Remus put a Numbing Charm on his arm, which rendered it entirely useless, but at least not burning up with pain. The elbow joint had obviously been separated, and judging by the swelling, there was quite a lot of bone and tissue damage. He Apparated to the alley--he was getting careless, he supposed, but it would also cause a lot of questions if he showed up in the Leaky Cauldron with his arm in this condition.

Sirius swore under his breath as soon as he saw it. "Why aren't you at St. Mungo's?"

"Dora seemed to think you could sort it out."

"I'm telling you, no. I couldn't fix a simple break quickly that night at the Shack, and this... I can't even work out where the pieces go. Andromeda's the Healer." He gritted his teeth. "Bloody Wormtail. I'm going to hurt him before I kill him."

Remus changed into robes and made his way to St. Mungo's. Andromeda wasn't on duty, and Mehadi Patil was in with the man Dora's partner had brought in. In the end, he saw a new trainee Healer, who he recognized as one of his seventh years from Hogwarts, a Ravenclaw boy named Walter Nguyen who was doing his very best to be detached and professional, treating a former teacher for the first time, and looking up after he set each bone shard as though he expected to be marked on it. It took more than two hours, but at the end of it, Remus was able to gingerly move his arm around. Walter took a relieved gulp of air and finished off this presentation of his Healing skills with a recitation of instructions for further care, and a caution against any strenuous use of the arm for at least three days. He didn't ask Remus how he happened to come by this injury. Remus thanked him and told him that he'd done a good job. It seemed to please him to hear this.

By the time he got back to Grimmauld Place, Sirius was asleep in the parlor and Kreacher was going about his nighttime routine of moping through the empty rooms and brooding over missing items. He paid no attention whatsoever to Remus's passing.

He was careful to carry his briefcase and books with his right arm at Smeltings the next day, and not to let himself be jostled too much. Dudley, as annoyingly observant as ever, deliberately blustered out of class on Remus's left side and jarred the arm as he passed. Remus set his jaw, but refused to make any noise indicating that it had caused pain.

He took off his Appearance Charms in the woods, and Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron and was headed out to the bus when two young wizards in yellow robes stood up at the same time and blocked his way.

"Remus Lupin?" one asked.

Remus nodded. "May I help you?"

"Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures," the other said. "You need to come in."

"My registration is up to--"

"We're not with the Registry."

Remus's heart sank. There were three offices at Regulation and Control that dealt with Werewolves. They weren't the Registry and they certainly didn't behave like Werewolf Support Services, which left only the Werewolf Capture Unit--the office he had avoided all his life by seeing to it that his registration was up to date and his transformations guarded. It must have rankled them that Aurors had brought in werewolves this month. They certainly did not seem to be in a mood for pleasant conversation.

Remus allowed himself to be led out.

The two men didn't speak as they made their way to the Ministry of Magic, and kept looking at him sideways, with loathing. He didn't ask them what he was being questioned about; he would find out soon enough.

They herded him into a small room not far from the office that had belonged to Amos Diggory until last year (he had apparently lost much of the zeal he'd once had for his job in the wake of his son's death), where two wizards and a witch sat on the far side of a long table. The witch was Edith Culmer, from Support Services, and she looked angry at the situation. Remus didn't know the wizard in the middle. To his left, though, was Walden Macnair, a hard smile playing on his lips.

"Please sit down, Mr. Lupin," Edith said. "This is an absurd business, but we may as well get down to it. I'm here as your advocate."

"Thank you," he said. "My advocate in what?"

She looked to her left and indicated the youngish wizard beside her. "This is Thaddeus Chubb," she said. "He needs to ask you some questions."

Chubb looked more like accusations were on his mind than questions, but he didn't correct her. He barely waited for Remus to sit down before he said, "You were seen in a certain abandoned house in Kent last night, in the company of three other werewolves who were holding a businessman captive."

Remus blinked. "In their company?" he repeated. "I called for the Aurors when I saw--"

"What were you doing at that particular location?"

"I had... well, I'd heard of what happened at the full moon, and--"

"And you decided to join them?" Macnair sneered.

"No, I decided to find them. I thought as a werewolf, I might get further than a non-werewolf, because they would think I might."

Macnair narrowed his eyes. "And naturally, of all the homes in Kent, you chose that one."

Remus met his glare; Macnair undoubtedly knew precisely how he'd found the place.

"How on Earth did you come to find the place?" Edith asked.

"It belonged to an acquaintance of Peter Pettigrew's," Remus said, not moving his eyes away from Macnair's.

"Ah!" Chubb said. "So your old friend Sirius Black had reason to believe it would be empty!"

"My old..."

"He also knew Pettigrew, did he not?"

"Yes."

"So he would know an old haunt."

"It wasn't an old haunt, it was--" Remus stopped abruptly. As he'd turned to correct Chubb, his eyes caught a motion of Macnair's hand. His wand was out, and had been pointed at Chubb. Now it was pointed at Edith. "It was just a place he knew."

"And why," Chubb asked, "would you associate it with werewolves?"

"It was a lucky guess. I knew it was empty, and it was in the region where they'd been seen. If they hadn't been there, I'd have tried somewhere else."

"Determined to find them, were you?"

"They're certainly not doing other werewolves any favors," Remus said.

"Yes," Chubb said, "and you've certainly demonstrated your level of responsibility to your fellow sufferers in the past."

Remus glanced again at Macnair's wand; it was still trained on Edith. He realized with a wave of disgust that he could report it directly and no one would believe him. He took a deep breath and sat back in the chair. "What do you want to know?"

"I've already told you what we want to know," Chubb said. "Why were you in that house?"

"And I've already answered."

"I'm less than satisfied with your answer."

The questions went on for several hours--mainly Chubb asking the same thing over and over again. Macnair's presence made it impossible to discuss the situation fully--he didn't need it getting back to Voldemort that Dumbledore had sent him, even if he did dare to say it to the Ministry. He also found himself unwilling to implicate Mrs. Pettigrew, irritating as he found her. The topic sometimes wavered--for forty minutes, Chubb questioned him about his use of Wolfsbane Potion, and whether or not it had been neglected since "the unfortunate incident" at Hogwarts--but it always returned to Chubb's suspicion that Remus was part of the group in the Biddenden house. At one point, one of the secretaries brought food for the Regulation and Control staff; Edith gave Remus half of her sandwich.

It was close to midnight and his throat was raw from repeating the same story so many times when the lift door crashed open outside. Chubb, who had been in the middle of yet another version of the question of how he'd come to hear of the "werewolf uprising" and how long he'd been involved in it (Edith was beside herself trying to make him rephrase), and he stopped abruptly. The door to the interrogation room burst open and an old man with frizzy white hair leaned in. "Begging your pardon, Mr. Chubb, but you and Mr. Macnair are needed!"

"We're in the middle of an interrogation."

"Emergency." The man gasped in a few breaths. He'd obviously run here from some distant point in the building. "One of the portraits was running about saying he heard something, and we found Arthur Weasley, of all the bloody things, bitten up something terrible!"

Arthur! Remus bit his tongue on his immediate fear--he had no reason to show inordinate interest in Arthur Weasley. But had it been his night to guard the Department of Mysteries? Where had they found him? How badly was he hurt?

"Bitten?" Chubb repeated.

"There's something loose in the Ministry! Isn't that what you Regulation and Control folks do?"

Chubb looked irritated, and Macnair frankly irate, but they both stood. Remus started to stand, but Chubb held up one hand. "I don't think so. I'm not done with you. You can stay the night in here, and perhaps you'll want to talk more in the morning."

He and Macnair disappeared. Edith stood up. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know what's got into them. I believe you, and I'll work this out. But tonight..."

"I understand."

She smiled apologetically and waved her wand at the table, where a comfortable-looking mattress appeared. "I'll... I'll have your wand in the Beings division. You can pick it up when they let you go."

She left, locking the door behind her.

Remus stood at the door for a long time, trying to hear what was going on, but no one returned to the Department that night.

The mattress Edith had Conjured was generous, and Remus was able to sleep in relative comfort, once he reconciled himself to the idea of sleeping here as a prisoner, and became accustomed to the dull ache in his newly healed arm after the last Painkiller Charm wore off.

He dreamed in a disjointed way about the house in Kent. Peter was there, both as the piebald man who'd broken his arm last night and as a chubby boy who was dragging his Hogwarts trunk around. The wounded man was gone, but James and Lily were being held captive, along with Harry, who was actually fifteen and looked every bit as old as James. Dora came and went, her form shifting fluidly as she moved through the dream, sometimes appearing as Dora Lewis, sometimes as her childself, mainly coming to him as a young woman with flashing eyes. The younger version of Peter followed her around. The older version was trying to kill them all, but no one in the dream seemed to care about that except for Remus, and Remus's own contribution was limited to trying to convince everyone that Peter really did know how to do a Death Curse. Did they not remember Cedric Diggory?

At that point, Cedric himself had come into the dream to confirm the story. Then Dora was standing beside him instead, a young woman again, laughing and smiling, and her hand was on his right arm. She stood on the tip of her toes and kissed his cheek and said, "Remus, wake up! You're late!"

He blinked himself awake.

Dora was beside him, but she was standing up and he was still lying on the table. Her hair was bright pink again. Her hand was resting lightly on his right shoulder, and she shook it again, looking impatient.

"I'm up," he said.

"About time. And here I rushed down as soon as I heard they'd hauled you in here." She shook her head sharply, and Remus understood that she was furious. It was no single thing that convinced him of this, just the conglomeration of everything about her stance--the impatient bite at the ends of her words, the tense shoulders, the quick movements of her hands. She pulled his wand from her pocket. "Edith Culmer caught me on the way in. I got your wand."

"I'm not sure they're finished talking to me," he said, sitting up and rubbing his arm. He took the wand when she offered it and cast a new Painkiller Charm on it.

"Oh, they're finished all right." She handed him his briefcase. "Your clothes are in there. I popped home and called Blythe, told him we were having a spot of trouble with the car and you'd be late for your first class."

"Thank you."

"They had no bloody business..."

"I should have thought of it before calling you."

"You should have told them I put you up to it."

"What?"

"That's the story I told them. I had Kingsley yell at me for using civilian help without clearing it. I told them you were trying not to get me into trouble and that's why you didn't say anything. I said I thought a known werewolf would be able to get in when I couldn't. Scrimgeour is furious that I didn't tell him what was going on. I told him it was a longshot and I didn't know if it would work and--"

"Dora, that's not even close to what happened."

"It's exactly what happened now," she said firmly. "Kingsley knows what's really going on, and he's covering it."

Remus rubbed his eyes, still coming up from sleep. All of this just seemed too much suddenly--the interrogation, the Order, and last night... something had...

It fell into place, and his sleepiness fell away instantly. "Is Arthur Weasley all right?"

Dora looked surprised. "How did you know...?"

"My friends had to run out suddenly. What happened?"

"Voldemort's snake. We don't know everything. He's at St. Mungo's. He's going to be all right--Mad-Eye and I are going to take Molly and the children--and Harry--over to visit him later. Dumbledore got them all to London last night."

"They're at--?"

"Yes." She sighed and said, "I'm sorry you got dragged in here. What a lousy thing to do."

"I'll live."

She nodded. "I talked to that portrait, that Everard Whatsis who talks to Dumbledore. You need to go up to Hogwarts after school. Use the Shrieking Shack tunnel and an Invisibility Cloak." She tapped the briefcase to indicate that it was in there along with his clothes, and he wondered if there was any room left for his papers.

"I should call in and--"

"No, go in the afternoon. He has business this morning anyway, trying to work out just what happened last night. Teach your classes."

He nodded. "Yes, all right."

"I'll let you change now. Come by later and tell me what Dumbledore said. If you can, of course."

He agreed. She went about her business, and he tried not to envy the fact that she would be spending the day with Harry while he was spending his own with Dudley.

The day passed in something of a daze, the hours stretching out the way the only could when something pressing was being postponed. It seemed nearly a year later when he wished Alan good-night and made his way into the shadowy woods. He Apparated to the Shrieking Shack and changed there, leaving his briefcase in a the secure wardrobe where he'd always left his school robes as a boy, then pulled on the Invisibility Cloak and made his way down the familiar dank tunnel to the Whomping Willow. He was surprised that, in the wake of Sirius's escape, no one had sealed it off. He emerged into shockingly cold air.

He had to wait for nearly fifteen minutes before someone opened the great front doors.

Hagrid huffed his way up from his hut, dragging a pine bough behind him and muttering about setting a wreath. He propped the door open, and, without breaking the rhythm of his muttering said, "Can't ruddy see you, but Dumbledore did. Great man, Dumbledore. He's up in his office waiting for you."

"Thank you, Hagrid."

"Didn't hear nothing, can't hold the door open forever; 's cold out here."

Remus slipped through and tugged the end of the pine bough to let Hagrid know he was inside. A moment later, the door closed.

He passed the Great Hall, where students were trying for some semblance of Christmas cheer, but he couldn't help but notice that their laughter was a bit too shrill, or see the way they kept looking over their shoulders. Only at the Slytherin table did students seem generally content. Draco Malfoy was smiling broadly. At the Gryffindor table, which was missing Harry and four of the Weasleys, there seemed to be a great deal of distress. Remus didn't see Hermione Granger anywhere. Minerva McGonagall sat at the head table, not eating, looking pale.

He moved on, passing Filius Flitwick in the corridor. Flitwick was having an intense, whispered conversation with Robert Glenmont, who taught Muggle Studies. They kept looking up the corridor in the direction of what had once been Remus's office and was now Dolores Umbridge's. As he neared it, he could hear her high, breathy voice.

"...quite sure you know precisely how they left here last night, Miss Granger. Don't lie to me."

"I'm not," Hermione said. "They were gone when I woke up this morning. Professor Umbridge, I came to talk to you about the mark you gave me on my giant essay. It was based on legitimate research done by--"

"Disproven research," Umbridge said. Remus was close enough to look in now. She'd covered the office with bows and lace and ceramic plates with kittens on them. "It is well known that giants are incapable of changing their natures. You were working from a speculative text. I suggest you check Slinkard."

"I did, but I find his research methods flawed--"

"Miss Granger, you need to learn to accept the authority of more experienced scholars. You are dismissed."

Hermione brushed by Remus, her teeth grinding and her bushy hair flying. He heard her muttering a few choice words he had a feeling she'd picked up from Ron Weasley. She glanced down at her wrist, which had touched the Invisibility Cloak, and frowned, suddenly alert for a hidden danger.

Remus moved closer to her and whispered. "Don't be alarmed, it's Professor Lupin."

She gave a relieved sigh, but no other sign that she'd heard him.

"Was something wrong, Miss Granger?" Dolores Umbridge asked from the door.

"No, Professor Umbridge," Hermione said, dropping down. "One of my... er, hair clips fell out." She felt around on the bare floor, and Remus pointed his wand at one of the clips that held her hair (after a fashion). It fell down beside her hand and she picked it up and waved it at Umbridge. "I've got it."

The office door snicked shut and Hermione glared at it, her fist clenched around the hair clip so tightly that Remus's fingers hurt in sympathy. Of course, she couldn't say anything to Remus (if she knew he was still there), so she simply walked away toward Gryffindor Tower.

Remus might have stayed outside of that door--he couldn't think of it as Umbridge's door--for a long time, but a flash of motion low to the ground at the end of the corridor caught his eye.

Mrs. Norris. Argus Filch's cat, which had to be older than the pyramids by now; he remembered debating with James and Sirius as to whether or not she could see through the Cloak when she'd been a new kitten. They'd never come to a definitive conclusion on the subject, but it was enough of a wake-up call to suspect it. He went on to Dumbledore's office.

He didn't take the Invisibility Cloak off until after the door to Dumbledore's office was closed behind him, and Dumbledore himself said, "We're alone, Remus."

Remus pulled the Cloak from his shoulders and draped it over the back of one of the high armchairs by the fire. "What's happening?"

"Please sit down," Dumbledore said, indicating the chairs across from his desk. He looked tired and old. "You know about the attack on Arthur Weasley?"

Remus sat down. "Yes. I was at the Ministry when it happened. Dora said he's all right?"

Dumbledore frowned. "He will be. He was found in time. But it was a very serious attack. And Harry witnessed it."

"What?"

"Harry witnessed it. In a dream. He saw the attack through the snake's eyes--through Voldemort's eyes."

"We'd suspected..."

"And Voldemort was aware of it."

Remus could think of nothing to say other than, "I see."

Dumbledore stood up and crossed his hands at the small of his back, looking into the fire with a pensive expression. "I had feared this before, but I wasn't certain until now. And now that it's occurred, I'm rather certain it wasn't true before. Just before I sent him to Sirius, I looked at him and I saw..." He shook his head. "Riddle is aware of the connection," he said. "And Harry will need to be made aware of it as well. He'll need to learn to protect himself from this. We cannot do it for him." Dumbledore sighed and at back down. "That, in itself, does not concern you. I'm going to talk to Severus Snape. I have something of an idea, and I believe he can help when Harry comes back to school after the holidays. But until then, he needs to be kept as safe as possible without alerting Voldemort that we're as aware as he is of the connection."

"At Grimmauld Place."

"Yes. He's not the Secret Keeper. Nothing Voldemort gleans from his connection to Harry will place the headquarters in danger. As long as he's there, he's safe, but if he's kept there, for instance, while all of the other children go to visit Arthur, or if they choose to go Christmas shopping, or any number of other things they might decide to do, it would appear very odd to Voldemort for Harry to be forbidden."

"I see."

"I want you to make sure that an Auror is with him when he's out. Nymphadora Tonks is with him today, as well as Alastor Moody. Alastor still has arresting authority, should anyone make an attempt on Harry."

"I understand."

"And make sure Molly Weasley understands that he can't go back to the Burrow, even if Arthur is released from St. Mungo's early. I know she's under a great deal of strain, but--"

"I'll talk to her. Molly wouldn't do anything that would put Harry in danger." Remus let the silence spin out for a moment, then said, "Headmaster--"

"Albus."

"Albus. You could have told me this in a message, or through a portrait. Is there something else? Are you all right?"

"I'm old, Remus. I'm old, and I'm weary of this. But I am quite all right otherwise." He crossed his arms. "I fear that I'm causing Harry pain. It can't be avoided, but I wish it weren't so."

"I know."

"Remus, will you promise me something else?"

"Of course."

"Make sure he has a good Christmas."

"We'll all see to that."

Dumbledore gave him a small smile. They talked for an hour more, about developments in the war, about Arthur, and about the situation at Hogwarts. Remus hated the last more with every word. When he left, he stopped outside of his old office again. Dolores Umbridge was at the desk, making notes on a long scroll. Remus considered loosening all the screws in her chair, but decided that in the end, she would blame a hapless student for it, despite the fact that the Houses would have been locked up for the night by now. A pity.

Get out of my office, he thought petulantly. Just get out.

She looked up at the door, straight at him, though she obviously couldn't see anything. "Is someone there?"

He backed up slowly, careful to make no noise, and headed down the corridor. He passed Nearly Headless Nick, who nodded at him vaguely then proceeded to hover in the shadows just outside the office door. As Remus reached the stairs, he heard Umbridge begin to berate Nick for spooking her.

He used the passage in the staff room to get outside--there would be no one to conveniently open the front doors at this hour--and slipped into the night.

By the time he'd made his way back to London, it was after ten. He went to Dora's flat and told her of Dumbledore's concerns and directives, and by the time he got back to Grimmauld Place, all the visitors were asleep after a long, long day.

"Where the bloody hell were you last night?" Sirius asked. "Dora said it was up to you to tell me."

"There are people sleeping. No loud explosions."

Sirius rolled his eyes.

Remus told him.

There was no explosion, but Remus could tell it was a fight on Sirius's part. He fumed and flexed his fists and sputtered the beginning of a few curses, and finally ended up grabbing an empty bottle and storming outside. Remus heard the bottle shatter.

He left for Smeltings before anyone other than Molly was up the next day, and spent a perfectly pleasant day at school. It was the last day before holidays started, and the students (even Dudley) were in a cheerful mood. A great deal of food was brought to classes, and Remus was stuffed on biscuits long before lunch (which was a rather industrial turkey dinner supplied by Smeltings for its notion of a staff party). Daniel Morse came by with a dozen chocolate cupcakes that his mum had apparently baked for "Mr. Lewis" on his request. "You can share them with Mrs. Lewis, of course. And Mr. Garvey, if he'd like some." Alan declared them delicious, and ended up taking home half of them to share with Anna.

Fifth form went by without any problems, though it lacked the party-like atmosphere of the other classes. Remus was gathering his things at the end of it when Dudley Dursley came to his desk.

"I'll talk to you after holidays," he said.

"I'm glad to hear that."

"We'll see."

With that, he walked away, catching up with Piers in the corridor. Remus shook his head.

Alan insisted on having a drink at a local pub before going off on holiday--it was apparently a tradition he and Joe had observed for several years--and it was nearly seven o'clock by the time Remus got back to Grimmauld Place, where he was greeted by the sound of Sirius singing Christmas carols at the top of his lungs. The front entrance hall had been decorated garishly, much to Mrs. Black's obvious distress (the portrait was too busy looking at the decorations in utter horror to muster much more than a muttered, "unnatural... creature..." when Remus came in), and nearly as soon as he'd gotten his cloak off, Ginny Weasley flew into the room and--before he could do much more than recognize her--threw her arms around him and said, "Happy Christmas, Professor Lupin!"

He hugged her back and pushed her away gently. "Happy Christmas, Ginny. I take it your father is feeling better?"

She nodded. "Dad's going to be fine," she said. "It feels so good not to be worried. We've been decorating with Sirius. I dared him to paint a hat on his mum's portrait, but he's not doing it."

Mrs. Black made a kind of hissing sound, but apparently couldn't think of anything horrid enough to say to this notion.

"Where is Harry?" he asked.

"He's with Sirius and Ron, decorating the front room. He was upset earlier, but Hermione got him to come downstairs, and we've got him cheered up again."

Remus followed her into the front room, where Harry was helping Sirius drape a garland of icicles over the curtain rod. They were both smiling and looked delighted to be together. Ron was trying to center a wreath above the hearth. None of them noticed him come in.

Ginny alerted them, and Harry greeted him with what seemed to be genuine happiness, then he lost hold of the icicle and was drawn back into the decoration. Remus went down to the kitchen.

Molly and Dora were there, Molly cooking and Dora hovering in the way she had when she wanted to help and had been forbidden. Molly still looked pale and frightened, but she smiled at Remus and told him that everything would be all right. He went upstairs, and found Hermione and the Weasley twins having an argument about their business practices, which the boys' ended immediately to start asking him about a Charm he'd done years ago on one of Dora's dolls, which they thought they'd be able to market if they decided to expand into toys. By the time they were finished, Molly had called everyone downstairs, and the dinner table was crowded, and Remus felt completely at home.