Remus knew St. Mungo's better than he knew most of the houses he'd lived in as an adult. There had, of course, been frequent visits before the invention of Wolfsbane Potion--visits to tend injuries he couldn't heal for himself, or infections that he'd developed from wounds he'd healed too quickly in the early morning hours. For awhile, he'd earned some money coming in to help newly bitten werewolves adjust. Now, of course, this was considered a position of trust, and forbidden to him under the new werewolf laws.

And of course, he'd come here to sit with people during their illnesses--his mother, his father, others. And he'd been here the night Harry was born, sitting with Sirius and Peter. The Longbottoms--with one-day-old Neville--had stayed with them for awhile as well. Remus had done all of the runs for tea and gifts.

He knew his way around without every needing to look for signs, and many of the people he passed in the corridors were familiar to him. Mehadi Patil stopped him to talk for awhile and vent her frustrations about what was happening at Hogwarts. "Padma is beside herself, worrying about her O.W.L.s--they're not getting any practice for the practical part of the exam!" Remus assured her that he was sure the girls would both do well, and then noticed as slight smile at the corners of her mouth and a gleam in her eyes... Mehadi was not an easy person to fool, and he had a feeling that she knew full well that her daughters were getting all the practice they would need.

He took his leave of her as gracefully as he could--she was a kind woman, but, like Parvati, exceptionally talkative--and went down a narrow staircase to a corridor which had once been lined with housekeeping cupboards. Its appearance hadn't changed, and most of the doors would still open on mops and non-flying brooms. But at the end of the corridor, three benches had been installed, and one of the cupboards had a sign on it, announcing it as Ted Tonks' office. This was an experimental kind of Healing he was doing, an odd combination of Divination and Muggle psychology, with a healthy dose of skills education. He hadn't had any spectacular successes yet.

The door was closed, and Remus sat down on one of the benches, looking up at a portrait of a medieval caretaker, whose descendants had become wealthy and had chosen to sponsor Ted's program. The portrait was engaged in cleaning its own canvas, and muttered a sour hello before going back to its business.

After fifteen minutes, the door opened, and a smiling, vacant-eyed man with curly blond hair came out, still talking.

"...and she writes me every week," he was saying as Remus stood up. "Don't you think that's awfully nice of her, Mr. Tonks?"

"It's Ted," Ted said patiently, coming out behind him. "And yes, it is. Won't it be nice when you can write back to her?" He noticed Remus and smiled. "Gilderoy, I don't know if you remember my friend Remus. He was a few years behind us in school."

Gilderoy Lockhart looked at Ted with puzzled joy. "We went to school together?"

"Yes, Gilderoy."

"We must have been grand friends!"

A look of deep sadness crossed Ted's face. "Yes," he said. "Actually we were. Ah, there's Healer Strout to take you back up to the ward. You keep practicing!"

Lockhart nodded, never losing his vacant smile as the Healer led him away. Remus felt a moment's pity for him, then remembered that the Curse he was suffering from was one he'd meant to cast at Harry and Ron.

Still, he really had been a friend of Ted's, so Remus tried not to let his distaste show on his face.

"What can I do for you, Remus?"

Remus had no idea whether or not the portrait had a loose tongue, so he lied. "I had an odd dream, and I thought I should discuss it with a Seer. Could I talk to you?" he asked. "Or do you have an appointment?"

"I always have Gilderoy last on my schedule," Ted said. He gestured into his office. Remus went in, and Ted went to sit behind his desk. There was an enchanted window here, showing the street outside, which Remus guessed Ted had made for himself. He flicked his wand at the door and closed it. "Since I quite sincerely doubt you need me to See for you," he said, "what do you really need? And speak freely--I check for Listening Charms several times a day in here."

"Well, I did have a rather odd dream, though I don't remember most of it. Something about killing Sirius." He thought there might also have been something about Dora, but it wasn't something he cared to discuss with Ted. "But I expect it's only a bit of stress on my part. I really have no intentions in that direction. I'm just worried about him."

Ted leaned forward. "How bad are things?" he asked.

"I don't know. Saturday night, I'd have sworn he was done for, but yesterday, he seemed... well, not fine, but back in his normal pattern."

"What happened on Saturday?"

Remus told him about the events on Saturday, and yesterday's meeting to discuss them. He didn't share any details about what had happened in the kitchen when they'd gotten home--he didn't think it was right to explain Sirius's precise state--but he tried to stress that Sirius had not been well-balanced. Ted listened closely, but with a kind of professional distance that Remus hadn't expected.

When he finished, Ted sighed. "Andi was afraid he might try something like that. I wish he'd done it when we were home. We had a plan of sorts."

"What was it?"

"Er... It involved one of the cats getting out, and chasing it, and... I didn't say it was a good plan." He stood up, took a handful of floo powder, and tossed it into the fire. "Love," he said to the flames, "you might want to come down here, if you're free."

Andromeda appeared in the fire a moment later, dusting ash from her hair. "What is it? Remus!"

"Hello, Andromeda."

"It seems that Sirius paid us a visit on Saturday," Ted told her.

"Oh, dear." Her words were mild, even dismissive, but Remus saw her eyes darken. She sat down. "I'm assuming since I heard nothing that our constant contingent of every Auror other than our daughter didn't see him there."

"He was in dog form," Remus said. "We don't think they know about it. But Kingsley sent them away anyway, chasing a false lead."

"But if no one knows..."

"Kingsley didn't trust him to stay transformed."

"How foolish does Shacklebolt think he is?"

"It's not a question of his intelligence," Remus said. "Kingsley doesn't trust his judgment."

"Is he right?" Ted asked.

Remus thought about it, longer than he would have liked to. "I think he overreacted. This time."

"I spoke to Dumbledore," Andromeda said out of nowhere. "I went to Hogsmeade, met with Poppy, got into the school... it was an ordeal. It's a fortress there."

"Did he tell you..."

"He told me that he wanted to tell me. But that my sister and her husband are too close to me."

"You couldn't tell them," Ted muttered. "Fidelius..."

"Doesn't cover what I might unwittingly bring in to the Order."

Remus started to protest, then thought of Dudley Dursley, who had avoided him all day in school--not Cursed, but triggering a Curse. And it was back to Narcissa again.

And Narcissa Malfoy was effectively untouchable.

"Whatever their reasoning," Ted said after awhile, "the company of everyday watches will help Sirius. I've been concerned about his connections to the world."

"They're fraying," Remus said. "The threads. And I don't think he's going to try very hard with the Order's babysitters. He's looking forward to catching them in lies. Hestia is with him now. She told him she was planning to study a chizpurfle colony in the cauldrons in the attic."

Andromeda snickered despite herself. "Chizpurfles?"

"Chizpurfles. She didn't even lie well--quite flustered. He was annoyed with her this morning."

"And you're angry with him," Ted said.

Remus looked up sharply. "No! I'm concerned... I'm worried about him."

"That is a nasty thing to say, Ted," Andromeda said.

Ted squinted, like he was about to say something else, then shook his head instead.

They talked for awhile longer, not reaching any conclusions. Remus was starting to feel slow and mentally numb. He headed back to Grimmauld Place at six-thirty, and found Sirius and Hestia in Buckbeak's room. Hestia's nervousness had faded somewhat as she examined the hippogriff--she was a skilled magizoologist--and Sirius was watching her carefully, stroking Buckbeak's neck feathers to keep him calm while she treated an infestation of chizpurfles near the place that feathers gave way to fur.

"I think I've got them," she said, adding a bit of thick Potion and then stepping back.

"Well, there you have it, Buckbeak," Sirius said. "Aren't you lucky that Hestia stopped by today?"

Her nervousness returned as she came around. "D'you think he'd let me pet him?"

"Be good," Sirius said.

Hestia bowed, and Buckbeak returned it. She patted his face happily, then looked at Sirius and blushed. He rolled his eyes at Remus when she looked away.

After she left, Sirius gave Remus an incredulous look and said, "She really did study the damned chizpurfles all day. I know more about the little beasts than anyone could ever want to know." He spent the rest of the evening complaining about Hestia, and Tuesday evening, he complained about Molly, with whom he'd managed to have a full-fledged yelling fight about where Harry should spend Christmas. It continued throughout the week.

Meanwhile, Dudley had withdrawn completely at Smeltings, not making any effort to talk after Remus had needed to rebuff him at the full moon. In fact, Dudley had gone back to outright hostility. He earned another three days in detention for bullying Daniel Morse, whom he accused--in front of several other students--of harboring a crush on Remus. Daniel, never particularly thick-skinned, had barely managed not to cry. The history club found meeting notices defaced. And Dudley stopped turning in his homework altogether.

By the end of the second work week, Sirius wasn't the only one who was fraying around the edges. Tests and essays started to accumulate, and Remus barely had time to mark them between Sirius's rants at home and Kreacher's constant attempts to toss them into the fire, pretending to believe they were rubbish. He finally took to going to Dora's flat for an hour or two after school each day, to complete his work. The Order's babysitters didn't care for this state of affairs.

On Friday, Remus came straight home, opting to mark third form tests on Saturday, after a get-together at Alan's. He found Sirius alone in the kitchen, steaming.

"Where's...?" Remus blanked on who was meant to be here.

"Fleur," Sirius said. "It was Fleur. I told her she could go home."

"And she went?"

"She didn't want to. So I ordered her out." He stopped and breathed harshly for a few seconds. "I shouldn't have been so harsh with her. She's barely more than a child."

"That's true."

Sirius turned. "You have to make them stop, Remus. Please. I won't leave. I'll swear on James's name if you want me to, and you know I won't break that."

"I know." Remus's head began to pound dully. "I'll talk to Kingsley on Monday. He's out of the city now on some sort of business." Of course, Monday was the day that his second-form classes had fairly large projects due, but he supposed they wouldn't be expecting them back immediately. He rubbed his head, and started up the stairs. "I'm going to get some sleep," he said.

"You're not eating?"

"I ate at Dora's." He went upstairs without looking back.

Molly and Arthur Weasley arrived at Grimmauld Place just after breakfast on Saturday morning, while Dora was getting the month's Wolfsbane supplies in order on the kitchen table (dosing would start Sunday, to Remus's distaste). Sirius was trying to convince her to get Remus to go to the Garveys' today, citing his own two weeks' good behavior as a reason. Remus had woken up feeling a bit guilty about being short with him and had determined to stay home and try to behave something like a friend was meant to. Dora had declared that she, at any rate, was planning to go anyway, and would come by and tell Sirius all about the film later.

"Remus can find it for himself and watch it on his own," she said, tapping him on the back of the head with a wooden spoon. "I'll find a whatsis to play it on and get one for my flat. And he can come up with a good excuse to Anna for telling her to expect us and then not showing up."

A small silver bell suddenly leapt up from the sideboard, flew over to Sirius, and rang insistently in his ear.

"What on..."

"Oh," Sirius said. "I worked this out this week to let me know when someone's at the door. Better than waking Mum, wouldn't you say? Think it's marketable?"

"Ask the twins," Remus said.

Sirius went upstairs. When he came back down, Molly and Arthur were with him, and he looked irritated.

"Well," he said, "you can go after all. The Order sent the Weasleys to look after me."

"We're not here to look after you," Molly said. Her mouth was drawn tightly. "Arthur thought... Arthur and I thought... that we should talk about Harry, and Christmas."

Sirius gave her a resentful pout, but it faded into a more normal expression. He sighed and pulled out a chair for her.

"At any rate," Sirius said to Remus, "you're free to go. So go."

"I should--"

Arthur cleared his throat. "I, er, left some papers here the last time I was in the... er, parlor, I think. Remus, would you mind helping me for a minute?" He raised his eyebrows, then headed for the stairs. Remus followed him.

"You've never brought papers here, Arthur," Remus said as soon as they got into the parlor.

"Yes, well, I didn't have time to think of anything else." He looked over his shoulder. "You can go wherever you need to go."

"It's nothing important--"

"I'll keep between them. You need a break from this."

"I've barely been here to take a break from it."

Arthur sighed deeply and went to the window. He put his hands in the pockets of his robe and looked over his shoulder. "I had two younger brothers," he said. "When one of them--my closest brother, Lance--left school, he lived with Molly and me for a bit. It was between Charlie and Bill."

Remus wasn't quite sure where he was going with this, so he said nothing.

Arthur looked out the window. "It was at the height of the war, of course, and Molly's brothers were in the thick of it, so we were... a bit tense. And my parents asked me to keep an eye on him. And I did. I wasn't always there, and we didn't spend a lot of time talking, but he got to resenting having someone look after him."

"Of course."

"And I got to resenting being asked to look after my grown-up brother when I had a life of my own--a new job, a relatively new wife, a new baby--that I didn't have time to really enjoy. By the end of two months, I was ready to kill him. I imagine it was mutual." He turned back to Remus. "So whatever you and Tonks were going to do, I think you should do it."

"But this business about Harry--"

"You want to suggest something like splitting the holidays, so Harry can see us as well as Sirius?"

"Er... yes."

"If I can slip a word in edgewise, I'm going to suggest that Harry come to the Burrow through Christmas morning, then the lot of us will come here for dinner and more presents. Harry can stay with Sirius. The children can visit. Do you have anything to add?"

"Not really, no." Remus frowned. "I still feel like I should do something. Though I suppose Harry has enough de facto guardians parceling him out."

Arthur laughed. "Oh, I don't think there are enough adults in the world to love Harry Potter as much as he needs. But on this particular matter, there are only so many approaches, and we have them covered. Unless you think his aunt and uncle will suddenly want him home."

And so Remus ended up Charming his appearance, bundling into Dora's car, and spending the afternoon at Alan's. They watched a horribly sad film about a teacher who was hired at an elite boarding school, whose students formed a secret poetry society, until one of them, his emotions stirred to a high pitch, killed himself over an argument with his father. The teacher was sacked, despite his remaining students' protest. After it, all three of the teachers in the room discussed the ethical responsibilities in the situation, until Anna declared the conversation "too dead depressing to go on with," and immediately put in another film, this one a recording of one of the television programs she and Alan enjoyed. This one involved a starship, and a character who made up stories for himself in a Charmed room that created phantoms of his shipmates. The real shipmates came in toward the end and interacted with their exaggerated phantoms. Remus enjoyed it, though the character reminded him a bit too much of Peter for his complete comfort--outwardly bumbling and fearful, inwardly indulging a grandiose vision of himself... and resentful of his crewmates. But on the program, it all worked out in the end.

Dora enjoyed it without reservation, and on the way home, she suggested that Sirius could do with a Charmed room of his own ("a hula-deck, or whatever they called the silly thing"). "He could tell us all off without getting himself into any trouble. And go to any time he wanted to go to for a bit."

"It would be an impossibly complex Charm," Remus said.

"It's worth a try. We could tell him about it. It would keep him busier than inventing a better doorbell."

"I have visions of walking in on myself waving Molly Weasley's frying pan at him. And you'd be in pigtails and riding a toy broom."

She glanced over her shoulder at him, then looked back at the road. "You keep saying that, but Sirius really doesn't treat me that way. Does he say something when I'm not there?"

"No. Why? What do you think he'd imagine you as?"

"I don't know," she said quickly. "I can't imagine. Maybe Auntie. I'm not sure I'd want to see."

"That's my point."

Dora sniffed and shrugged, putting a close to the subject.

Arthur and Molly were gone by the time they got back, and Sirius was sitting by the fire reading no fewer than seven books. They were stacked beside his chair, and he would pick one up, read until he got bored, and switch to another. It was the only way Remus had ever seen him study.

Dora related the films' stories for him, morphing as she went. Unlike the teachers (but quite a lot like the wives), Sirius's entire response to the first story was indignation on the sacked teacher's behalf. Like Dora, he thought a magical hula-deck would be a fine idea, but insisted that she wear a grass skirt and a pair of coconuts if she came to play in it.

"I think you should ask Hestia," Dora said. "I'm sure she'd be glad to split a coconut for you."

"Only if it was hosting a colony of little beasties," Sirius said.

Dora rolled her eyes, muttered something that included the word "dense," then kissed them both goodbye and left.

"Just so that everyone's clear," Sirius said, "I'm not actually that dense."

"No one's that dense."

"There are a few I suspect."

"How long have Arthur and Molly been gone?"

"They left after lunch." Sirius pointed at the sideboard. "There's still soup, if you're hungry. Did you expect them to still be here?"

"I wasn't sure."

Sirius summoned a bowl and the soup tureen, and ladled some out for himself. "We had a civilized conversation, and then they left. Harry'll come here on Christmas afternoon, with the whole Weasley family. Which I don't mind on Christmas. It's better than being alone."

"I'll try not to take offense at that."

"You know what I mean. Alone except for you and Dora, and the pair of you will be over at Andromeda and Ted's, won't you?"

"Only for a few hours."

"And while you're gone, I'll have a house full of redheads to keep me busy." He sighed. "It'll be nice. I think it'll be nice."

Remus tried to engage him in more talk, but Sirius seemed to be done talking for the night. After awhile, he transformed into Padfoot and loped around the corridors. Remus heard Kreacher yelling at him, thought about going to investigate, and didn't.

Things improved marginally at Grimmauld Place that week, as Sirius began looking forward to seeing Harry. He was determined to get Harry a present that would both be subversive and show him that he (Sirius) was keeping track of what was happening at Hogwarts. "Something for his study group," Sirius said. "Something to help him teach. What do you think would be good, Moony? What would he need? What did you want when you were doing it?" Remus brought him catalogs, and helped him look. There was quite a lot he would have enjoyed having as a teacher, but need was a different matter. Becoming dependent on expensive gadgets for Defense Against the Dark Arts was not, generally speaking, a wise strategy.

Still, it was an enjoyable way to spend time, and it made Sirius happy.

At Smeltings, on the other hand, matters with Dudley Dursley were getting progressively worse.

Dudley didn't come to class on Monday, but turned out to be legitimately ill, according to the school nurse. When he failed to appear in class on Wednesday afternoon (despite being reported in earlier classes), Piers insisted that he had a relapse over lunch. On Thursday, he didn't attend anyone's classes and was unexcused. By the time Dora arrived with his lunchtime Potion on Friday, several of his teachers were discussing going to see him. He told Dora, and she left the basket on his desk, put the thermos in his hand, and left.

He choked down the Potion from the thermos as he crossed the grounds to the student residence and went inside. At Hogwarts, teachers who weren't heads-of-house were flatly forbidden to visit the dormitories unless there were an emergency. At Smeltings, it was very strongly discouraged, but allowed in cases where a need seemed pressing. Remus doubted that anyone who looked at Dudley's history marks over the last three weeks would question that there was a pressing need for him to speak to a teacher.

His dormitory was at the end of the second floor corridor. A message board on the door seemed covered with notes from his friends, giving him various assignments that he'd missed. Remus knocked.

"Who is it?"

"It's Mr. Lewis, Dudley. Open the door."

"Open it yourself."

Remus tried the knob. It wasn't locked, and it opened easily. He remained in the corridor, partly because it would be inappropriate not to, mostly because the smell of the place was overbearing and unpleasant. Dudley was sitting at his desk playing a game on his computer, surrounded by boxes of biscuits, empty bags of salty snacks, and crushed cans. The floor was a clogged sludge of rumpled uniforms and take-out cartons.

"You need to be in class this afternoon," Remus said.

"Surprise quiz?"

"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you. And it would be unethical for me to tell you without telling anyone else. But if there were such a quiz, you wouldn't be able to miss it. Your marks thus far don't give you much of a cushion."

Dudley stood and narrowed his eyes. "You're here about... history?"

"I am your history teacher." Remus gestured into the corridor. "Can we talk?"

Dudley just glared at him for a minute, then shrugged and came outside, closing his door behind him. The sour smell followed him out. "There's a common room on every floor," he said. "It's this way." He led the way down the hall, past the staircase, to an open area with several battered tables and sprung armchairs. Remus chose a chipped wooden chair by one of the tables. Dudley leaned on the table and looked out the window.

"You haven't been in my class much for the past two weeks," Remus said. "I've been letting it slide because I know... a bit of why. I can't keep doing so."

"Right."

"I won't ask you what's happening. It's your business to decide who to tell and when."

Dudley shrugged. "That old fruit they're making me talk to said I couldn't go back to the team. Don't suppose you could do a thing about that, could you?" He raised an eyebrow in a speculative way.

"Even if I could, I wouldn't," Remus said. "I don't pretend to understand psychology in any depth. It's Dr. Holbreck's specialty. Unless it's because of what you believe about the magical world...?"

"I'm not mad enough to tell him that. He thinks I have a problem with my temper."

"Well, you're not helping your case with things like that business with Daniel last week."

"He got cheeky with me."

"Daniel?" Remus shook his head. "Daniel's idea of being cheeky is politely asking if he might pass you on the way to class instead of staying behind you."

"He looked down on me. He thinks he's better than everyone else."

Remus checked the corridor quickly. They were alone. "Like Harry?"

"Like the whole bloody lot of you. Even you." Dudley went back to looking out the window. "You think you don't, but you do. You're doing it now. You should see your own face."

Remus had an absurd urge to apologize for whatever his face was doing, apparently without any knowledge on his part.

Dudley ran his fingers through his brutally short hair, the grease in it making uneven, finger-shaped lines of spikes. He sighed, a strange--frankly, alien--expression of thoughtfulness on his face. "You really didn't curse Levinson, though, did you?"

"I really didn't. I like Joe."

"Wish he'd come back."

"We're trying to find a way to help him."

"You are?"

"Yes."

Dudley shrugged. "For people who can make owls show up two minutes after a thing happens, you're certainly not being very quick about it."

"It's complicated."

"If you didn't curse him, though..." Dudley frowned ponderously, a thundercloud trying to form behind his brow. "If it wasn't you, then why did he fall down at the match?"

"We think there's a trigger," Remus said carefully. "Something that sets the curse off, makes it worse. It's an unusual sort of thing. We don't really know how it works entirely."

"What's the trigger?"

Remus took a deep breath. "As far as we can tell, Dudley, it's you."

Dudley turned on him, his small eyes narrowed into slits. He stood up straight. "You lie," he said, and stormed back to his room.

Remus waited a long time, then realized that he was going to be late himself if he didn't get to class. He did not, in fact, have a surprise quiz planned, and went on with the planned discussion.

Twenty minutes into class, Dudley arrived, freshly showered and wearing a uniform that was only slightly rumpled. He didn't acknowledge Remus's hello or pay the slightest attention to his friends, but at least he managed to draw out a notebook and begin taking his confused and illegible notes.

It was a start. Perhaps, after the moon, they could talk more seriously.