doing it."

"I think most people would strenuously object to that. And given how much of your time you spend in the Order, I'd think you'd object to it as well."

"Right. I know." She sighed and shook her head. "It's just a bother, you know?"

"Yes, I know."

She eased the car around a corner, pulling into the strange little nest of neighborhoods near Grimmauld Place. Sirius's father had certainly not thought to include a spot to store such a Muggle contraption, so Dora stowed the vehicle at a car park three streets away. She maneuvered into a spot and opened the door, promptly catching her foot on the frame and tripping gracelessly out of the vehicle.

Remus shook his head and got out, stretching comfortably. "Are you coming by?" he asked.

"No, I just like to come down here for my health." Dora grinned. "Do you feel up to the company?"

"I'm actually feeling quite well, thank you. Sleep does that."

"I shall have to try it sometime." She came around the car, and had looped her arm companionably through his before he noticed she was doing it. "But today, I think we should go home--well, you should go home and I should go with you--and entertain Sirius. I'm feeling entertaining."

"Oh, dear."

She stuck her nose in the air in mock indignation and managed to twist her ankle on an uneven bit of pavement while she was looking up. Remus caught her and righted her.

She shook her head and disengaged her arm from his. "One of these days, I'll get a handle on this walking business."

She went on ahead, chatting cheerfully all the way into the square, only stopping when they reached the door of Number Twelve. Remus unlocked it and let her in.

"MONSTERS! UNNATURAL BEASTS!"

"Good day to you, too, Auntie," Dora said, taking one of the curtains.

Remus took the other. "Cheers, Mrs. Black."

They each yanked, pulling the curtains together with great force and knocking into one another painfully. Remus pulled away, rubbing his elbow, which had connected squarely with her bony shoulder. "Sorry about that."

"We should just sew her shut. And nail the curtains to the wall."

"Already tried it," Sirius said, coming up from the kitchen. "Mum was mental, not stupid. She Charmed the whole works." He flapped a hand at the covered portrait. "Kreacher's latest trick is to come through here and uncover her every time he finds that I've 'accidentally hidden Mistress.' Sorry about that."

"Oh, I've got used to her," Dora said dismissively. "I'm starting to think 'unnatural freak' is a term of endearment." She sat down on the stairs. "So, Remus and I were talking. I've spent all day doing paperwork and he's just suffered through a detention with Dudley Dursley. Don't know about him, but for myself, I'm all for relaxing with a large quantity of butterbeer and the world's longest chinwag."

"I can do better than butterbeer," Sirius offered. "There's a good store of firewhiskey in the cellar."

Dora shook her head regretfully. "I'll have to work tomorrow."

"Mulled mead?"

Remus blinked. Since when had Sirius taken to offering Dora stronger spirits?

"I'd best stick with the butterbeer," she said. "But talk. Lots of talk."

"I can do that. What about you, Remus? What are you drinking?"

"I'll stick with the butterbeer as well."

They retired to the parlor, and Sirius brought the drinks. Dora led the conversation, complaining about her paperwork and Kingsley, and a martinet of an office-owl who pecked at her until she paid it. She let it steer off to Remus after an hour or so, and he told Sirius about his adventures with the computer and Dudley, and then about Alan and his electronic conversations about made-up people, realizing for the first time that he hadn't actually shared any of this business with Sirius yet.

They hadn't really had much of the case of butterbeer that Sirius had brought up, but by the time the sun set, the mood had gotten more than a little silly. Dora, now stretched out on the floor, was morphing into female versions of all the male Order members.

She scrunched up her current face (Bill Weasley), and, after a moment's thought, sprouted frazzled gray hair and a pipe-smoke lined face. "Got some business up in Diagon Alley," she said, mimicking Dung's voice. "Mind the you-know-what? Right, right. Well, I'm sure nothing'd 'appen, just for a few seconds there..."

"Oh, come on," Sirius said. "You can go all the way. Just be Dung."

Dora shook her head, relaxing her morph back to her own face, topped by the strange pink hair she'd taken such a liking to this year. "Can't morph male," she said. "I've been trying to do it for years. Reckon I could get all the secrets you lot only tell one another."

Sirius laughed. "Right. All those late nights nattering while we braid one another's hair. Good times, aren't they, Moony?"

"My hair doesn't braid well. Too short."

"Oh, fine," Dora said. "Don't tell me."

"Dora, what on Earth do you think you need to know?" Remus asked.

"If I knew what I didn't know, I'd know it," she said.

"You practically live here--" Sirius said.

"And you've always chummed with your Dad--" Remus said.

"Yes, yes, and most of my friends at Hogwarts were boys. It's not the same as being on the inside." She rolled over and sat up. "Morphing old, I've learnt quite a lot about old people that they would never say if they knew I was young."

"Like what?"

"Anna Garvey thinks Remus has a cute bum."

Remus blushed, and Sirius snorted out a mouthful of butterbeer.

"And since Joe got sick, Miriam misses her weekly--"

Remus and Sirius both held up their hands at the same time.

"--bridge game," Dora said primly. "She misses her weekly bridge game. And bingo. And tea and cucumber sandwiches."

"Valuable information," Remus said.

"Well, it is," Dora insisted. "Really. Honestly, I've been expecting to wake up some morning feeling like some dreadfully staid lady, and thinking there's something wrong with me that I haven't quite got there yet. But I think Anna and Miriam were always like this and always will be. This 'old lady' act is just put on for us young folk. They're just... people. It's good to know."

"And you think men are putting on some act for you?" Sirius asked, grinning around his butterbeer bottle, his eyes dancing. "What do you suppose Remus here is hiding?"

Remus glared at him.

Dora blushed and looked away. "I wouldn't presume," she said, as primly as before, but not at all sarcastically.

"I'm not hiding anything," Remus said. "Honestly."

"That's what my mate Sanjiv says," Dora said, picking up the thread. "Mind, with him, it may be true. Sanjiv talks more than I do."

Remus nodded. "Yes, but with someone as close-mouthed and withdrawn as Sirius here, it must be quite a mystery."

"Oh, shut up," she muttered. "I just thought it would be a new perspective. Of course, Daffy Apcarne always said I was 'one of the boys,' so maybe they were acting normally."

"Is Daffy Apcarne's vision naturally horrible, or was it a curse?" Sirius asked.

Dora smiled widely and raised her butterbeer bottle. "Cheers, Coz." She drained it, then stretched out on the floor again. "It's a bit disshevelled in here," she said. She groped for her wand, then pointed it at one of the rotting curtains. "Mobiliperistroma."

It stood up, and she guided it toward an empty crate. Obediently, it jumped in.

Sirius yawned, unimpressed, and pointed his wand at the crate. "Mensafides." The crate was Transfigured into a table.

"Amicio!" Dora called, and the table was covered with a fluffy pink cloth, complete with tiny bows at the bottom.

"Nice Conjuring," Sirius said with a pained expression. "Get rid of it, please?"

Dora stuck out her tongue and did nothing.

"Coccinatus," Sirius tried, and the cloth turned scarlet, but retained its little pink bows.

Dora raised her wand playfully, and arched an eyebrow at Remus. "What, you're not going to give it a go?"

Sirius laughed, delighted. "Transfiguration duel! Come on, Remus. Dora and I will even be sporting and give you an easy category."

"Pardon me? I happen to be quite adept at Transfiguration."

"Fine," Sirius said. "Target's the candlestick on the mantel. Your choice--animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

"Vegetable," Remus said, feeling ridiculous, but oddly content.

"I'll take animal," Sirius declared.

Dora frowned. "Oh, please! It's already mineral. Challenge me."

"Fungus," Remus said.

Sirius shrugged and raised his wand.

By the time they finished the transfiguration duel, nearly everything in the room had been changed at least once, and several of the loose items in the room were running around and making animal-like noises. (Remus would have been happy to let Sirius win, but in the case of Transfiguration, no one had ever needed to let him, except perhaps James.) Three or four objects were growing spores beneath the sofa, and Sirius's chair was sprouting a great deal of foliage.

All three of them were laughing. Dora was curled up like a large, lazy cat in front of the fire, her eyes sleepy and content. Sirius was lounging in the chair again, flapping leaves out of his face. Remus himself was lying on the sofa, looking at cracks in the ceiling and thinking that they really should clean the place up a bit, then pointing his wand at them. "Bumastus," he said, and vines crept along the cracks.

"I like it," Dora said. She stretched her arms out and laid her head on her elbows. "It's got"--yawn--"character."

"We should probably clean up," Sirius said.

No one moved to do so.

After awhile, Remus waved his wand half-heartedly and said, "Finite incantatum totalus," but it only caught about half the spells in the room. Dora caught a few more with a lazy sweep. Sirius didn't bother. The candlestick, which looked more or less like itself, scurried back and forth among them. Dora petted it like a cat and it eagerly cuddled up to her.

Remus smiled.

They didn't talk anymore, not more than a syllable or two, but none of them made any move to leave. It was too good to be together here.

One by one, they drifted off.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been awake when he finally decided that he couldn't feign sleep anymore. He opened his eyes.

Dora was still on the floor near the fireplace, blinking placidly. She gave him a dazed sort of smile and he fought off an urge to crawl down and muss her pink hair even more than a night on the floor had mussed it.

She rolled over on her side and laid her head against her arm. "I meant to go home," she said drowsily.

He smiled at her. "I'm glad you stayed."

She made a contented sort of sound, blinked a few times, then seemed to doze off again.

"If the pair of you are quite finished with your morning flirt," Sirius said with acid humor, "we may have a small problem."

"Mm-mm," Dora said. "It's--" She raised her left arm without opening her eyes. "What time is it, Remus?"

Remus leaned down and looked at her watch. "Six in the morning."

"Six in the morning," Dora repeated. "Unless there are Death Eaters in the room with us, I'm sleeping."

"No Death Eaters in the room," Sirius said.

Dora made an unidentifiable sound.

"But Molly Weasley is in the kitchen."

"Didn't do anything," Dora muttered and rolled over. Remus noted that in her sleep, she'd lost hold of part of her morph. The hair at the back of her head was decidedly black. And Black.

Sirius grabbed a throw pillow and lobbed it at Remus's head. "Wake up, will you?"

"I'm awake."

"Those curves you're staring at aren't going to change. At least not while she's asleep."

Remus sat up. "It's getting old, Sirius."

"You're telling me you weren't looking?"

"I'm telling you that curves and other sundry parts of the vista weren't particularly on my mind."

"So she bores you."

"That's not what I said."

"So she doesn't bore you."

"I didn't say that, either, and I wish you'd drop it."

Dora, rolled over, her face red. She glared at Sirius, who grinned back unapologetically. Finally, she turned to Remus, her eyes not quite meeting his. "I, er..."

He flapped his hand at her to brush the subject off. "Don't worry," he said. "Sirius has been doing this to me since we were twelve."

"I'd forgot what a grumpy git you are in the morning," Sirius said, smiling. "Do you remember James saying that sunrise might as well be a full moon?"

Remus remembered. He hadn't found it at all amusing at the time--it had been very early morning, not long after they'd all found out about his lycanthropy and he hadn't known what to make of it--but in retrospect, it did seem to be a good memory. James had said it in his offhand way, the same way he complained about Peter's bad housekeeping or Sirius's endless pacing of the dormitory. Peter can't fold his socks, and Remus is a werewolf. Same idea. "One forgets these things at one's peril," he said.

"I noticed," Sirius said, rolling his eyes.

"Doesn't he live here?" Dora asked.

"We don't talk much."

"I'm not the one who turns into a dog every time people leave."

Sirius shrugged, not at all chastened.

Dora rolled her eyes. "How long has Molly been here?"

"I heard her going downstairs about half an hour ago," Sirius said. "She tripped over something and ran to Mum's portrait before it started screaming. That's what woke me up. She's cooking now."

"Did she see me?" Dora asked.

"I have no idea."

"We could open the front door," Remus suggested. "Say 'Good morning, Dora,' and pretend she just dropped by."

Dora raised her eyebrows. "Or, we could just say, 'Good morning, Molly--breakfast smells lovely.'"

Remus looked over his shoulder. Molly Weasley was standing in the doorway, her eyes narrowed, but looking oddly merry. She gave up and shook her head, smiling. "You all know better. Come eat."

"I was expecting a lecture," Dora said as they walked to the kitchen, going down the stairs quickly to catch up with Molly and leaving Sirius and Remus behind.

"You're a grown woman," Molly said quietly. "If you want to throw your reputation away, that's your choice." She smiled and raised her voice, meaning to include them now. "Of course, you all looked about five years old when I went in at first. I don't quite have the heart to lecture you. I trust you not to do it when the children are here."

"You do know it was just a Transfiguration duel, don't you?"

Molly laughed. "Yes, I know. I have seven children. I know the difference between a Transfiguration duel and a night of... affection," she said.

"There was plenty of affection," Sirus said grumpily, sitting down and digging into the eggs she'd set out for him.

"You know what I mean."

Remus sat down and decided to steer the conversation away from this. "Were you on duty last night?"

"Yes. Not a sign of him yet. Honestly, I'm not sure what I'll do if he comes while I'm there." She smiled nervously. "It would be my luck that he can see through Invisibility Cloaks, and I wouldn't get a chance to send the message."

"You'll be fine," Remus assured her.

"What about you?" she asked. "What are you doing today?"

"I have an assignment."

"I thought as much. It's the Dursley boy, isn't it? Harry's cousin?"

Remus looked up at her, surprised. "How did you know?"

"Well, Arthur told Dumbledore quite awhile ago that someone should look after the boy at school. He's a bit helpless there. And Sirius said you were working on Monday, and now you seem so happy... you're either teaching again or--well, I can't think of anything else." She busied herself serving bacon.

"Well, I suppose it doesn't matter if you know. I'll make sure Dumbledore knows you're part of it."

They had a pleasant enough breakfast, the subject veering away from how Molly had come upon them. She and Sirius only got into three arguments in the course of the meal (what Harry needed to know about, what Harry needed from the adults around him, and--surreally--the best brand of stain remover for the carpet on the stairs; Remus was beginning to suspect that Sirius was deliberately picking fights with her), and they were all of short duration.

When he couldn't put it off any longer, he went upstairs to clean up and do his appearance Charms, then said goodbye to the three of them (Sirius and Molly had moved into a fourth argument, though Remus was unable to discern its subject, and Dora was listening with a thoughtful expression on her face) and Apparated to his spot at Smeltings.

The weather was dreary this morning, a bit more than a fog but not quite to the level of drizzle, and he was glad to get to his office. Alan was settled in at his desk (for once, not his computer), marking algebra homework with a weary expression and smoking a pipe. He looked up when Remus came in. "Lewis," he said.

"Good morning, Alan."

"Dursley stopped by this morning. Told me to tell you to check your e-mail. I told him I'd help you muddle through."

"I think I've got it," Remus said. "I'll let you know if I seem to be on the verge of destroying the machine."

Alan grinned and went back to his papers.

Remus turned on the computer, willing himself to remember all the steps and not ask Alan for advice. He selected Xterm and the little white box opened. After logging in, he chose PINE mail, which seemed like the most logical place to go. There was a rather long list of messages--fifteen or sixteen--most of them with subject lines suggesting that they were general information. But at the top of the list, with the sender listed as "Dudley V. Dursley," was one labeled, "Not coming to detention tonight."

It was in a dark-on-light bar that made Remus think it was pre-selected, so he hit "Enter," and saw:

From: Dudley V. Dursley (dursley@smeltings.ac.uk)
Subject: Not coming to detention tonight
Date: 1995-09-10

I reckon if you've got this far, you can run your computer. I'm going to boxing practice tonight. Here's an essay for you instead.

Remus hit the down arrow, and found, typed neatly below the terse note, "HITLER LIKED MAGIC, TOO."

He rubbed his eyes and scanned the rather poorly thought-out (but not entirely untruthful) essay, and decided that he and Dudley would need to have a long talk during tonight's detention.

Dora showed up for lunch, offering no particular reason for doing so. She'd brought enough for Alan, but he chose to leave, shaking his head oddly and saying, "You know, I really ought to ask Anna to do this again, from time to time." Then he left.

Dora laid out the meal, not quite looking up. "I, er... shouldn't have stayed last night. Molly reckons people might think... things they oughtn't, and wouldn't if they knew us."

"Right. I'm sorry, I should have reminded you to go."

"Right. People... are odd." Dora bit her lip. "Would you mind talking to Sirius? He keeps asking me to move in and I can't."

"You've been handling him perfectly well."

"But would you talk to him?"

"Of course. You'll break his heart, though."

"Would I?" she mused. Then she shook off the unusual awkward mood--literally shaking her head, shoulders, and arms like she was trying to warm up--and her normal smile came through. "Anyway, I brought good things for lunch. Molly cooked before she left." She wiggled her eyebrows, gloating over acquiring such a treasure.

As they served themselves, sitting on the floor in front of his desk with lunch spread out on a large headscarf of Dora's, Remus let his mind wander. This was becoming routine. Chatter about the school over sandwiches--it was rather like being in the faculty room at Hogwarts. Dora seemed genuinely interested in life at Smeltings. Of course, he felt a bit selfish--she wasn't free to talk about a great deal of her work, so his tended to monopolize the conversation. And she did love her job--he knew that much--but...

"Dora, can I ask you something?"

"Oh, never."

Remus ignored her and listened very carefully to the sounds of the building. The lift didn't seem to be coming up, and no one was moving on the floor. "Dora, do you know much about wizarding law?"

"Only what I need to know to keep people from breaking it."

"That's all I need."

Dora took a moment to listen carefully to the building now. "What are you planning to do?"

"Dudley knows. I don't know how he knows, but I'm certain of it. If I tell him I'm here..."

Dora was shaking her head. "Dudley's Harry's cousin--his brother, legally speaking. The Statute of Secrecy doesn't apply to him, if that's what you're worried about."

"It is."

She looked at her mostly-finished sandwich like she was expecting it to give her advice, then put it down. "Remus, are you sure it would be the best notion? It's not illegal, but this is Dudley Dursley. Telling him you're a wizard might not be the best way to get him to let you in."

"It's an instinct," he said. "I ignored it on Monday. Or talked myself out of it, at any rate."

Dora frowned dubiously, but then shrugged. "You know more about working with kids than I do. Your instincts are probably better than mine."

"And would the Ministry notice a small spell of some sort?"

"No. Only if they were paying attention. And if they were paying any special attention to Smeltings, you wouldn't need to be here."

Remus nodded. "Thank you. I never studied the law much, except for the lycanthropy laws."

Dora made a face, grimacing and morphing subtly to look a bit like a rampaging troll, then she settled back into the Dora Lewis character and shook her head.

Remus laughed.

A slight hum at the end of the corridor announced the arrival of the lift, and a moment later, its soft bell sounded. Real talk was over.

Dora stayed until they finished eating, chatting about macrame, a craft which she had decided Dora Lewis ought to take up, in her ever-increasing elaboration on the role. She helped Remus hoist himself back up to his desk (it was, to his annoyance, not just an act that his hips bothered him these days after sitting on the floor for any length of time), kissed his forehead, and left with a wave.

He went to his fifth form class, feeling resigned but oddly excited. This was the right thing to do. A mad thing to do, but every instinct he had told him that he should do it anyway. It was far from the script he'd intended to play here, and he didn't know where it would lead... but as Sirius had told him long, long ago, that was when the play always got interesting.

He smiled as he turned the corner into the classroom. That had been the morning in first year that they'd come to visit him in the infirmary, asking if he'd caught any prey the night before, or if he'd rather have some bacon from breakfast. All perfectly casual, followed up with some candy they'd brought from his stash and a game of chess (between James and Sirius, at the end of the bed; Peter had seemed content to watch them, and Remus had been to busy trying not to cry in front of his friends to commit to anything else).

"Did you get my e-mail?" Dudley called from the back of the room.

"See me after class," he said. He went to the desk, checked the chair, and then sat down. "Now, I'd like to talk about foreign reactions to what was happening in Germany in the build-up to the Third Reich. Young intellectuals all over world went to Hitler Youth rallies. Quite a few of them came back with grand reports. What do you all think of that? Paul, you did your first essay on this. Tell us what you found."

Paul Freehof stood beside his desk and looked around a bit defiantly. "It's really rather similar to what the intellectuals did in Russia, under Stalin. It was something new and different and they liked it for that reason, I suppose. So they ignored things. They thought that German antisemitism would go away if..." He bit his lip, then shook his head. "Mr. Lewis, people are stupid, and I'm afraid that's all I really have to say. The essay was just a pile of synonyms for it."

"Fair enough," Remus said. "What do the rest of you think?"

The class veered dangerously close to wholescale denigration of intellectuals, which Remus didn't care for, so he redirected the conversation to talk about what image the Reich had been deliberately trying to impress upon its visitors, and how it had done so. By the time the class bell rang, tempers were a bit short, as they often tended to be with perfect hindsight. It wasn't a bad thing; it meant they were actually thinking, to some extent. Remus looked forward to continuing the conversation on Friday.

They crowded out, and Dudley tried to go with him, but Remus raised his his eyebrows and pointed to a chair in the front row. Dudley glowered, but went to it.

The last of the class got out the door, and Remus waited until the noise in the corridor subsided.

Dudley stood up again. "I did my ruddy extra essay," he said. "I have boxing practice." He started toward the door.

Remus drew his wand from his briefcase, pointed it at the door, and said, "Claudeo."

The door slammed shut.

Dudley turned. Remus pointed at the chair with his wand, and it turned.

"Have a seat, Mr. Dursley," he said.