The cloudy night made the transformation come late and violently, throwing him backward off of a hayloft onto the hard floor of the barn. He caught himself on an arm that was half transformed, and dislocated the shoulder, leaving the Wolf lame all night and howling at the absent moon. Somewhere around three in the morning--though he had no concept of such an abstract thing--it began to rain through the open roof.

At dawn, he woke up cold, wet, and in considerable discomfort. The shoulder injury was repaired easily enough with a tap of his wand, but it would remain stiff and sore for days, and he'd been chilled to the bone. There was no particular point to using a Drying Charm on his sodden clothes before he put them back on, either, at least not until he got back to Grimmauld Place. It was still pouring.

By the time he got back to Grimmauld Place, his throat was raw and his ears sore. He slept off the transformation and woke up again with a burning cough. Dora brought him Pepper-Up Potion and informed him that she'd already told Smeltings that they'd have to make do without him on Friday as well.

"Blythe wanted to make sure we were still meeting on Saturday, though," she said. "I think he's looking forward to it."

"Saturday?"

"Our turn to play hosts?"

"Did I know about this?"

Dora rolled her eyes. "Next time, I'll take your book away before I tell you something. Apparently, your answering me wasn't definitive proof that you heard me. At any rate, I told him we'd have you in working order by then, though I'd recommend at least Conjuring a sniffle or two, him being your boss." She took the goblet she'd used for the Potion. "You should come over very early, so you look settled in. And find out where I keep everything! It will look a bit silly if you don't know where the cutlery is."

She left with stern instructions to Sirius to keep up with the Pepper-Up Potion, and went back off to work. Sirius spent the afternoon with him in the kitchen, playing Wizards Wild Card, a game Remus had never cared for as it was impossible to make a logical bet on one's cards when any one of them could be one of the four wild cards in the deck, which might change its numbers or suit at any time. Sirius beat him handily four times, then started dinner.

"Andromeda sent a letter along with Dora," he said. "Just telling me about her work and their cats and such. I don't suppose after the party on Saturday, we could possibly make our way over there...?" He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Remus fought his way out of the low-grade fever haze. "What?"

"You know. Just sort of take a family walk--you and Dora and your old dog Snuffles, wandering about London..."

"Sirius, you heard what Kingsley said. He'll sack Dora if she plays any more games with your security."

"Won't they all wonder what's happened to your dog?" Sirius asked, his voice completely confident.

Remus pinched the bridge of his nose, stopping a sneeze at least temporarily. "We'll have to think of something to tell them," he said. "But you can't go. It's too risky."

"To have me around while some old Muggle biddies play at being detectives?"

"To take you out of here as Snuffles again. If you're caught, it's not just your skin. It's all of us. We're all guilty of hiding a fugitive."

Sirius refused to talk to him for the rest of the evening, and only passed sharp, harsh words with him on Friday.

"I'd've risked it," Dora said early Saturday morning, bending over her Muggle oven with some trepidation and pulling out some sort of rice-based dish that Remus didn't recognize. "I think this is how it's meant to look," she said. "I followed the recipe in the game kit exactly."

Remus ignored this. "I know you would have risked it," he said. "That's why I didn't ask you. Though we probably should decide what to tell them about Snuffles."

"Oh, Muggles have animal Healers!" Dora said delightedly. "We'll say he's at a..." She ducked for a dictionary on the counter, tapped it with her wand, and read the page it opened to. "A veterinarian," she said, offering Remus the book. "We'll say he got a bit ill, and leave it at that."

The explanation was accepted easily enough, Joe Levinson grunting that "Old fellows like us are prone to it, aren't we?" and Sally Blythe wishing him a speedy recovery. Everyone except for Dora and Remus seemed to have arrived in costume, dressed the way Ted Tonks had dressed back at Hogwarts--wide legged jeans, paisley shirts, in Blythe's case, an absurd looking headband. Anna Garvey looked most comfortable, wearing a long, flowered dress and a tissue-paper flower in her hair. Dora ducked into her room and came out in one of her never-ending costumes (a short skirt and high white boots), and whispered to Remus--far out earshot from the others--that she'd brought over some of her father's suits for camouflage, and he should transfigure one to look a bit like the costumes on the front of the game kit's box. He looked at it for the first time--"How To Host A Murder: The Tragical Mystery Tour."

She'd left the wardrobe open, and he could see several of Ted's suits hanging there, untouched, stage dressing. Her own clothes were packed into the other half of the wardrobe and into a small cupboard set into the wall. They pushed bureau drawers out. Her nightgown was folded neatly enough on the carelessly made bed, where it sat among more pillows that any person could possibly need at night. She hadn't set out any men's pajamas, and Remus quite sincerely hoped that no one would be so adamant to find clues to the fictional murder that they would take special note of such a thing. He didn't care to have his colleagues' wives speculating on whether or not he slept naked.

"Raymond?"

He looked up. He still hadn't transfigured one of Ted's suits for himself. Trying not to get an exact duplicate of something on the box, which would be suspicious, he transfigured the shirt and pants into the exact clothing Ted had worn on the day they'd met on the Hogwarts express. All he needed was the three-branched medallion, and he thought he'd noticed Dora wearing that.

He went back out to the gathering, where Dora had passed out little booklets which told each player who he or she was, what he or she was meant to tell, and most important, what he or she was hiding.

Remus opened his own. It announced, under the secrets section, "YOU ARE THE MURDERER!"

He didn't expect to have fun. He felt like a hippogriff's hindquarters playing "Let's pretend" as a game at the age of thirty-eight, he did not find murder amusing, and deliberately spinning lies to cover his entirely fictitious crime was uncomfortably close to the way he lived life every day. But after half an hour, everyone had gotten involved in the stupid business, and he found himself actually enjoying the day. The rice dish was a bit of a failure, but Dora, never stepping out of character, announced that she'd pick up a bit of curry, and dashed out, coming back half an hour later with cartons of spicy food. The scent brought out her old cat, Granny, who was good for fifteen minutes of storytelling. Blythe, who was apparently a cat-lover, insisted on working Granny into the story somehow.

The murder wasn't the only mystery to solve, of course--the game provided for red herrings, and Anna and Alan added another wrinkle by insinuating that their characters, who were virtually strangers in the script, were actually having a secret love affair on the side. This wasn't strictly in line with the rules, but they made it amusing. By the end of the second round, they were all routinely overplaying their roles, dropping their clues, red herrings, and evasions around with gusto, and generally laughing at one another. At some point, two bottles of wine came out, and they intensified the silliness.

Remus still felt foolish when he stopped and thought about what he was doing, but every time he did, one of the others caught him and made him stop thinking. In the kitchen between rounds, Dora confided that she'd figured out he was the murderer--"This is what I do for a living, and it's obvious"--but said she didn't intend to share it until the end of the fourth round. She shook a wooden spoon at him. "But I have my eye on you, mate."

Partway through the third round and the third bottle of wine, Sally Blythe commented on Dora's lovely legs--how did she keep them so nice "at our age"? Remus, who hadn't looked at her legs earlier, realized with some horror that she hadn't morphed them under her short skirt at all. No one made any assumptions of magic, though, and the conversation just drifted into the bawdy realm for much longer than he was comfortable with.

Miriam Levinson beat Dora to the punch on announcing the solution to the mystery, after which Remus was pummeled with marshmallows for the fictional crime. Anna Garvey asked Dora how she was planning to punish her naughty husband. Dora turned bright red, but managed to stammer out, "I have my ways."

They cleaned up together after the Smeltings guests left, and Dora insisted on showing him the television she'd purchased for the flat, though, to her disappointment, none of the programs she enjoyed happened to be on.

He was in no real hurry to leave. Dora's flat was comfortable and the day had been a pleasant one, but he had to get back to Grimmauld Place. Looking after Sirius was his job, and it wasn't one from which he could take a great deal of time off. But he was delighted when Dora elected to come with him.

They took the train across town, coming up two streets away from Grimmauld Place and walking in a fine, mist-like rain. Dora had morphed back into the pink hair and reclaimed her normal clothing, and she looked terribly young as she stuck her tongue out to catch a raindrop on it.

She smiled. "I had fun today," she said.

"I've spent worse days."

"We should have had Snuffles there, though. To hell with my boss. He'd have had fun."

"Yes, he would have."

"I brought him some curry anyway. I left the wine at home."

Remus nodded. "We can't risk it, Dora. They'll send him back to prison if they find him."

"I know." Dora growled in the back of her throat. "What'd he have to go to the platform for?" she asked. "Of course Lucius Malfoy was there. I'll reckon he's the one spreading rumors that he's in Britain. We can't ignore them no matter how many other rumors we plant. He's trying to force Sirius out."

"It's going to force him right out of his mind."

They reached the door of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, and Remus unlocked it to let her in, closing it securely behind them and steering Dora clear of the troll's foot umbrella stand before she woke Mrs. Black up. They went down to the kitchen. It was empty.

Remus frowned. It was becoming less and less like Sirius to go to bed early, and it was barely dark outside. He went to the parlor--also empty--and looked out onto the back garden, where Sirius sometimes went to drink. Nothing.

Dora rushed in. "He's not in his bedroom."

"Sirius?" Remus called.

No answer.

Not even from the--

Remus gritted his teeth and went down the front stairs. Mrs. Black was awake in her portrait and the curtains were open. He hadn't noticed that. She leaned forward with maddened good cheer. "Back at last!" she bellowed. "Freaks, changelings!"

"Where is Sirius?" Remus asked her.

Her normally mad smile became devious. "Aren't you the one who's meant to know that, creature?"

"He's allowed to take a day off, Auntie," Dora said. "Where is Sirius?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Black said acidly. "He transformed into a"--she wrinkled her nose--"dog, and went right on out. I didn't try to stop him."

"Like he'd have listened to you anyway," Dora muttered.

"How long as he been gone?" Remus asked, not sure how long the portrait's helpful arrogance would last before it started spewing hatred again.

"Oh," Mrs. Black said, "He left right after you did. He's been gone for hours."

Dora went to Kingsley immediately, barely bothering to get free of the house before Apparating. Remus turned up the collar of his Muggle-style overcoat and pulled on a pair of thin and frayed gloves as he ran to the end of street. There was a rubbish-filled alley before a small store, and he looked into it carefully, wishing he had a Muggle torch, too close to Muggle houses to use a Lumos charm. "Padfoot!" he called. "Padfoot?"

Nothing. Not even a stirring in the rotting leaves and newspapers.

Remus went on, not knowing where he was headed, just following an instinctive path, leaning into the deepening shadows, thinking, If he's all right, I'm going to kill him.

He rounded a corner and saw something in rags covered by the weeks of newspapers. With relief, he pulled them away, and a derelict made a grab for him, saying, "Whatchoo think you're doing? Gettaway! Geroff! 'S mine! My place! Get out!"

"I'm sorry," Remus muttered. "So sorry... "

But the derelict had already forgotten him, and was muttering to himself about the voices from the clouds and rearranging his newspapers.

The misty rain, so cheerful as he and Dora had walked from the train, had become a heavier downpour, soaking through his overcoat and running down his face in cold rivulets. He didn't own an umbrella, as he knew any number of Charms to cover himself, but none of those could be used in a Muggle neighborhood. "Snuffles!" he called, much more loudly than he'd called for Padfoot in the alley. "Snuffles! Here, boy!"

"Did you lose your dog?" a teenage girl with green hair forced into a six inch high fan (which was beginning to flag in the rain) asked him pleasantly.

"Yes."

"What's he look like?"

"Large. Black."

"Oh, 'e was out playing here this afternoon," she said. "Let me scratch his ears." She smiled, and to Remus's astonishment, she appeared to have a rather large piece of jewelry stuck through her tongue. "He's a good fellow. I hope he's all right."

"So do I. Did you see where he ran off to?"

"I reckoned he went home. I never saw him around this place before."

"He was..." Remus shook his head. "He got off of his lead in the park. My wife and I have been frantic."

The girl frowned in concentration, tapping the jewelry on her tongue against her front teeth in an uneven rhythm. "I think he ran off that way," she said, pointing vaguely north. "Stopped to sniff around at the corner."

"Thank you," Remus said. He left the girl sitting on the bench in the rain. She didn't seem in any hurry to get out of it.

The corner went to an east-west running street. To the east, it ended in only a few yards, where more rubbish was piled against a wooden fence, which blocked off the grounds of an abandoned factory. Remus could see three rats in the glow from the street lamp, and was willing to bet there was a rather large nest under the papers.

He could have come down here to look for Peter, he thought. To try to catch him spying. To...

But it didn't feel right. Remus let his eyes linger on the rats, who were behaving in a perfectly rodent-like way. None of them stopped to look at him or took any notice of him at all. Sirius might have looked here, but he wouldn't have stayed long. He thought about calling, "Wormtail," to see if one of them would jump, but it would be a wasted effort.

At any rate, none seemed to have a shiny, silvery paw.

To the west, the street ran toward the rest of the city, into the bright lights and deep crowds.

How was he supposed to find Sirius in that?

There was a pop in the alley, and Dora appeared. She looked around and jumped a bit when she saw him. "This is a safe Apparition spot," she said. "I wasn't expecting anyone to be here."

"It's not that safe," Remus said. "Anyone could see you coming out of a dead alley."

"Well, it wouldn't be safe for you to use every day coming and going, but it's fine for now and then," she said irritably. "At the moment, it's not the Muggles I'm worried about."

"What did Kingsley say?"

"After he finished cursing? He sent out word that he got a tip that Sirius was seen in Birmingham and sent Dung off to go and look like Sirius so that the 'tip' comes from somewhere. And he's pulled off all the Aurors watching Hogsmeade and Mum's house to go find him. He's not happy sending perfectly good Aurors off on a snorkack hunt. D'you reckon Hogsmeade? Going to rescue Harry's broom from Umbridge's office or whatnot? I hope it's just that, anyway."

Remus only heard this with the top of his mind. It would be like Sirius to rush off to Hogsmeade, but it didn't feel right. "Your Mum's," he said. "Sirius asked if we could go there today."

Dora paled. "Is anyone watching from the square?"

Remus checked. The square was empty, and no one was visible in any of the windows. "It's clear."

"Get in here."

Remus followed her into the alley, and they Apparated to Andromeda's back garden. Above them, the house was dark. Nothing stirred.

"Snuffles!" Dora called. "Snuffles!"

"Where are your parents?"

"Taking a much-needed weekend off," Dora said. "A little holiday cottage they go to on the moors. As I'd have told you and Snuffles both if you'd asked me about bringing him over. Lumos!" She illuminated the shadows of the Apparition shed, and they saw no sign of Sirius. He was nowhere in the back garden.

Dora, still angry, stormed into the house. Remus followed her (picking up the odd knick-knack she knocked over) until they came out of the front door, back into the rain, which was falling more heavily than ever. One of the housecats followed them out lazily, and Remus picked it up and put it back inside. The front garden was empty as well.

"Snuffles!" Dora called. She turned to Remus, her face pale and frightened, the anger a thin mask over it. "He's not here."

"He's here," Remus said. "I--"

A car passed by on the road, its headlights sweeping the greenery and turning the rain into streams of silver. At bottom of its arc on the far side of the street, something pale glimmered.

Remus pointed. "There."

They rushed across the street to a clump of bushes, and Padfoot was lying there on the ground, his fur soaked through, staring up at Andromeda's darkened home. From this vantage, he could see every window that looked onto the street, and into the corridors where light would filter if they came in through the back.

He looked dully at Remus and Dora, and laid his chin on his paws.

"We're going home," Remus said, Conjuring a collar and a lead, and to hell with Sirius's pride. "Now."

Sirius didn't protest when Dora put the collar on him, or when Remus hooked the lead through its metal loop, but he didn't budge when they tried to pull him.

"Stop it," Remus said. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you're causing?"

Sirius didn't move.

"Bugger," Dora muttered looking over her shoulder at the Muggle house across from her parents'. She pointed her wand at Sirius. "Canis leviosa."

Padfoot rose from the ground, dripping, and she put her arms around him so that it would look as though she was carrying him--which was a bit ridiculous, given that, as Padfoot, he was nearly as big as she was. But it was only for a few minutes. She took them back across the street and into her parents' house. She didn't pause to let him look around as she floated him out to the Apparition shed.

"Bind us," she said.

Remus raised his wand and said, "Substringo."

Dora checked the binding and Apparated. Remus stayed to make sure nothing was left behind--bound Apparition wasn't the most reliable means of travel, but Dora seemed to have mastered it relatively well--then Apparated after her, back to the rubbish-strewn alley where they'd met earlier. Dora had ended the binding spell, and Sirius was standing glumly at the end of the lead.

"Are you going to walk home?" Remus asked him.

Sirius glared at him through Padfoot's eyes, and led the way out of the alley. He didn't look back.

Dora marched him into the kitchen while Remus fixed the locks on the door and re-covered Mrs. Black, who was screaming at the top of her lungs about the worthless travails of childbearing. Kreacher was underfoot, complaining and wiping up the rain water with a look of resentment in his eyes.

Remus ignored him, and headed down the kitchen stairs.

"Look, Sirius," he said before he reached the bottom. "I know you're bored and lonely, but--"

"Remus."

"--you can't--"

"Remus."

He stopped.

Sirius had transformed, and was sitting on the floor beside the hearth, his knees drawn up to his chest. His eyes were unfocused and hollow, his breathing shallow. Dora was curled into an uncomfortable-looking squat at his side, holding him. He'd grasped her forearm convulsively, but wasn't looking at her. He was shivering uncontrollably.

"Oh my God," Remus whispered. "Sirius."

"He's cold," Dora said. "Come here."

Remus came over hesitantly. Dora beckoned with her finger and pointed at the floor on Sirius's other side.

Carefully, Remus got to his knees, feeling the pain of the stone floor pushing at his kneecaps. Dora looked at him imploringly.

He put his arms around both of them, as far as they would go. It wasn't a natural gesture for him. His lower back protested and his legs screamed against the position. But Sirius grabbed his lower arm, just below the elbow, the same way he was holding Dora's, and his fingers dug in.

Across his head, Dora looked at Remus, her eyes deep and sad. She kissed Sirius's hair and cooed some old song she knew to him. After awhile, he began to weep.

The three of them stayed there for a long time.

Dora spent the night in the room that Hermione and Ginny had shared over the summer. Sirius suggested that she stay in the larger room that Ron and Harry had shared, but she shuddered and said that she didn't fancy the thought of Phineas Nigellus eavesdropping on her while she talked in her sleep.

Sirius (who had grown up in that room) managed a wan smile and said, "He is a creepy old git, isn't he?"

Dora smiled and kissed him goodnight, holding him for a moment before disappearing. Sirius seemed to just accept the affection with gratitude.

He watched her go up the stairs. "There's going to be trouble, isn't there?" he asked when she was gone.

Remus patted his shoulder tentatively (this, too, was accepted with a slight relaxing of the muscles). "I'll handle the trouble," he said. "Don't worry about it."

"I don't know why I didn't just come back here when I realized they weren't home. Or even Apparate somewhere else. I thought about going to Hogwarts."

"I guessed as much."

"I just couldn't seem to move." Sirius went to the bottom of the stairs and looked up, seeming weak and bewildered. "I kept thinking they would catch me--the Aurors, I mean; I could see four of them. They went away."

"Kingsley sent them after a false report."

Sirius winced. "I really did cause trouble then."

"I'll take care of it," Remus said again.

"Anyway, I kept assuming they would catch me and I just... stayed. I don't think, precisely, as Padfoot, but I remember a feeling, like he was saying, Go ahead. Try it.."

"You're tired."

"I am," Sirius said. "God, I'm tired." He looked up the stairs again, seeming to measure their length and steepness. He didn't turn around. "Moony?"

"What?"

"I'm glad you were here."

"So am I."

"You're... the best of my friends for this... sort of thing. The one I'd be glad to have even if..."

He didn't finish, but Remus knew the end of the sentence. Even if James were here. He was touched, but had no idea how to respond to it without sounding like he'd just won some sort of competition.

Sirius looked over his shoulder. "Was it a good day?" he asked. "Before I spoiled it, I mean."

"It was a good day."

"Will you tell me about it tomorrow?"

"If you'd like."

"I'm sorry for spoiling it. I didn't set out to make trouble for you."

"We should have had you there," Remus said. "To hell with Kingsley."

A faint smile. "Well, there have it, Moony," Sirius said. "It's all your fault again." He grabbed the rail and dragged himself up the stairs, shuffling into the entrance hall like an old man.

Remus wandered around the house for a long time after that--straightening pictures, cleaning cobwebs that Kreacher had missed, staring aimlessly out the windows. He stood outside Dora's door for several minutes, thinking he should apologize for not consulting with her about Sirius's request, but he could hear her faint snores, and decided that she'd probably rather sleep than hear an apology that she would only dismiss as silly anyway.

Somewhere past two, he asked Phineas Nigellus to see if Dumbledore was awake, and while he waited in the room, he toyed with a scroll one of the boys had left behind. Harry's, by the handwriting, though Ron seemed to have scribbled notes on it during classes. He smiled, imagining them in class, only listening with half an ear (Yes, Professor Lupin... even in your august classes), Hermione looking over at them with a barely checked lecture behind her lips. Dean Thomas would be behind them, listening avidly if the subject interested him, doodling on his desk if it didn't. Parvati Patil, whose widowed mother he had very briefly dated many years earlier (but remained on reasonably friendly terms with anyway), would look up at him and smile brightly, and Neville Longbottom, to her left, would be scribbling notes madly, trying to record the lecture word for word so that he wouldn't have to trust his memory. For a moment, the memory was so clear that he could see the pattern of cracks in the finished surface of his desk, and smell the faintly gamy odor of the grindylow tank behind him.

He set the scroll aside.

Someone sighed heavily, and when he looked up, Phineas was back in his frame with an exquisitely bored expression on his face. "Are you quite finished?" he asked petulantly.

"Was Dumbledore awake?"

Another world-weary sigh. "Yes, he was awake. He's heard all about my great-great-grandson's little adventure. Shacklebolt actually flooed to Hogwarts himself--under the guise of reporting on the abysmally performed false lead--and they had words. Shacklebolt is calling an Order meeting at Arabella Figg's home tomorrow afternoon. Or today, however you like to word it. To discuss Sirius."

"Discuss him?"

"What's to be done about him."

"Shouldn't it be here, so he can have a say in it?"

"The lack of his presence," Phineas said in a supremely unconcerned way, "appears to be the entire point of meeting elsewhere."

"That's not right."

Phineas didn't bother himself with the ethical question. "The headmaster told me to have you attend. And to remind Shacklebolt that in his absence--Dumbledore's, that is--that you, not he, will make the vital decisions for the Order. For whatever reason, he also told me to inform you that he trusts your judgment. I've been known to question his, of course."

"Then he won't be there?"

"The headmaster has matters of actual importance to which he must attend," Phineas said loftily, and left the portrait frame.

Remus didn't bother going to his room. He curled up on the bed where he was sitting and fell asleep there, using a Self-Waking Charm to rouse himself at eight-thirty.

Sirius was in the kitchen making breakfast, Dora watching him sleepily. Remus told them about his conversation with Phineas.

"It's about what I expected," Sirius said, sliding an omelet onto a plat in front of Dora.

"It's not what I expected," she said. "Not from Kingsley. He's supposed to be on our side."

"He's on the Order's side," Sirius said bitterly. "And there's a rather marked difference between the Order of the Phoenix and the House of Black."

Dora fumed a bit longer, then kissed them both goodbye and told Remus that she would meet him at Arabella's later. Sirius transformed into Padfoot and curled up by the fire. Remus made him transform back long enough to promise on James's memory that he wouldn't do anything crazy, then left him to do as he pleased.

He took the train to Little Whinging (it wasn't safe to Apparate there without an Invisibility Cloak, particularly in the daylight) and reached Privet Drive at roughly one o'clock. He saw Petunia Dursley packing her flower beds under mulch for the winter, but he didn't greet her, and when she looked up, she showed no recognition for him without the appearance charms he used as Raymond Lewis. He waited for her to look away again--not a long wait--before going on to Arabella's place on Magnolia Crescent.

The Weasleys (Molly, Arthur, and Bill) were there, along with Fleur Delacour. Hestia Jones arrived at the same time Remus did, running up from the other end of the street so that Arabella wouldn't have to come to the door twice. Kingsley and Dora were have a long, intense-looking talk in the kitchen, and Emmeline Vance, whose business was magical construction--had a wand out to repair some loose window-frames in Arabella's bedroom. Dung, who seemed to know where everything in the house was, was flitting busily around, handing out sandwiches and fizzy drinks. Arabella herself looked frantic having such a houseful, and kept chasing after her wayward cats to keep them from being stepped on by her guests.

"Are you the last?" she asked him, a rather desperate look in her eyes. "Please tell me you're the last."

"I think I'm the last," Remus said.

Relieved, she sat down in an old chair with a lace doily on the back, and promptly jumped up again when a gray cat yowled from the seat. She picked it up and petted it convulsively as she sat back down.

Remus called the meeting to order.

Kingsley came out of the kitchen, Dora beside him. She crossed the room quickly and sat down on the sofa behind Remus. Kingsley looked vaguely surprised that his meeting had been called to order by someone else, but accepted it.

"I'm sure we all have at least an idea of why we're here," Remus said. "I'll let Kingsley explain the situation." He gestured to Kingsley and sat down.

"Sirius Black is unstable," Kingsley announced with no preliminaries. "Yesterday, against my explicit instructions, he went wandering about London in his dog guise. He nearly walked into four of my Aurors who were stationed at his cousin's home, and in order to remove him from harm's way, I had to send those Aurors--and the Aurors I have stationed in Hogsmeade, just for safety's sake--on a mad chase through Birmingham, where they caught up with Dung, who miraculously had no contraband on his person at the time."

"Well, it's easy enough to get rid of if you know the Aurors are after you!" Dung said. "It was my job to put on a black wig and look dangerous, not get arrested."

Kingsley physically bit back a response to this. "Black controls our headquarters," he said. "If he's captured, we are likely to lose them. And not to put a selfish spin on this, but if he's captured, Tonks and I will end up on trial for aiding a fugitive... if Fudge bothers with a trial at all. Right now, as the Order, we're doing nothing more illegal than standing guard at the Department of Mysteries when we probably shouldn't... nothing more illegal, that is, until you factor in hiding a convicted murderer."

He stopped speaking.

Dora stood up, and Remus recognized her. "Sirius is in trouble," she said. "But that's a family matter, not one for us to be having meetings about. The Order's only concern is the house, and Remus can get in. I'm blood as well, and if I ask, Sirius will make sure it comes to me if anything happens to him."

"Unless you're in Azkaban!"

"I disagree with Kingsley about that being a problem. If Sirius is captured, he'll tell whoever does it that he's been in Timbuktu for two years, and Kingsley and I knew nothing of him."

Molly raised her hand tentatively, and Remus frowned, wondering what she meant to say. He recognized her.

"Kingsley," she said. "I, er, don't want to disagree with you, but--" She swallowed. "I don't get along with Sirius Black, and I think he's an irresponsible and unstable man at best. But this business yesterday was about you and your Aurors. It's not about the Order. He wouldn't betray the Order of the Phoenix."

Dora blinked at her, flatly surprised, then smiled.

Molly smiled back and sat down.

Arthur took up her point, defending her notion that it was "family business," and Fleur said that she felt badly for Sirius and didn't want to see anything done about this. That seemed to be too extreme a stance of nonchalance for most members--there was a general agreement that some sense of security was owed to Kingsley and Dora, though Dora argued Fleur's point rather vociferously. Remus unilaterally vetoed a proposal (from Hestia) to set up headquarters elsewhere, and another (from Arabella) to put "some kind of capturing spell, if there's such a thing" on Sirius. No one argued with his authority to do so.

In the end, they came to a vague decision to make sure he wasn't alone any more often than he needed to be--Molly would come visit during the days from time to time, and Dung would casually drop by when she couldn't. Remus would remain the most responsible for him, with Dora a close second, but to Remus's surprise, no one seemed to begrudge him having spent the day frivolously on Saturday. ("I don't care if you were playing 'Sing Along With Celestina' and dancing on the table in the Leaky Cauldron," Bill Weasley said. "You weren't the one doing something you shouldn't.") They just suggested that, in the future if he was going to make plans, he should ask another Order member to come by for a few hours for a casual visit.

"What are you going to do?" Dora asked as they made their way to the train station.

Remus put his hands in his cloak pockets and started ahead into the gray afternoon. "I'm going to go home, and I'm going to tell him exactly what we talked about and exactly what was decided."

"Don't you think he'll be insulted?"

"Exactly how many casual visits from Molly Weasley do you think he'll see before he figures it out anyway, and feels lied to as well?"

Dora decided to leave him at the train station, grumbling about a pile of paperwork she'd been neglecting. "Kingsley's been letting me slide," she said, looking out at the gray and rainy street. "I think he's not going to be happy with me on Monday. I'd like to make sure there's nothing he can hang it on."

"Do you really think he'd take it out on you? That doesn't seem like Kingsley."

"He's responsible for a major search, and he's deliberately cocking it up and wasting Aurors' time. I think it gets to him sometimes. Tomorrow is going to be one of those times."

Remus nodded. "I suppose I can understand that."

"Tell Sirius I'll come by later if I can get out from under. And don't start yelling at him."

"I wasn't going to."

"Or lecturing him."

"I wasn't going to do that, either, Dora. I was there last night, remember?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. Do you think he'll be all right?"

Remus didn't know if it was possible for Sirius to ever be completely all right again, but he nodded. "Sirius is tired," he said. "Not broken."

She hugged him, holding on tightly in the chilly November afternoon. "I always think of him laughing," she said. "Always."

"So do I."

She pulled away, leaving one hand resting lightly on Remus's arm. "I just... Last night, I felt... " She shook her head, turning away. The breeze felt considerably colder. "Tell him I'll come by later," she said again. "I'll find something fun to do."

"I wouldn't recommend a murder game."

"I actually think he'd have fun with it," she said. "You're the one who makes great symbols of everything, not Sirius. But it takes eight people, so I'll have to think of something else."

He watched her walk away then turned up his collar against the wind and crossed his arms over his chest. He needed a new winter cloak rather badly, but needs and means weren't going to overlap until at least January. December would pay off the last of the unpaid fees to his former landlady, but it would also need to include Christmas, after all, and this year, he was right in the middle of a group instead of on the fringes. There were certain financial disadvantages to not being alone anymore.

He rolled his eyes at himself. The best cloak money could buy wouldn't even be a poor substitute for being around people again.

Sirius was making a half-hearted attempt to clean out a narrow linen cupboard along a third floor corridor when he got back, and he listened to Remus's report on the meeting while shaking out a moldy tablecloth. While Remus spoke, he inspected it, seemed to spot any number of faults, and as Remus finished the account, Sirius pointed his wand at it and incinerated it.

"A statement?" Remus asked, looking at the ashes.

Sirius shrugged and pulled a pair of green crystal candlesticks from the cupboard, where they had spent heaven knew how many years gathering dust in the back. They were shaped like snakes, and made a logy attempt to wrap themselves around Sirius's fingers. He set them distastefully down on the floor, where they writhed stodgily for a few seconds before losing interest and becoming still. "A moldy tablecloth," Sirius said. "No statement. I expected something like this."

"They were going to do it secretly. I expect most of them guessed I would just tell you, but some of them may still think it's a secret."

Sirius smiled bitterly. "Of course. You know Sirius Black. He's crackers, not thinking straight. He'd never notice a pattern." He sighed. "So I'll have spontaneous visits from Fleur Delacour coming, will I? Well, who could argue with that? She's a pretty girl."

"She's eighteen."

"And more than a little besotted with Bill. But pretty. And I can practice my French. Who else?"

"Molly, of course. Arthur, if he can."

"Of course."

"Bill will probably come."

"I like Bill. Bill's all right."

"Dung."

"I'll give him those things." Sirius pointed at the candlesticks. "Before he decides to steal them."

"They'll probably bring in Moody, though he wasn't there today."

"Lovely. He'll have plenty to be vigilant about here. And they say I'm mad?"

"And Emmeline Vance."

"Oh, no. I absolutely draw the line at Emmeline Vance. Totally unacceptable."

Remus was about to ask why, but then he noticed--somewhat to his surprise--that Sirius was grinning broadly. "Right, right," he said, playing along. "She might go on a wild house repair spree, and we can't have that."

"Too right."

"Are you really all right with this?"

"Of course. What thirty-eight-year-old man wouldn't be thrilled at the prospect of a string of babysitters?" He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "I'm sorry. I know. It's my fault. And really, I don't entirely mind the notion of having company here while you and Dora are out doing... whatever it is that you seem to need to do in tandem so often these days."

Remus ignored the insinuating tone, though he was glad to hear it--it was just purely Sirius. He'd learned to ignore it many years ago. "I'm sorry that it wasn't something we needed to do yesterday. It was just--"

"Just fun with some friends," Sirius said, his voice kind. "And you did need to do it. Just because I'm cooped up in this miserable place doesn't mean you should be. And I do mean that. I'm not just saying it."

They drifted around the house for the rest of the afternoon, Sirius finishing up with the linen cupboard, Remus going through boxes of Black family books, some of which, it had been decided, should be given to the Hogwarts library, where Madam Pince would undoubtedly promptly put them into the Restricted Section for the use of any student with an Invisibility Cloak, a gullible teacher, a small illegal animagus form, or a talent for picking locks. And possibly for N.E.W.T. level students with an academic purpose in mind, though it struck Remus as an unlikely scenario.

After dinner, Dora came by with a game she'd bought at Zonko's called Jury of Jarveys, which required them to come up with short--and often rude--answers to complex questions on the cards provided. If the answers failed to be both pertinent and amusing (as judged by a floating contraption that glowed a kind of sick orange), the player would acquire one feature of a jarvey. The last player with human features won (at which point, the jarvey charms on all the players were immediately reversed, although the winner was for some reason "awarded" a jarvey nose which would last for an hour). Dora made a particular effort to be cheerful, and Sirius responded to it. Remus lost the game rather quickly and ended up watching Dora and Sirius insult one another and the game for nearly an hour through beady jarvey eyes until Dora--deliberately, he thought--used a non-sequitur in her answer and lost. She congratulated Sirius on a well-played game, kissed his twitching nose, and left.

Sirius's mood started to flag before the nose charm wore off, and by the time they'd finished cleaning up, he was short-tempered and surly. He picked a fight about the book collection (something about wanting to burn quite a lot of it but knowing that Remus would go on about ideology, though Remus had never expressed any ideology about them that he was aware of and Sirius would burn his fingers off before burning even his mother's books), then went upstairs to feed Buckbeak. Remus would have followed, but he found Kreacher in the dining room, setting out the snake candle holders and putting several of the books from the library on display on the sideboard. By the time he'd finished rectifying this, Sirius had retired to his bedroom, and he didn't come out again.

Remus went to bed just after eleven and fell asleep quickly, finding himself in a dream before he was entirely aware that he'd drifted off.

They were all in Dora's flat--the Order, his Smeltings friends, the Tonkses, several of his students, both Muggle and magical. Dudley and Harry were in the kitchen together, looking at an album full of wizarding pictures. James was telling them who the subjects were while Lily fussed at Dudley's short hair. Daniel Morse had settled in with Hermione and Ron, and the three of them were happily going through Mrs. Black's books. Andromeda Tonks hovered over them with a concerned expression on her face. Albus Dumbledore was having a drink with Peter, who waved cheerfully when Remus went by. Joe Levinson was growling at Snape about his mistreatment of students, while Minerva McGonagall, wearing the flowing, flowery dress that Anna Garvey had worn yesterday (but looking every bit as stern as usual), was dancing a stiff tango with Vernon Dursley. They marched on by, arms pointing starkly outward, and unveiled the long dining room table from Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, which Dora's flat had stretched somewhat to accommodate. There, his head flanked by the snake candles, was Sirius Black--sixteen years old again, and dead.

Remus just stared at him for a long time--or perhaps for no time at all, since the motion around him seemed to stop completely--then he felt warm arms slip around his waist from behind. Dora stood on her tiptoes (he couldn't see her, except that of course he could) and rested her chin on his shoulder. "Have you solved it yet?" she asked, completely ignoring the body on the table.

"No," Remus said weakly. She ran her hands over his chest and kissed his earlobe. She seemed to take this as a matter of course, and Remus felt powerless to protest it, though he wanted to remind her that her parents were here, and they trusted him with her, and it was totally inappropriate for her to behave in such a way. He caught one of her hands and kissed her palm. "I haven't solved it. Have you?"

She slipped around from the side and stood beside him, her arms still companionably around his waist, regarding the body with interest. "I think I know," she said. "Sirius would know."

"Of course Sirius knows," Remus said irritably. "But he can't very well talk, can he?"

"I don't see why not," Dora said. "He just doesn't want to."

"I should have brought him along," Remus said.

Dora shushed him. "You're not supposed to say that. At least if I'm right in my guess. Check your book."

Remus frowned. "I lost my book."

"Well, you really should find it, or someone else will. All of your secrets are in there! You'll lose, silly." She kissed his forehead (how she did this easily from her height when they were both standing wasn't something he questioned) and disappeared into the crowd, morphing into Dora Lewis as she did so. Several of the people in the room gathered worshipfully around her as she started telling jarvey jokes.

"Are you looking for your book?" Ginny Weasley asked him, holding out a small, leather-bound diary. "You can have mine if you like."

"No, really. That's all right. I need mine. Those are your secrets."

Ginny nodded wisely. "I think Sirius has yours. You should ask him."

"But he's--"

"I think I've got it solved," Ginny confided. "But Harry won't tell me if I'm right, and Tonks says I'm not persistent enough." She went away.

Parvati Patil and Piers Polkiss were cheerfully planning a wedding and declaring happiness about not having to re-do any monograms. Parvati offered him a star chart she'd done for Sybill's class, but that wasn't his book either. Kingsley frowned and said something about not even being able to keep track of his own belongings, and Phineas Nigellus--who had for some reason been painted onto the door--told him he really was hopeless. James just glared at him and refused to discuss the subject of the book, and Lily told him that they'd both had a chance to read it since they'd died, and James hadn't reconciled himself to some of the secrets yet. Ted Tonks told him that he didn't really need a book, and did he really think he could lie to a Seer, but allowed that he, like Ginny, thought that Sirius would have it. Alan Garvey shook his head and reminded him that he should have stored it on his computer like a normal person.

Finally, he drifted back to the table where Sirius's body was stretched out. "Do you have it?" he asked.

Sirius, being dead, didn't answer, but when Remus looked down, he saw a colorful little book now resting on his chest beneath his crossed hands. The title was How To Host A Murder, and of course he didn't need it now, because he knew what the secret was. He knew what he was supposed to be hiding. He took it anyway.

Most of the writing was faded--he could see Lily's name very faintly, with the words ...kiss me? a bit down the way. He saw a chart of the moon's phases, barely discernable from the natural wrinkles of the page. His Qualified Teacher Status, faded to gray, had been pasted to the side, with the word "Fraud" stamped across it. Someone had drawn Dora's eyes at the top of the page, and framed it with her cupped hands, as though the whole page were her face and she was resting her chin on her palms. He saw himself (though how he saw himself when it was all just words, he didn't know) coming down the kitchen stairs to yell at Sirius. But scrawled above all of these faded etchings, most completely illegible, was one dark line of writing, in deep red fading to brown:

"YOU ARE THE MURDERER."