Dudley went totally white, his small eyes opening to their widest extent. "You... can't," he said, staring at the chair. "You're... you're not allowed. You're..."

"Not underage," Remus said. "Have a seat."

But Dudley Dursley seemed totally frozen--alarmingly so. Remus had spent enough time as a predator to recognize a prey reaction when he saw one. Dudley was just waiting for a blow to fall. His breathing was quick and shallow, and his fingertips were trembling. His eyes had not left the chair.

"Dudley?"

His eyes came up, looking around jerkily. "You can't," he said again, his voice panicky. "Not here. Not at Smeltings."

Remus frowned and moved the chair up manually. "Please sit down, Dudley. I don't intend to harm you."

Gingerly, Dudley sat down. The stare snapped to Remus's face and remained there. The amount of bravado Dudley had shown so far had led Remus to think of several possible reactions he might have, but he'd never thought of the simplest, the one thing that had come clearly through every description of the boy Remus had heard: He was terrified of magic. Literally, bone-deep terrified.

Then again, his experiences with magic were an escaped boa constrictor, a Conjured pig's tail, the Inflating spell on his aunt, some prank from the Weasley boys, and, of course, the Dementors. That, added to Petunia's jealous distaste of Lily's world, hadn't given him a very good impression. Harry, being underage (and probably disinclined) wouldn't have shown him simple Charms done for amusement, or useful spells like Claudeo, Lumos, or Alohomora.

"I can't do a lot of magic here," he said.

Dudley gulped.

"I'm here to look after you," Remus told him. "Not to hurt you. I'm here to make sure no one else does, either."

No answer.

Remus couldn't think of a logical approach here, because Dudley's response was far beyond reason. Instead, he fell back on his instincts. They might be wrong, but they were all he had.

He turned his wand around and offered it to Dudley.

Dudley looked at it like it might bite him.

"Take it," Remus said. If Dudley took it in his head to break it in two, he'd be in a world of trouble, but he didn't think that would happen.

Dudley reached for it, then pulled his hand back. "What will it... do?"

"Nothing. The wand isn't a firearm. It's a tool to focus a wizard's power."

"So normal people can't do anything."

"The wand won't simply explode in your hand, if that's what you're asking."

Hesitantly, Dudley took the wand. He held it lightly, frowning over it and turning it this way and that. "Wh--?" he started to ask, then looked away.

"Ask what you want to ask, Dudley. I'll answer if I can."

"What's it made of?"

"Willow. Its core is a phoenix feather. Like Harry's, though it's a different phoenix."

Dudley's eyes opened wider at the mention of Harry's name, and he thrust the wand back into Remus's hand with a shudder. He tried to say something, but whatever wards had been put on him in regard to Harry prevented him from even addressing the question. He snarled in frustration.

"You've tried to talk about him before," Remus said. "You know something stops you."

"Like I'd waste my time talking about that skinny little git."

"I know he's your cousin, and I know you don't get along particularly well."

"Hmph."

"Dudley, I'm here to help you."

"Right. So you got one of your mates to get Mr. Levinson out of the way, and--"

"I had nothing whatsoever to do with that.

"Right." Dudley stood up. "You just wandered in. Happened to be his classroom. All from the goodness of your freak heart."

"Dudley--"

"I can't tell anyone. Even if you lot didn't stop me, who'd believe me? I reckon your teaching certificate is forged, but you're probably ready for that."

"Dudley--"

"I'm going to boxing practice," he said clearly. "You go to hell."

He turned on his heel and left the room.

Remus didn't try to stop him. He sat on the edge of his desk, his feet swinging absently, thinking. A part of him--the rational part--thought that it had gone as wrong as it was possible to go. He certainly hadn't created a bond of trust. But had that been what he was after?

He didn't know. His instincts had not changed their input on the subject. It still felt like a step in the right direction.

The next week at Smeltings didn't give him much indication on the matter, and he could only answer curious questions about it from Dora and Sirius with a puzzled shrug (he had told no one else about this strategy). Dudley came and went in his class, turning in his assignments, speaking when he was called on, and even managing (barely) to pass a surprise quiz on Monday. He sometimes glared at Remus defiantly, but more often than not, he simply disconnected. The Friday a week and a half after his last detention, Remus caught him hitting a small second former with dark hair and glasses. He served his detention that night without a word.

"Pet project not going well?" Alan asked in a light voice as they packed their briefcases for the weekend.

"I tried to talk to him. He used to dislike me in a general sort of way. Now he dislikes me in particular."

"Well, that's progress of a sort," Alan said. "Always better to be a person than a category."

Remus nodded.

As he left the grounds, he saw Dudley and Piers sitting on the steps of the gymnasium, smoking in plain view even though it was against school rules. He raised an eyebrow.

Dudley took the cigarette out of his mouth and ground it on the pavement, not bothering with a sarcastic smile. Piers followed suit.

Remus went on to the gate that led toward the faculty car park (the woods from which he Apparated were on the far side of it), but just before he rounded the last bend, he looked back.

Two more members of the gang were there now, and Piers was talking to them. Dudley was leaning on the rail now, watching Remus leave. When he noticed Remus looking back, he turned around and joined his friends.

On Saturday, Remus resolved to get the parlor looking like a room that people might actually live in (the temporary-ness of it continued to unnerve him). Sirius refused to participate--he hated the parlor above all other rooms in the house--but at last he dragged a trunk down from the attic, which contained another set of draperies, slightly moth-eaten but at last not reeking of doxycide and some other smell that Remus couldn't place. Sirius did take some pleasure in incinerating the old ones. Dora came by on Sunday and jumped into the fray with enthusiasm, if not much native skill.

"Been waiting for another round with this room," she said, rolling up the carpet to work on the splintery floor beneath it. "I noticed when I slept in here that something doesn't smell right."

Sirius shrugged and left her to it.

There was no news from Hogwarts, which meant at least that nothing of note had happened; anything important would surely make its way through the Order's information systems. Molly had heard nothing in her letters from the children, though on Tuesday, she intimated darkly that she thought there were things they weren't telling her. Remus had to agree. To his surprise, he'd gotten a chatty letter from Ginny Weasley himself, but if she'd coded something into it, the code was some obscure bit of girlishness that he simply didn't pick up on.

Dora read it over on Wednesday afternoon while he tried to learn to brew Wolfsbane Potion, and shook her head. "It looks to me like she's just saying hello, as she says. Did she always write to you?"

"She wrote me twice last year."

"Always like this?"

"For the most part."

Dora shrugged. "She's just being friendly. Either that, or she has a secret crush on you."

"I don't think so."

"Why not? Ginny does have excellent taste in REMUS LUPIN, WILL YOU BE CAREFUL WITH THAT?"

Remus stopped chopping the Wolfsbane, but before he could see what he was doing wrong, Dora had scooped away the bits of root on the table in front of him.

"Honestly," she said, her voice a bit high, "you do know this is toxic to you, don't you?"

"Er..."

"No wonder you didn't like Potions. Your mind wanders while you're chopping things. Your knife was covered with Wolfsbane sap, half an inch from your thumb, and closing in. That's it. You're not doing this yourself. I don't mind it and it's too nerve-racking to think of you cheerfully poisoning yourself while you're thinking about other things."

Remus looked down at her hands, pulling the Wolfsbane closer to her, and was surprised to see that they were actually shaking. He fought a very strong urge to cover them with his own until she calmed down--he couldn't think of anything else to do, but that would be entirely the wrong thing--and instead got up and started making some sort of dinner.

"Did something explode?" Sirius asked from the top of the stairs, coming down them at a run, looking far more amused than concerned. "What did Remus blow up?"

"Nothing. He's just trying to commit suicide-by-distraction," Dora grumbled. She swept the Wolfsbane into a small paper sack, pointed her wand at the table, and said, "Scourgify."

Sirius glanced at the detritus of the lesson and said, "Moony, I don't fancy living here alone. Let Dora brew it."

Thus ended any hope Remus had of self-sufficiency.

At school, Dudley continued to behave in his now-habitual way, but Remus was starting to notice a return of his earlier bravado, which was at least something to be grateful for. He had apparently realized that Remus really wasn't there to magically torment him, so his initial fear reaction had faded to his usual distaste for anyone who wasn't like him. Daniel Morse opted to start a history club, and Remus (somewhat guiltily) spent more time helping him get started than trying to talk to Dudley. Eventually, Stephen Wells took Daniel under his wing and took over the mundane details of running an extracurricular club.

A week after the Wolfsbane lesson, Alan Garvey informed him that he'd be attending the annual "end of warm weather to-do" on Saturday--a picnic of some sort--saying that Anna had been disappointed not to find a telephone number, as she'd planned to dial Dora up from the start and circumvent Remus's "bad social memory." Dora was there at the time, beginning to bring his week's worth of Wolfsbane, and she agreed to it immediately. Remus resigned himself to it, and went home castigating himself for spending more time on his cover than on his recalcitrant assignment.

When he got there, Sirius was at the kitchen table, looking excited and holding a quill. "I figured it out. I'll write back to Ginny, saying I'm you, and I can get a message to Harry to meet by the stile in Hogsmeade this weekend."

"First of all, I already wrote back to Ginny. Second, she's not a messenger service. Third, if you try to transform on Saturday morning, I'm going to put a collar on you and chain you up in the back garden."

Sirius grinned. "Are you going to dock house points as well?"

"Ten points from Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place," Remus said dryly. "You'll frighten Harry half to death if you do that."

Sirius's face fell, the excitement fading to morose heaviness. "Right."

Remus sighed. "Do you want to get out of the house? As a dog only?"

"And do what?"

"I'll ask Alan if Dora and I can bring our dog to his home on Saturday. It seems to be an outdoor affair. Disillusionment Charms all the way out there so no one sees you in this neighborhood. But I haven't found any other faculty members who seem to be remotely related to Voldemort, so you should be safe when you get there."

"So you can make sure I'm not in Hogsmeade?"

"Yes. And you might enjoy it."

Sirius didn't answer, but Remus saw him smile as he went upstairs.

Sleep came easily that night, almost as soon as he'd pulled a cool sheet over himself. He dreamed of Hogwarts.

He was in his classroom, both standing at the teacher's desk and sitting in the seat he'd been accustomed to during his seven years as a student. His student self was fifteen. James Potter was sitting behind him, slightly transparent. Sirius--before the gauntness of Azkaban--sat to his left. Peter was sitting sullenly in Dudley's favorite spot--the bookcase at the back of the room, which of course wasn't at Hogwarts at all. Dudley was sitting with him, not talking. Beside James, Hermione was in her usual spot, Ron back one and to the side. Harry was standing up front with Remus. Lily Evans--impossibly, an adult in her mid-thirties, with a streak of white in her deep red hair--was standing in the doorway, watching.

Snape was teaching the class. "Now," he said. "Can any tell me the signs of a werewolf attack?" He waved his wand at the desk and a form appeared there. Dora. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't moving.

"It's nasty," Dudley offered. "And unnatural."

"What's he doing?" Harry whispered.

"Demonstrating," Remus answered. "All a part of teaching."

"But isn't this your class?"

Hermione Granger's hand shot up.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

She stood beside her desk, Smeltings-style. "Sir, a werewolf leaves nearly everything behind."

"Very good. Ten points to Gryffindor," Lily said.

"It doesn't forgive anything," Peter said.

"And it lies," Ron added.

"Very good," Snape said. "Now, Mr. Lupin, a demonstration?"

Remus watched his student-self--Moony, he supposed--get up. Snape waved his wand, and a full moon appeared. Moony immediately transformed. Snape pointed to the desk, where Dora lay still.

"Attack."

"No!" Remus said.

"Aren't you interested in teaching these children?" Snape sneered.

"It's a perfectly normal way for a werewolf to behave," Hermione informed him.

"Go on, Moony!" Sirius egged him on. "Show us how it's done!"

"I'd rather you didn't," Lily said. "Not in front of Harry."

"I agree with Lily," James said.

"There's a shock," Sirius muttered.

"It's all right," Harry said, his voice shaky. "It's all a part of teaching, right?"

Remus knew what he was supposed to say, but somehow couldn't form the words.

Again, Snape said "Attack," and the wolf lunged at the table, and then Remus was the wolf, and there was blood and--

He awoke, his heart beating quickly, and nearly jumped out of bed. A portrait of Sirius's great-grandmother let out an unnaturally loud snore to punish him for disturbing her.

He breathed deeply, waiting for the nightmare to flush out of his mind. Much of it was familiar territory, but Lily... the streak of white in her hair...

He went to the window and watched the clouds move over the waxing gibbous moon.

Alan had no objections to a canine addition to the guest list. He and Anna had lost a beloved dog a few years before, and he offered to bring out all of its toys. Anna, he assured Remus, would be delighted as well.

"If I'm going to be Disillusioned for the walk anyway," Sirius said late Saturday morning as they got ready to leave, "is there some reason I need to transform just to walk to the car park?"

"It's easier to put a lead on you when you're a dog."

"And you think I'm going to run?"

"I think I'd rather keep everything on the safe side. We're taking enough risks taking you out."

"Where's the old Gryffindor courage?"

"Somewhere back at Hogwarts."

"We should go back and pick it up. What do you say?"

"I say I'm going to exercise my Gryffindor courage by facing you down this morning."

Sirius pouted extravagantly, but it was his old, high-spirited pout, and Remus was actually glad to see it. Then he grinned and transformed, wagging Padfoot's tail eagerly as Remus put a collar and leash on him.

"Ready?" he asked.

Sirius nodded his head and Remus put the Disillusionment Charm on him.

"Don't run too fast. I'd look a little odd suddenly being yanked ahead by thin air."

Remus was fairly certain that Sirius was trying not to go too fast, but more than once on the way to the car park, he was obliged to walk faster to keep up. When he got there, Dora was sitting on the bonnet of Ted's car, drinking orange juice from a paper cup and watching his approach with a slightly amused smile. "Getting a bit of morning exercise, are you?" she asked when he got to her, then swatted at a spot near her hand, where Remus could see the vague distortion of Sirius licking at her fingers.

"Get in the car," she said, opening the back door and pretending to reach for something as Sirius jumped in.

Remus climbed into the passenger seat as she slid in behind the wheel. "We'll need to make a stop at the shops. I told Alan I'd bring paper dishes for Snuffles back there."

"Already on it," Dora said. "Also, I set up a telephone in Dad's computer room, with a machine to answer it and say we're not in. I've got the number to give out to your friends."

"Oh, thank you. I... "

"You can pay me back out of that fat check you got Friday," she said lightly, rolling her eyes.

"Right," Remus muttered, wishing that he hadn't needed Ted's help to get his bank account set up, or at least that he'd thought to do it before Dora got back from work yesterday. The salary at Smeltings was a bit larger than his Hogwarts salary, as it didn't include room and board, but he was still paying off at least seven researchers his parents had hired to try and cure him, not to mention the three months back rent over which he'd been evicted. The landlady had also insisted that he pay for damage to the floor of that miserable shack, claiming that he'd obviously damaged it during transformations. That it was no more damaged when he left than when he came in hadn't made any difference--he couldn't afford a lawyer, and it wouldn't have done any good anyway. So he had that bill to pay as well. And of course, Muggle taxes took a good bit more than the Ministry usually got. All told, out of the roughly four hundred and sixty galleons he'd earned for the month of September--a little over two thousand pounds--he'd have about seventy to get him through October. Minus whatever it had cost Dora to set up a telephone for them, but he wasn't about to discuss his finances with her. She would certainly offer to pay for it herself, and he had no intention of allowing it.

The day was bright and crisp, a bit windy for an outdoor gathering, but pleasant for all that. By the time they got to Alan's home, it had taken on the golden cast of early autumn, and Remus was very glad to be out of the city.

He took the Disillusionment Charm off of Sirius just before Anna Garvey spotted the car and came out eagerly. "Dora! Raymond! I'm so glad you could come." She opened the back door. "You must be Snuffles!"

Sirius gave her a dog grin, then licked her face.

Anna laughed. "Aren't you a friendly one? Come on out back. I made Alan buy you an extra steak!"

"Oh, he's fine on a tin of dog-food," Dora said breezily, getting out of the car.

Sirius barked and jumped up, knocking her back against the car. She scratched his head and laughed. "Try to behave yourself with these nice people," she cooed, and kissed his snout.

Remus reached down with the lead, but Anna waved her hand impatiently. "We've a fence out back. You won't need to chain him to anything."

The back garden was quite heavily populated with Smeltings faces. Most of them, Remus knew in passing, but he had a feeling he'd spend most of the day flailing around for names to match them, Sirius trotted eagerly into a group of small children playing ball under a tree, and within minutes had become the object of the game--tossing to him, letting him fetch, petting him and scratching his belly. He looked deliriously happy.

"Ah, Lewis!"

Remus turned. The Headmaster was weaving his way through the teachers. He was wearing a cotton tee shirt with an advertisement on it and horrible tartan shorts over dark socks. Remus had seen pure-blood wizards make better attempts at looking like common Muggles. Beside him, he saw Dora struggling not to laugh, the corners of her mouth twitching madly. "Hello, Headmaster Blythe," he said. "I don't believe you've met my wife, Dora?"

Dora stuck her hand out and transformed her near-laugh into a brilliant smile. "I'm so happy to meet you. I didn't think anyone would succeed in getting Raymond near a computer."

"Yes, yes, necessary things. He's got quite a bit better at it, answering his e-mail and so on. He may join us in this decade yet."

"I'm trying," Remus said.

Blythe nodded. "Yes, of course. Joe Levinson is here. Those are his grandchildren--and mine--playing with your dog. He asked if I could send you over." He pointed to a table in the back of the garden, laden with liquor bottles and plastic glasses. Beside it, Joe Levinson was sitting in a folding chair, his cane between his knees, watching the proceedings. Miriam was flitting about nearby.

"Oh, certainly."

"My wife is anxious to meet yours--apparently Anna and Miriam are singing her praises. D'you mind?"

"Not unless Dora does."

Dora shrugged, and let Blythe lead her away.

Remus went over to Joe, pulling another folding chair over from a stack against the fence. He sat down. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"The same," Joe said. "The boys?"

"They're doing reasonably well in history. Dudley passed a surprise quiz."

"What sort of quiz? Multiple choice?"

Remus wrinkled his nose. "No. I don't care for guessable quizzes. Short answer."

Joe laughed. "Not trying to make friends among the students, are you?"

"I'm trying to teach them history. But I'd be happy to make friends with any of them who wish it despite my academic cruelties."

"What are you working on at the moment with the fifth formers?"

"We're covering the early days of the Third Reich. International relations and so on."

Joe grimaced. "Bloody Hitler. May his name be erased. Or relegated to footnotes in dull tomes, which is the same."

"Well, it is important to remember."

"There are six million other names I'd prefer to remember. Including my parents."

"I'm sorry."

Joe shook his head. "No, I am, really. I'm afraid I've had a few drinks." He sighed. "They sent me to England to live with my aunt when I was six. They saw what was coming enough to do that. And then they stayed. A bit of an historical mystery, that. Do you think your new club would like the question?"

"I think the class might like it, actually. Have you asked it with your fifth formers in the past?"

"At Smeltings? I'm not entirely sure I'd like to hear their answers. I talked about it with some of my boxers once. Dudley became quite enraged... at my parents." He shook his head. "The new club... how is it going?"

"Marvelously. Stephen Wells and Daniel Morse are doing an excellent job. When you get back, I'm sure they'd like your help."

"Thank you, Lewis. But we both know I'm not coming back."

He seemed to shrink into the chair, meditating on the head of his cane, where his hands were bunched.

"You know, Joe," Remus said, "I think maybe we should get you to a sunnier part of the garden. It's a bit cool here in the shadows."

"And a bit too close to the port?"

"Well, I wasn't going to say it in so many words."

"It's all right. Just not too close to my grandchildren. I don't like them to see me like this. We brought them up for a day in the country, not a day to watch Granddad moping."

Remus helped him to a spot on the wooden deck, near the glass doors that led into the Garveys' house. In the kitchen, he could hear Dora laughing with Anna, Miriam, and some other women he assumed to be other faculty wives. He thought Alan might be in there as well, but none of the other men seemed to be. It made him uncomfortable.

"Are you set?" he asked.

Joe nodded.

"I should see if I can help in the kitchen," he said.

"Aren't you the modern fellow?" Joe said, grinning.

"I do my best," Remus said.

Alan was stacking steaks onto a tray on the kitchen table. He declined help in this endeavor, as he was almost finished, and hoisted the tray up to go outside. "Now, let's see if Blythe has managed to get the fire started."

Dora and the other women were all chopping vegetables for a salad. She tossed a carrot at him and told him to go outside and see how Snuffles was.

"Really, I'm capable of chopping vegetables..."

Anna Garvey made a slapping motion at the air. "We've just finally got rid of Alan. How can we have girl talk if our husbands insist on coming in?"

"And since you're the one we know the least about--" one of the other wives said.

"--that means you're the one we need to get gossip about," another finished. "And we can't very well press your wife for information while you're sitting here."

"So, out with you," Anna said. "You can help Alan pretend to be a great outdoorsman if you really feel that you need to."

Alan didn't want help either, and most of the rest of the faculty seemed to be involved in conversations already, so Remus wandered over to the tree where Sirius was playing with the children. There were three girls and two boys, and they'd given up the ball in favor a pull toy of some sort. One of the boys held one end of it, while Sirius grabbed the other in his mouth and shook madly, pretending to try and take it away. The boy ran around in a circle and Sirius spun with him.

"Is Snuffles being good?" he asked one of the girls.

"Oh, is he your dog?" She bent down and put her arms around Sirius's neck, kissing his fur and interrupting the tugging game. "He's a wonderful dog!"

Sirius licked her face.

The boy who'd been playing sat down and scratched at his chest. "His name is Snuffles?"

"Yes. I'm Mr. Lewis, from the school."

"I'm Eleanor Levinson," the girl said. "That's my brother, Michael."

The boy smiled.

The other three children introduced themselves as Laura, Catherine, and John Andrews, Blythe's grandchildren. All of them had questions about Snuffles--how old was he, how long had Mr. Lewis had him, did he especially like any games--and asked Remus if he couldn't come to every Smeltings picnic, as there was no one else there who was any fun at all.

Through all of this, Sirius was gloating in a less than canine way, but Remus didn't begrudge it (children humanized pets anyway; they wouldn't see anything untoward about his behavior). He scratched the top of Sirius's head and left him to the children.

Dinner was delicious--Alan had not needed any help with preparing the steak. The Smeltings faculty, freed of the school's usual requirements, seemed comfortable and friendly, eating with plastic forks from paper plates balanced on their laps. Remus didn't think he'd accomplished anything for his assignment, but he was glad to have come.

They left when the sunlight had turned into long, golden rays, the last moments before sunset began. The children made a great fuss about saying goodbye to Sirius, the girls all kissing his snout and the boys roughhousing him all the way to the car. Dora and the ladies kissed one another's cheeks, and Remus found his shoulder being clapped repeatedly by men whose names had suddenly found places in his mind.

I could stay here, he thought. There's nothing stopping me. I could be this person.

But through the crowd, he saw Joe Levinson, more sober now and smiling with the rest, and he knew... if he didn't do everything he could to solve this problem, if he just settled into his life at Smeltings, then Dudley would be right--he'd be stealing someone else's life.

"The appearance charms would be a right pain after awhile, as well," he muttered as Dora pulled out onto the road.

"What?"

"Nothing."

As soon as Dora turned a corner, Sirius transformed and leaned forward. Remus quickly Disillusioned him.

"Great plan," Sirius said cheerfully. He was practically bouncing with manic energy. "I don't suppose they'd let dogs onto the grounds?"

Dora laughed. "I don't think so."

"I'm glad you had fun," Remus said.

"Oh, I didn't just have fun. I was working."

"Yes, I could see how arduous it was."

Sirius laughed again.

"Lie down in the back seat, will you?" Dora suggested. "You still cast a shadow if someone flashes a light in here."

The back seat creaked. "She was blonde."

"Who was?"

"The witch in the pub. Ellie Levinson said that she overheard her grandfather telling her grandmother that he still had nightmares about 'that blonde woman.' Ellie thought he'd seen a ghost somewhere. And then the conversation went on about ghosts for a bit. Then John Andrews said that maybe Levinson had been robbed on the street, and Michael said that it was definitely about something that happened in a pub, as he'd overheard talk with his father. They eavesdrop quite a lot."

"And?"

"And then they talked about haunted pubs."

"Blonde," Remus repeated.

"Narcissa," Sirius said complacently. "I'll put money on it right now."

"I won't bet against you, but I'm not entirely sure. There are other blonde witches, you know."

"Narcissa's pretty hair... it's the first thing anyone ever noticed about her. And usually the last. What do you think, Dora?"

"I'll ask Mum to sound her out next time she drops by."

"Be careful not to let her know we're suspicious, if it is her."

They talked about other things for the rest of the ride, and Remus got rid of his Appearance Charms. Sirius transformed back into a dog for the walk back to Grimmauld Place. (He promised not to wander if Remus agreed to forgo the lead, and Dora talked him into capitulating.) It was dark by the time they got inside, but the fire in the kitchen was already burning. Four Order members were sitting around the table.

Molly Weasley raised an eyebrow dubiously at the entourage, and Arthur grinned as Sirius transformed. "Did you have a good day?"

"The best," Sirius said.

Kingsley Shacklebolt frowned impressively. "Sirius, if you're seen in England, I'm going to have to--"

"He wasn't seen," Dora said. "Auror on the case here. You don't think I'd let a dangerous fugitive like that get out if I saw him, now do you?" She morphed out of her Dora Lewis face, letting the clothes sag a bit as she adopted her more-or-less normal way of looking. She tapped the fourth Order member, who was asleep at the table. "Dung! Is that my veil?"

Mundungus Fletcher straightened up and pushed the veil away, his unshaven face above the billowy witches' robes, making him look particularly absurd. "Oh, right. You're back."

"Mundungus has been in Hogsmeade today," Molly said. "And he said he's seen some interesting things."

"Well, what is it?" Sirius asked.

Dung smiled. "Hogwarts has got itself a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Anyone want to guess who it is?"