"A new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" Molly repeated. "Why that's very good news!"

"With all the talk about that Umbridge cow, I wouldn't think they'd be able to get rid of her," Dora said.

But Dung was laughing, and Remus already knew the answer.

"She's still there," he said. "But Harry's got a new hobby, hasn't he?"

"Lupin wins the game!" Dung hooted. "He got a good sized group together up at the Hog's Head today--"

"The Hog's Head?" Arthur repeated.

"Not the best place," Dung agreed cheerfully. "Never saw a more conspicuous secret society in my life."

Molly blanched. "Secret?"

"Of course," Sirius said. "You don't think Umbridge and Fudge are going to be thrilled with this plan do you?" He himself looked positively gleeful. "They'll need to come up with a better idea than the Hog's Head, though."

"They could be expelled," Molly said slowly. "Do you realize that? If they're breaking school rules... and if everyone saw them..."

"There's no rule about study groups," Remus said. "There will be, I'm sure, as soon as word reaches Umbridge. But at the moment, they've broken no rules."

"Were any of my children there?" Molly asked.

"All four of the ones at Hogwarts," Dung told her cheerfully. "The twins were devilling a boy who had a lot of stupid notions. Ginny came with a whole crowd. An' Ron was standing by Harry, o' course, as he always does."

"I have to write to them right now and tell them to stop before they cause themselves serious trouble..."

"And how do you plan to do that without getting them in trouble for knowing about it?" Sirius asked. "For that matter, if the owl is intercepted, how do you plan to explain how you happen to know about it?"

"It's all right, Molly," Arthur said. "The children know what they're doing."

"Yes. They know exactly what they're doing as they go about facing off giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest, or playing mad chess games beneath the school, or..." She shook her head. "And the twins... and of course, Ginny and her secrets..."

"Well, someone has to reach them, anyway," Sirius said. "To fix the logic that ended them up in the Hog's Head. I still have Hedwig upstairs here, from the last letter I got from Harry. I'll tell him to meet me at the Gryffindor fireplace again."

"Sirius," Kingsley said, "I'm not sure that's a good idea. Umbridge will have the Floo network watched."

"Does anyone have a better idea?"

Arthur raised a hand. "You could go ahead and send your note, but have one of us actually talk to them. None of us are, er..."

"Escaped murderers?" Sirius finished.

"Exactly," Kingsley said. "Let Remus do it."

Sirius looked over at Remus, a kind of dark, brooding storm in his eyes. "Is that how it's going to be?"

"No." That every point made was true made Remus vaguely sick to his stomach, but Sirius was holding on by a thread, as Ted had put it. That thread was Harry. Remus shook his head. "Sirius is Harry's godfather. It should come from him."

The others looked dubious (except for Dora), but no one argued.

Molly looked shrewdly at Sirius. "And you'll tell him--and Ron and Hermione--that they are absolutely not to get involved in this?"

"Molly," Remus said, "I rather suspect it was their doing."

"Harry and Hermione aren't yours to direct at any rate," Sirius said.

Molly's mouth went tight. "Then tell them I strongly advise it, although I have no authority over them. Will that do?"

Sirius shrugged.

"Will you tell them?"

"I'll tell them."

There was a lull after this, during which Arthur fretted at the edge of the table and Kingsley seemed to go off somewhere in his mind. Molly wandered over to the cooking cauldron and stirred a stew she had going. Dora and Sirius--neither of whom was good with lulls--were looking around the room, as if hoping some new idea would present itself.

Dora finally struck on something. "So what do you think, Remus? Does your protégé have what it takes to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

"My what?"

"Your protégé. The one who throws around a corporeal Patronus at the age of fifteen."

For a moment, Remus flashed on his nightmare--standing beside Harry in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, calmly explaining that it would be necessary to demonstrate a werewolf attack, as it was all part of teaching. He shuddered.

"Yes, I taught Harry that Charm, but he's hardly my protégé. Are you my protégé because you can decline Latin nouns?"

Dora looked horrified at the thought.

"It's still a good question," Kingsley said. "Do you think he's capable of teaching them useful Defense? I could see the Granger girl doing it, but I just don't know Harry well enough to guess."

Remus thought about it, and honestly wasn't sure. Harry, unlike James--or even Lily--was decidedly not a social creature, and so much of teaching depended on being able to reach one's students. And yet, for all of Harry's insularity, he did reach out when he felt he needed to, and when he cared about something...

"I suppose we'll see," he said. "I think he will be. I think Harry may surprise himself."

Molly was shaking her head, looking like she was ready to start another lecture about risks in school, but Kingsley caught it first, and interrupted the flow of the conversation by casting a sharp eye at Sirius.

"By the way, speaking of risky behavior, what were you doing out today?"

"Frolicking in the sunlight," he answered briefly, with a glassy smile. "And staying out of Hogsmeade, somewhere that Remus could keep an eye on me."

"You need to be more careful," Molly said, getting out a stack of bowls. "Really, Sirius. I swear sometimes you're trying to be caught."

"Right, because I miss the Dementors so much."

The door opened upstairs, and Mrs. Black started screaming.

Sirius gritted his teeth. "On second thought, I don't need to miss the Dementors, as long as my mother is here to do their dirty work." He stormed up the stairs, and a moment later, his voice joined hers in their usual shouting match. Whoever had come was completely drowned out.

Emmeline Vance appeared at the top of the stairs, looking over her shoulder, alarmed. "He's not letting me get at the curtains," she said.

"I'll get it," Remus offered, standing up, but he felt a small, warm hand on his shoulder.

"No," Molly said, picking up a bowl of stew. There was an odd look on her face. "I will."

The screaming went on for a minute or so, but then it faded, and Remus heard the curtain slam home. Surprisingly, Molly and Sirius didn't immediately come downstairs.

"What's she doing?" Dora asked.

"Taking a risk," Arthur said, smiling. "She was a Gryffindor, you know."

Dora left two days' supply of Wolfsbane Potion over a magical fire in the corner of the kitchen fireplace and Molly left stew, suggesting that Remus eat quite a lot before the full moon to keep his strength up, as those dark circles were starting to show beneath his eyes again.

Remus thanked her before Sirius could start protesting that he could at least cook.

"So, the moon is mid-week this time," Sirius said when they'd all left. "You're not going to work the next day again, are you?"

"I'll see how I feel Wednesday morning when I change back. But I won't stay up all night the night before this time, so it shouldn't be awful."

"Are you still going to one of those shacks? Because there are plenty of rooms here..."

"We've been over this."

"Right."

"So what were you and Molly talking about for so long?"

He shrugged. "She brought me stew. I ate it. She asked me nicely to discourage the children from joining this group. I told her I'd pass on the message but not pretend to agree with it."

"Sounds like a good compromise."

"Then she asked if Mum really was like her portrait... if she'd said those things to me. It was strange." He sat down. "I told her a bit. You know... about Mum." He looked up sheepishly, as if caught doing something he oughtn't. Remus wasn't sure what to say. "I don't remember her shouting a lot," Sirius said. "Mum, I mean. I think she'd slipped a bit by the time that portrait was painted. And then Molly asked about Dad and Regulus. Can you believe it?"

Remus frowned. It did seem odd, particularly since Molly had not been sent down with some sharp words after their absence, but had instead simply come down the stairs with Sirius. "Did you tell her?"

"Tell her what? That Dad was about as talkative as the wallpaper around here, and Regulus could be a world class git?" Sirius sighed. "I don't know what she wanted to hear. I think I mostly talked about Reg. She had younger brothers, too."

"Gideon and Fabian. I remember them."

"Right. So she said that's what she thinks about when the children go off and do wild things."

"What about you? Do you think about Regulus?"

"They're not becoming Death Eaters, Remus." He shrugged. "Anyway, the conversation just went on a bit. We actually got laughing over oldest-sibling sorts of business. I didn't think that would happen."

Remus said nothing.

"Then said she thought I'd be different when I had children of my own, and that was the end of it. Does she really think I'm treating Harry like he's a stranger?"

"I'm sure she just means going through all the scraped knees and whatnot that children get when they're small."

"I'm his guardian," Sirius muttered. "I don't remember Best-Friend's-Mother being some official authority figure."

Remus laughed aloud before he realized he was going to, and waved his hand at Sirius's glare. "Really, Sirius. If I had a sickle for every time Mrs. Potter told you not to drive that motorbike so fast, or please don't curse so, I wouldn't be nearly as hard-pressed for money as I am."

"She never told me not to do what was right."

"You were an adult when you got involved in the war. So was James."

"I'm never going to get along with Molly."

"Probably not."

Sirius stared at the table for awhile. "What do you think?" he said suddenly. "Do you think I'd be different with a child who had scraped knees and such?"

"Different from Molly? Certainly."

Sirius rolled his eyes, but didn't press the question. "I wouldn't mind finding out," he said. "After my name is cleared... I suppose... it might not be awful, being married, having a family, all that."

"It's always sounded nice to me."

"Then what the devil have you been wasting your time on? I was in Azkaban. What's your excuse?"

"Fangs, fur, and finances," Remus said. "I'm not anyone's notion of a perfect husband. Why are we having this conversation?"

"Do you think it would be different if James and Lily had lived?"

"I'm not sure why it would be."

"I just wonder sometimes. I wonder what would have happened on November the first if... if that hadn't happened on Halloween. And on November the second. And so on. I know it would have been different for me. And I'll wager it would have been different for you, too. You've just been drifting. Lily never would have let you get away with that."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't play what-if. That's what I did the first five years. Just... don't."

Sirius was quiet for a long time, then he took a deep breath, as if clearing his mind. "Did you ask anyone?"

Remus turned. "What?"

"You know... was it fangs, fur and finances, or was it you deciding ahead of time that they would be a problem?"

"This really isn't something I care to discuss."

"So you didn't."

Remus felt his jaw going painfully tight--he knew that Sirius was trying to egg him into an outburst, and he wasn't going to play along. "As it happens," he said, "I haven't met anyone I was inclined to trust with the information. Do you plan to run out into the square and tell the first pretty girl you see that you're an escaped convict?"

"I knew it," Sirius said complacently. "You don't do anything without the rest of us pushing you into it." He looked over to his side, then quieted, his spirits falling.

The rest of us.

Except that they were the only ones left. There was no one else to look at when he turned around.

Remus had caught himself looking around more than once in the first year after James and Lily had died, meaning to scold James, or point something out to Peter, or share a joke with Lily (one of the few people at Hogwarts who had shared his sense of humor at that age). Even in his anger at Sirius, he had sometimes found himself rolling his eyes and starting to complain about some idiocy of the Ministry, only to realize that he was alone. Phantom pains from missing limbs.

His irritation with Sirius disappeared. "Well," he said, "you're back now."

Sirius smiled, looking older than Remus had ever imagined him, then the old light started coming back into his face. "I think we should play a prank on someone. Just for old time's sake."

"Anyone in mind?"

"My cousin Narcissa."

"You're really sure it's her, aren't you?"

"I'd like to find out."

It was a mad idea, really. Sirius's pranks always tended to go one step too far and spin out of control. And the risk of being caught...

"You know you're in," Sirius said.

Remus sighed. "What do you have in mind?"

"I don't know yet. We may want Dora on board. I'll work on it. We can talk about it after the moon. But you're in, right?"

"Provisionally," Remus said. "I'm not doing anything that will break my cover or get you caught."

"Well, that spoils my best ideas," Sirius said, grinning.

Remus went upstairs to sleep, leaving Sirius to pace and plan.

They spent a pleasant Sunday spinning ever more absurd scenarios for entrapping Narcissa Malfoy. Sirius was keen to involve Peter somehow--forge his handwriting on a note or whatnot. He claimed this was because he wanted to incriminate Peter, but Remus rather suspected that it was simply because it seemed like Peter should be in on it, one way or the other. In the end, they reluctantly decided that the description of a "small man" just wasn't sure enough to assume it was Peter, and a bad guess could throw a bit of a wrench into things. "Narcissa first," Sirius said with a sigh. "I'd like to get a bit closer in with Peter, at any rate. Like with my hands around his throat. No mucking about with magic."

Remus had fallen into a habit of not acknowledging Sirius's death threats against Peter. Not discouraging him nor egging him on, but just letting it lie. He was not, after all, entirely clean of the sentiment himself.

"Have you actually seen Narcissa lately?" Sirius asked after a short time of silence.

"I ran into her in Hogsmeade the year I was teaching. She was buying new robes for Draco. She wrinkled her pretty nose at me and I didn't choose to speak to her."

"Same warm and nurturing personality as ever."

Remus laughed. The conversation descended into simply abusing Narcissa and Lucius (and, though Remus was slightly ashamed of himself for it later, Draco) over pints of mulled mead. Remus stared at the growing moon for a long time before going to sleep.

Dora came to Smeltings for lunch the next day, with a thermos of Wolfsbane Potion and spicy food in cardboard boxes.

"I don't suppose you brought anything to drink other than that?" he asked, pointing at the empty thermos, his eyes watering.

She tossed him a bottle of water, which he downed in a long gulp.

"You don't like spicy food?"

"I like it fine. I just wasn't expecting it."

"Thought it would clear off the wretched taste of that stuff."

"It clears everything." He toyed with his food. "Dora?"

"What?"

"How often do you actually see your Aunt Narcissa?"

"She's been by twice a week since summer. I usually get out as quickly as I can, though. Why?"

Remus listened to the hallway for signs of Alan Garvey's return and detected none. "Sirius and I were talking about perhaps trying to flush her out. See if she does know something about what happened in that pub."

Dora grinned broadly. "Am I in the plan?"

"There's no plan yet. Would you be willing to help if it's needed?"

She sighed and put her plastic fork down. "I'm in. But I..."

"What?"

"Well, Mum's told me some of the schemes the lot of you came up with at Hogwarts. Some of it... er..."

"What?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind getting some information out of her, but let's not, I don't know, dress her in a feather boa and make her dance around Diagon Alley. I wouldn't feel right with that."

Remus, whose mind was suddenly filled with images of Narcissa dancing through Diagon Alley in a feather boa, pressed his lips together to keep from laughing.

Dora looked down. "I don't mean to judge. I just--"

"Understood." He got the urge to laugh under control, mostly. "I don't think we have anything conspicuous in mind."

"There's something I've been wondering," Dora said after a moment.

"What?"

"You-Know-Who--"

"Voldemort."

"--had a whole scheme to catch Harry last year. Wasn't he planning to kill Harry in the graveyard, before he ever got back to the Dursleys?"

"Yes. That's our best guess anyway."

"So why would he send a Death Eater after Dudley? It doesn't make sense." She shrugged. "I'm sure there would have to be a reason. I'm probably just not thinking of it. Back-up plan or some such business."

Remus didn't answer. He'd never even thought to question the idea that anything nasty happening around Harry ultimately came from Voldemort. But she was right.

"According to Harry," he said, "or what Harry told Dumbledore, at any rate, Voldemort specifically mentioned only having Peter there."

"Which brings us to an old question: Are we sure it was a witch and not a coincidence?"

Remus frowned. "What time is your mother's shift over tonight?"

"She's on days. I can usually drop by after work and find her with her feet up. Unless there's been an emergency, of course. Why?"

"I need to talk to her about Joe. I need her to examine him for magical injuries. Can I meet you there tonight?"

"Do you need me there?"

"We'll need to work out a cover."

After lunch, he taught his afternoon class--Dudley glowering through a conversation about visas for refugees--and met briefly with the history club. Daniel noted that he was looking ill again, giving him a kind of tragic shake of the head. Remus assured the boy that he was fine and handed him a book on the history of plagues--bubonic plague, cholera, and smallpox--that had seemed likely to delight him. He left the boys on the steps of the building, reading each other the most disgusting descriptions they could find, and walked to his Apparition point. He made sure that none of them had decided to follow, and Apparated to Ted and Andromeda's back garden.

The spot was sheltered from view by a simple lean-to behind a tree. It was Charmed to be magically dim, but in the late afternoon, it hardly needed it. Remus could barely see in the shadows.

"We were starting to wonder where you'd got to."

He jumped.

Dora and Andromeda were leaning against the far wall, smiling faintly (and quite identically).

"I helped a few of the boys with history club. I didn't realize I'd been so long."

Dora laughed. "You could spend your whole life in that classroom and not notice how long you're there."

"At least until the full moon shows its face."

Andromeda came to him and gave him a hug. "Dora tells me that you need my help."

The Tonkses' front room was full of comfortably sprung armchairs, open books (Remus could see at least four lying face down to hold a page), and energetic photographs that had been taken in the room over the years. Remus saw himself in them, standing slightly off to one side in most cases, and he saw Dora, Dora, and quite a bit more Dora. Andromeda had always refused to photograph her in "extreme morphs," as she called the full disguises, so she only had the kind of minor deviations from year to year that one would see in any growing child. Some photographs were simply Ted and Andromeda, and a few were still Muggle photographs of Ted and his mother. Andromeda had culled newspaper photos of her sisters' weddings, and these were also on the wall, looking stern and forbidding and unwelcome. There were no pictures of Sirius, of course; she'd taken them down when he was arrested, and it would have been unwise at the moment to put them back up.

Andromeda absently plucked a cat from the sofa and sat down with it. It gave a sleepy meow then immediately dozed off on her lap. She scratched behind its ears. "What exactly do you need me to do?" she asked.

Remus drew his eyes away from the photographs and sat in his favorite armchair. "I need you to examine a Muggle."

Dora sat on the ottoman, her legs curled under her. "We think he was attacked magically, but we aren't sure."

"What are his symptoms?"

Remus briefly described what he knew of Joe Levinson's symptoms. "It came on quite suddenly," he said. "And after he interfered with something happening to Dudley Dursley--"

"--it might have been Aunt Narcissa--"

"--or it might have been a Muggle... lady."

"The point is that we ought to know if it is magical, before we treat it that way."

Andromeda sighed. "I don't suppose you could bring him to St. Mungo's and then do a Memory Charm?"

"Even if I were comfortable with that, I'm a bit worried about him being seen there. If it was a magical attack and it's involved with the Dursley boy, then it has something to do with Harry somewhere."

"Comfortable with it?"

"Remus has got a bit indignant about Memory Charms this year."

"Right." Andromeda shrugged. "Well, after two years of helping to look after poor Gilderoy, I'm not a great fan of them myself.

"That's his own fault," Dora muttered. "Trying to curse the boys."

"He has no idea who Ted and I are. Ted's been up there with him for hours at a time, teaching him to write again, but Gilderoy has no notion that we were all friends once."

"I seem to remember him forgetting that about the time you and Ted started dating," Remus said.

"At any rate, I'm not at all certain how you do want to go about this, if you're averse to Memory Charms. He is a Muggle, and the Statute of Secrecy applies even to medical procedures."

"I don't know, either," Remus admitted. "I don't even have an idea."

"I do," Dora said.

"You do?"

She nodded. "Miriam... well, those faculty parties, that's where she gets to talk to someone other than Joe, and..."

"Faculty parties?" Andromeda asked.

"I've got to be friends with some of the other faculty wives," Dora said, then blushed. "I mean, some of the real faculty wives."

"They're three times your age!" Remus said.

"They're nice ladies. I like them. Anna promised to teach us to play bridge next time." She sniffed. "Anyway, that's when Miriam feels like she can talk, you know? About what's going on. Without upsetting Joe."

Andromeda nodded in a knowledgeable way. Remus affected a wise expression.

"And she says that they've got a bit desperate--tried all different sorts of Muggle medicine. She's got him drinking herbal tea, and she had a Chinese doctor poke him with needles, and... well, she looked embarrassed about it, but she said she bought an amulet at a jewelry store."

"An amulet?"

"It's a legitimate shape--the warding hand," Dora said. "But it's not Charmed, so it's just jewelry. The point is, she's at the point where she's willing to try anything, even if it sounds a bit odd. Some of the other ladies were suggesting old superstions. And I think... Well, they think I'm a bit of a wild and free spirit, of course..."

"It's a deliberate act," Remus felt compelled to add. "I don't remember why, but we decided that she should be a bit... tweedy. A bit out there, you know."

"It was because Sirius said that was the type of woman you liked."

Andromeda laughed. "And of course, it's totally different from your everyday personality."

"Well..."

"Miriam?" Remus prompted.

"Yes... anyway, I mentioned that I didn't have anything against unusual cures. So perhaps I could say I have an odd idea, and we could go over together? You could be my even dottier sister. Do all sorts of dramatic-looking things, but really just examine him."

"It could work," Andromeda said cautiously. "I wouldn't have to do anything particularly requiring his attention. But if there is something wrong with him..."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Remus said. "Now, next weekend--"

"I work," Andromeda said. "We aren't all on school schedules, you know."

"Right."

Dora stood up. "Look, I'm going to go downstairs and use our brand new telephone to see if Miriam will have us over at all."

Andromeda waved her wand and a bit of parchment appeared. She gave it to Dora. "My work schedule," she explained. "And I do have to be there."

"Mum... I've been a Healer's daughter for a long time now." Dora rolled her eyes and disappeared down the stairs.

"Don't morph around the computer!" Mum called after her. "Dad said it froze up or some such the last time you tried."

"And I'm sure it was all my fault!" Dora called back.

"My computer at work doesn't seem to be affected by my Appearance Charms," Remus said. "As long as I don't touch its innards, anyway."

"Well, this one is a bit picky. Or something. It's like a fussy Potion, I swear. Do anything wrong and it becomes completely useless. I don't see the attraction."

"It has its uses," Remus said. "I can't quite accustom myself to writing lesson plans and assignments on it, but it's proved quite handy for communicating with my students, if they need something clarified, or if they've missed class because they're ill."

"You're enjoying this."

"Yes. I admit it freely. It's good to have something resembling a normal life, even if it is all something of a lie."

Andromeda looked away uncomfortably. "Remus... may I ask you something? I don't want to ask Nymphadora, because she'd never let it go, and I just want to know one way or the other..."

Remus, baffled, said, "What is it?"

She looked over vaguely, then looked down at the sleeping cat on her lap. "This business with you and Dora being together... is it just a part of the act?"

"What?"

"It doesn't matter, one way or the other," Andromeda said quickly. "Really. I just--"

"It's part of the act," Remus said blankly.

Andromeda sighed with relief. "Oh, good. I mean... I mean, oh, good. I just wasn't sure. And I'm not sure I'm quite ready to deal with that."

Remus blinked at her, not having the faintest idea what he was supposed to say to that particular declaration.

"Like I said, though, I just wanted to know. Don't tell Dora that I asked. It was just a thought I couldn't quite ignore, and--"

"It's part of the act," Remus said again.

"Right. Then that's that." She smiled nervously. "Ted jokes about it, you know."

"I know. So does Sirius. I'm just surprised you believed it."

"I didn't. I just couldn't quite ignore it. I know how fond you are of one another, and... well... it doesn't matter. Part of the act."

"Part of the act, yes."

They sat awkwardly until they heard Dora come back upstairs, looking excited. "That was fun," she said, curling back onto the ottoman. "I told Miriam that my sister knew a kind of healing she could do on the whole house. One of the other ladies mentioned a Chinese kind of magic--well, what Muggles think of as magic--about that and swore it worked. Miriam's keen to try it. It looks like your schedules don't match very well. If we're going to do this before December, it will have to be tomorrow night."

Remus came up from his surprise at Andromeda's question. "Dora, tomorrow night doesn't entirely fit with my schedule. I doubt she'd appreciate a werewolf in the living room."

"I know. But it was the only time, and you're not really necessary for this. You'd just be sitting around and watching."

There was no argument.

Remus stayed for dinner, glad to see Andromeda's awkwardness fade completely before he left. When he got back to Grimmauld Place, he told Sirius about the plan.

Sirius wrinkled his nose in a near-perfect reflection of Narcissa and said, "Weren't we supposed to be doing this?"

Remus sighed and went up to bed.

All day Tuesday, the coming of the moon pulled at his mind, and it took all of his concentration to get through his classes. The day before the moon was easier than the day after it, but it wasn't entirely normal, either. Several of the boys tried to get him to come to an afterschool event--a football game, he thought, but was too distracted to be certain--and he struggled for excuses that wouldn't disappoint them too much, finally settling for a weak mumble that he'd promised his wife he'd be home early. Paul Freehof waggled his eyebrows in assumed worldly knowledge.

Remus nearly ran into the woods, diving for the shadows, Apparating as soon as he was certain he was alone. He arrived at the shack (in the Cornish countryside, this time) and hurriedly put the blocking spells on the door. He swelled the boards deep into the earth, and threw a testing spell at the structure. It held.

Carefully, he locked himself in, placing his wand on the high shelf and opening the hatch on the skylight.

As the shadows lenghthened, he carefully removed his clothes and set them on the shelf beside his wand, where they would be safe.

Then he sat in the deepening darkness, and waited for the change.